Confronting
Challenges
During the Civil War, like so many of their fellow citizens, Jews
were forced to take sides. While most of the nation's 150,000 Jews
lived in the North and supported the Union, a sizable minority
numbering about 25,000 lived in the South and held strong allegiance
to the Confederacy. Anti-Jewish sentiments rose sharply during
the war, culminating in General Ulysses S. Grant's infamous Order
No. 11, banning Jews as a class from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi.
The order was soon rescinded at the request of President Lincoln
himself.
From the nation's earliest days, an undercurrent of prejudice
and discrimination posed a continuing challenge to the Jewish community.
However, constitutional guarantees of religious liberty, backed-up
by American Jewry's firm response to acts of intolerance, prevented
persecution of Jews from sinking deep roots in the United States.
Still, confronting the challenges presented by anti-Semitism has
been a persistent concern of American Jewry and has led to the
founding of communal organizations focused specifically on responding
to prejudice and preventing it through education.
Bible View of Slavery
On the eve of the Civil War, Rabbi Morris J. Raphall of
Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in New York preached a sermon
in which he argued, based on a literal reading of the text,
that the Bible permitted slavery. He became known as the "pro-slavery
rabbi," though he personally opposed slavery. Rabbi David
Einhorn, a leading abolitionist among American rabbis, denounced
Raphall's view from the pulpit of his synagogue in Baltimore.
The sermon was widely circulated and aroused the ire of the
city's Southern sympathizers.
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David Einhorn
(1809-1879).
The Rev. Dr. M.J Raphall's
Bible View of Slavery.
New York: Thalmessinger, Cahn and Benedicks, printers, 1861.
General Collections (105)
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Morris J.
Raphall (1798-1868).
Bible View of Slavery:
A Discourse, Delivered at the Jewish Synagogue, B'nai
Jeshurun, New York, on the Day of the National
Fast, January 4, 1861.
New York: Rudd and Carleton, 1861.
General Collections (106)
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Attributed
to Jesse Whitehurst
Judah Benjamin,
ca. 1861
Salted paper print
Gift of Janos Novomeszky
Prints and Photographs Division (111) |
Judah P. Benjamin: the Jewish Confederate
Judah Benjamin, the first acknowledged Jew to be elected
to the United States Senate, served as Louisiana's senator
from 1853 until that state seceded from the union in early
1861. Benjamin served as a member of Confederate President
Jefferson Davis's cabinet, first as attorney general, then
as secretary of war, and finally, as secretary of state.
After the collapse of the Confederacy, Benjamin fled to England,
where he had a distinguished career as one of England's leading
barristers. |
A Twenty-year Confederate Bond
Bearing Judah Benjamin's likeness, this two-dollar bill,
issued on December 2, 1862, and this twenty-year bond were
issued by the Congress of the Confederate States of America.
The bond, issued on August 19, 1861, offered an interest
rate of eight percent, reflecting the investment's high degree
of risk. The last coupon redeemed was dated January 1865.
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Two
Dollar Bill of the Confederate States
of America picturing
Judah Benjamin.
Hebraic
Section (112)
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Five
Hundred Dollar Bond, Confederate States of America.
Authorized by an Act of Congress, C.S.A., August 18, 1861.
Printed sheet with coupons.
Manuscript Division (113)
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Eugenia
Phillips (1819-1902).
[Journal kept August 23, 1861-September
26, 1861].
Diary page, August 28, 1861.
Manuscript Division (115)
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Eugenia Levy Phillips
A fiery and outspoken Confederate sympathizer, Eugenia Levy
Phillips often found herself at odds with Union officials.
In this journal page, Phillips describes the indignities
of her confinement after her arrest by federal officers in
Washington, along with two daughters and her sister Martha,
on August 23, 1861. Released after a three-week imprisonment,
Phillips relocated to New Orleans, where she mocked the funeral
of a Union soldier, thereby running afoul of the notorious
General Benjamin "Beast" Butler, who issued a special order
imprisoning her at Ship Island, where conditions were harsh
and primitive.
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A Prayer for the Confederacy
"On the day of Prayer Recommended by the President of the
C.S. of A., the 27th of March, 1863," the Rev.
M.J. Michelbacher, of the German synagogue Beth Ahabah ("House
of Love") in Richmond, preached this sermon to which he added
a prayer for the Confederate States of America "to crown
our independence with lasting honor and prosperity," and
for its president, Jefferson Davis, to "grant speedy success
to his endeavors to free our country from the presence of
its foes."
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M.J Michelbacher (1811-1879).
A Sermon Delivered on
the Day of Prayer,
Recommended by the President of the
C.S. of A.,
the 27th of March 1863, at the German Hebrew
Synagogue, "Bayth Ahabah," by the Rev. M.J. Michelbacher.
Richmond: Macfarlane & Fergusson, 1863.
Rare Book and Special Collections
Division (116)
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Isaac
Levy to his sister Leonora Levy.
Holograph letter, April 24, 1864.
Amy Hart Stewart Papers.
Courtesy of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives,
Cincinnati (117)
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Passover on the Front Lines
In this letter to his sister Leonora from an encampment
in Adams Run, South Carolina, Confederate soldier Isaac Levy
described his preparations for celebrating Passover in the
field. In the note written in Hebrew characters in the middle
of the page, Levy reported that their brother Zeke had traveled
to Charleston for provisions, including matzot [unleavened
bread]. He also tells his sister that both he and his brother
were "observing the festival in a truly orthodox style."
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Chaplains of the Hebrew Faith for the Army
In his capacity as Secretary of the Board of Ministers of
the Hebrew Congregations of Philadelphia, Isaac Leeser wrote
to President Lincoln on August 21, 1862, asking that a Jewish
chaplain be appointed to minister to the spiritual needs
of sick or wounded Jewish soldiers in military hospitals
in Philadelphia and its vicinity. The letter was referred
by the president to the surgeon general who advised that, "it
is both legal and proper that Chaplains of the Hebrew faith
be appointed in the Army."
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Isaac
Leeser (1806-1868) to Abraham
Lincoln (1809-1865).
Holograph letter, August 21, 1862.
Page 2 - Page
3
Abraham Lincoln Papers.
Manuscript Division (118)
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I. Goldman.
Isaac Leeser, 1868.
Tinted lithograph.
Prints and Photographs Division (239)
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Isaac Leeser, Architect of Jewish Life
Isaac Leeser was the architect of American Jewish life.
A traditionalist Hazan-Minister (someone who, though unordained,
functioned as a rabbi), he was editor of America's first
general Jewish periodical, originator of the first Jewish
publication society, and a founder of the nation's first
rabbinical college. As a liturgist, he translated both the
Sephardic and Ashkenazic prayer books, written by Jews of
Central and Eastern Europe. Leeser also translated the entire
Bible into English, in editions that served English-speaking
Jews for many decades. His collected sermons fill ten volumes,
and they cover the gamut of religious thought and communal
enterprise.
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"If I Am Doomed to Witness That Calamity"
Born in North Carolina, Alfred Mordecai was educated at
West Point and graduated first in his class in 1823. He was
the army's leading ordnance expert and compiled its first
ordnance manual in 1841. In 1861, he resigned his commission,
refusing to break his oath, but unwilling to bear arms against
family and friends. In a March 17, 1861, letter to his brother,
he wrote: "If I am doomed to witness that calamity [i.e.,
the "rupture of the Union"] . . . you know that I would not
take sides against the South; but I confess that I should
almost be equally reluctant to enter the ranks against those
with whom I have been so long associated on terms of close
intimacy & friendship. In such a case, my first wish
would be to retire . . . to private life." Also shown here
are newspaper accounts of Mordecai's resignation, including
a published letter from him explaining his decision to leave
his post as commander of the Watervliet Arsenal in New York
State.
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Alfred
Mordecai (1804-1887) to his brother.
Holograph letter, March 17, 1861 (Watervliet Arsenal).
Page 2 - Page
3 - Page 4
Alfred Mordecai Papers.
Manuscript Division (118A)
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"Resignation
of Major Mordecai."
Mounted newspaper clippings.
Alfred Mordecai Papers.
Manuscript Division (118B)
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A Medal of Honor for Gallantry
Union soldier David Urbansky was awarded a Medal of Honor
for gallantry at Shiloh and Vicksburg. His service record,
which is shown here, records that Urbansky's original medal
was lost and that a new one was issued in 1879. The calligraphed
certificate shown here states that Urbansky entered the army
as a private in the 58th Ohio Volunteer Infantry
on October 28, 1861, was detailed to the Corps Commissary
Department on September 10, 1863, and was mustered out on
January 14, 1865.
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Calligraphed
certificate for David Urbansky.
Courtesy of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives,
Cincinnati (121) |
David Urbansky
(1843-1897).
Medal of Honor presented by the Congress to David Orbanski [sic] for
Gallantry at Shiloh and Vicksburg.
Reverse side
Medal with ribbon.
Courtesy of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives,
Cincinnati (120)
|
David Urbansky.
Service record.
Page 2
Courtesy of the National Archives and Records
Administration, Washington, D.C. (122)
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General Grant's Notorious Order
No. 11
The outrage of American Jewry against General
U.S. Grant's Order No. 11, which expels the "Jews
as a class" from territories of Kentucky,
Mississippi, and Tennessee under the Thirteenth
Army Corps, is conveyed to President Abraham
Lincoln by this set of calligraphically inscribed
resolutions, adopted January 8, 1863. |
Board of Delegates of American
Israelites
"Resolutions" to Abraham Lincoln,
January 8, 1863.
Page 2 - Page
3 - Page 4
Manuscript document.
Abraham Lincoln Papers.
Manuscript Division (109)
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St. Louis
Bné B'rith to Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865).
Manuscript letter, January 5, 1863.
Abraham Lincoln Papers.
Manuscript Division (108)
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The Missouri Lodge of "Bné B'rith" Protests
Order No. 11
The first Jewish organization to formally
protest against Order No. 11 "expelling and
ostracizing all Jews, as a class . . . issued
by Maj. Genl. U.S. Grant" was the United
Order "Bné B'rith" Missouri Lodge.
It protests "in the name of hundreds who
have been driven from their homes, deprived
of their liberty, and injured in their property
without having violated any law or regulation.
. . . In the name of religious liberty and
humanity [we ask you] to annul that Order
and protect the liberties even of your humblest
constituents." |
Abraham Lincoln on Order No. 11
On the envelope in which the Bné B'rith protest came,
Lincoln wrote, "I have today, Jan. 5, 1863, written Gen.
Curtis about this. A.L." The order was forthwith rescinded.
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Abraham Lincoln.
Note rescinding Order No. 11.
Holograph note.
Abraham Lincoln Papers.
Manuscript Division (110)
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James Albert
Wales (1852-1886).
"The Slaves of the Jews" in Judge.
Vol. 3, no. 59 (December 9, 1882).
Chromolithograph.
Prints and Photographs Division (124)
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Slaves of the Jews
This illustration includes a series of images associating
Jewish factory owners with the exploitation of young women
workers. In "Cohen Co and Brothers Shirt Factory," the "mashers
are waiting for their slaves," and in the central image,
a leering man is "choosing the slaves." In another image,
an owner holds an oversized key to an emergency exit, and
ominously says, "It vos not mine pizness if dey gets burned--dey
mus' earn dose vages und so I lock 'em in all righd."
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Jew Jokes
In the early twentieth century, jokes at the expense of
ethnic and religious groups were a staple both of the vaudeville
stage and American life. In addition to this book of "Jew
Jokes," the Library's pulp fiction collection includes Irish
Jokes, New Dutch Jokes, and Ethnic Joke
Books Chop Suey. Few groups were left unscathed.
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Little Giant.
Jew Jokes.
Cleveland: Arthur Westbrook
Company, 1908
Dime Novel Collection
Rare Book and Special
Collections Division (127) |
The Lynching of Leo Frank
In April 1913, the murdered body of a thirteen-year-old
girl was found in the basement of an Atlanta pencil factory,
and the factory's manager, Leo Frank, a transplanted Jew
from the North, was accused of the murder. After a sensational
and flawed trial that helped stoke a firestorm of hysteria
and prejudice against Frank, he was sentenced to death. When
Georgia's governor, uncertain of Frank's guilt, commuted
his sentence to life imprisonment in 1915, Frank was kidnapped
from jail by an outraged mob and lynched. Some two weeks
after the lynching, Rabbi Stephen Wise wrote to Henry Morgenthau,
Sr., noting that "the situation is becoming very hard for
the Jews in the little towns, many of whom are being boycotted." Years
later an eyewitness confirmed that Frank was innocent.
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Leo
Frank (1884-1915),
August 26, 1913.
Gelatin silver print with picture editor's marks.
New York World-Telegram & Sun Newspaper Collection.
Prints and Photographs Division (128)
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[Lynching
of Leo Frank, Marietta, Georgia];
August 17, 1915.
Postcard, gelatin silver print.
Prints and Photographs Division (129)
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Stephen
Wise (1874-1949) to Henry Morgenthau, Sr., (1856-1946).
Typescript letter, September 3, 1915.
Page 2 - Page
3
Henry Morgenthau Papers.
Manuscript Division (131)
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Henry Ford and the Dearborn Independent
On May 22, 1920, Henry Ford launched a series of attacks
on Jews based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,
a scurrilous anti-Semitic work concocted by members of the
Russian secret police. The series described Jews as secretly
plotting world revolution and controlling the world's financial
markets. Ford's anti-Semitic tirades found a ready audience,
with circulation increasing tenfold from about 70,000 in
1920 to a peak of 700,000 in 1924; the articles were also
compiled into a series of widely-circulated books. In 1927,
as part of an out-of-court settlement of a damage suit brought
against him, Ford offered an apology to the Jewish people
and promised to cease his attacks.
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International
Jew, the World's Foremost Problem, Being a Reprint of
a Series of Articles Appearing in the Dearborn
Independent from May 22 to October 2, 1920.
Dearborn, Michigan: The Dearborn Publishing Co., 1920.
General Collections (135)
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"Jewish
Jazz - Moron Music - Becomes our National Music--the Story
of Popular Song Control in the United States,"
Dearborn
Independent, August 6, 1921.
General Collections (133)
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David Louis
Meckler (1891-?).
Der Emes Vegen Henri Ford
[The Truth about Henry Ford].
New York: 1924.
Hebraic Section (134)
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The Truth about Henry Ford
In 1924, David Meckler published an exposé of Ford
in Yiddish called The Truth About Henry Ford, which
included on its cover a hooded Ku Klux Klansman with his
arm casually and familiarly draped over Henry Ford's shoulder,
suggesting a friendly relationship between two men sharing
common anti-Semitic, nativist, and racist beliefs.
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For That Extra Tangy Taste
In this May 1958 editorial cartoon by Bill Mauldin, the
South is depicted as a steaming caldron, with the skeletal
hands of the angel of death adding the salt of anti-Semitism
to an already volatile brew. Anti-Jewish violence hit seven
Southern cities that year, and peaked in October when the
Reform Jewish Temple in Atlanta was dynamited by a group
of extreme segregationists.
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This image is not available online.
Bill Mauldin (1921-2003).
For that Extra Tangy Taste.
Published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 26, 1958.
Ink, crayon, and white out over pencil on layered paper.
Prints and Photographs Division (140) |
Frédéric
Brenner.
Citizens Protesting Anti-Semitic
Acts
Billings, Montana, 1994.
Panoramic photograph, gelatin silver print.
Prints and Photographs Division,
Library of Congress.
© Frédéric Brenner, Courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery,
New
York (141A)
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Citizens Protesting an Anti-semitic Act
On December 2, 1993, someone in Billings, Montana, tossed
a brick through the window of a Jewish home. On December
11, the Billings Gazette wrote: "Today, members
of religious faiths throughout Billings are joining together
to ask residents to display the menorah as a symbol of something
else: our determination to live together in harmony, and
our dedication to the principle of religious liberty embodied
in the First Amendment." A year later, photographer Frédéric
Brenner staged this photograph of residents of Billings--from
all walks of life, ethnicities, and religions--holding menorahs
to mark the city's singular response to an act of religious
intolerance.
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