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Illustration: (‡ Text on base:
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
DEDICATED
TO THE
PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES
BY THE
ORDER B’NAI B’RITH)
EZEKIEL’S STATUE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
IN FAIRMOUNT PARK, PHILADELPHIA.
HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN AMERICA
From the Period of the Discovery of The New World
to the Present Time
by
PETER WIERNIK
New York
The Jewish Press Publishing Company
1912
Copyright, 1912
By the Jewish Press Publishing Co.
All Rights Reserved
PREFACE.
There were less than ten thousand Jews in the New World three centuries
after its discovery, and about two-thirds of them lived in the West
Indies and in Surinam or Dutch Guiana in South America. While the
communities in those far-away places are now larger in membership than
they were at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, their comparative
importance is much diminished. The two or three thousand Jews who lived
in North America or in the United States one hundred years ago have,
on the other hand, increased to nearly as many millions, the bulk of
them having come in the last three or four decades. On this account
neither our conditions nor our problems can be thoroughly understood
without the consideration of the actual present. The plan of other
works of this kind, to devote only a short concluding chapter to the
present time, or to leave it altogether for the future historian, could
therefore not be followed in this work. The story would be less than
half told, if attention were not paid to contemporary history.
The chief aim of the work――the first of its kind in this complete
form――being to reach the ordinary reader who is interested in
Jewish matters in a general way, original investigations and learned
disquisitions were avoided, and it was not deemed advisable to
overburden the book with too many notes or to provide a bibliographical
apparatus. The plan and scope of the work are self evident; it was
inevitable that a disproportionately large part should be devoted to
the United States. The continuity of Jewish history is made possible
only by the preservation of our identity as a religious community;
local history really begins with the formation of a congregation. Each
of the successive strata of immigration was originally represented
by its own synagogues, and when the struggle to gain a foothold or to
remove disabilities was over, communal activity was the only one which
could properly be described as Jewish. Economic growth could have been
entirely neglected, despite the present day tendency to consider every
possible problem from the standpoint of economics. But the material
well-being of the Jews of the earlier periods was an important factor
in the preparation for the reception and easy absorption of the larger
masses which came later, and this gives wealth a meaning which, in the
hands of people who are less responsible for one another than Jews,
it does not possess. The Marrano of the Seventeenth or the Eighteenth
Century who brought here riches far in excess of what he found among
the inhabitants in the places where he settled, would probably not
have been admitted if he came as a poor immigrant, and his merit as a
pioneer of trade and industry interests us because he assisted to make
this country a place where hosts of men can come and find work to do.
Without this only a small number could enjoy the liberty and equality
which an enlightened republic vouchsafes to every newcomer without
distinction of race or creed.
Still these absorbingly interesting early periods had to be passed
over briefly, despite the wealth of available material, to keep within
the bounds of a single volume, and to be able to carry out the plan of
including in the narrative a comprehensive view of the near past and
the present. While no excuse is necessary for making the latter part of
the work longer than the earlier, though in most works the inequality
is the other way, the author regrets the scarcity of available sources
for the history of the Jewish immigration from Slavic countries other
than Russia. There were times when German Jewish historians were
reproached with neglecting the Jews of Russia. In those times there
was a scarcity of necessary “_Vorarbeiten_” or preparation of material
for the history of the Jews of that Empire. To-day, as far as the
history of the Jewish immigrant in America is concerned, the scarcity
is still greater as far as it concerns the Jews who came from Austria
and Roumania.
The principal sources which were utilized in the preparation of this
work are: _The Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society_
(20 vols., 1893–1911), which are referred to as “Publications”;
_The Jewish Encyclopedia_ (Funk and Wagnalls, 12 vols., 1901–6); _The
Settlement of the Jews in North America_, by Judge Charles P. Daly,
edited by Max J. Kohler (New York, 1893), often referred to as “Daly”;
_The Hebrews in America_, by Isaac Markens (New York, 1888); _The
American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen_, by the Hon. Simon Wolf,
edited by Louis Edward Levy (Philadelphia, 1895). Other works, like
Dr. Kayserling’s _Christopher Columbus_, Mr. Pierce Butler’s _Judah P.
Benjamin_ (of the American Crisis Biographies, Philadelphia, 1906) and
the Rev. Henry S. Morais’ _Jews of Philadelphia_, were also drawn upon
for much valuable material which they made accessible. All of these
works were used to a larger extent than is indicated by the references
or foot-notes, and my indebtedness to them is herewith gratefully
acknowledged.
Where biographical dates are given after the name of a person born in a
foreign country, the date of arrival in the New World is often fully as
important as that of birth or death. This date is indicated in the text
by an _a._, which stands for _arrived_, as _b._ stands for _born_ and
_d._ for _died_.
In conclusion I gladly record my obligation to Mr. Abraham S. Freidus
of the New York Public Library for aid in the gathering of material; to
Mr. Isaiah Gamble for re-reading of the proofs; to Mr. Samuel Vaisberg
for seeing the work through the press, and to my sister, Bertha Wiernik,
for assistance in the preparation of the index.
_P. W., New York, July, 1912._
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION
PART I.
=THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE PERIOD.=
CHAPTER I.
THE PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD.
The Jew of Barcelona who has navigated the whole known world――
Judah Cresques, “the Map Jew,” as director of the Academy of
Navigation which was founded by Prince Henry the Navigator――
One Jewish astronomer advises the King of Portugal to reject
the plans of Columbus――Zacuto as one of the first influential
men in Spain to encourage the discoverer of the New World――
Abravanel, Senior and the Marranos Santangel and Sanchez who
assisted Columbus――The voyage of discovery begun a day after
the expulsion of the Jews from Spain――Luis de Torres and other
Jews who went with Columbus――America discovered on “Hosannah
Rabbah”――The Indians as the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel――Money
taken from the Jews to defray the expenditure of the second
voyage of Columbus――Vasco da Gama and the Jew Gaspar――Scrolls
of the Thorah from Portugal sold in Cochin――Alphonse
d’Albuquerque’s interpreter who returned to Judaism.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY JEWISH MARTYRS UNDER SPANISH RULE IN THE NEW WORLD.
Children torn from their parents were the first Jewish
immigrants――Jewish history in the New World begins, as
Jewish history in Spain ends, with the Inquisition――Emperor
Charles V., Philip II. and Philip III.――Lutherans persecuted
together with Jews and Mohamedans――Codification of the laws of
the Inquisition, and its special edicts for the New World.
CHAPTER III.
VICTIMS OF THE INQUISITION IN MEXICO AND IN PERU.
Impossibility of obtaining even approximately correct figures
about the Inquisition――A few typical cases――The Carabajal
family――Relaxation for several decades――The notable case of
Francisco Maldonado de Silva.
CHAPTER IV.
MARRANOS IN THE PORTUGUESE COLONIES.
Less persecution in Portugal itself and also in its colonies――
Marranos buy right to emigrate――They dare to profess Judaism in
Brazil, and the Inquisition is introduced in Goa――Alleged help
given to Holland in its struggle against Spain.
PART II.
=THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD.=
CHAPTER V.
THE SHORT-LIVED DOMINION OF THE DUTCH OVER BRAZIL.
The friendship between the Dutch and the Jews――Restrictions and
privileges in Holland――Dutch-Jewish distributors of Indian
spices――Preparations to introduce the Inquisition in Brazil――
Jews help the Dutch to conquer it――Southey’s description of
Recife――Vieyra’s description.
CHAPTER VI.
RECIFE: THE FIRST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN THE NEW WORLD.
The “Kahal Kodesh” of Recife or Pernambuco in Brazil――Manasseh
ben Israel’s expectation to make it his home――Large immigration
from Amsterdam――Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and his colleagues――
First rabbis and Jewish authors of the New World――The siege and
the surrender――The return, and the nucleus of other communities
in various parts of America.
CHAPTER VII.
THE JEWS IN SURINAM OR DUTCH GUIANA.
Jews in Brazil after the expulsion of the Dutch――The community
of ♦Paramaribo, Surinam, was founded when Recife was still
flourishing――First contact with the English, whom the Jews
preferred――David ♦Nassi and the colony of Cayenne――Privileges
granted by Lord Willoughby――“de Jooden Savane”――Trouble with
slaves and bush negroes――Plantations with Hebrew names――German
Jews――Legal status and banishments――Jewish theaters――Literature
and history.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH WEST INDIES.
The community of Curaçao――Encouragement to settle is followed by
restrictions――Plans of Jewish colonization――Trade communication
with New Amsterdam――Stuyvesant’s slur――The first congregation――
Departures to North America and to Venezuela――Barbadoes――
Taxation and legal status――Decay after the hurricane of 1831――
Jamaica under Spain and under England――Hebrew taught in the
Parish of St. Andrews in 1693――Harsh measures and excessive
taxation――Naturalizations.
CHAPTER IX.
NEW AMSTERDAM AND NEW YORK.
Poverty of the first Jewish immigrants to New Amsterdam――
Stuyvesant’s opposition overruled by the Dutch West India
Company――Privileges and restrictions――Contributions to build
the wall from which Wall street takes its name――The first
cemetery――Exemption from military duty――Little change at the
beginning of the English rule――The first synagogue after a
liberal decree by the Duke of York――Marranos brought back
in boats which carried grain to Portugal――Hebrew learning――
Question about the Jews as voters and as witnesses――Peter
Kalm’s description of the Jews of New York about 1745――Hyman
Levy, the employer of the original Astor.
CHAPTER X.
NEW ENGLAND AND THE OTHER ENGLISH COLONIES.
The Old Testament spirit in New England――Roger Williams――The
first Jew in Massachusetts――Judah Monis, instructor in Hebrew
at Harvard――Newport――Jews from Holland bring there the first
degrees of Masonry――The cemetery immortalized by Longfellow――
Jacob Rodrigues Rivera introduces the manufacture of sperm
oil――Aaron Lopez, the greatest merchant in America――Immigration
from Portugal――Rabbi Isaac Touro――Visiting rabbis――First Jews
in Connecticut――Philadelphia――Congregation Mickweh Israel――
Easton’s wealthy Jews――Maryland――Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo――General
Oglethorpe and the first Jews of Georgia――Joseph Ottolenghi――
The Carolinas――Charleston.
PART III.
=THE REVOLUTION AND THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION.=
CHAPTER XI.
THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
Spirit of the Old Testament in the Revolutionary War――Sermons in
favor of the original Jewish form of Government――The New Nation
as “God’s American Israel”――The Quebec Act――The intolerance
of sects as the cause of separation of Church and State――A
Memorial sent by German Jews to the Continental Congress――Fear
expressed in North Carolina that the Pope might be elected
President of the United States――None of the liberties won were
lost by post-revolutionary reaction, as happened elsewhere.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.
Captain Isaac Meyers of the French and Indian War of 1754――David
S. Franks and Isaac Franks――David Franks, the loyalist――Solomon
and Lewis Bush――Major Benjamin Nones――Other Jewish Soldiers,
of whom one was exempted from duty on Friday nights――The Pinto
brothers――Commissary General Mordecai Sheftal of Georgia――Haym
Salomon, the Polish Jew, and his financial assistance to the
Revolution.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DECLINE OF NEWPORT; WASHINGTON AND THE JEWS.
England’s special enmity to Newport caused the dispersion of its
Jewish congregation――The General Assembly of Rhode Island meets
in the historic Newport Synagogue――Moses Seixas’ address to
Washington on behalf of the Jews of Newport and the latter’s
reply――Washington’s letters to the Hebrew Congregations of
Savannah, Ga., and to the congregations of Philadelphia, New
York, Richmond and Charleston.
CHAPTER XIV.
OTHER COMMUNITIES IN THE FIRST PERIODS OF INDEPENDENCE.
Rabbi Gershom Mendez Seixas――Growth of the Jewish community
of Philadelphia on account of the War――Protest against the
religious test clause in the Constitution of Pennsylvania――
Benjamin Franklin contributes five pounds to Mickweh Israel――
Secession of the German-Polish element――New Societies――Jewish
lawyers; Judge Moses Levy――Congressman H. M. Phillips――The
Bush family of Delaware――New Jersey and New Hampshire――North
Carolina: the Mordecai family and other early settlers.
CHAPTER XV.
THE QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA
AND IN NORTH CAROLINA.
Little change in the basic systems of State institutions――Patrick
Henry, Madison and Jefferson on religious liberty in Virginia――
The similarity between the Virginia statute and the conclusions
of Moses Mendelssohn pointed out by Count Mirabeau――The first
congregation of Richmond――Article 32 of the Constitution of
North Carolina against Catholics, Jews, etc.――How Jacob Henry,
a Jewish member of the Legislature, defended and retained
his seat in 1809――Judge Gaston’s interpretation――The first
congregation of Wilmington, N. C.――Final emancipation in 1868.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE WAR OF 1812 AND THE REMOVAL
OF JEWISH DISABILITIES IN MARYLAND.
The Jewish community almost at a standstill between the
Revolution and the War of 1812――Stoppage of immigration and
losses through emigration and assimilation――No Jews in the
newly admitted States――The small number of Jews who fought
in the second war with England included Judah Touro, the
philanthropist――The Jewish disabilities in Maryland――A Jew
appointed by Jefferson as United States Marshal for that
State――The “Jew Bill” as an issue in Maryland politics――Removal
of the disabilities in 1826.
CHAPTER XVII.
MORDECAI MANUEL NOAH AND HIS TERRITORIALIST-ZIONISTIC PLANS.
Noah’s family; his youth and his early successes as journalist
and as dramatist――His appointment as Consul in Tunis and
his recall――His insistence that the United States is not a
Christian nation――Editor and playwright, High-Sheriff and
Surveyor of the Port of New York――His invitation to the Jews
of the world to settle in the City of Refuge which he was to
found on Grand Island――Impressive ceremonies in Buffalo which
were the beginning and the end of “Ararat”――His “Discourse on
the Restoration of the Jews”――Short career on the bench――Jewish
activities.
PART IV.
=THE SECOND OR GERMAN PERIOD OF IMMIGRATION.=
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FIRST COMMUNITIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
Impetus given to immigration to America by the reaction after
the fall of Napoleon――The second period of Jewish immigration――
First legislation about immigration (1819)――The first Jew in
Cincinnati――Its first congregation, Bene Israel――Appeals to
outside communities for funds to build a synagogue――The first
Talmud Torah――Rabbis Gutheim, Wise and Lilienthal――Cleveland――
St. Louis――Louisville――Mobile――Montgomery and its alleged
Jewish founder, Abraham Mordecai――Savannah and Augusta――New
Orleans――Judah Touro.
CHAPTER XIX.
NEW SETTLEMENTS IN THE MIDDLE WEST AND ON THE PACIFIC COAST.
Increase in general immigration――Estimated increase in the
number of Jews――The natural dispersion of small traders over
the country――Chicago――First congregations and other communal
institutions――Indiana――Iowa: Polish Jews settle in Keokuk and
German Jews in Davenport――Minnesota――Wisconsin――Congregation
“Bet El” of Detroit, Mich.――The first “minyan” of gold seekers
in San Francisco――“Mining congregations”――Solomon Heydenfeldt――
Portland, Oregon.
CHAPTER XX.
THE JEWS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF TEXAS. THE MEXICAN WAR.
The first settler in 1821――Adolphus Sterne, who fought
against Mexico and later served in the Texan Congress――David S.
Kaufman――Surgeon-General Levy in the army of Sam Houston――A Jew
as the first meat “packer” in America――Major Leon Dyer and his
brother Isadore――Mayor Seeligsohn of Galveston (1853)――One Jew
laid out Waco; Castro County is named after another――Belated
communal and religious activities――The War with Mexico, in
which only a small number of Jews served――David Camden de Leon
and his brother Edwin, U. S. Consul-General in Egypt.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE RELIGIOUS REFORM MOVEMENT.
Political liberalism and religious radicalism of the German
Jewish immigrant――The struggle with Orthodoxy hardly more than
an animated controversy――No attempt made here by the Temple to
swallow the Synagogue, as was the case in Germany――The first
Reformers of Charleston, S. C.――Isaac Leeser, the conservative
leader, the first to make a serious effort to adjust Judaism to
American surroundings――Dr. Max Lilienthal――Isaac M. Wise, the
energetic organizer of Reform Judaism――Dr. David Einhorn――Dr.
Samuel Adler――Bernhard Felsenthal――Samuel Hirsch.
CHAPTER XXII.
CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM AND ITS STAND AGAINST REFORM.
“The poor Jews of Elm street and the rich Jews of Crosby
street”――Rabbis Samuel M. Isaacs, Morris J. Raphall and Jacques
J. Lyons――Sabato Morais――Kalish and Hübsch, the moderate
reformers――Benjamin Szold――Dr. Marcus Jastrow’s career in
three countries――Alexander Kohut――Russian Orthodoxy asserts
itself in New York, and the Bet ha-Midrash ha-Godol is founded
in 1852――Rabbi Abraham Joseph Ash and his various activities――
Charity work which remains subordinate to religious work in
the synagogue.
CHAPTER XXIII.
INTERVENTION IN DAMASCUS.
THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SWISS DISCRIMINATION.
The Damascus Affair; the first occasion on which the Jews of
the United States requested the government to intercede in
behalf of persecuted Jews in another country――John Forsyth’s
instructions to American representatives in Turkey, in
which those requests were anticipated――A discrimination
in a treaty with Switzerland to which President Fillmore
objected, and which Clay and Webster disapproved――The case of
a Jewish-American citizen in Neufchatel――Newspaper agitation,
meetings and memorials against the Swiss treaty――President
Buchanan’s emphatic declaration, and Minister Fay’s “Israelite
Note” about the Jews of Alsace――Question is settled by the
emancipation of the Swiss Jews.
PART V.
=THE CIVIL WAR AND THE FORMATIVE PERIOD.=
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DISCUSSION ABOUT SLAVERY. LINCOLN AND THE JEWS.
Pro-slavery tendencies of the aristocratic Spaniards and
Portuguese――David Yulee (Levy)――Michael Heilprin and his reply
to Rabbi Raphall’s _Bible View on Slavery_――Immigrants of the
second period as opponents of slavery――Two Jewish delegates in
the Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln, and one member
of the Electoral College in 1860――Two other Jews officially
participate in Lincoln’s renomination and re-election in 1864――
Abraham Jonas――Encouragement from the Scripture in original
Hebrew.
CHAPTER XXV.
PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE CIVIL WAR. JUDAH P. BENJAMIN.
Probable number of Jews in the United States at the time of the
outbreak of the Civil War――Seddon’s estimate of “from ten to
twelve thousand Jews in the Southern Army”――Judah P. Benjamin,
the greatest Jew in American public life――His early life and
his marriage――Whig politician, planter and slave owner――Elected
to the United States Senate and re-elected as a Democrat――Quits
Washington when Louisiana seceded and enters the cabinet of the
Confederacy――Attorney-General, Secretary of War and Secretary
of State――His foreign policy――His capacity for work――When
all is lost he goes to England and becomes one of its great
lawyers――His last days are spent in France.
CHAPTER XXVI.
DISTINGUISHED SERVICES OF JEWS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE STRUGGLE.
More “brothers in arms” and a larger proportion of officers in
the Confederate Army than in that of the North, because most
Southern Jews were natives of the country――Some distinguished
officers――A gallant private who later became a rabbi――Paucity
of Southern records――Generals Knefler, Solomon, Blumenberg,
Joachimsen and other officers of high rank in the Union
Army――New York ranks first, Ohio second and Illinois third
in the number of Jews who went to the front――Two Pennsylvania
regiments which started with Jewish colonels――Commodore Uriah
P. Levy, the ranking officer of the United States navy at
the time of the outbreak of the war, is prevented by age from
taking part in it.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD AFTER THE CIVIL WAR.
Ebb and flow of immigration between 1850 and 1880――Decrease and
practical stoppage of Jewish immigration from Germany――The
breathing spell between two periods of immigration, and the
preparation for the vast influx which was to follow――The
period of great charitable institutions――Organization
and consolidation――The Hebrew Union College and the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations――The Independent Order
B’nai B’rith――Other large fraternal organizations and
their usefulness――Important local institutions in New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, etc.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
NEW SYNAGOGUES AND TEMPLES. IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA PRIOR TO 1880.
Continued increase in the wealth and importance of the
German-Jewish congregations――New and spacious synagogues and
temples erected in various parts of the country in the “sixties”
and the “seventies”――Problems of Russian-Jewish immigration
prior to 1880――Economic condition of the Jewish masses in
Russia worse in the “golden era” than under Nicholas I.――
Emigration from Russia after the famine of 1867–68 and after
the pogrom of Odessa in 1871――Presumption of the existence of
a Hebrew reading public in New York in 1868――The first Hebrew
and Yiddish periodicals.
PART VI.
=THE THIRD OR RUSSIAN PERIOD OF IMMIGRATION.=
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE INFLUX AFTER THE ANTI-JEWISH RIOTS IN RUSSIA IN 1881.
The country itself is well prepared for the reception of a
larger number of Jewish immigrants――Absence of organized or
political Antisemitism――Increase in general immigration in 1880
and 1881――Arrival of the “Am Olam”――Imposing protest meetings
against the riots in Russia――Welcome and assistance――Emma
Lazarus――Heilprin and the attempts to found agricultural
colonies――Herman Rosenthal――Failures in many States――Some
success in Connecticut and more in New Jersey――Woodbine――
Distribution――Industrial workers and the new radicalism.
CHAPTER XXX.
COMMUNAL AND RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES AMONG THE NEW COMERS.
Congregational and social activities among the new comers――
Ephemeral organizations――The striving after professional
education――Synagogues as the most stable of the new
establishments――“Landsleut” congregations――The first efforts to
consolidate the Orthodox community of New York――The Federation
of Synagogues――Chief Rabbi Jacob Joseph――Other “chief rabbis”
in Chicago and Boston――Prominent Orthodox rabbis in many
cities――Dr. Philip Klein――The short period in which the cantor
was the most important functionary in the Orthodox synagogue――
Synagogues change hands, but are rarely abandoned.
CHAPTER XXXI.
NEW COMMUNAL AND INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES.
The Jewish Alliance of 1891 as the first attempt to form a
general organization in which the immigrants of the latest
period should be officially recognized――Some of the prominent
participators――The new Exodus of 1891――The Baron de Hirsch
Fund――Various activities――Decrease in the numbers and
proportion of the helpless and the needy――The American Jewish
Historical Society――The Jewish Publication Society of America――
The Jewish Chautauqua――Participation in the World’s Columbian
Exposition in 1893――The Council of Jewish Women.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE LABOR MOVEMENT AND NEW LITERARY ACTIVITIES.
Difficulty of securing data for the history of the Labor Movement
among Jewish immigrants――John R. Commons’ characterization of
a Jewish labor union――A constantly changing army of followers
under the same leaders――The movement under the control of the
radical press――The leaders as journalists and literary men――
They popularize the press and teach the rudiments of politics――
The voter――The “Heften”――Neo-Hebrew periodicals――The Yiddish
stylists――The plight of the Hebraists.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. THE PASSPORT QUESTION.
The normal rate of Jewish immigration is but slightly affected by
the panic of 1893――Oppressiveness of the Sunday Laws are felt
by the new immigrants――The Extradition Treaty with Russia――
Beginning of the struggle about the Passport Question――The
first Resolution against Russia’s discrimination, introduced
in Congress by Mr. Cox in 1879――Diplomacy and diplomatic
correspondence――More resolutions――Rayner, Fitzgerald, Perkins――
Henry M. Goldfogle――John Hay’s letter to the House――More
letters, speeches and discussions――The Sulzer Resolution and
the last step to abrogate the Treaty of 1832.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LEGISLATION ABOUT IMMIGRATION. SUNDAY LAWS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT.
Jewish interest in immigration――The first legislation on the
subject――The Nativists or “Know Nothings”――A Congressional
investigation in 1838――President Taylor’s invitation to
foreigners to come and settle here――A law to encourage
immigration passed on Lincoln’s recommendation in 1864――The
General Immigration Law of 1882――The “Ford Committee”――Permanent
Immigration Committees in Congress――Continued agitation and
legislation on the subject――A bill containing the requirement
of an educational test is vetoed by President Grover Cleveland
in 1897――The last Immigration Law of 1907――The Immigration
Commission of 1907 and its report in 1910――Sunday Laws and
their significance for the Orthodox Jew――Laws of various
States and Territories――Their effect on movements for municipal
reform――Status of the problems.
CHAPTER XXXV.
END OF THE CENTURY. THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.
THE DREYFUS AFFAIR. ZIONISM.
Jews in the Spanish-American war――Commissioned and
non-commissioned officers, privates and “Rough Riders”――Jews in
the Navy: Simon Cook, Joseph Strauss and Edward David Taussig――
The career of Rear-Admiral Adolph Marix――His part in the
Inquiry about the “Maine” and in the war――The significance of
the Dreyfus Affair――Its influence on the spread of Zionism――The
American press almost as pro-Dreyfus as the Jewish――The Zionist
movement in America――The rank and file consists of immigrants
from Slavic countries, under the leadership of Americans.
PART VII.
=THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. PRESENT CONDITIONS.=
CHAPTER XXXVI.
SYNAGOGUES AND INSTITUTIONS. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA.
ROUMANIA AND THE ROUMANIAN NOTE.
Synagogues and other Jewish Institutions――General improvement
and moderation――The Jewish Encyclopedia――Its editors and
contributors――The Roumanian situation and the American
Government’s interest in it since 1867――Benjamin F. Peixotto,
United States Consul-General in Bucharest――Diplomatic
correspondence between Kasson and Evarts――New negotiations
with Roumania in 1902――The Roumanian Note to the signatories
of the Berlin Treaty――The question still in abeyance.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
HELP FOR THE VICTIMS OF THE RUSSIAN MASSACRES IN 1903 AND 1905.
OTHER PROOFS OF SYMPATHY.
The Kishinev massacre――Official solicitude and general sympathy――
Protest meetings and collections――The “Kishinev Petition” and
its fate――Less publicity given to the later pogroms, whose
victims were helped by “landsleut” from this country――The
influence of pogroms on immigration――The frightful massacres
in Russia in the fall of 1905, and the assistance rendered by
this country――A Resolution of sympathy adopted in Congress――The
250th Anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews in the United
States――Relief for Moroccan Jews proposed by the United
States――Oscar S. Straus in the Cabinet.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE AMERICAN-JEWISH COMMITTEE.
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND FEDERATIONS.
Formation of the American Jewish Committee――Its first fifteen
members and its membership in 1911――The experimental Kehillah
organizations――The re-organized Jewish Theological Seminary――
Faculty of the Hebrew Union College――The Dropsie College of
Hebrew and Cognate Learning――The Rabbi Joseph Jacob School――
Other Orthodox “Yeshibot”――Talmud Torahs and “Chedarim”――Hebrew
Institutes――They become more Jewish because other agencies now
do the work of Americanizing the immigrant――Technical Schools――
Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Associations――Federations
of various kinds.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE JEWS IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA.
The legend about the Jewish origin of Chevalier de Levis――Aaron
Hart, the English Commissary, and Abraham Gradis, the French
banker――Early settlers in Montreal――Its first Congregation――
Troubles of Ezekiel Hart, the first Jew to be elected to the
Legislature――Final Emancipation in 1832――Jews fight on the
Loyalist side against ♦Papineau’s rebellion――Prominent Jews in
various fields of activity――Congregation “Shaar ha-Shomaim”――
Toronto――First synagogue in Victoria, B. C., in 1862――Hamilton
and Winnipeg――Other communities――Agricultural Colonies――Jewish
Newspapers.
CHAPTER XL.
JEWS IN SOUTH AMERICA, MEXICO AND CUBA.
The first “minyan” in Buenos Ayres, Argentine, in 1861――Estimate
of the Jewish population in Argentine――Occupations and economic
condition of the various groups――Kosher meat and temporary
synagogues as indications of the religious conditions――
Communities in twenty-six other cities――The Agricultural
Colonies――Brazil――The rumor that General Floriano Peixotto,
the second president of the new Republic, was of Jewish
origin――Communities in several cities――The Colony Philippson――
Jews in Montevido, Uruguay――Other South American Republics――
Isidor Borowski, who fought under Bolivar――Panama――Moroccan
Jews are liked by Peru Indians――About ten thousand Jews in
Mexico――Slowly increasing number in Cuba, where Jews help to
spread the American influence.
CHAPTER XLI.
MEN OF EMINENCE IN THE ARTS, SCIENCES AND THE PROFESSIONS.
Jews who attained eminence in the world of art and of science――
Moses J. Ezekiel――Ephraim Keyser――Isidor Konti――Victor
D. Brenner――Butensky and Davidson――Painters: Henry Mosler,
Constant Mayer, H. N. Hyneman and George D. M. Peixotto――Max
Rosenthal and his son, Albert――Max Weyl, Toby E. Rosenthal,
Louis Loeb and Katherine M. Cohen――Some cartoonists and
caricaturists――Musicians, composers and musical directors――The
Damrosch family, Gabrilowitsch, Hoffman and Ellman――Operatic
and theatrical managers and impressarios――Playwrights and
actors――Scientists: A. A. Michelson, Morris Bloomfield, Jacob
H. Hollander, Charles Waldstein and his family――Charles Gross――
Edwin R. A. Seligman, Adolph Cohn, Jaques Loeb, Simon Flexner
and Abraham Jacobi――Fabian Franklin――Engineers: Sutro, Gottlieb
and Jacobs――Some eminent physicians and lawyers――Merchants and
financiers.
CHAPTER XLII.
LITERATURE: HEBREW AND ENGLISH. PERIODICALS.
Curiosities of early American Jewish literature which belong
to the domain of bibliography――Rabbinical works: Responses,
commentaries and Homiletics――Hebrew works of a modern
character――Ehrlich’s Mikra Ki-Peshuto and Eisenstein’s Ozar
Israel――Neo-Hebrew Poets and literati――Jewish writers in the
vernacular――“Ghetto Stories”――Writers on non-Jewish subjects――
Scientific works――Writers on Jewish subjects and contributors
to the “Jewish Encyclopedia”――A. S. Freidus――Non-Jewish writers
about Jews――Daly――Frederic, Davitt and Hapgood――Journalists,
editors and publishers――The Ochs brothers; the Rosewaters――
Pulitzer and de Young of Jewish descent――The Jewish
denominational press in English――The “Sanatorium.”
CHAPTER XLIII.
YIDDISH LITERATURE, DRAMA AND THE PRESS.
Yiddish poets of the United States equal, if they do not
excell, the poets of the same tongue in other countries――Morris
Rosenfeld――“Yehoash” and Sharkansky――Bovshoer and other
radicals――Zunser――Old fashioned novelists――The sketch writers
who are under the influence of the Russian realistic writers――
Abner Tannenbaum――Alexander Harkavy――“Krantz,” Hermalin,
Zevin and others――Abraham Goldfaden and the playwrights who
followed him――Jacob Gordin and the realists――Yiddish actors
and actresses――The Yiddish Press――The high position attained
by the dailies――Weekly and monthly publications.
CHAPTER XLIV.
PRESENT CONDITIONS. THE NUMBER AND THE DISPERSION OF JEWS
IN AMERICA. CONCLUSION.
Dispersion of the Jews over the country and its colonial
possessions――The number of Jews in the United States about
three millions――The number of communities in various States――
The number of Jews in the large cities――The number of the
congregations is far in excess of the recorded figures――The
process of disintegration and the counteracting forces――The
building of synagogues――Charity work is not overshadowing other
communal activities as in the former period, and more attention
is paid to affairs of Judaism――The conciliatory spirit and the
tendency to federate――Self-criticism and dissatisfaction which
are an incentive to improvement――Our great opportunity here――
Our hope in the higher civilization in which the injustices of
the older order of things may never reappear.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FRONTISPIECE (EZEKIEL’S STATUE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY)
COL. ISAAC FRANKS
JUDAH TOURO
RABBI ISAAC LEESER
DR. ISAAC M. WISE
RABBI SABATO MORAIS
DR. MARCUS JASTROW
MICHAEL HEILPRIN
LEWIS N. DEMBITZ
JUDAH P. BENJAMIN
HON. SIMON WOLF
COMMODORE URIAH P. LEVY
JULIUS BIEN
KASRIEL H. SARASOHN
EMMA LAZARUS
HERMAN ROSENTHAL
CHIEF RABBI JACOB JOSEPH
MISS SADIE AMERICAN
PROF. GOTTHARD DEUTSCH
HON. JACOB H. SCHIFF
HON. OSCAR S. STRAUS
JUDGE MAYER SULZBERGER
HON. BENJAMIN SELLING
PROF. SOLOMON SCHECHTER
MARTHA WOLFENSTEIN
MORDECAI MANUEL NOAH
INTRODUCTION.
THE JEWS AS EARLY INTERNATIONAL TRADERS.
The ten centuries which passed between the fall of the Western Roman
Empire and the discovery of the New World are commonly known as the
Middle Ages or the Dark Ages. They were, on the whole, very dark
indeed for most of the inhabitants of Europe, as well as for the Jews
who were scattered among them. It was a time of the fermentation of
religious and national ideas, a formative period for the mind and the
body politic of the races from which the great nations of the present
civilized world were evolved. It was a period of violent hatreds, of
cruel persecutions, of that terrible earnestness which prompts and
justifies the extermination of enemies and even of opponents; there was
almost constant war between nations, between classes, between creeds
and sects. The ordinary man had no rights even in theory, the truths
“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness” were not self-evident then; they were
not even thought of until a much later era.
The treatment accorded to the Jews in our own times in the countries
where the general conditions are nearest to those prevailing in the
dark ages, gives a clear idea of what the Jew had to undergo when the
average degree of culture was so much lower than it is in the least
developed of the Christian countries at present. The records of the
times are so filled with pillage, expulsions and massacres, that they
impress us as having been common occurrences, though they happened
further apart to those who lived through the peaceful intervals
which distance of time makes to appear short to us. There were, of
course, some bright spots, the most shining of which was the Iberian
peninsula during the earlier part of the Moorish domination. Sometimes
a kind-hearted king would afford his Jews protection and even grant
them valuable privileges; a clear-headed prince often found it to his
own interest to utilize them for the advancement of the commerce of
his dominion, and in a rare period of peace and prosperity there also
happened a general relaxation of the severity which characterized the
time. But if we view the entire thousand years as a single historical
period, we find the condition of the Jews slowly deteriorating; with
the result that while the modern nations were welded together and came
out of the medieval furnace strengthened and developed, the Jews were
pushed back, segregated and degraded, ready for the numerous expulsions
and various sufferings which continued for more than two centuries in
Western Europe and are not yet over in other parts of the Old World.
The favorable position of the Jews at the beginning of the Middle Ages
is less familiar to the reading public, even to the Jewish reader, than
the troublesome times which came later. As a matter of fact the Jews
were, except for the lack of national unity and of the possession of an
independent home, better situated materially four centuries after the
destruction of the Second Temple than before the last dissolution of
the Kingdom of Judah. The instinct for commerce which is latent in the
“Semitic” race was awakened in the Diaspora and, after an interruption
of more than a thousand years, we find, at the end of the classical
times, international trade again almost exclusively in the hands of
members of that race. The Sumero-Accadians or original Babylonians
who were the earliest known international traders on land, and the
Phoenicians, who first dared to trade over seas, were of Semitic
origin. As foreign commerce is the highest form of activity in regard
to the utilization of human productivity, so it is also the forerunner
of mental activity and of the spread of an ennobling and instructive
culture. The beginnings of both Egyptian and Greek civilization,
according to the latest discoveries, point unmistakably to Mesopotamian
or Phoenician origin, with a strong probability that the latter
received it from the former in times which we usually describe as
pre-historic, but about which we now possess considerable exact
information. Culture followed the great route of the caravans to
Syria and Egypt on one side, to Iran, India and as far as China in
an opposite direction. And if we accept the wholly incorrect and
un-scientific division of the white race into Aryans and Semites,
then this original and most fertile of the cultures of humanity was
undoubtedly Semitic. A more modern and more nearly correct division
would place these ancient inhabitants of the plateau of Asia as a part
of the great Mediterranean or brunette race, which includes, besides
all the so-called Semites, a number of European nations which are
classed as Aryans. Greece succeeded Phœnicia and was in turn succeeded
by Rome in the hegemony of international trade as well as in that of
general culture. Both commerce and culture declined when the ancient
civilization was all but destroyed by the invasion of the blond
barbarians of the northern forests, who were themselves destined to
attain in a far-away future the highest form of civilization of which
mankind has hitherto proven itself capable. (See _Zollschan_ “Das
Rassenproblem,” Vienna, 1910, pp. 206 ff.)
It so happened that at the time of the downfall of the Roman Empire,
or, as it is usually called, the beginning of the Middle Ages, another
people of Semitic origin, the Jews, were for the most part engaged
in international trade. There are records of Jewish merchants of that
period shipping or exporting wine, oil, honey, fish, cattle, woolens,
etc., from Spain to Rome and other Latin provinces, from Media to
Brittannia, from the Persian Gulf and Ethiopia to Macedonia and Italy;
there was no important seaport or commercial center in which the Jews
did not occupy a commanding position. Their prominence as importers and
exporters rather increased than diminished by the downfall of the great
Empire. The new nations of the Germanic kingdoms which were founded
on the ruins of Rome, knew nothing of international trade, and the
position of the Jews as merchants was accepted by them as a matter of
course. Hence the first traces of Jewish settlements in modern European
countries are almost exclusively to be found in the earliest records
of commerce and of trading privileges. They are then known as traders
with distant countries, as sea-going men, as owners of vessels and as
slave-traders. The commercial note or written obligation to pay, which
is accepted in lieu of payment and is itself negotiable as a substitute
for money, is a Jewish invention of those times. They developed
industries and improved the material conditions of every place in which
they were found in large numbers. As late as 1084, when their position
had been already much weakened and the coming Crusades were casting
their shadows, Bishop Rudiger of Speyer began his edict of privileges
granted to the Jews with the statement: “As I wish to turn the village
of Speyer into a city ... I call the Jews to settle there.” (See ibid.
p. 351.)[1]
THE SPANISH JEWS AS LAND OWNERS.
Canon Law on one side and the rise of cities on the other shattered the
position of the Jews until they were reduced to sore straits at the end
of the Middle Ages. The church labored persistently and relentlessly
through the centuries in which Europe was thoroughly Christianized, to
separate the Jews as far as possible from their Gentile neighbors. The
ties which united the two parts of the population by a thousand threads
of mutual interest, friendship, co-operation and beneficial intercourse,
were slowly loosened and, where possible, all but severed. At the
various Church Councils, from Nicea to the last Lateran, there was laid
down the theory of the necessity to force the Jews out of the national
life of the countries in which they dwelt, and to segregate them as
a distinct, inferior and outlawed class. The principles enunciated by
the higher clergy were disseminated by the priests and the demagogues
among the masses. Special laws and restrictions were often followed
by attacks, sacking of the Jewish quarters and degradations of
various kinds. In the twelfth and the following three centuries the
ill-treatment was often followed by expulsions and cancellation of
debts, while heavy fines on individual Jews or on entire communities
were accepted on both sides as a lesser evil or as easy terms for
escaping greater hardships. The climax of this method of dealing with
the Jews, the greatest blow administered to the unhappy Children of
Israel by Christian princes, was the expulsion from Spain in 1492, and
its concomitant, the expulsion from Portugal five years afterwards.
But the Church alone could never have accomplished the ruin of the
Jews if the changing economic conditions and the rise of a large and
powerful class of Christian merchants did not help to undermine the
position of the erstwhile solitary trading class. The burgher classes
were the chief opponents and persecutors of their Jewish competitors:
they seconded, and in many cases instigated, the efforts of the clergy
to exclude the Jews from many occupations. So when the city overpowered
the land owner and began to exert a preponderant influence on the
government, the cause of the Jew was lost, or at least postponed
until a more humane and liberal time, when the ordinary claims of
the brotherhood of man were to overcome the narrow-minded mercantile
and ecclesiastical policies of a ruder age. The great historian Ranke
pointed out that the struggle between the cities and the nobility in
Castille was decided in favor of the former by the marriage of Queen
Isabella to Ferdinand of Aragon. It was also this marriage which sealed
the doom of the Spanish Jews, as well as that of their former friends
and protectors, the Moors, who had by that time sunk so low, that it
was impossible for them to keep their last stronghold in Europe much
longer.
Though the outlook in Spain was very dark, it was much worse in all
other known countries, which accounts for the fact that there was
hardly any emigration from the Christian parts of Spain in the time
immediately preceding the expulsion. The Spanish Jew was then, and
has to some extent remained even unto this day, the aristocrat among
the Jews of the world. His intense love for that country is still
smouldering in the hearts of his descendants, and not without reason.
In other European countries the Jew could, during the middle ages,
only enjoy the sympathy and sometimes be accorded the protection
of the nobility. In Spain and Portugal he actually belonged to that
class. For, as Selig (Dr. Paulus) Cassel has justly remarked (in his
splendid article _Juden_ in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopædia) sufficient
attention has not been paid by Jewish historians to the important fact
that Spain and Portugal were the only considerable countries during the
Middle Ages in which the Jews were permitted to own land. The statement,
for which there is an apparent Jewish authority, that they owned
about a third of Spain at the time of their exile, is doubtless an
exaggeration, but there can be no question of their being extensive
holders of land-properties.
This largely explains why the Jew in Spain has not sunk in public
estimation as much as he did in other countries, why his fate was
different, and, in the end, worse than that of his more humiliated and
degraded brother elsewhere. When the German or French Jew was forced
out of commerce he could only become a money-lender at the usurious
rates prevailing in those times. This vocation drew on him the contempt
and hatred of all classes, as was always the case and as is the case in
many places even to-day. But while the usurer was despised he was very
useful, often even indispensable, especially in those times when there
was a great scarcity of the precious metals and of convertible capital.
This may explain why the exiled Jews were in other countries usually
called back to the places from which they were exiled. The prejudice
of the age may render their work disreputable, but it was none the less
necessary; they were missed as soon as they left, and on many occasions
negotiations for their return were begun as soon as the popular fury
cooled down, or when the object of spoliation was attained.
Not so in Spain. The Jewish merchant who could no longer hold his own
against his stronger non-Jewish competitor, could do what is often
done by others who voluntarily retire from such pursuits, i. e., invest
his capital in landed estates. We can imagine that the transition did
not at all seem to be forced, that those who caused it, and even its
victims, might have considered it as the natural course of events.
After the great massacres of 1391, a century before the expulsion, many
Jews emigrated to Moorish North Africa, where there still remained some
degree of tolerance and friendliness for them, mingled perhaps with
some hope of re-conquering the lost parts of the Iberian peninsula. But
later there was less thought of migration, least of all of emigrating
to the parts of Spain which still remained in the possession of the
Moors. The race which was, seven centuries before, assisted by the
Jews to become masters of Iberia, and which together with them rose to
a height of culture and mental achievement which is not yet properly
appreciated in modern history, has now become degenerate and almost
savage in its fanaticism. The Jew of Spain was still proud, despite
his sufferings. He could not see his fate as clearly as we can now from
the perspective of five hundred years. He was rooted in the country in
which he lived for many centuries. He was, like most men of wealth and
position, inclined to be optimistic, and he could not miss his only
possible protection against expropriation or exile――the possession of
full rights of citizenship――because the Jews nowhere had it in those
times and had not had it since the days of ancient Rome.
The catastrophe of the great expulsion, which came more unexpectedly
than we can now perceive, was possibly facilitated by the position
which the Jews held as land owners. It certainly contributed to make
the decree of exile irrevocable. The holder of real property is more
easily and more thoroughly despoiled, because he cannot hide his most
valuable possessions or escape with them. He is not missed when he
is gone; his absence is hardly felt after the title to his lands has
been transferred to the Crown or to favorites of the government. When
the robbery is once committed only compunction or an awakened sense of
justice could induce the restitution which re-admission or recall would
imply. And as abstract moral forces had very little influence in those
cruel days, it is no wonder that the expulsion was final――the only one
of that nature in Christian Europe.
This peculiar position of the Jews in Spain and Portugal was also the
cause of the immense number of conversions which gave these anti-Jewish
nations a very large mixture of Jewish blood in their veins. The
temptation to cling to the land and to the high social position which
could not be enjoyed elsewhere was too strong for all but the strongest.
Thus we find Marranos or secret Jews in all the higher walks of life
in the times of the discovery of America. The more steadfast of their
brethren who were equally prominent in the preceding period assisted
in various ways earlier voyages of discovery, and even contributed
indirectly to the success of the one great voyage, which did not begin
until they were exiled from Spain forever.
But we must constantly bear in mind, when speaking of the Middle
Ages and of the two centuries succeeding it, the sixteenth and the
seventeenth, that the Jews did not possess the right of citizenship
and were not, even when they were treated very well, considered as an
integral part of the population. This was the chief weakness of their
position and the ultimate cause of all the persecutions, massacres
and expulsions. Still they had many opportunities and made the most of
them to advance their own interests and those of the countries in which
they dwelt. We find them in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in
close touch with the current of national life in the countries which
were most absorbed in enterprises of navigation and discovery. Many
of them were still great merchants, numerous others were scholars,
mathematicians and astronomers or astrologers; some had influence in
political life as advisers or fiscal officials at the royal courts.
They accomplished much, as Jews and as Marranos, even when the danger
of persecution must have been ever-present, or later, when in constant
terror of the Inquisition. Many of them could therefore participate
in the work which led to the discovery of a New World, where their
descendants were destined to find a home safer and more free than was
ever dreamt of in medieval Jewish philosophy.
PART I.
THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE PERIOD.
CHAPTER I.
THE PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD.
The Jew of Barcelona who has navigated the whole known world――
Judah Cresques, “the Map Jew,” as director of the Academy of
Navigation which was founded by Prince Henry the Navigator――One
Jewish astronomer advises the King of Portugal to reject the
plans of Columbus――Zacuto as one of the first influential
men in Spain to encourage the discoverer of the New World――
Abravanel, Senior and the Marranos Santangel and Sanchez who
assisted Columbus――The voyage of discovery begun a day after
the expulsion of the Jews from Spain――Luis de Torres and other
Jews who went with Columbus――America discovered on “Hosannah
Rabbah”――The Indians as the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel――Money
taken from the Jews to defray the expenditure of the second
voyage of Columbus――Vasco da Gama and the Jew Gaspar――Scrolls
of the Thorah from Portugal sold in Cochin――Alphonse
d’Albuquerque’s interpreter who returned to Judaism.
In the days when Church and State were one and indissoluble, and when
all large national enterprises, such as wars or the search for new
dominions by means of discovery, were undertaken avowedly in the name
and for the glory of the Catholic religion, it could not have been
expected that governments will make an effort to protect international
trade as long as it was in Jewish hands. We must therefore go as far
back as to the first half of the 14th century to find a record of
Jews who went to sea on their own account in an independent way.
According to the great authority on the subject of this chapter (Dr.
M. Kayserling, “Christopher Columbus and the participation of the Jews
in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries,” English translation by
the late Prof. Charles Gross of Harvard University) Jaime III., the
last king of Mallorca, testified in 1334 that Juceff Faquin, a Jew of
Barcelona, “has navigated the whole then known world.” About a century
later we find again a Jew prominently identified with navigation;
but in this instance he is a scientific teacher, in the employ of an
energetic prince who considered navigation as a national project of
the greatest moment. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394–1460),
who helped his father to capture Ceuta, in North Africa, and there
“obtained information from Jewish travellers concerning the south coast
of Guinea and the interior of Africa”, established a naval academy or
school of navigation at the Villa do Iffante or Sagres, a seaport town
which he caused to be built. He appointed as its director Mestre Jaime
of Mallorca whose real name was Jafuda (Judah) Cresques, the son of
Abraham Cresques of Palma, the capital of Mallorca. Jafuda was known as
“the Map Jew,” and a map which he prepared for King Juan I. of Aragon
and was presented by the latter to the King of France, is preserved
in the National Library of Paris.[2] He became the teacher of the
Portuguese in the art of navigation as well as in the manufacture of
nautical instruments and maps. In this work he had no superior in his
day.
While this Jewish scholar helped the Portuguese to many notable
achievements in their daring voyages, another one, at a later period,
was almost the direct cause of their being overtaken by the Spaniards
in the race for new discoveries. For it was Joseph Vecinho, physician
to King João, of Portugal, considered by the high court functionaries
to be the greatest authority in nautical matters, who influenced the
King to reject the plan submitted by Christopher Columbus (1446?‒1506),
and thereby caused the latter to leave Portugal for Spain in 1484.
Columbus came to Spain when Ferdinand and Isabella, with the aid of the
newly introduced Inquisition, were despoiling the wealthy Marranos, who
were burned at the stake in large numbers. The last war with the Moors
had already begun.
Another and more famous Jewish scholar was to make amends for whatever
suffering was caused to the great discoverer by Vecincho’s fatal advice.
Abraham Ben Samuel Zacuto, who was born in Salamanca, Spain, about
the middle of the 15th century and died an exile in Turkey after 1510,
was famous as an astronomer and mathematician, and in his capacity as
one of the leading professors in the university of his native city was
formerly the teacher of the above named Vecinho. He was more discerning
than his pupil, and when he learned to know Columbus, soon after the
latter’s arrival in Spain, he encouraged him personally and also gave
him his almanacs and astronomical tables, which were a great help in
the voyage of discovery. Zacuto was among the first influential men
in Spain to favor the plans of Columbus, and his favorable report
caused Ferdinand and Isabella to take him into their service in
1487. The explorer was then ordered to proceed to Malaga, which was
captured several weeks before, and there made the acquaintance of the
two most prominent Jews of Spain in that time――the chief farmer of
taxes, Abraham Senior, and Don Isaac Abravanel. These two men were
provisioning the Spanish armies which operated against the Moors, and
were in high favor at Court. Abravanel was one of the first to render
financial assistance to Columbus.
Louis de Santangel and other Marranos interposed in favor of Columbus
when he was about to go to France in January, 1492, because Ferdinand
refused to make him Viceroy and Life-Governor of all the lands which
he might discover. Santangel’s pleadings with Isabella were especially
effective, and when the question of funds remained the only obstacle
to be overcome, he who was saved from the stake by the King’s grace at
the time when several other members of the Santangel family perished,
advanced a loan of seventeen thousand florins――nearly five million
maravedis――to finance the entire project. Account books in which the
transfer of money from Santangel to Columbus, through the Bishop of
Avila, who afterwards became the Archbishop of Granada, were recorded,
are still preserved in the _Archive de India_ of Seville, Spain.
“After the Spanish monarchs had expelled all the Jews from all their
Kingdoms and lands in April, in the same month they commissioned me
to undertake the voyage to India”――writes Christopher Columbus. This
refers to the Decree of Expulsion, but the coincidence of the actual
happening was still more remarkable. The expulsion took place on the
second day of August, 1492, which occurred on the ninth day of the
Jewish month of Ab, the day on which, according to the Jewish tradition,
is the anniversary of the destruction of both the first Holy Temple
of Jerusalem in the year 586 B. C. and also of the second Temple at
the hands of the Romans in the year 70 C. E. The day, known as “Tishah
be’Ab,” was observed as a day of mourning and lamentation among the
Jews of the Diaspora in all countries and is still so observed by
the Orthodox everywhere to this day. Columbus sailed on his momentous
voyage on the day after――the third of August. The boats which were
carrying away throngs of the expatriated and despairing Jews from the
country which they loved so well and in which their ancestors dwelt for
more than eight centuries, sighted that little fleet of three sailing
craft which was destined to open up a new world for the oppressed of
many races, where at a later age millions of Jews were to find a free
home under the protection of laws which were unthought of in those
times.
Neither all the names nor even the number of men who accompanied
Columbus on his first voyage are known to posterity. Some authorities
place the number at 120, others as low as 90. But among the names
which came down to us are those of several Jews, the best known among
them being Louis de Torres, who was baptized shortly before he joined
Columbus. Torres knew Hebrew, Chaldaic and some Arabic, and was taken
along to be employed as an interpreter between the travellers and
the natives of the parts of India which Columbus expected to reach by
crossing the Ocean. Others of Jewish stock whose names were preserved
are: Alfonso de Calle, Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, the physician
Maestro Bernal and the surgeon Marco.
Land was sighted October 12, 1492, on “Hosannah Rabbah” (the seventh
day of the Jewish Feast of the Booths), and Louis de Torres, who was
sent ashore with one companion to parley with the inhabitants, was
thus the first white man to step on the ground of the New World. As
the place proved to be not the Kingdom of the Great Khan which Columbus
had set out to reach, but an island of the West Indies, with a strange
hitherto unknown race of copper-colored men, it is needless to say that
the linguistic attainments of the Jewish interpreter availed him very
little. After he managed to make himself somewhat understood, he was
favorably impressed with the new country and finally settled for the
remainder of his life in Cuba. He was the first discoverer of tobacco,
which was through him introduced into the Old World. It is also
believed that in describing in a Hebrew letter to a Marrano in Spain
the odd gallinaceous bird which he first saw in his new abode, he gave
it the name “Tukki” (the word in Kings I, 10 v. 22, which is commonly
translated peacock) and that this was later corrupted into “turkey,” by
which name it is known to the English-speaking world.
It may also be remarked, in passing, that the belief identifying the
red race which was surnamed Indian with the lost ten tribes of Israel,
began to be entertained by many people, especially scholars and divines,
soon after the discovery of America. It attained the dignity of a
theory in the middle of the 17th century when Thorowgood published his
work: “The Jews in America; or, Probabilities that the Americans are
of that Race.” (London, 1650.) This view was supported among our own
scholars by no less an authority than ♦Manasseh Ben Israel, who wrote
on the same subject in his “Esperança de Israel” which was published in
Amsterdam in the same year.
Columbus wrote the first reports of his wonderful discovery to Louis
de Santangel and to Gabriel Sanchez. The letter to the first is dated
February 15, 1493, and was written on the return voyage, near the
Azores or the Canaries.
It was decreed by a royal order of November 23, 1492, that the
authorities were to confiscate for the State Treasury all property
which had belonged to the Jews, including that which Christians had
taken from them or had appropriated unlawfully or by violence. This
gave Ferdinand sufficient means to provide for the second voyage of
Columbus (March 23, 1493). The King and the Queen signed a large number
of injunctions to royal officers in Soria, Zamora, Burgos and many
other cities, directing them to secure immediate possession of all
the precious metals, gold and silver utensils, jewels, gems and other
objects of value that had been taken from the Jews who were expelled
from Spain or had migrated to Portugal, and everything that these Jews
had entrusted for safe keeping to Marrano, relatives or friends, and
all Jewish possession which Christians had found or had unlawfully
appropriated. The royal officers were later ordered to convert this
property into ready money and to give the proceeds to the treasurer,
Francisco Pinelo, in Seville, to meet the expenditure of Columbus’
second expedition.
One of the specific instances of these confiscations which deserves to
be mentioned, is the order to Bernardino de Lerma to transfer to Pinelo
all the gold, silver and various other things which Rabbi Ephraim (who
is sometimes referred to in contemporary documents as Rabi Frayn, also
as Rubifrayn, and who was perhaps the father of the great Rabbi Joseph
Caro, author of the Shulhan Aruk, etc.), the richest Jew in Burgos,
had before emigrating left with Isabel Osoria, the wife of Louis Nunez
Coronel of Zamora. Not merely the clothing, ornaments and valuables
which had been taken from the Jews were converted into money, but
also the debts which they had been unable to recover were declared by
order of the Crown to be forfeited to the state treasury, and stringent
measures were adopted to collect them. A moderate estimate places the
sum thus obtained at six million maravedis, to which ought to be added
the two millions contributed by the Inquisition of Seville as a part
of the enormous sums which it wrested from Jews and Moors. According to
another order, issued in the above-named date, it was from this Jewish
money that Columbus was paid the ten thousand maravedis which the
Spanish monarchs had promised as a reward to him who should first sight
land.[3]
In the days of suffering and disgrace which came to Columbus after his
discoveries, Santangel and Sanchez remained faithful to him and often
interceded in his behalf with Ferdinand and Isabella. They both died
in 1505, about one year before the great discoverer whose success they
made possible. Their immediate descendants occupied high positions in
the royal service.
* * * * *
Columbus was not the only renowned discoverer of that time who was
directly and indirectly assisted by Jews. The great and cruel Vasco
da Gama, who did for Portugal almost as much as Columbus did for Spain,
could hardly have carried out his important undertakings without the
help of at least two Jews. One of them was the above-mentioned Abraham
Zacuto, who, like many of his unfortunate brethren, went from Spain to
Portugal after the calamity of 1492. He was highly favored by King João
and by his successor, Dom Manuel, and the latter consulted him on the
advisability of sending out under Vasco da Gama’s command the flotilla
of four boats which was to reach India by the way of Cape of Good Hope.
Zacuto pointed out the dangers which would have to be encountered,
but gave it as his opinion that the plan was feasible and predicted
that it would result in the subjection of a large part of India to
the Portuguese crown. Zacuto’s works and the instruments which he
invented and made available materially facilitated the execution of
the enterprises of Vasco da Gama and other explorers. As in the case of
Columbus and Spain, da Gama sailed in the year of the expulsion of the
Jews from the country which fitted out his expedition (1497). When he
returned Zacuto was an exile in Tunis, though he probably could have
remained in Portugal, just as Abravanel could have remained in Spain.
It was during his return voyage to Europe, while staying at the
little island of Anchevide, sixty miles from Goa (off the Indian coast
of Malabar) that Vasco da Gama met the second Jew who became very
useful to him and to Portugal. A tall European with a long white beard
approached his ship in a boat with a small crew. He had been sent by
his master, Sabayo, the Moorish ruler of Goa, to negotiate with the
foreign navigator. He was a Jew who, according to some chronicles,
came from Posen, according to others from Granada, whose parents had
emigrated to Turkey and Palestine. From Alexandria, which some give as
his birthplace, he proceeded across the Red Sea to Mecca and thence to
India. Here he was a long time in captivity, and later was made admiral
(capitao mór) by Sabayo.
The Portuguese were overjoyed “to hear so far from home a language
closely related to their native speech.” But he was soon suspected of
being a spy and was forced by torture to join the expedition and――as
a matter of course――to embrace Christianity. The admiral acted as his
godfather and his name came down to us as Gaspar da Gama or Gaspar
de las Indias. He was brought to Portugal, where he was favored by
King Manuel and “rendered inestimable service to Vasco da Gama and
several later commanders.” He accompanied Pedro Alvarez Cobral on the
expedition in 1500 which led to the independent discovery of Brazil,
which became a Portuguese possession. On the return voyage Gaspar met
Amerigo Vespucci, who received much information from him and mentions
him as a linguist and traveller who is trustworthy and knows much about
the interior of India.
On another expedition in which he accompanied his godfather in 1502,
Gaspar found his wife in Cochin. She had remained true to him and to
Judaism since he was carried away by the Portuguese, but probably both
of them considered it unsafe for her to join him. He again journeyed
to Cochin in 1505 in the retinue of the first Viceroy of India, which
also included the son of Dr. Martin Pinheiro, the Judge of the Supreme
Court of Lisbon. The young Pinheiro carried along a chest filled with
“Torah” scrolls which were taken from the recently destroyed synagogues
of Portugal. Gaspar’s wife negotiated the sale in Cochin, “where there
were many Jews and synagogues,” obtaining four thousand parados for
thirteen scrolls. The viceroy later confiscated the proceeds for the
state treasury and sent an account of the whole affair to Lisbon.
Another Portuguese commander and governor of India, Alphonse
d’Albuquerque, obtained much information and valuable assistance
from his interpreter, a Jew from Castille whom he induced to embrace
Christianity and to assume the name Francisco d’Albuquerque. His
companion Cufo or Hucefe underwent the same change of religion and
visited Lisbon, but soon found himself in danger and escaped to Cairo,
where he again openly professed Judaism.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY JEWISH MARTYRS UNDER SPANISH RULE IN THE NEW WORLD.
Children torn from their parents were the first Jewish
immigrants――Jewish history in the New World begins, as
Jewish history in Spain ends, with the Inquisition――Emperor
Charles V., Philip II. and Philip III.――Lutherans persecuted
together with Jews and Mohamedans――Codification of the laws of
the Inquisition, and its special edicts for the New World.
We have seen in the preceding chapter that the Jews were expelled
forever from Spain and Portugal at the time when these two nations,
with considerable assistance from professing and converted Jews,
discovered the New World and took possession of it. Nothing could
therefore have been farther from the thoughts and the hopes of the Jews
of those dark days than the idea that America was to be, in a far-away
future, the first Christian country to grant its Jewish inhabitants
full citizenship and absolute equality before the law. For nearly a
century and a half no professing Jew dared to tread upon American soil,
and even the secret Jews or Marranos were as much in danger in the
newly-planted colonies as in the mother countries under whose rule they
remained for a long time.
The first Jewish immigrants in the New World were children who were
torn away from the arms of their parents at the time of the expulsions,
and even they were persecuted as soon as they grew up. The Marranos who
sought a refuge in America in these early days were soon followed by
the same agencies of persecution which made life a burden to them in
their old home. We meet in America for more than a century after its
discovery almost the same conditions as in Spain and Portugal after the
Jews were exiled. Where the history of the Jews in Spain ends――says Dr.
Kayserling――the history of the Jews in America begins. The Inquisition
is the last chapter in the record of the confessors of Judaism on the
Pyrenean peninsula and its first chapter in the western hemisphere. The
Nuevos Christianos concealed their faith, or were able to conceal it,
as little in the New World as in the mother country. With astonishing
tenacity, nay, with admirable obstinacy, they clung to the religion
of their fathers; it was not a rare occurrence that the grandchildren
and great-grandchildren of the martyred Jews sanctified the Sabbath
in a most conscientious manner, by refraining from work as far as
possible and by wearing their best clothing. They also celebrated the
Jewish Festivals, observed the Day of Atonement by fasting, and married
according to the Jewish customs. They clung to their faith and suffered
for it even as late as the eighteenth century, which means that the
Jewish religion was handed down secretly and preserved in the seventh
and eighth generation after the exile. Many went to the stake or died
in the prisons of the Inquisition in the New World; many others were
transported in groups to Spain and Portugal and gave up their lives as
martyrs in Seville, Toledo, Evora or Lisbon. Their religious heroism
will be apparent in all its magnitude when the immense documentary
material which is heaped up in the archives of Spain and Portugal,
and other places on this side of the ocean, will have been sifted and
worked up. (“Publications,” II, p. 73.)
Intolerance reigned supreme in America almost immediately after its
colonization, and the secret Jews who settled there were not permitted
to enjoy peace or prosperity. Juan Sanchez of Saragossa, whose father
was burnt at the stake, was the first to obtain permission of the
Spanish government to trade with the newly-discovered lands. In 1502
Isabella permitted him to take five caravels loaded with wheat, barley,
horses and other wares to Española (Little Spain, the large West Indian
Island containing Haiti and Santo Domingo), without paying duty. In
1504 he was again permitted to export merchandise to that country.
Other secret Jews went to the new places and settled there, some even
obtaining positions in the public service. As early as 1511 we hear
already of measures taken by Isabella’s daughter, Queen ♦Juana of
Castille, against “the sons and grandsons of the burned” who held
public office. The Inquisition was introduced there by a decree of that
year, and one of its first victims was Diego Caballera of Barrameda,
whose parents, according to two witnesses, had been prosecuted and
condemned by the same tribunal in Spain.
The Inquisitor-General of Spain, Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, on
May 7, 1516, appointed Fray Juan Quevedo, Bishop of Cuba, his delegate
for the Kingdom of _Terra Firma_, as the mainland of Spanish America
was then called, and authorized him to select personally such officials
as he needed to hunt down and exterminate the Marranos. Emperor
Charles V. (1500–1558), with the permission of his former teacher,
Cardinal Hadrian (1459–1523), the Dutch Grand-Inquisitor of Aragon who
later became Pope (Hadrian or Adrian VI. 1522–23), issued an edict on
May 25, 1520, whereby he ordained Alfonso Manso, Bishop of Porto Rico,
and Pedro de Cordova, Vice Provincial of the Dominicans, as Inquisitors
for the Indies and the islands of the ocean.
At first the secret Jews were not the only victims of the persecutions
and not even the most numerous among them. “There were many heathenish
natives who were forcibly converted by the mighty clerical arm of the
Spanish conqueror, but who nevertheless remained at heart loyal to
their hereditary belief and practised their idolatrous customs with
as much zeal as the fear of discovery and consequent punishment would
allow.” Fiendish atrocities were committed in the name of religion
against those Indian Marranos, and the fearful persecutions depopulated
the country to such an extent that the tyrants themselves perceived
that they must desist.
The Inquisition in Spain itself had, however, fallen more or less into
desuetude during the reign of the above-mentioned Emperor Charles V.,
who was the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, and had inherited their
Spanish and American possessions. It was revived and invigorated under
the more bigoted rule of his son, King Philip II. (1527–1598), who
ascended the Spanish throne in 1556, after his father’s abdication.
Under the new reign the laws of the Inquisition were codified and
promulgated at Madrid on September 2, 1561. A printed copy of the new
code was sent to America in 1569. Another document, dated February 5,
1569, issued by Cardinal Diego de Spinosa, General Apostolic Inquisitor
against Heresy, Immorality and Apostasy, addressed “to the Reverend
Inquisitors Apostolic ... in his Majesty’s Dominions and Seignories of
the Provinces of Piru (Peru), New Spain and the new Kingdom of Granada
and the other provinces and Bishoprics of the Indies of the Ocean”
consists of forty sections prescribing the rules of procedure. (See
Elkan Nathan Adler, _The Inquisition in Peru_, Publications XII,
pp. 5–37.)
A later document containing the general edicts to be read on the third
Sunday of Lent and the fourth Sunday of Anathema in every third year in
the Cathedral of Lima and all the towns of the districts, was printed
in Peru itself shortly after 1641, and records the names of the places
which were included in the jurisdiction of those issuing it. It reads:
“We, the Inquisitors against Heresy, Immorality and Apostasy in this
city and Archbishopric of Los Reyes (Lima) with the Archbishopric of
Los Charcas and Bishoprics of Quito, Cuzco, Rio de la Plata, Paraguay,
Tucuman, Santiago and Concepcion of the Dominions of Chile, la Paz
(Bolivia), Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Guamanga, Areguipa, and Truxillo,
and in all the Dominions, Estates and Seignories of the Provinces
of Peru, and its Viceroyalty Government and district of the Royal
Audiencias thereto appertaining.” In this document we find the name
of a new Christian sect which is to be punished for heresy together
with the unbelievers who were known to the Inquisition of the earlier
period. Lutherans are now enumerated among heretics after the Jews and
the Mohamedans. Among the books and engravings which are considered
as heretical and indecent are mentioned the books of Martin Luther
and other heretics, the Alcoran or other Mohamedan books, “Biblias
en romance” (Bibles in the vernacular) and others prohibited by the
censorships and catalogues of the Holy Office, etc. Then follow lengthy
descriptions of how to detect Jews, Mohamedans and Lutherans; and in
the case of the first even the drinking of Kosher wine and the making
of a “berakah” or pronouncing a blessing before tasting it are not
omitted from the practices which characterized the secret Jew whom the
Inquisition was to discover and punish.
But it seems that the Marranos came to America in large numbers despite
all the severity of Philip II. His son Philip III. (1578–1621), who
succeeded him in 1598, endeavored to prevent their emigrating to the
New World and issued in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the
following edict:
“We command and decree that no one recently converted to our
holy faith, be he Jew or Moor, or the offspring of these,
should settle in our Indies without our distinct permission.
Furthermore we forbid most emphatically the immigration into New
Spain of any one [who is at the expiration of some prescribed
penance] newly reconciled with the Church; of the child or
grandchild of any person who has ever worn the ‘san benito’
publicly; of the child or grandchild of any person who was
either burnt as a heretic or otherwise punished for the crime
of heresy, through either male or female descent. Should any one
[falling under this category] presume to violate this law, his
goods will be confiscated for the benefit of the royal treasury,
and upon him the full measure of our grace or disgrace shall
fall, so that under any circumstances and for all time he shall
be banished from our Indies. Whosoever does not possess personal
effects, however, should atone for his transgression by the
public infliction of one hundred lashes.”
This characteristic specimen of anti-immigration legislation of three
centuries ago, including what would in the colloquialism of to-day be
called a “grandfather clause,” was the cause of much suffering; but it
is not possible to state with any degree of certainty how far it was
effective. It is probable that the number of Marranos in the “Indies”
which belonged to the King of Spain went on increasing until about
the middle of the seventeenth century, when certain territories were
for the first time opened for them in the New World where they could
practise Judaism openly.
CHAPTER III.
VICTIMS OF THE INQUISITION IN MEXICO AND IN PERU.
Impossibility of obtaining even approximately correct figures
about the Inquisition――A few typical cases――The Carabajal
family――Relaxation for several decades――The notable case of
Francisco Maldonado de Silva.
The Inquisition, or, as it styled itself, the Holy Office, was
an institution of tremendous power and influence which during its
existence of more than three centuries deeply impressed the character
of the Spanish and Portuguese peoples. A great number of books were
written about it, but the material to be dealt with is so vast that
none of the works purporting to be histories of the Inquisition really
deserve that name. It has been mentioned already in the preceding
chapter that an immense mass of documentary material which is heaped
up in various archives awaits to be sifted and worked up. An idea of
the actual quantity of this material can be obtained from the statement
made by Mr. E. N. Adler, in the monogram on the Inquisition in Peru
quoted above, that thirty-three million documents, relating to the
Inquisition, are preserved in 80,000 “legajos” or bundles in the
_castille_ of Simancas, a small town, seven miles from Valladolid,
in Spain.
It is therefore next to impossible to attempt to give a general review
of the work of that awful tribunal in the old world or the new; it is
even unsafe to quote figures as to the total number of trials, Autos
da Fé or of victims, because most of the authorities contradict one
another or disagree in vital points. Many facts which are given at one
time as reasonably certain, are soon disproved by the discovery of more
authentic records, which necessitates a constant changing of the time,
the place and the identity of persons spoken of in such descriptions.
It is therefore considered best to mention here only a few typical
cases of victims about whose identity and Jewish extraction there can
be no doubt. From these the reader may form his own opinion as to what
was constantly happening in the various places since the Inquisition’s
firm establishment in the New World in the second half of the sixteenth
century, until its final disappearance at the end of the eighteenth and
in some instances as late as the beginning of the nineteenth centuries.
Several members of the Carabajal (Carvalho?) family suffered martyrdom
in Mexico at the end of the sixteenth century and at the beginning of
the seventeenth. Francisca Nunez de Carabajal, born in Portugal about
1540, was among the members of the family seized by the Inquisition
in 1590. She was tortured until she implicated her husband and her
children, and the entire family was forced to confess and abjure
Judaism at a public Auto da Fé which was celebrated on Saturday,
February 24, 1590. Later, after more than five years’ imprisonment,
they were convicted of relapsing into Judaism, and Francisca, her
son Luis and her four daughters were burned at the stake in Mexico
City, December 8, 1596. She was the sister of Don Luis de Carabajal
y Cueva (born in Portugal, 1539), who was appointed Governor of New
Leon, Mexico, in 1579 and is said to have died in 1595. He arrived
in Mexico in 1580, where, in consideration of his appointment as
governor of a somewhat ill-defined district, he undertook to colonize
a certain territory at his own expense, being allowed the privilege
of reimbursing himself out of the revenue. There were many Spanish
Jews among his colonists, and within a decade after their settlement
more than a score were denounced and more or less severely punished
for Judaizing. He is the subject of a work, half romantic and half
historical, by Mr. C. K. Landis, entitled _Carabalja the Jew, a Legend
of Monterey_ (Vineland, 1894).
Another heroic martyr of Mexico was Don Tomas de Sobremonte, a Judaizer,
who died at the stake April 11, 1649, without uttering a groan, mocking
“the Pope and his hirelings” and taunting his tormentors with his last
breath.
The Inquisition in Lima, Peru, is known to have solemnized thirty-four
Autos da Fé at that place between 1573 (November 15) and 1806 (July 17)
and at ten or eleven of them there were Jewish victims, their numbers
ranging from one or two to as high as fifty-six (January 23, 1639).
From the earliest day of its establishment it looked with suspicion
upon the Portuguese who settled there. In this case as in many others,
Portuguese was only another name for Marranos, and they were treated
with great severity. There is a record of one David Ebron, who in
1597 sent a memorial to Philip II. relating to his discoveries and
services in South America, but it is not known how far his claims were
recognized. About 1604 or 1605 a number of those who were accused in
Peru of Judaizing sent memorials to the King of Spain in which they
pleaded that life under such conditions had become unbearable. Relief
was obtained in the form of an Apostolic Brief from Pope Clement VIII.,
commanding the Inquisitors to release, without delay, all Judaizing
Portuguese in Peru. When this order arrived in Lima, only two prisoners
were still detained in the dungeons of the Tribunal, ♦Gonzalo de
Luna and Juan Vicente. The others had either become reconciled or had
suffered death at the stake.
The liberal decree, which arrived too late for most of the complainants
who were to benefit by it, still seems to have had the effect of
securing the Marranos against molestation for several decades. But as
soon as they had increased in wealth and influence the establishment
of a new Tribunal was ordered in the Province of Tucuman, it having
been ascertained that quite a colony of Jews were domiciled in the
Rio de la Plata. In consequence of this order, dated May 18, 1636, the
Portuguese were again hounded and many of them lost life and fortune.
The Inquisition succeeded in ferreting out the fact that in Chili alone,
at that time, there were no less than twenty-eight (secret) Jews, most
of them enjoying the rights of citizenship and living securely and at
peace with their neighbors. It has now been practically ascertained
that a considerable number of Jews or Marranos lived in Peru, Chili,
Argentine, Cartagena and La Plata towards the end of the sixteenth
century, that their number and wealth increased in the first half of
the seventeenth, when the new era of persecutions was ushered in by
attacks and denunciations.
A notable instance, typical of the times, was the case of Francisco
Maldonado de Silva. His sister Doña Isabel Maldonado, forty years old,
on the 8th day of July, 1626, testified before the Commissioner of
the City of Santiago de Chile that her brother had, to her horror and
indignation, confessed to being a Jew, imploring her not to betray
him and using all endeavors to convert her too. He was arrested in
Concepcion, Chili, April 29, 1627, and was transported to Lima in July
of the same year, where he was imprisoned in a cell of the convent
of San Domingo. He is described in the records of the Tribunal as a
bachelor, thirty-three years old, an American by birth, having been
born of new-Christian parents in the city of San Miguel, Province of
Tucuman, Peru. His father, the Licentiate Diego Nunez de Silva, and his
brother, Diego de Silva, were both reconciled by the Inquisition at an
auto held in Lima March 13, 1605. He confessed that he was brought up
as a Catholic and that up to his eighteenth year he rigidly observed
the tenets of the Christian faith. According to a circumstantial
description of his case (Publications, XI, pp. 163 ff.), he remained in
prison for nearly twelve years, during which time he had many hearings
and disputed with many priests who undertook to convert him. He also
wrote much in defence of his views and at one time made a nearly
successful effort to escape. In the last years of his confinement he
fasted very much, thereby becoming so feeble that he could not turn
in his bed, “being nothing but skin and bones.” He was, with ten
others, burnt at the stake in Lima, on January 23, 1639, at a splendid
and gruesome Auto da Fé, for which the preparations were costly and
elaborate, involving fifty days of uninterrupted labor, holidays
included.
CHAPTER IV.
MARRANOS IN THE PORTUGUESE COLONIES.
Less persecution in Portugal itself and also in its colonies――
Marranos buy right to emigrate――They dare to profess Judaism in
Brazil, and the Inquisition is introduced in Goa――Alleged help
given to Holland in its struggle against Spain.
While the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal, which took place five
years after the great expulsion from Spain, was in many respects
more cruel and accompanied by greater atrocities, notable among which
were the forced conversions and the robbing of children from their
Jewish parents to be brought up as Christians, the conditions in the
Portuguese colonies, including Brazil, were somewhat more favorable for
the reception of Jewish refugees than in the Spanish possessions of the
New World. This happened because the conditions in Portugal itself were
much more favorable to the Jews prior to the era of expulsions, and the
sudden severity against the Jews in 1497, which was almost unexpected,
was due to the influence of the Spanish rulers. It was Queen Isabella
of Spain who prevailed on King Manuel of Portugal (reigned 1495–1521),
her future son-in-law, to exile the Jews of his dominion, vowing she
would never set foot on Portuguese soil until the country was clear of
them.
In the preceding centuries the Jews, though they were recognized and
treated as a separate nation in Portugal even more than in Spain, their
condition when judged by the standards of the dark ages was much more
favorable and well nigh secure. There are no records of systematic
persecutions in Portugal before the exile from Spain. The influence
of the Church grew much more slowly in the former country, and its
kings followed the old Spanish policy of protecting the Jews and Moors
against the encroachments of the clergy long after it was abandoned
by Spain. Marranos and other Jews who escaped from the Inquisition to
Portugal before the Spanish expulsion were――because the King did not
want or did not dare to harbor them――permitted to go to the Orient but
not to Africa, because in the latter place they could become dangerous
to him as allies of the Moors. So it came to pass that while in the
more extensive Spanish domains across the Atlantic we hear only of
individual crypto-Jewish settlers and more of their misfortunes and the
Autos da Fé of which they were the victims, than of their successes,
we learn of considerable settlements of Marranos in Brazil early in the
sixteenth century.
But even the better conditions in the Portuguese territories must not
be taken in the sense which such a term would imply to-day or even a
hundred years ago. The Portuguese policy was cruel and vaccillating,
only a little less so than that of its larger and more consistent
neighbor. King Manuel forbade the neo-Christians, in 1499, to leave
Portugal, the prohibition was removed in 1507 and again put into
effect in 1521. His successor John III. (reigned 1521–57) was even less
favorably disposed towards the secret Jews who remained in his Kingdom,
and in 1531 the Inquisition was introduced there by the authorization
of Pope Clement VII. The Marranos bought from John’s successor King
Sebastian (reigned 1557–78) the right of free departure for the sum
of 250,000 ducats. But there were other involuntary departures in the
periods when the emigration of those suspected converts was prohibited.
For a considerable time in the 16th century Portugal sent annually two
shiploads of Jews and criminals to Brazil, and also deported persons
who had been condemned by the Inquisition. The banishment of large
numbers to Brazil in 1548 is especially mentioned.
Jews or Marranos were soon settled in all the Portuguese colonies, and
they carried on an extensive trade with various countries. “As early
as 1548 (according to some, 1531) Portuguese Jews, it is asserted,
transplanted the sugar-cane from Madeira to Brazil.” Some of them
began to feel so secure that they dared to profess Judaism openly. The
result was the introduction of the Inquisition into Goa, the metropolis
of the Portuguese dominions in India, with jurisdiction over all the
possessions of that country in Asia and Africa, as far as the Cape of
Good Hope. It was therefore but natural for the hunted and despairing
new-Christians to sympathize with the Dutch who were at that time
(beginning at 1567) fighting for their freedom, and to help them later
against Portugal itself in the New World and in the Far East. The
charge that the Marranos of the Indies sent considerable supplies to
the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Hamburg and Aleppo, who in turn
forwarded them to Holland and Zeeland, is probably not true. But the
act would have certainly been justified in times when the Marranos
were legally burned alive when convicted of adhesion to the religion of
their forefathers. The charge also proves that the Jews and Marranos of
various and distant countries were then believed to be in communication,
and to render assistance to one another or to their friends when
the occasion required it. We may recognize in such charges the false
accusations which were circulated about Jews from times immemorial
to our present day; but it nevertheless tends to prove that the Jews
retained some recognizable importance as international traders even in
times when their fortunes were at the lowest ebb.
Except for the brief period in the 17th century (which is dealt with
more extensively in a subsequent chapter), in which Brazil came under
the domination of the Dutch, it remained almost entirely free of Jews
until the present time. The time was approaching when liberal and
enterprising nations, pursuing a more enlightened and more profitable
policy, were beginning to grant the Jewish refugee not only shelter
and security, but also the religious liberty and broad human tolerance
which were almost unknown in the Catholic countries in the Middle Ages.
The dawn of a new era began for the Jews in Europe with the ascendency,
first of Holland and then of England, and the Children of Israel were
soon to share openly in the invaluable benefits which the discovery of
the New World brought to mankind in general.
PART II.
THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD.
CHAPTER V.
THE SHORT-LIVED DOMINION OF THE DUTCH OVER BRAZIL.
The friendship between the Dutch and the Jews――Restrictions and
privileges in Holland――Dutch-Jewish distributors of Indian
spices――Preparations to introduce the Inquisition in Brazil――
Jews help the Dutch to conquer it――Southey’s description of
Recife――Vieyra’s description.
The United Provinces of Netherland, or, as it is commonly called,
Holland, became a safe place for Jews as soon as the Union of Utrecht
(1579) made its independence reasonably secure. When the liberator
of these provinces, William of Orange (“The Silent,” 1533–84), was
installed as Stadtholder in 1581 he declared that “he should not suffer
any man to be called to account, molested or injured for his faith or
conscience.” This implied, and actually resulted in, better treatment
of the Jews, which led to their enjoying a larger degree of prosperity
and security in Holland in the following century than anywhere else.
The friendship between the Jews and the Dutch which commenced at that
period has never, unto this day, been marred by systematic persecution
or any retrogressive step. It proved mutually beneficial in various
parts of the world, and has cost Spain and Portugal much more than is
ordinarily known even to students of History.[4]
But while the treatment was immeasurably better, the vicious principle
of separation remained. The Jews in Holland were as much a nation apart,
in theory at least, as in Spain and Portugal before the expulsion. They
did not enjoy the full rights of citizenship (until they received it,
somewhat against their will, during the French invasion at the end of
the eighteenth century) and were not even free from other restrictions.
They were not permitted to serve in the train bands or militia of the
cities, but paid a compensation for their exemption therefrom. The
prohibition of intermarriage with Christians could hardly be considered
a hardship for Jews of the seventeenth century; but the fact that they
were not allowed any mechanical pursuit or to engage in retail trade
has a much deeper significance. It explains, at least partly, why the
Dutch succeeded where the Portuguese failed, notably in that Indian
trade, whose interruption by the Turkish conquest of Constantinople
was the cause of searching new water routes to the East and of the
discovery of the New World.
Having exiled their best international traders and kept those
remaining as Marranos in constant terror, the Portuguese could not
derive the full benefit from that lucrative trade in spices which was
to be the reward of their great discoveries. When the sixty years’
captivity――as the domination of Spain over Portugal, from 1580 to
1640, is called――brought, among other disasters, the capture of the
Portuguese Indian possessions by the Dutch, the superiority of the
latter’s methods were soon apparent. They succeeded with more ease
“since, with true commercial spirit, they not only imported merchandise
from the East to Holland, but also distributed it through Dutch
merchants to every country in Europe; whereas the Portuguese in the
days of their commercial monopoly were satisfied with bringing over
the commodities to Lisbon and letting foreign nations come to fetch
them.” It is not difficult to surmise who were those Dutch merchants
who distributed the spices to every country in Europe, when we think
of that class of wealthy Marrano immigrants in Holland who were not
permitted to follow mechanical pursuits or to engage in retail trade.
Holland’s tendency was clearly apparent. The Jews, mostly Portuguese,
were permitted to use their wealth, their abilities and their foreign
connections to carry on and extend that trade which languished in the
hands of those who banished them. The Jews were exceedingly grateful
for the opportunity which Holland afforded them to be useful to
themselves and to her, and the very effective results of the friendship
between the Jews and the Dutch were soon apparent in the ensuing
struggle between the latter and the Portuguese over the possession of
Brazil.
The Dutch commenced the realization of their ambitious scheme for the
conquest of Brazil in the second decade of the seventeenth century,
at a time when the large number of Marranos who lived there were
terrorized by rumors of the introduction of the inquisition. These
rumors became current as early as 1610, when it was reported that the
physicians of Bahia, who were mainly new-Christians, prescribed pork
to their patients in order to lessen the suspicion that they were still
adhering to Judaism. In connection with some of the earliest Brazilian
intrigues in favor of the Dutch, mention is made of one Francisco
Ribiero, a Portuguese captain, who is described as having many Jewish
relatives in Holland. About 1618 the Inquisition in Oporto, Portugal,
had arrested all merchants of Jewish extraction. Many of the victims
were engaged in Brazilian trade, and the Inquisitor-General applied
to the government to assist the Holy Office to recover such parts
of their effects as might be in the hands of their agents in Brazil.
Accordingly, Don Luis de Sousa was charged to send home a list of
all the new-Christians in Brazil “with the most precise information
that can be obtained of their property and place of abode.” It seems
highly probable that it was the Dutch war alone which prevented the
introduction of the dreaded Tribunal in Brazil.
The Dutch West India Company, which was formed in 1622 in furtherance
of the project of conquering Brazil, had Jews of Amsterdam among its
large stockholders, and several of them in its Board of Directors. One
of the arguments in favor of its organization was “that the Portuguese
themselves――some from their hatred of Castille, others because of their
intermarriage with new-Christians and their consequent fear of the
Inquisition――would either willingly join or feebly oppose an invasion,
and all that was needful was to treat them well and give them liberty
of conscience.”
When the Dutch fleet was sent to Bahia all the necessary information
was obtained from Jews. The city was taken in 1624 and Willeken,
the Dutch commander, at once issued a proclamation offering liberty,
free possession of their property and free enjoyment of religion to
all who would submit. This brought over about two hundred Jews, who
exerted themselves to induce others to follow their example. Bahia
was re-captured by the Portuguese in 1625, and though the treaty for
its deliverance provided for the safety of the other inhabitants, the
new-Christians were abandoned and five of them were put to death. Many
others, however, seemed to have remained there for several years.
Another foothold was gained by the Dutch when the city of Recife or
Pernambuco, which had a large Crypto-Jewish population, was captured
in 1631. Most of the Jews and new-Christians from Bahia and other
Brazilian towns soon removed to that city. The conquerors appealed to
Holland for colonists and craftsmen of all kinds, and many Portuguese
Jews came over in response to that call. Robert Southey, the historian
of Brazil, asserts that the Jews there made excellent subjects of
Holland. “Some of the Portuguese Brazilians gladly threw off the
mask which they had so long been compelled to wear, and joined their
brethren in the Synagogue. The open joy with which they celebrated
their ceremonies attracted too much notice. It excited the horror of
the Catholics; and even the Dutch themselves, less liberal than their
own laws, pretended that the toleration of Holland did not extend to
Brazil.” The result was an edict by which the Jews were ordered to
perform their rites more privately.
When in 1645 Vieyra was inciting the Portuguese to re-conquer Brazil,
he pointed particularly to Recife, calling attention to the fact that
“that city is chiefly inhabited by Jews, most of whom were originally
fugitives from Portugal. They have their open Synagogues there, to the
scandal of Christianity. For the honor of the faith, therefore, the
Portuguese ought to risk their lives and property in putting down such
an abomination.” The Portuguese, who had shortly before thrown off
the Spanish yoke and regained their independence at home, responded
to that call and redoubled their effort to reconquer their gigantic
South American colony. But although the history of that first really
Jewish settlement in the New World was brief, extending over less than
two decades, it was so brilliant in itself and had such far-reaching
consequences in the settlement of Jews in other parts of America that
another chapter must be devoted to its description.
CHAPTER VI.
RECIFE: THE FIRST JEWISH COMMUNITY IN THE NEW WORLD.
The “Kahal Kodesh” of Recife or Pernambuco in Brazil――Manasseh
ben Israel’s expectation to make it his home――Large immigration
from Amsterdam――Isaac Aboab da Fonseca and his colleagues――First
rabbis and Jewish authors of the New World――The siege and the
surrender――The return, and the nucleus of other communities in
various parts of America.
The rebuke to the joyful demonstrations of the Jews in Recife did not
prevent the establishment there of the first real Jewish community in
the New World. The Dutch Stadtholder of Brazil, John Maurice, of Nassau,
was a just and honorable official who encouraged the development of the
community and its steady increase by immigration. The Jews of Recife,
who were soon numbered by thousands, called themselves “Kahal Kodesh”
(The Holy Congregation) and had a governing body consisting of David
Senior Coronel, Abraham de Mercado, Jacob Mucate and Isaac Casthunho.
One of the earliest settlers there was Ephraim Sueiro, a step-brother
(or brother-in-law) of the famous Rabbi of Amsterdam, Manasseh Ben
Israel (1604–57). Don Francisco Fernandez de Mora, who had a grandchild
in Amsterdam, held important offices; while another member of the
community, Gaspar Diaz Ferrena, was considered one of the wealthiest
men in the country. Dr. Kayserling, in his paper on “The Earliest
Rabbis and Jewish writers in America” (“Publications” III, p. 13 ff.)
quotes from the correspondence between the old Vossius and Hugo
Grotius, in which they speak of the intention of their mutual friend,
the above-named Rabbi Manasseh, to emigrate to Brazil in order to
improve his material condition, which was unsatisfactory in Amsterdam,
notwithstanding the high communal position which he held there. He
dedicated the second part of his “Conciliador” to the prominent men of
the congregation of Recife, probably in anticipation of the expected
journey, which, however, was never made.
But though the man who was later to induce Oliver Cromwell to admit
Jews into England did not come, other reputable Hebrew scholars soon
arrived to lend lustre to the new congregation. In 1642 about six
hundred Spanish-Portuguese Jews from Amsterdam embarked for Brazil,
accompanied by two men of learning, Isaac Aboab da Fonseca (1605–93)
and Moses Raphael de Aguilar (d. 1679). Aboab became the Chacham or
Rabbi――the first in America. Aguilar, who was also a grammarian, became
the reader or cantor. A congregation was also organized at Tamarica,
which had its own Chacham, Jacob Lagarto, the first Talmudical author
in the Western Hemisphere. A certain Jacob de Aguilar is also mentioned
as a Brazilian rabbi of that time. Considerable numbers of Jews also
resided at other places in Brazil, particularly at Itamarica, Rio de
Janeiro and ♦Parahiba. But Recife was the great center, and its fame
soon spread even into the Old World. Nieuhoff, the historian, writes
that the Jews there had built stately homes, that they had a vast
traffic and purchased sugar mills. Several years later they raised
large sums to assist the Dutch in defending the coast.
The last and most important immigrants were barely settled when
the sanguinary struggle between the Portuguese and the Dutch for
the possession of the colony began in 1645. A conspiracy into which
native Portuguese entered for the purpose of assassinating the Dutch
authorities at a banquet in the capital was discovered and exposed by a
Jew, and a possible sudden termination of Dutch rule was averted. Open
war broke out in 1646 and Recife had to endure a long and costly siege.
Jews vied with Dutch in suffering and in bravery, and there is a record
of the fact that Marranos in Portugal used their influence to call the
attention of the government of the Netherlands to the gravity of the
situation in South America. But the resources of the West India Company
were exhausted by the possession of Brazil, and as the home government
would not or could not give it proper support, the heroism and the
self-sacrifice of both Dutch and Jews served only to prolong the
struggle. It probably also served to cement the friendship between the
defenders, who were later to dwell together for longer periods in other
parts of America.
Aboab commemorated the thrilling experience of this war in the
introductory chapter of his Hebrew version of Abraham Cohen Herrera’s
_Porta Coeli_ (Sha’ar ha-Shomayim). He also wrote a poetical account
of the siege in a work entitled “_Zeker Rab_: Prayers, Confessions and
Supplications which were composed for the purpose of appealing to God
in the trouble and the distress of the congregation when the troops
of Portugal overwhelmed them during their sojourn in Brazil in 5406
(1646).” The Rabbi ordered fasts and prayers, while wealthy members
of the community, like Abraham Coen, contributed material support.
“Many of the Jewish immigrants were killed by the enemy, many died of
starvation; the remainder were exposed to death from various causes.
Those who were accustomed to delicacies were glad to be able to satisfy
their hunger with dry bread; soon they could not obtain even this.
They were in want of everything, and were preserved alive as if by a
miracle.”
Among the instances of individual heroism which deserve to be recorded
is that of one of the Pintos, who is said to have manned the fort Dos
Affrogades single-handed, until, overwhelmed by superior force, he was
compelled to surrender.
On the 23d of January, 1654, Recife, together with the neighboring
cities of Mauritsstad, Parahiba, Itamarica, Seara and other Hollandish
possessions, was ceded to the Portuguese conquerors, with the condition
that a general amnesty should be granted. The Jews, as loyal supporters
of the Dutch, were promised every consideration; nevertheless the
new Portuguese Governor ordered them to quit Brazil at once. Sixteen
vessels were placed at their disposal to carry them and their property
wherever they chose to go, and they were also furnished with passports
and safeguards.
Aboab, Aguilar, the Nassys, Perreires, the Mezas, Abraham de Castro
and Joshua Zarfati, both surnamed _el Brasil_, and many others returned
to Amsterdam. Jacob de Velosino, (b. in Pernambuco, 1639, d. in Holland,
1712), the first Hebrew author born on American soil, settled at The
Hague. Others went to Surinam, Cayenne and Curaçao, and it is generally
assumed that the first Jewish settlers who in that year arrived
in New Amsterdam (the future New York) came directly――or at least
indirectly――from Pernambuco. The community of Recife formed thus,
by its dissolution, the nucleus of several of the oldest and most
important Jewish communities in the New World.
CHAPTER VII.
THE JEWS IN SURINAM OR DUTCH GUIANA.
Jews in Brazil after the expulsion of the Dutch――The community
of ♦Paramaribo, Surinam, was founded when Recife was still
flourishing――First contact with the English, whom the Jews
preferred――David ♦Nassi and the colony of Cayenne――Privileges
granted by Lord Willoughby――“de Jooden Savane”――Trouble with
slaves and bush negroes――Plantations with Hebrew names――German
Jews――Legal status and banishments――Jewish theaters――Literature
and history.
The history of the Jews in Brazil practically ends with the termination
of the Dutch rule, and there is a gap which extends until the new
settlements at the beginning of the twentieth century. There was
the usual aftermath of Marranos and persecutions which was almost
a repetition of the happenings under Portuguese dominion prior to
the short, liberal era under Holland’s sway. Some new-Christians
continued to reside in Brazil after the capitulation of 1654. Their
number was largely increased towards the end of the seventeenth century,
when Portugal again banished to Brazil the Marranos who had become
reconciled. These transportations continued from 1682 to 1707; and the
Jews again became to be known as a distinct class. They were closely
watched, however, and many were sent back to Lisbon from time to time,
to be tried by the Inquisition. Many Jews from Rio were burned at an
Auto da Fé at Lisbon in 1723. Several of these martyrs were men of
great repute, the most prominent being the famous Portuguese poet and
dramatist, Antonio José da Silva, a native of Rio de Janeiro, who was
burned as a Jew at Lisbon in 1739. In 1734 Jews appear to have been
influential in controlling the price of diamonds in Brazil.
The transportations to Lisbon of those accused of Judaizing had become
so common at the middle of the eighteenth century, that “a wide ruin
was produced and many sugar mills at the Rio stopped in consequence.”
The influential Marquis de Pombal, with all his power, did not venture
to proclaim toleration for the Jews; but he succeeded in having laws
enacted making it penal for any person to reproach another for his
Jewish origin, and removing all disabilities of Jewish blood, even
from the descendants of those who had suffered under the Inquisition.
He prohibited public Autos da Fé, and required all lists of families
of Jewish extraction to be delivered up. These statutes deprived the
Inquisition of its most important means of accusation; and as a result
the Marranos were ultimately absorbed in the Catholic population of
Brazil.
The Jewish community which was founded in Surinam or Dutch Guiana,
near Brazil, in the days when the community of Recife was still in
a flourishing condition, and which soon rose to prominence after the
dispersion of the latter, has enjoyed an almost uninterrupted existence
until the present day. According to the latest researches, the oldest
indication in the archives of the Dutch-Portuguese Jews shows that the
Jews had already settled in Surinam in the year 1639.[5] As far as can
be traced, the first Jewish marriage was celebrated there between Haham
Isaac Mehatob and Judith Mehatob in 1643. The text of the “Ketubah,”
which has been preserved, proves that Surinam, or rather the city of
Paramaribo, had already in that year a sufficient number of Jews to
require the services of a Haham or Rabbi.
Though the Dutch had claims on it, Guiana was at that time practically
British territory, and it was there that the Jew came first in contact
with the Englishman in the New World, many years before they began to
dwell together in North America. And while it was recognized that of
all European nations the Dutch were then the most friendly to the Jews,
many of the latter who had experience with both nationalities in that
part of the world soon learned to prefer the English. Lord Willoughby,
who arrived for the second time in Surinam in 1652, brought with him
several Jewish families, and the community was thus increasing even
before the influx of refugees from Brazil two years later.
On September 12, 1659, the Jews were permitted, under the patronage
of David Nassi, to found a colony on the island of Cayenne (French
Guiana). According to the tenor of the eighteen articles contained in
the letters patent of that date, all the land over which they exercised
the rights of possession within four years from that date, would
become their property; and they would be allowed to administer justice
according to the Jewish usages and customs. The colony was further
increased by the arrival, in 1660, of one hundred and fifty-two Jews
from Leghorn, Italy. But the four years’ limit was barely passed when
the French took Cayenne in 1664, and all the Jews left the island for
Surinam under the leadership of the above-mentioned David Nassi. The
French of the time of “the Grand Monarch” Louis XIV would not suffer
Jews to be settled in their colonies; a century and a quarter had
to pass before France, shaken to its very foundations by the great
revolution which began in 1789, was the first of modern European
nations to grant its Jews the absolute equality which is implied in
full citizenship.
Even while the Portuguese Jews were still in Cayenne, they were given
by Lord Willoughby, in 1662, the same privileges in Surinam as the
English colonists. A year after their return, on August 17, 1665, was
issued the famous grant of privileges by the Governor, Council and
Assembly of Surinam, of which the preamble reads as follows:
“Whereas, it is good and sound policy to encourage as much as possible
whatever may tend to the increase of a new colony, and to invite
persons of whatsoever country and religion to come and reside here and
to traffic with us; and whereas, we found that the Hebrew nation, now
already resident here, have, with their persons and property, proved
themselves useful and beneficial to this colony; and being desirous
further to encourage them to continue their residence and trade here,
we have with the authority of the Governor, his Council and Assembly
passed the following act:”
The provisions of the act (the full text of which is reproduced in
“Publications”, vol. III, pp. 145–46; vol. IX, pp. 144–45, and vol. XVI,
pp. 179–80) is extremely favorable to the Jews. The British Government
of Surinam therein ratified all former privileges of the Jews,
guaranteed them full enjoyment and free exercise of their religious
rites and usages, and made void any summons served upon them on their
Sabbaths and holidays. They were not to be called for any public duties
on those days, except in urgent cases. Civil suits of less value than
ten thousand pounds of sugar were to be decided by their Elders, and
the magistrates were obliged to enforce their judgments. They were also
permitted to bequeath their property according to their own laws of
inheritance. They were given ten acres of land for the erection of a
Synagogue and such buildings as the congregation might need; and in
order to induce Jews to settle there, it was decided that all who came
for that purpose should be considered as British-born subjects, in
return for obeying all the decrees of the King of England which did not
infringe on their privileges.
For Portuguese Jews of the seventeenth century, i. e., for extremely
conservative Jews whose relatives were at that very time tortured and
burned at the stake for adherence to their religion, these privileges
were probably much more acceptable than an outright admission to
full citizenship could have been. There was no desire or striving
for assimilation on either side in those times. No especially
organized movement was necessary to emphasize the fact, which was
then self-evident, of the existence of a separate Hebrew nation. Nobody
thought otherwise before the philosophers of the eighteenth century
instilled in the minds of the civilized nations the idea of the modern
assimilationist. The frank selfishness of the preamble was, therefore,
a better guarantee of good faith and more convincing than phrases
about humanity and inherent rights could possibly be in those illiberal
times. The English were thus less sentimental and more business-like in
their dealings with the Jews than the Dutch, and were probably on that
account more trusted. When Surinam became a Dutch province, July 13,
1667, the Jews were allowed all rights of citizenship. Still a number
of them left with the English and went to Jamaica. Another declaration
by the home government of Holland, made two years later, to the Jews
of Surinam, that they would be allowed free exercise of their religion,
tends to prove that there must have been cases, or at least fears,
of restraint in that respect. Even if the “Documents relating to the
attempted departure of the Jews from Surinam in 1675” (edited by Dr. J.
H. Hollander, in “Publications” VI, pp. 9–29) in which the anxiety of
many Jews to leave Surinam for British territory is described, should
be considered as somewhat exaggerated, it could not have been entirely
an invention. The Jews’ preference for the British rule was therewith
clearly established, and so was their acknowledged usefulness in the
newly founded colonies.
The Jews of Surinam were then chiefly engaged in agriculture, the
wealthy among them being large planters and slave holders. The chief
men of the congregation were David Nassi, Isaac Perreira, Isaac Aries,
Henriques de Caseras, Raphael Aboab, Samuel Nassi, Isaac R. de Pardo,
Aaron de Silva, Alaus de Fonseca, Isaac Mera, Daniel Mesia, Jacob Nunez,
Israel ♦Calabi Cid, Isaac da Costa, Isaac Drago, Bento da Costa. The
first Synagogue was built in 1672, on an elevated spot in Thorarica
belonging to the Jews, da Costa and Solis. There are still some
tombstones with illegible Hebrew inscriptions. We hear about that time
of Rabbi Isaac Neto who was called from England as minister of the
congregation of Paramaribo (1674 or 1680), and later we find recorded
the name of another rabbi, David Pardo, who also came from London and
died in 1713 (or 1717). The last named wrote, while still in Europe,
“Sefer Shulhan Tahor” (Amsterdam, 1686), extracts from the “Shulhan
Aruk,” and is considered the most distinguished rabbi of Surinam.
In 1682 the above-named Samuel Nassi, who has been described as
capitein and as the richest planter in Surinam, gave to the Jews an
island on the river Surinam, about seventy miles from the sea, where
most of them settled and which was henceforth known as “de Jooden
Savane” (Savannah of the Jews, the name originally meaning: a treeless
region) and was the principal seat of the Jewish community of Surinam.
It was there that the Congregation Berakah-we-Shalom (Blessing and
Peace) built its splendid Synagogue in 1685. One hundred years later
the centennial of the dedication of that Synagogue was appropriately
celebrated on Wednesday, Heshwan 8, 5546 (October 12, 1785), of which
a record was printed in Amsterdam the following year, partly in Hebrew
and partly in Dutch. (See Roest, _Catalog ... der Rosenthalschen
Bibliothek_ I, p. 738.)
When a French squadron attacked Surinam in 1689, the Jews under
the leadership of Samuel Nassi did good service in beating them
off. Similar valuable service was rendered in 1712, this time under
Capitein Isaac Pinto, against another French attack under Cassard.
The unfriendliness of the French was demonstrated again in that year,
when they took the Jewish Savannah and desecrated the Synagogue by
slaughtering a pig on the “Teibah” or Ammud. The Jews, on the other
hand, did not always get the protection to which they were entitled.
When the slaves on the plantation of M. Machado revolted and killed
their master in 1690, Governor Van Scherpenhuitzen refused to assist
the Jews. At a later period (in 1718), when there was continual trouble
with bush negroes, who destroyed the plantation of David Nassi, they
were chastised by Jews under the leadership of Capitein Jacob d’Avilar.
David Nassi (1672–1743) himself served under him with distinction, and
his praises were sung by the Judeo-Spanish poetess Benvenide Belmonte.
We also find traces of legal restrictions in such instances as the
decree of 1703, by which all Jewish marriages contracted in Surinam
up to that year are confirmed, but henceforth they must be made in
conformity with the Dutch marriage law of 1580. Sunday-closing laws
were also brought into force against them, but they were later repealed.
A list of the names of about sixty-five plantations belonging to
Jews at that period and the names of the owners has been preserved.
(“Publications,” IX, p. 129 ff.) Some of the plantations bear Hebrew
names like Carmel, Hebron, Succoth and Beer-Sheba. The number of Jews
in Surinam was then (about 1694) 570, consisting of ninety-two Dutch
or Portuguese families, about fifty unmarried persons and ten or twelve
German families. They possessed about nine thousand slaves.
Difficulties between the earlier settlers and the Germans, who arrived
later, soon arose, and in 1734 the latter requested permission to form
a separate community, which was granted. They were, however, prohibited
to own any possession on the Jewish Savannah, nor were they allowed
to have their own jurisdiction. The act of the separation of the
“Hoogduytsche” (High-German) Jews, who founded the congregation Neweh
Shalom, is dated January 5, 1735. It is signed by A. Henry de Scheusses
(Governor) and Samuel Uz. Davilar, Ishac Carrilho, Abraham Pinto
Junior, Jehoshuah C. Nassi, for the Portuguese; Solomon Joseph Levie,
I. Meyer Wolff, Gerrit Jacobs, Jakob Arons Polak for the German Jews.
The Portuguese thereupon built a new Synagogue, “Zedek we-Shalom,”
which was dedicated in 1737. But the Germans also stuck to the
Portuguese Minhag or prayer-book, and we have it on the authority of
Rabbi Roos of Paramaribo (1905) that there never existed a Synagogue
with the Minhag Ashkenaz in Surinam.
Bloody conflicts with negroes continued for about forty years longer,
and many valiant deeds of Jewish military leaders and their followers
embellish the records of that period. David Nassi was killed in battle
at the age of 71 (in 1743), after being successful in more than thirty
skirmishes, and was succeeded as capitein by Isaac Carvalho. In 1749
another Jewish capitein, Naär, won a victory against the Auka negroes;
while in 1750 young Isaac Nassi and three hundred of his men were
killed by an overwhelming force of bush negroes. At last, in 1774,
forts were erected and a military line drawn from the Savannah of the
Jews along the river Commoimber to the sea; and we hear no more of
negro wars.
The legal status of the Jews was undergoing some changes, as is almost
unavoidable so long as there is not the same law for Jew and Gentile
alike. Some measures could be considered as improvements, like the
law of 1749, which granted the Jews of Surinam their own judiciary in
matters affecting less than 600 gulden. On the other hand we hear of
an unsuccessful attempt in 1768 to institute a Ghetto in Paramaribo,
and in 1775 Jews were forbidden to visit a certain amateur theatre
of that town. At that time the two communities also began to make
use of the right which was bestowed on them by the English Charter of
Privilege (and later confirmed by the Dutch authorities), of “banishing
troublesome people and persons of bad demeanour.” The “Deputies of
the Jewish Nation” had only to declare to the Governor the reasons why
they wished to have these persons banished, and they were expelled. The
above named Rabbi J. S. Roos has noted five cases of such banishments:
Solomon Montel was banished in 1761 on the request of the Portuguese
deputies, because he refused to restitute rents or usury “which is
contrary to the Mosaic law.” In 1772 ♦Noah Isaaks was banished on
the request of the German deputies, and in the following year Abraham
Isaac Moses Michael Fernandes Henriques, alias Escarabajos, was, on the
request of the Portuguese deputies, made to quit the place. Elias Levin
was banished in 1781 by the Germans and Abraham de Mesquita, the last
of those exiled, belonged to the Portuguese part of the community.
The German Jews kept on increasing in numbers, and in 1780 their
Synagogue in Paramaribo was enlarged and two burial grounds were
procured. In 1784 the Jewish theatre of that city, probably the first
in modern history, was enlarged and embellished. The Savannah, of
which only ruins remain now, was on its decline, and had only about
forty houses in 1792; while the community in Paramaribo was growing
and two Jewish play houses are mentioned in that year. The Portuguese
were still the majority, numbering 834, but the Germans were gaining
fast, and from the ten families at the end of the seventeenth century
they rose now to the number of 477. There were also about 100 Jewish
mulattoes in Paramaribo in that time.
The Jews of Surinam in that period also commenced to display
considerable literary activity. J. C. Nassi and others wrote the _Essai
historique sur la Colonie de Surinam avec l’histoire de la nation juive
y etablie_ (Paramaribo, 1788), which is one of the principal sources of
the history of the Jews of Surinam. A highly interesting correspondence
between representative Jews of that community and Christian Wilhelm v.
Dohm (1751–1820) relating to the latter’s work favoring the Jews, is
printed at the end of that Essay. (Reproduced in “Publications,” XIII,
pp. 133–35). Various other works of historical, religious and poetical
nature were written and published there in the following half century.
The history of the community of Paramaribo in the nineteenth century
is uneventful. In 1836, when the German congregation, which now
numbered 719 souls, already exceeded the Portuguese portion, which
had declined to 684, a new “Hoogduitsche of Nederlandsche” Synagogue
was erected. In 1838 Rabbi B. C. Carrilon became the spiritual head of
the Dutch-Portuguese congregation. Twenty years later M. J. Lewenstein
(1829–64) was inaugurated as the Chief Rabbi of the congregation of
Paramaribo and held the position for six years, until his death. In
1900 the city contained about 1,500 Jews, who occupied an honorable
position and controlled the principal property of the colony. Even
modern Antisemitism has not failed to invade this distant Jewish
settlement, the oldest in the New World.
At present (1911) there are about 4,000 Jews in Surinam, mostly in
Paramaribo, which has now about 50,000 inhabitants. The two communities,
both strongly orthodox, are still in existence, and each has its
rabbi. The most prominent Jewish citizen in the colony is Mr. David
♦Da Costa, a former President of the Provincial Parliament, who was
lately appointed by the Dutch Government to be the presiding judge
of the Supreme Court of the colony. Mr. da Costa was for many years
Parnass or President of the Portuguese congregation. Another member of
the Jewish community, M. Benjamin, is at the head of the educational
system of the province. Several families trace their descent from the
original settlers who came there in 1639, and all of them, now fully
enfranchised for several generations, have no other mother-tongue than
the Dutch. Their staunch orthodoxy has saved them from being absorbed
in the non-Jewish population, as happened with most of the early
settlers in the British colonies in North America.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DUTCH AND ENGLISH WEST INDIES.
The community of Curaçao――Encouragement to settle is followed by
restrictions――Plans of Jewish colonization――Trade communication
with New Amsterdam――Stuyvesant’s slur――The first congregation――
Departures to North America and to Venezuela――Barbadoes――
Taxation and legal status――Decay after the hurricane of
1831――Jamaica under Spain and under England――Hebrew taught in
the Parish of St. Andrews in 1693――Harsh measures and excessive
taxation――Naturalizations.
Another early settlement on Dutch territory which is still in a
flourishing condition is on the island of Curaçao, Dutch West Indies.
It is probable that Jews from Holland were among the first settlers in
the island under the Dutch Government, which captured it from Spain in
1634; but there is no definite record until 1650, when twelve Jewish
families――De Meza, Aboab, Perreire, De Leon, La Parra, Touro, Cardoze,
Jesurum, Marchena, Chaviz, Oliveira and Henriques Coutinho――were
granted permission by Prince Maurice of Orange to settle there. Mathias
Bock, Governor of the island, was directed to grant them land and
supply them with slaves, horses, cattle and agricultural implements,
in order to further the cultivation and develop the natural resources
of the island. The land assigned to them was situated at the northern
outskirts of the present district of ♦Willemsted, which is still
known as the “Jodenwyk” (Jewish quarter). But despite the favorable
conditions under which they settled there, severe restrictions were
put on their movements, and they were even prohibited in 1653 from
purchasing additional negro slaves which they needed for their farms.
By a special grant of privilege, dated February 22, 1652, Joseph Nunez
de Fonseca (known also as David Nassi), who undertook to emigrate and
take with him a large number of people under a Jewish patron named Jan
de Illan, two leagues of land along the coast were to be given him for
every fifty families, and four leagues for every hundred families which
he should bring over. The colonists were exempted from taxes for ten
years, and could select the land on which they desired to settle. They
were also accorded religious liberty, though they were restrained from
compelling Christians to work for them on Sunday, “nor were any others
to labor on that day.” The project was, however, not carried out on any
extensive scale.
It was only after the re-conquest of Brazil by the Portuguese in
1654, and the consequent expulsion and dispersion of the Jews from the
territory which was now again forbidden to them, that their effective
settlement in Curaçao began. The Brazilian Jews who came there in
that period brought with them considerable wealth, and they laid the
foundation of that prominence in the commerce of the island which they
have since retained.
Shortly afterwards (1657) regular communications for the purposes
of trade were established between New Amsterdam and Curaçao, and it
was principally in the hands of Jews. An original bill of lading (in
Spanish) and an invoice of goods shipped from Curaçao to New Netherland
in 1658 and addressed to Joshua Mordecai En-Riquez, includes Venetian
pearls and pendants, thimbles, scissors, knives, bells, etc. An illicit
trade was also carried on with Isaac de Fonseca of Barbadoes, which
tended to undermine the trade monopoly enjoyed by the Dutch West Indies
Company. But Fonseca’s threat to abandon Curaçao and turn his trade
towards Jamaica, kept the authorities from interfering.
Peter Stuyvesant (1592–1672), the Governor of New Netherlands,
complained to the directors of the West India Company in the following
year, that the Jews in Curaçao were allowed to hold negro slaves
and were granted other privileges not enjoyed by the colonies of New
Netherlands; and he demanded for his own people, if not more, at least
the same privileges as were enjoyed by “the usurious and covetous Jews.”
The Congregation Mickweh Israel was founded in 1656 under the direction
of the Spanish and Portuguese community of Amsterdam, and regular daily
services were held in a small wooden building which was rented for the
purpose. The Rev. Abraham Haim Lopez de Fonseca, who, according to one
of the oldest tombstones on the Jewish burial ground in Curaçao, died
Ab. 22, 5432 (1672), was the earliest hazzan or rabbi whose name has
come down to us. The first regularly appointed Hakam was Joshua Pardo,
who arrived from Amsterdam in 1674 and remained until 1683, when he
left for Jamaica. A new Synagogue was erected in 1692 and consecrated
on the eve of Passover of that year, the services being read by the
Hazzan David Raphael Lopez da Fonseca (d. 1707). The building, which
was enlarged in 1731, still stands.
In the last decade of the seventeenth century a considerable number
of Jews left the island for the continent of America, many of them,
including the Touro family, going to Newport. A number of Italian
settlers who originally came from the Jewish colony of Cayenne,
which was dispersed in 1664, went to Tucacas, Venezuela, where they
established a congregation called “Santa Irmandade.”
The prosperity of those who remained in Curaçao went on increasing in
the eighteenth century. A benevolent society was established in 1715;
five years later they responded liberally to an appeal for aid from
the Congregation Shearith Israel of New York, and in 1756 met with
an equal generosity a similar appeal from the Jews of Newport. By
1750 their numbers had increased to about two thousand. They were
prosperous merchants and traders, and held positions of prominence in
the commercial and political affairs of the island. By the end of the
century they owned a considerable part of the property in the district
of Willemsted; and as many as fifty-three vessels are said to have
left in one day for Holland, laden with goods which for the most part
belonged to Jewish merchants.
A new congregation, which called itself “Neweh Shalom” and occupied
a tract across the harbor from Willemsted, was organized about 1740,
and its Synagogue in the “Otrabanda” was consecrated on Ellul 12,
5505 (1745). It was established chiefly in order to save those who
lived there from crossing the water on the Sabbath to attend divine
services, and for a time it was regarded as merely a branch of the
older congregation and as under its direction. This led to a series of
disputes which culminated, in 1749, in an open breach. It was settled
by the intervention of Prince William Charles of Orange-Nassau, in
a decree dated April 30, 1750, in which the original jurisdiction of
the older congregation, subject to the regulations of the Portuguese
community of Amsterdam, was sustained. The arrangement lasted for the
following one hundred and twenty years, when the younger congregation
became independent (1870).
The increase in numbers and material well-being continued during
the nineteenth century, but the community was not without internal
dissensions. It was due to one of these controversies between the
Parnassim and the ministers that a society called the “Porvenir” was
founded in 1862. In the following year it developed into a Reform
Congregation under the name “Emanuel,” whose new Synagogue, in the
quarter “Scharlo,” was dedicated in 1866. About three years before
a moderate change in the direction of reform was introduced into the
liturgy of the oldest congregation.
The congregations of Curaçao now have more than one thousand members,
nearly four-fifths of it belonging to Mickweh Israel. The Jews are
among the leading citizens of the island, in business, as well as in
the professions; they occupy executive and judicial positions, and
are well represented among the officers of the militia. Almost all of
them, like in Holland itself, are true to their religion, and there
are probably less apostasies and intermarriages than in any other free
community in which the emancipation of the Jews has been fully carried
out in theory as well as in practice.
* * * * *
The Jewish settlements in the British West Indies also enjoyed long
periods of increase and prosperity; but they declined when the English
colonies of the North American continent, and later, the United States,
offered a wider field of activities and better opportunities under
conditions which were so similar to those prevailing in the older
places as to make the change of residence a matter of very little
inconvenience. The oldest settlement under the English flag in the West
Indies was probably on the island of Barbadoes, where, it is believed,
Jews came first in 1628. On April 27, 1655, Oliver Cromwell issued
passes to Abraham de Mercado, M. D., Hebrew, and his son, Raphael,
to go to Barbadoes to exercise his profession. In 1656 the Jews were
granted, upon petition, the enjoyment of the privileges of the laws and
statutes of the Commonwealth of England and of the Island relating to
foreigners and strangers.
In April, 1661, Benjamin de Caseres, Henry de Caseres and Jacob
Fraso petitioned the King of England to permit them to live and trade
in Barbadoes and Surinam. Their petition was supported by the King
of Denmark, which tends to prove that they must have been men of
considerable importance. In the report made by the Commissioners of
Foreign Plantations, to whom it was referred, it is stated that the
whole question of the advisability of allowing Jews to reside in and
trade with his majesty’s colonies “hath been long and often debated.”
The merchants of England were opposed to the admission of Jews, because
of their ability to control trade wherever they entered, and because
they would divert it from England to foreign countries. The planters,
on the contrary, favored their admission and accused the merchants of
aiming to appropriate the whole trade to themselves. The commissioners
refrained from deciding the general question, but advised that these
three highly recommended Jews, who had behaved themselves well and with
general satisfaction in Barbadoes, should be granted a special license
to reside there or in any other plantations.
The Jewish community was soon increased to a considerable extent,
partly by the arrival of former members of the dissolved colony of
Cayenne (1664). It is recorded in the minutes of the vestry of St.
Michael’s Parish (July 9, 1666) “that the Jews inhabiting this Parish
do pay the quantity of 35,000 pounds Muscovado sugar, to be levied by
themselves and paid to Senior Lewis Dias and Senior Jeronimo Roderigos,
who are hereby ordered to pay it to the present church wardens.” The
order is repeated in October, 1666, and again in 1667; and in that
year another order making the levy for the year 20,000 pounds was
issued. In 1669 the order in January was for 14,000 pounds, and in
March for 16,000. In 1670 it was again for 16,000, but the Jews sent
in a petition declaring the amount to be excessive. This had the effect
of reducing the amount of the tax to 7,000 pounds in 1671 and to “half
of what was levied last year” in 1672. For the following five years it
was mostly 7,000 pounds a year, “levied for their trade.” In 1680 it
is 8,500 pounds, apportioned among forty-five Jews, some being made to
contribute only twelve pounds, several others as high as 792 each, with
David Raphael de Mercado heading the list with 1,075 pounds. (See list
of names in “Publications,” XIX, pp. 174–75.)
Antonio Rodrigo Rigio, Abraham Levi Regio, Lewis Dias, Isaac Jerajo
Coutinho, Abraham Pereira, David Baruch Louzada and other Hebrews who
were made free denizens by His Majesty’s letters patent, petitioned in
1669 about the refusal to accept the testimony of Jews in the courts of
the colony. The governor, in forwarding the petition, says, that “they
had not been exposed to any other injuries in their trade or otherwise.”
But the privilege granted was only for cases “relating to trade and
dealing.” Special taxes continued to be imposed at various times until
1761, when all additional burdens were lifted, and afterward the Jews
were rated and paid taxes on the ♦same scale as other inhabitants. All
political disabilities were removed by act of the local government in
1802, and by act of Parliament in 1820.
The number of Jews in Barbadoes was never as large as that of Surinam.
In 1681 the total Jewish population of the island was 260. They went
on increasing slowly, the great majority living in Bridgetown (where
the first Synagogue was erected, probably prior to 1679) and a small
number in Speightstown. In 1792, at the beginning of the period of the
greatest prosperity of the community, the congregation of Bridgetown
had 147 members, and 17 pensioners were supported. The name of the
congregation was “Kehol Kodesh Nidhe Israel,” and its ministers were
all selected by the vestry of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in
London.
The decline of the Jewish community of Barbadoes dates from the great
hurricane in 1831 which devastated the island, and also destroyed the
Synagogue. Though a new edifice was erected and dedicated in 1833,
and even a religious school was established several years later, the
members kept on leaving the island for the United States, most of them
going to Philadelphia. In 1848 there were only 71 Jews left. In 1873,
those remaining petitioned for relief from taxation of property held by
the congregation. The census of 1882 showed 21 Jews, and the number was
still smaller at the end of the nineteenth century.
* * * * *
When England conquered the largest of its West Indian possessions, the
island of Jamaica, in 1655, a considerable number of Jews, known as
“Portugals,” were living there. They dared not profess Judaism openly,
or organize themselves into a congregation; but they were less in
danger on account of their faith than in any other Spanish colony. The
proprietary rights of the island was vested in the family of Columbus
until about 1576, when it passed to the female Braganza line, and
these exclusive rights exempted the island from the jurisdiction of
the Inquisition, and prevented it from being included in the bishopric
of Cuba. The British were careful to distinguish between the Portuguese
Jews and the Spaniards, with the result that the Jews at once began
to establish and develop the commercial prosperity of the colony.
Sir Thomas Lynch, governor of Jamaica, writing in March, 1672, to the
Council for Trade and Transportation, mentions, as points in favor of
the Jews that “they have great stocks, no people, and aversions to the
French and Spaniards.”
Several years before that time Jacob Joshua Bueno Enriques, a resident
of Jamaica for two years, petitioned the King for permission to work
a copper mine, and that he and his brothers, Josef and Moise, “may use
their own laws and hold Synagogues.” In 1668 Solomon Gabay Faro and
David ♦Gomez Henriques were recommended by the King to the governor
to remain and trade in Jamaica as long as they behaved well and fairly.
There were considerable increases by arrivals from Brazil, later from
the withdrawal of the British from Surinam, by direct immigration
from England and even from Germany. But there must have been also
considerable emigration of Jews, for at the end of the seventeenth
century the number of Jews in Jamaica is figured at eighty. While the
inclusion of Hebrew in the curriculum of the free school which was
established in the Parish of St. Andrews in 1693――the earliest known
instance of the teaching of Hebrew in an English settlement in the
New World――may be taken as a concession to the Jewish inhabitants,
there was no lack of harsh and galling measures. In 1703 the Jews
were prohibited, under penalty of five hundred pounds, from holding
Christian servants. In 1711 they were prohibited, along with mulattoes,
Indians and negroes, from being employed as clerks in any of the
judicial or other offices.
The struggle of the Jews of Jamaica against heavy taxation forms an
interesting chapter in their history at the beginning of the eighteenth
century. (See “Publications” II, p. 165 ff.) In 1700 a memorial was
presented to Sir William Beeston, Governor-in-Chief of the Island of
Jamaica, against the excessive special taxation of four assemblies,
and against “being forced to bear arms on our Sabbath and holy days ...
without any necessity or urgent occasion (which is quite contrary to
our religion, unless in case of necessity, when an enemy is in sight or
apprehension of being near us).” The reply by the governor and council
begins with the admission of the truth of the statement about taxation;
but a counter-claim is advanced that “their first introduction into
this island was on the condition that they should settle and plant,
which they do not, there being but one considerable and two or three
small settlements of the Jews in all the island. But their employment
is generally keeping of shops and merchandise, by the first of which
they have engrossed that employment, and by their parsimonious living
(which I do not charge as a fault in them) they have thereby means of
underselling the English; that they cannot, many in them, follow that
employment, nor can they in reason put their children to the Jews to be
trained up in that profession, by which the English nation think they
suffer much, both in their own advantages and what may be made to their
children hereafter.”
The governor then proceeds to explain that the Jews themselves
requested that “they might on any occasion be taxed by the lump,” and
that because of their controlling of trade, especially of the retail
trade, the Assembly have thought it but just that they should pay
something in proportion more than the English. He continues: “As for
their bearing of arms, it must be owned that when any public occasion
has happened or an enemy appeared they have been ready and behaved
themselves very well; but for their being called into arms on private
times and that have happened upon their Sabbath or festivals, they have
been generally excused by their officers, unless by their obstinacy or
ill-language they have provoked them to the contrary.”
Traces of retrogression are also discernible in a document which was
presented in 1721 to the Jamaica House of Representatives, entitled:
“A petition of Jacob Henriques, Moses Mendes Quixano and David Gabai
on behalf of themselves and the rest of the Jews now resident in this
island ... praying that the House will take into consideration the
great disparity there is between the numbers, trade and substance of
the Jews now resident in this island in this and former times, and
to mitigate the assessment of tax to be laid upon them.” But it seems
that there was an improvement and an increase of the community about
the middle of that century; for not less than 151 of the 189 Jews in
the British-American Colonies whose names have been handed down as
naturalized between 1740 (under the act of Parliament of that year) and
1755 resided in Jamaica.
Among the leading Jewish families which contributed most signally to
the development of Jamaica’s trade are: de Silva, Soarez, Cardozo,
Belisario, Belinfante, Nuñez, Fonseca, Gutterect, de Cordova, Bernal,
Gomez, Vaz and Bravo.
Kingston was from the time of its foundation (1693) the principal seat
of the Jewish community; an earlier Synagogue which is mentioned in
1684 and 1687 was probably situated in Port Royal. There were also
settlements in Spanish Town, Montego Bay, Falmouth and Lacovia.
Here also, like in most other Dutch and English colonies, the local
authorities were less liberal than the home governments, especially
in matters of taxation. The assistance of the crown was necessary
to abolish all special taxation, and also to check such attempts as
were made during the reign of William III. to expel the Jews from the
island. There is a record (see “Publications” XIX, p. 179–80) of a
Mr. Montefiore who made an application to be admitted as an attorney
in Jamaica in 1787, and produced a certificate of his admission in
the Court of King’s Bench, in London, in 1784; but the above-mentioned
anti-Jewish law of 1711 was cited to disqualify him from acting as
attorney in Jamaica. It is believed that the man who met with this
refusal was Joshua Montefiore (1762–1843), an uncle of Sir Moses
Montefiore (1784–1885).
The community was in a flourishing condition in 1831, when all civil
disabilities were finally removed, and the Jews immediately began to
take a leading part in the affairs of the colony. In 1838 Sir Francis
H. Goldsmid (1808–78) was able to compile a long list of Jews who were
chosen to civil and military offices in Jamaica since the act of 1831,
which was used by him as an argument in favor of removing the Jewish
disabilities at home.
Alexander Bravo was the first Jew to be chosen as a member of the
Jamaica Assembly, being elected for the district of Kingston in 1835.
He later became a member of the council and afterward receiver-general.
In 1849 eight of the forty-seven members of the colonial assembly
were Jews, and Dr. C. M. Morales was elected Speaker in that year.
Phinchas Abraham (d. 1887) was one of the last survivors of the body
of merchants who contributed to the prosperity of the West Indies (see
_Jew. Encyclopedia_ s. v.).
The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Kingston, situated on Princess
street until the time of its destruction by the great fire of 1882, was
consecrated in 1750. It was replaced by a new edifice on East street
in 1884. The English and German Synagogue was consecrated in 1789,
a third (German) was merged with the first in 1850. The Synagogue of
the “Amalgamated Congregation of Israelites,” which was consecrated
in 1888, was destroyed by the earthquake of January, 1907. The United
Congregation now worships at the East street Synagogue, which was
enlarged for the purpose. The English-German Congregation consecrated
a new Synagogue in 1894. There is also a Hebrew Benevolent Society and
a Gemilut Hasodim Association which is more than a century old.
Among the rabbis of Jamaica were: Joshua Pardo who came there from
Curaçao in 1683; his contemporary, the Spanish poet, Daniel Israel
Lopez Laguna; Hakam de Cordoza (d. in Spanish Town, 1798); Rev. Abraham
Pereire Mendes (b. Kingston, 1825; d. New York, 1893); Rev. George
Jacobs; Rev. J. M. Corcos, and the present rabbi of the English-German
Synagogue on Orange street, Rev. M. H. Solomon. The two Synagogues in
Kingston are the only ones in the colony, which has about two thousand
Jews, or nearly ten per cent., of the white population of Jamaica.
CHAPTER IX.
NEW AMSTERDAM AND NEW YORK.
Poverty of the first Jewish immigrants to New Amsterdam――
Stuyvesant’s opposition overruled by the Dutch West India
Company――Privileges and restrictions――Contributions to build
the wall from which Wall street takes its name――The first
cemetery――Exemption from military duty――Little change at the
beginning of the English rule――The first synagogue after a
liberal decree by the Duke of York――Marranos brought back
in boats which carried grain to Portugal――Hebrew learning――
Question about the Jews as voters and as witnesses――Peter
Kalm’s description of the Jews of New York about 1745――Hyman
Levy, the employer of the original Astor.
The wealth which made the Spanish and Portuguese Jew welcome, or at
least insured him sufferance, in the other Dutch and English colonies
of the New World, was absent in the case of those who first settled
in what is now New York. In September, 1654, the year in which the
Dutch lost control of Brazil and the great Jewish community of Recife
was scattered, there arrived in the port of New Amsterdam (as New
York was called by its Dutch founders) the barque St. Catarina, of
which Jacques de la Motthe was master, from Cape St. Anthony (Cuba?),
carrying twenty-seven Jews, men, women and children. These passengers,
the first Jews to arrive in what is now the United States, were so poor
that their goods had to be sold by the master of the vessel by public
auction for the payment of their passage. The amount realized by the
sale being insufficient, he applied to the Court of Burgomaster and the
Schoepens that one or two of them, as principals, be held as security
for the payment of the balance in accordance with the contract made
with him by which each person signing it had bound himself for the
payment of the whole amount, and under which he had taken two of them,
David Israel and Moses Ambrosius, as principal debtors.
The court accordingly ordered that they should be placed under civil
arrest, in the custody of the provost marshal, until they should have
made satisfaction; that the captain should be answerable for their
support while in custody, as security for which a certain proportion
of the proceeds of the sale was directed to be left in the hands of
the secretary of the colony. But as no further proceedings appear upon
the records, the matter was doubtless arranged and was probably nothing
more than a dispute or misunderstanding between them and the captain
as to whether they were bound to make good the deficiency, which was
probably enhanced by the forced sale of their effects by auction.[6]
It is more likely that their embarrassment was only temporary and
was due to their being robbed shortly before or after they left their
last stopping place or residence, which was probably Jamaica. (See
Leon Hühner, _Whence came the First Jewish Settlers of New York?_
“Publications,” IX, p. 75 ff.) It is mentioned that some of them
were awaiting remittances, which must have come in time to enable the
refugees to hold their own until the question of permitting them to
remain in the colony was settled in their favor through correspondence
with Holland.
Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of the colony, a man of strong will
and strong prejudices, was hostile to the new arrivals, and he soon
wrote to the Directors of the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam
requesting that “none of the Jewish nation be permitted to infest
New Netherland.” He received a reply that such a course “would be
unreasonable and unfair, especially because of the considerable loss
sustained by the Jews in the taking of Brazil, and also because of
the large amount of capital which they have invested in the shares of
this company. After many consultations we have decided and resolved
upon a certain petition made by said Portuguese Jews, that they shall
have permission to sail to and trade in New Netherland and to live
and remain there, provided that the poor among them shall not become
a burden to the company or to the community, but be supported by their
own nation.” This is the end of the reply, dated, April 26, 1655,
which began with the ominous sentence: “We would have liked to agree
to your wishes and request, that the new territories should not be
further invaded by people of the Jewish race, for we forsee from such
immigration the same difficulties which you fear.” But the influence of
the Jews in Amsterdam overcame the predilections and the fears of the
company, and a special act was issued July 15, 1655, expressly giving
Jews in New Netherlands the privileges contained in the above letter to
the governor.
Before the favorable decision could arrive from Holland, the position
of the Jews was precarious. On the 1st of March, 1655, Abraham de la
Simon was brought before the Court of Burgomaster and the Schoepens
upon the complaint of the Schout or Sheriff for keeping open his store
on Sunday during the sermon, and selling at retail. The Sheriff on
that occasion informed the court that the Governor and Council had
resolved that the Jews who had come in the preceding autumn, as well
as those that had recently arrived from Holland, must prepare to
depart forthwith. The Court, which was also a council for the municipal
government of the city, was asked by the Sheriff whether it had any
objection to make; whereupon, says the record, it was decided that the
Governor’s resolution should take its course.
There is reason to believe that some Jews left on account of that
resolution before the orders from Holland arrived. They presumably
went to Rhode Island. Those who remained were still objects of the
Governor’s aversion, and even the more friendly Company was not too
liberal. A letter from the directors to Stuyvesant, dated, March 13,
1556, contains the following: “The permission given to the Jews to go
to New Netherlands and enjoy the same privileges as they have here (in
Amsterdam), has been granted only as far as civil and political rights
are concerned, without giving the said Jews a claim to the privilege of
exercising their religion in a synagogue or a gathering.”
But it must be said to the credit of the directors that they insisted
on what they granted to the Jews, and in another letter, dated, June 14,
1556, they write to the self-willed governor: “We have seen and heard
with displeasure, that against our orders of the 15th of February, 1655,
issued at the request of the Jewish or Portuguese nation, you have
forbidden them to trade to Fort Orange (Albany) and the South River
(Delaware), also the purchase of real estate, which is granted to them
without difficulty here in this country, and we wish it had not been
done, and you have obeyed your orders which you must always execute
punctually and with more respect. Jews or Portuguese people, however,
shall not be employed in any public service (to which they are neither
admitted in this city) nor allowed to have open retail shops; but
they may quietly and peacefully carry on their business as beforesaid
and exercise in all quietness their religion within their houses,
for which end they must without doubt endeavor to build their houses
close together in a convenient place on one or the other side of New
Amsterdam――at their choice――as they do here.”
These instructions came as the result of a petition sent to the
directors by Abraham d’Lucena, Salvatore d’Andrade and Jacob Cohen, for
themselves and in the name of others of the Jewish nation, asking for a
confirmation of the privileges, which was thus granted. These three and
two other Jews, Joseph da Costa and David Frera, were in the preceding
year, 1655, assessed each 1,000 florins to defray the cost of erecting
the outer fence or city wall, from which Wall street takes its name. It
was the same amount as was imposed upon the wealthiest of the citizens,
and the five adduced it as a reason for their being entitled to the
rights to trade and to hold real property.
Abraham d’Lucena, who appears to have been the most prominent of the
early Jewish immigrants, and several others, applied in July, 1655,
for a burying ground; but the request was refused with the reply “that
there was no need for it yet.” There was need for it, however, about a
year later, and on July 14, 1656, a lot was granted to them outside of
the city for a place of interment. This is the old cemetery on Oliver
street and New Bowery, which was augmented by further purchases in the
following century.
The city was at that time exposed to attacks from Spanish cruisers and
pirates, and to assaults from hostile Indians. The encroachments of
the English on Long Island and Westchester was a subject of constant
anxiety, England never having conceded the rights of the Dutch to
settle New Netherlands. This caused all the male inhabitants capable
of bearing arms to enroll in the Burgher Guard, and a watch was kept up
night and day with the steadiness and vigilance of a beleaguered town.
A few months after the arrival of the Jewish immigrants the question
arose whether the adult males among them should be incorporated in the
Burgher Guard; the officers of the guard submitting the question to the
Governor and Council. It was duly deliberated upon and an ordinance was
passed (August 28, 1655), which, after reciting “the unwillingness of
the mass of the citizens to be fellow-soldiers of the aforesaid nation”
or watch in the same guard-house, and the fact that the Jews in Holland
did not serve in the train bands of the cities, but paid a compensation
for their exemption therefrom, declared that they should be exempt from
that military service, and for such exemption each male person between
the ages of sixteen and sixty shall pay a monthly contribution of
sixty-five stivers.
Jacob Barsimson and Asser Levy (d. 1682) petitioned to be allowed
to stand guard like other burghers, or to be relieved from the tax,
which was refused by the Governor and Council with the remark that
“they might go elsewhere if they liked.” But after the last order
from Amsterdam favorable to the claims of the Jews was received, Asser
Levy applied to be admitted to the right of citizenship, and exhibited
his certificate to the court to show that he had been a burgher in
Amsterdam. His request, as well as the one made for the same purpose
by Salvatore d’Andrade and others, was not complied with. The matter
was brought before the Governor and Council, and as the directions
from Holland were controlling, an order was made April 21, 1657, that
the Burgomaster should admit them to that privilege. Here the struggle
virtually ended, and they were no longer troubled during the Dutch rule.
When the British captured the city in 1664 and renamed it New York, the
condition of the Jews remained practically unchanged. There is a record
of at least one Jew who removed from Newport to New York in that period,
and had difficulties with the local authorities because they enforced
against him the regulation which did not permit a Jew to engage in
retail trade. The Charter of Liberties and Privileges which was adopted
in 1683 by the colonial legislature declared that “no one should be
molested, punished, disquieted or called in question for his religious
opinion, who professed faith in God by Jesus Christ,” which meant
that the Jews and unbelievers were excluded from the privileges of
religious freedom. A petition by the Jews to Governor Dongan, in 1686,
for liberty to exercise their religion, i. e., to have public worship,
was consequently decided in the negative. But James, Duke of York
(afterwards King James II., 1633–1701), to whom New York was granted by
his brother, had previously sent out instructions, which arrived about
that time, “to permit all persons of what religion soever, quietly to
inhabit within the government, and to give no disturbance or disquiet
whatsoever for or by reason of their differing in matters of religion.”
The exact date when the Jews took advantage of that liberal decree is
not known, but it is presumed that the religious services, which had
been heretofore conducted semi-privately, were soon performed in a
house devoted to that purpose. It is certain that there was a Jewish
Synagogue in New York in 1695, probably as early as 1691, while the
restrictions as to trade were removed a few years before. The Synagogue,
the first on the North American continent, was situated on the south
side of the present Beaver street, between Broadway and Broad street.
When it became too small for the community which was increasing in
wealth and in numbers, a new edifice was erected in 1728 on Mill
street (about the present site of South William street), where the
congregation, which now assumed the name of “Shearith Israel” (Remnant
of Israel), continued to worship for more than a century.
A profitable commerce was carried on between New York and the West
Indies at the beginning of the eighteenth century in which numerous
Jewish merchants participated. There was also carried on, though for a
short period, a considerable business of exporting wheat to Portugal,
on account of the scarcity in Europe about the close of the French war.
Abraham d’Lucena and Louis Moses Gomez, who engaged in that traffic
to Portugal, not only became two of the most affluent of the Jewish
residents of New York, but they also incidentally caused an increase
of the number of their co-religionists in the community. It is
presumed that the vessels which carried grain to the Iberian peninsula
brought Jewish or Marrano passengers on the return voyage. Most of
the new Jewish names which began to appear here about that time are
of undoubted Spanish and Portuguese origin. But there were also in
the city Jews from other countries. When the Rev. John Sharpe proposed
the erection of a school-library and chapel in New York, in 1712–13,
he points out among the advantages which the city afforded for that
purpose that: “It is possible also to learn Hebrew here as well as in
Europe, there being a Synagogue of Jews, and many ingenious men of that
nation from Poland, Hungary, Germany, etc.”
The above-mentioned Louis Moses Gomez (b. Madrid, 1654; d. New York,
1740) who arrived in America about 1700, was until the time of his
death one of the principal merchants of New York. He had five sons,
and his descendants have intermarried with most of the old-time
American-Jewish families.
While the community was increasing in number and wealth, something
occurred which sharply reminded the Jews that the time of complete
emancipation had not yet come. In 1737 the election of Col. Frederick
Phillips as representative of the General Assembly for the County
of Westchester was contested by Captain Cornelius Van Horne. Colonel
Phillips called several Jews to give evidence on his behalf, when an
objection was made to their competency as witnesses. After arguments
on both sides were heard, they were informed by the speaker that it
was the opinion of the House that “none of the Jewish profession could
be admitted as evidence.” It seems that Jews had voted at the election,
for after again hearing arguments from the counsel of both parties, the
House resolved that, as it did not appear that persons of the Jewish
religion had a right to vote for members of Parliament in Great Britain,
it was the unanimous opinion of the House that they could not be
admitted to vote for Representatives in the colony. This decision has
been described by a later historian as remarkable, and in explanation
of it he says: “That Catholics and Jews had long been peculiarly
obnoxious to the colonists,” that “the first settlers being Dutch and
mostly of the Reformed Protestant religion, and the migration from
England, since the colony belonged to the Crown, being principally
Episcopal, both united in their aversion to the Catholics and the
Jews.” (Quoted by Daly, _The Settlement of the Jews in North America_,
p. 46.)[7]
The general condition of the Jews of New York was, nevertheless,
highly favorable, as is attested by Peter Kalm (1715–79), the Swedish
botanist and traveler, who spent a considerable time in the colony in
the following decade. He says: “There are many Jews settled in New York
who possess great privileges. They have a Synagogue and houses, great
country-seats of their own property, and are allowed to keep shops in
the town. They have likewise several ships which they freight and send
out with their goods; in fine, the Jews enjoy all the privileges in
common to the other inhabitants of this town and province.”
The increase of the community between that time and the American
Revolution was very slow in comparison with the fast growth of the
general population of the city, which was less than 5,000 in 1700,
about 9,000 in 1750, and nearly 23,000 in 1776. The natural increase
and the additions which the Jewish community received by immigration,
chiefly from England, was barely sufficient to counteract the loss of
others who went to Newport, Charleston and Philadelphia. But, though
small, it continued to be a highly respectable and influential body,
having among its members some of the principal merchants of the city.
Of this number was Hayman Levy (d. 1790) who carried on an extensive
business chiefly with the Indians, and by winning their respect and
confidence became the largest fur trader in the colonies. Upon his
books are entries of moneys paid to John Jacob Astor (1763–1848), the
founder of the Astor family, for beating furs at the rate of one dollar
a day. Miss Zeporah Levy (d. 1833), a daughter of Hayman, was married
in 1779 to Benjamin Hendricks, a native of New York, the founder of a
well-known and long-maintained Jewish commercial house.
CHAPTER X.
NEW ENGLAND AND THE OTHER ENGLISH COLONIES.
The Old Testament spirit in New England――Roger Williams――The
first Jew in Massachusetts――Judah Monis, instructor in Hebrew
at Harvard――Newport――Jews from Holland bring there the first
degrees of Masonry――The cemetery immortalized by Longfellow――
Jacob Rodrigues Rivera introduces the manufacture of sperm
oil――Aaron Lopez, the greatest merchant in America――Immigration
from Portugal――Rabbi Isaac Touro――Visiting rabbis――First Jews
in Connecticut――Philadelphia――Congregation Mickweh Israel――
Easton’s wealthy Jews――Maryland――Dr. Jacob Lumbrozo――General
Oglethorpe and the first Jews of Georgia――Joseph Ottolenghi――The
Carolinas――Charleston.
Although “the Puritans of England and America appropriated the
language of our judges and prophets” and the spirit of the Old
Testament was the most potent force in the foundation and the conduct
of the early Commonwealths of New England, still it was not a typical
or recognized leader of those who deemed themselves members of a new
Hebrew theocratic democracy, but rather an outcast from their ranks,
who first granted full religious liberty to the Jews and bade them
welcome. This man was Roger Williams (1600?‒1684), the former clergyman
of the Church of England, who later (1631) became a Puritan pastor in
Salem, Mass., and was expelled for denying the right of the magistrates
to punish Sabbath-breaking, and was four years later “banished from the
jurisdiction of the Puritans of America, and driven into the wilderness
to endure the severity of our northern winter and the bitter pangs of
hunger.”[8]
There was at least one Jew in Massachusetts before the arrival of
the first Jews in New Amsterdam, and he is mentioned only as being
assisted――or forced――to quit the colony. The reference to him is dated
May 3, 1649, when it is stated that the court allows Solomon Franco,
the Jew, six shillings per week out of the treasury for ten weeks
for subsistence till he can get his passage into Holland (see Kohut,
_The Jews of New England_ in “Publications,” XI, p. 78). Several other
Jews are mentioned as having lived there in the latter part of the
seventeenth and in the first three-quarters of the eighteenth centuries.
But owing to the intolerance and religious zeal of the Puritans, they
either moved to other parts or embraced Christianity. When a Jew named
Joseph Frazon (or Frazier) died in Boston, in 1704, his body was sent
to Newport for burial.
The most distinguished among the early converts was Judah Monis (born
in Algiers about 1680; died in Northborough, Mass. in 1764). He was
baptized in the College Hall at Cambridge, Mass., on March 22, 1722,
and was afterward active in the cause of his new faith, although he
observed throughout his life the Jewish Sabbath. He was an instructor
in Hebrew at Harvard University, from 1722 till 1759, when on the
death of his wife he resigned and removed to Northborough. Besides
some insignificant missionary pamphlets, he was the author of the first
Hebrew grammar printed in America (Boston, 1735).
It was in the smallest of the original colonies, which is now likewise
the smallest State in the Union, Rhode Island, founded by the pioneer
of religious liberty in the New World, that the Jews established their
oldest congregation on the North American continent. Providence was
founded in 1636, Portsmouth and Newport about two years later, and the
last named place, which soon became one of the most important cities in
the colonies, excelling even New York as a commercial center and port
of entry until after the Revolution, began to attract Jews soon after
their arrival in these parts of the country. The earliest authentic
mention of Jews in Newport is in 1658, when fifteen Jewish families
are said to have arrived from Holland, bringing with them the first
degrees of Masonry which they proceeded to confer on Abraham Moses in
the house of Mordecai Campanall.[9] But there is reason to believe that
Jews from New Amsterdam and Curaçao settled there a year or two before.
A congregation seems to have been organized in 1658 under the name
“Jeshuat Israel.” The cemetery, immortalized by Longfellow and Emma
Lazarus, was acquired by Campanall and Moses Packeckoe, in 1677, but
it is possible that there existed an earlier Jewish cemetery.
Still even in Rhode Island it was only tolerance; the recognition of
equal rights was yet to come with the Declaration of Independence. In
reply to a petition of the Jews, the General Assembly of Rhode Island,
in 1684, affirmed the right of the Jews to settle in the colony,
declaring that “they may expect as good protection here as any stranger
being not of our nation residing among us in His Majesty’s colony ought
to have, being obedient to His Majesty’s laws.”
More Jewish settlers arrived from the West Indies in 1694; but the
great impulse to the commercial activity which raised Newport to the
zenith of its prosperity was given by a number of Portuguese Jews
who settled there about the middle of the eighteenth century. Most
prominent among those were Jacob Rodrigues Rivera (died at an advanced
age in 1789), who arrived in 1745, and Aaron Lopez, who came in 1750.
The former introduced into America the manufacture of sperm oil, having
brought the art with him from Portugal, and it soon became one of the
leading industries; Newport, whose inhabitants were engaged in whale
fishing, had seventeen manufactories of oil and candles and enjoyed a
practical monopoly of this trade down to the Revolution.
Aaron Lopez (died May 28, 1782), who was Rivera’s son-in-law, became
the great merchant prince of New England. (Ezra Stiles says of him,
that for honor and extent of commerce he was probably surpassed by no
merchant in America.) The advantages of this important seaport were
quickly comprehended by this sagacious merchant, and to him in a larger
degree than to any one else was due the rapid commercial development
that followed. He was the means of inducing more than forty Jewish
families to settle there, the heads of many of which were men of wealth,
mercantile sagacity, high intelligence and enterprise. In fourteen
years after Lopez settled there, Newport had 150 vessels engaged in
trade with the West Indies alone, besides an extensive trade which was
carried on as far as Africa and the Falkland Islands. The Jews were
even then, nearly three hundred years after the expulsion, transferring
to the liberal English colonies the wealth and the still more valuable
business ability and commercial connections which they could not freely
or safely employ as Marranos in Portugal. The emigration of secret
Jews from that country increased after the great earthquake at Lisbon
(1755), and a considerable portion went to Rhode Island. One of the
vessels from that unhappy city, bound for Virginia, was driven into
Narragansett Bay, and its Jewish passengers remained at Newport.
Isaac Touro (died Dec. 8, 1783) came from Jamaica to Newport, in 1760,
to become the minister of its prosperous congregation, and occupied
the position until the outbreak of the Revolution, when he returned
to end his days in Jamaica. Until the time of his arrival worship was
held in private houses, but in 1762 the congregation, which numbered
between sixty and seventy members, decided to erect a Synagogue. The
building, which is still standing, was completed and dedicated in 1763.
There is evidence that the Jewish population of Newport, even before
the Revolution, contained considerable German and Polish elements.
According to one historian, the city numbered before the outbreak of
hostilities 1,175 Jews――which was probably a majority of the Jews in
all the colonies――while more than 300 worshipers attended the Synagogue.
Many Jewish rabbis from all parts of the world were attracted to
Newport in those times. The above-named Ezra Stiles (1727–95), the
famous president of Yale University, who was a preacher in Newport
at that time, mentions several of them in his diary. He met one from
Palestine in 1759, two from Poland, 1771 and 1772, respectively, a
Rabbi Bosquila from Smyrna, a Rabbi Cohen from Jerusalem and Rabbi
Raphael Hayyim Isaac Carregal (b. Hebron, Palestine, 1733; d. Barbadoes,
1777), who preached at Newport in Spanish in 1773, and became an
intimate friend of the Christian theological scholar.
The arrival of a Jewish family from the West Indies to New Haven,
Conn., in 1772, is noted by Stiles, who was a native of that place,
in his diary as follows: “They are the first real Jews at that place
with exception of the two brothers Pinto, who renounced Judaism and
all religion.” This is substantially accurate in regard to New Haven,
although one David, the Jew, is mentioned in the Hartford town records
as early as 1659 (or 1650), and the residence of several Jews is
implied in the entry which was made in the same records under date of
September 2, 1661: “The same day ye Jews which at present live at John
Marsh, his house, have liberty to sojourn in ye town for seven months.”
They are mentioned at a subsequent period, too, which proves that they
were permitted to remain longer than the allotted seven months. But all
trace of them is lost afterwards, and almost two centuries had passed
until the first Synagogue was erected in Hartford.
* * * * *
The Jews of New Amsterdam who had difficulties with Peter Stuyvesant
in 1655 about their right to trade on the South River, which was
subsequently re-named the Delaware (see above, chapter 9) were probably
the first to set foot in what later became the colony and still later
the State of Pennsylvania. This was twenty years before William Penn
(1644–1718) became part proprietor of West Jersey, and more than a
quarter of a century before he came over to America (1682) and founded
the city of Philadelphia in the colony of Pennsylvania, which he
received as a grant from the King of England in the preceding year.
The first Jewish resident of Philadelphia was Jonas Aaron, who was
living there in 1703. A number of other Jews settled there in the first
half of the eighteenth century and some of them, including David Franks
(1720–93), Joseph Marks and Sampson Levy, became prominent in the life
of the city. Isaac Miranda came there earlier (1710) and held several
State offices, but he was a convert to Christianity, and his preferment
cannot be considered a Jewish success. A German traveler mentions
the Jews among the religious sects of Philadelphia in 1734. In 1738
Nathan Levy (1704–53) applied for a plot of ground to be used as a
place of burial, and obtained it Sept. 25, 1740. This was the first
Jewish cemetery in the city, and was henceforth known as the “Jews’
burying ground,” situated in Spruce street, near Ninth street. It
later became the property of the Congregation Mickweh Israel, which
had its beginnings about 1745 and is believed to have worshipped in
a small house in Sterling alley. The question of building a Synagogue
was raised in 1761, as a result of the influx of Jews from Spain and
the West Indies, but nothing was then accomplished in that direction.
In 1773, when Barnard Gratz (born in Germany, 1738; died in Baltimore,
1801) was parnas and Solomon Marache, treasurer, a subscription was
started “in order to support our holy worship and establish it on a
more solid foundation,” but no Synagogue was built until about ten
years later. Barnard Gratz and his brother, Michael (b. 1740), with
whom he came to ♦America about 1755, were among the eight Jewish
merchants of Philadelphia who signed the Non-Importation Resolution in
1765. The others were Benjamin Levy, David Franks, Sampson Levy, Hyman
Levy, Jr.; Mathias Bush and Moses Mordecai.
Jews were to be found in Lancaster, Pa., as early as 1730, before
the town and county were organized, and the name of Joseph Simon was
preserved as the best known of the first arrivals. Myer Hart (d. about
1795) and his wife, Rachel, and their son, Michael (b. 1738), were one
of the eleven original families that are classed as the founders of
Easton, Pa., about 1750. Myer Hart heads the list of those furnishing
material for the erection of a schoolhouse in Easton in 1755. He is
first described as a shopkeeper and later as an innkeeper, and he was
naturalized April 3, 1764. In 1780 his estate was valued at £2,095, and
that of his son, Michael, at £2,261, these two being the heaviest taxed
individuals in the county. At that period there were two other Jewish
merchants residing at Easton, Barnard Levi and Joseph Nathan.
There is a tradition that Schafferstown, Pa., had a Synagogue and a
Jewish cemetery in 1732, but the facts have not been verified, and
there is a suspicion that the supposed Jews were German pietists who
assumed Biblical names.
To the south of Pennsylvania the older colony of Maryland, which was
established in 1634, “adopted religious freedom as the basis of the
State;” but this boon was reserved for Christians only, although there
is no record that the statutory death penalty for those who denied
the trinity was ever carried out in practice. The physician, Jacob
Lumbrozo (d. May, 1666), who hailed from Lisbon, Portugal, and came to
Maryland about January, 1656, and later became an extensive land owner,
was committed for blasphemy in 1658, but this did not prevent him
from enjoying a lucrative practice and engaging in various mercantile
pursuits in subsequent years. He was even granted letters of denization
on Sept. 10, 1663, which vested him with all the privileges of a native
or naturalized subject. But his case seems to have been exceptional,
probably owing to his medical skill and his wealth. But in general,
colonial Maryland was no place for Jews, and even after it became a
part of the United States it was one of the last to remove the civil
disabilities of its Jewish citizens.
Another Marrano physician from Lisbon, Dr. Samuel (Ribiero) Nuñez,
who escaped from the clutches of the Inquisition and arrived, in
1733, in the newly founded colony of Georgia, found a more congenial
place of refuge. Georgia was in respect to the Jews the reverse of
New Netherlands; the trustees of the colony in England were opposed to
permitting Jews to settle there, but General James Edward Oglethorpe
(1696‒1785), the Governor, was very friendly disposed towards them.
Nuñez was one of forty Jewish immigrants who unexpectedly arrived at
Savannah in the second vessel which reached the colony from England
(July 11, 1733). The Governor, one of the noblest figures of colonial
times, bade them welcome, and considered them a good acquisition to
the new colony. The first settlers were of Spanish and Portuguese
extraction,[10] but Jews who apparently came from Germany took up
their residence there less than a year afterwards. Both bands of
settlers received equally liberal treatment, and they soon organized
a congregation (1734). The first male white child born in the colony
was a Jew, Isaac Minis. Abraham de Lyon, of Portugal, introduced the
culture of grapes into Georgia in 1737, while others of the early
settlers engaged in the cultivation and manufacture of silk, the
knowledge of which they likewise brought with them from Portugal. A
dispute with the trustees of the colony respecting the introduction
of slaves caused an extensive emigration to South Carolina in 1741,
and resulted in the dissolution of the congregation. But in 1751 a
number of Jews returned to Georgia, and in the same year the trustees
sent over Joseph Ottolenghi (d. after June, 1774) to superintend
the somewhat extensive silk industry of the colony. Ottolenghi soon
attained prominence in the political life of the colony and was elected
a member of the General Assembly, where he served from 1761 to 1765.
Several other Jews ♦rendered distinguished services to Georgia, but
they belong to the period of the Revolution, which will be treated
separately in the following part. A new congregation was started in
1774.
“Jews, heathens and dissenters” were granted full liberty of conscience
in the liberal charter which the celebrated English philosopher, John
Locke (1632–1704) drew up for the governance of the Carolinas (1669),
and the spirit of tolerance was always retained there. Still few Jews
were attracted there at the beginning, and about thirty years later
we know of only one Jew, Solomon Valentine, as living in Charleston. A
few others followed him, and in 1703 a protest was raised against “Jew
strangers” voting for members of the Assembly. About the middle of the
eighteenth century the number of Jews in Charleston suddenly increased
through the above-mentioned exodus from Georgia, and the first
Synagogue of the Congregation Bet Elohim was established in 1750. Its
first minister was Isaac da Costa, and among its earliest members were
Joseph and Michael Tobias, Moses Cohen, Abraham da Costa, Moses Pimenta,
David de Olivera, Mordecai Sheftal, Michael Lazarus and Abraham Nuñez
Cardozo. The first Synagogue was a small building on Union street;
its present edifice is situated at Hassell street. A Hebrew Benevolent
Society, which still survives, was also organized at an early date. A
German-Jewish congregation was also in existence in the last quarter
of the eighteenth century. Several prominent Jews of London purchased
large tracts of land in South Carolina, near Fort Ninety-six, which
became known as the “Jews’ Land.” Moses Lindo who arrived from London
in 1756, became engaged in indigo manufacture, which he made one of
the principal industries in the colony. Another London Jew, Francis
Salvador (d. 1776), was the most prominent Jew in South Carolina at
the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.
PART III.
THE REVOLUTION AND THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION.
CHAPTER XI.
THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE.
Spirit of the Old Testament in the Revolutionary War――Sermons in
favor of the original Jewish form of Government――The New Nation
as “God’s American Israel”――The Quebec Act――The intolerance
of sects as the cause of separation of Church and State――A
Memorial sent by German Jews to the Continental Congress――Fear
expressed in North Carolina that the Pope might be elected
President of the United States――None of the liberties won were
lost by post-revolutionary reaction, as happened elsewhere.
The spirit of the old Testament which was prevalent among the early
settlers of New England was perhaps still more manifest there at
the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War of Independence.
The ever-increasing antagonism which was aroused by the attempt
of the Parliament of England to regulate and to tax the colonies,
found expression in Biblical terms to an extent which can hardly be
appreciated in the present time. The people in America had to fight
over again the same battles for constitutional liberties which the
English had fought before them, and George III., so far as his claims
over the colonies were concerned, relied as much upon the kingly
prerogative, the doctrine of “Divine Right,” as ever did James I. All
of these pretensions, all the questions of right and liberty had to be
re-argued. To refute this false theory of kingly power it was not only
expedient but necessary to revert to the earliest times, to the most
sacred record, the Old Testament, for illustration and for argument,
chiefly because the doctrine of Divine Right of a King by the Grace
of God and its corollaries, “unlimited submission and non-resistance,”
were deduced, or rather distorted, from the New Testament, having been
brought into the field of politics with the object of enslaving the
masses through their religious creed. “It is, at least, an historical
fact――says the historian Lecky――that in the great majority of instances
the early Protestant defenders of civil liberty derived their political
principles chiefly from the Old Testament, and the defenders of
despotism from the New. The rebellions that were so frequent in Jewish
history formed the favorite topic of the one, the unreserved submission
inculcated by St. Paul, the other.”[11]
While there were many free thinkers or Deists among the intellectual
leaders of the Revolution, the masses of the colonists were intensely
religious, and an argument from Scripture carried more weight with them
than any other. Education was limited at that period in the colonies;
there were not many newspapers, they were rarely issued more than once
a week, and the number of subscribers was but few. The pulpit had their
place, and the pastors in their sermons dealt with politics not less
than with religion. Sermons were for the people the principal sources
of general instruction. These pastors, in the way of history, knew
above all that of the Jewish people, and they were the first to bring
before their audiences the ideals of the old Hebrew commonwealth. Rev.
Jonathan Mayhew (1720–66), whose discourse, in 1750, against unlimited
submission was characterized as “the morning gun of the Revolution,”
declared in a later oration on the “Repeal of the Stamp Act” which
he delivered in Boston on May 23, 1766: “God gave Israel a king in
His anger because they had not sense and virtue enough to like a free
commonwealth, and to have Himself for their King――where the spirit
of the Lord is there is liberty――and if any miserable people on the
continent or isles of Europe be driven in their extremity to seek a
safe retreat from slavery in some far distant clime――O let them find
one in America.” Rev. Samuel Langdon (1723–97), President of Harvard
College, delivered an election sermon before the “Honorable Congress
of Massachusetts Bay” on the 31st of May, 1775, taking as his text the
passage in Isaiah 1. 26, “And I will restore thy judges as at first,”
in which he said: “The Jewish government, according to the original
constitution, which was divinely established, if considered only in a
civil view, was a perfect republic. And let them who cry up the divine
right of Kings consider, that the form of government which had a proper
claim to a divine establishment was so far from including the idea of a
King, that it was a high crime for Israel to ask to be in this respect
like other nations, and when they were thus gratified, it was rather
as a just punishment for their folly.... The civil polity of Israel is
doubtless an excellent general model, allowing for some peculiarities:
at least some principal laws and orders of it may be copied in more
modern establishments.” Almost everybody at that time knew by heart the
admonitions of Samuel to the children of Israel, describing the manner
in which a King would rule over them.
Sermons drawing a parallel between George III. and Pharaoh, inferring
that the same providence of God which had rescued the Israelites
from Egyptian bondage would free the colonies, were common in that
period; and they probably had more effect with the masses than the
great orations of the statesmen or the philosophical essays of the
publicists which came down to us in the literature of the Revolution.
The success of the War of Independence was also accepted in that sense.
The election sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles, President
of Yale College, on May 8, 1783, at Hartford, before Governor Trumbull
and the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, may be cited
as an instance. Dr. Stiles took for his text Deut. XXVI, 19: “And to
make you high above all nations which he has made, in praise, and in
name, and in honor, etc.” This sermon takes up one hundred and twenty
closely printed pages, and assumes the proportions of a treatise on
government from the Hebrew Theocracy down to the then present, showing
by illustration and history that the culmination of popular government
had been reached in America, transplanted by divine hands in fulfilment
of Biblical prophecy from the days of Moses to the land of Washington;
and discussing from an historical point of view “the reasons rendering
it probable that the United States will, by the ordering of heaven,
eventually become this people.” He referred to the new nation as “God’s
American Israel” and to Washington as the American Joshua who was
raised up by God to lead the armies of the chosen people to liberty and
independence.[12]
The committee which was appointed on the same day the Declaration of
Independence was adopted, consisting of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Adams and
Mr. Jefferson, to prepare a device for a seal for the United States, at
first proposed that of Pharaoh sitting in an open chariot, a crown on
his head and a sword in his hand, passing through the dividing waters
of the Red Sea in pursuit of the Israelites: with rays from a pillar
of fire beaming on Moses, who is represented as standing on the shore
extending his hand over the sea, causing it to overwhelm Pharaoh.[13]
Great religious animosity was also aroused by the “Quebec Act,”
which was passed by the British Parliament in 1774, for the purpose
of preventing Canada from joining the other colonies. It guaranteed to
the Catholic Church the possession of its vast amount of property, and
full freedom of worship. The object which it was intended to effect by
the passage of this act was purely one of State policy, and as far as
Canada herself was concerned it was a wise and diplomatic step. But
with the exception perhaps of the Boston Port Bill, it was the most
effectual in alienating the colonies. It was construed as an effort on
the part of Parliament to create an Established Church, and not that
alone, but the establishment of _that_ Church which was most hateful
to and dreaded by the great majority of the people in the colonies.
It was not due to lack of religious sentiment that the ultimate bond
between the colonies was a strictly secular one, and that Church and
State were forever separated in the Constitution of the United States.
It was rather due to the great and insurmountable differences in the
religious beliefs among the various parties to the confederation; it
may be said that it was strong sectarianism which forced upon them a
non-sectarian government. The religious complexion of no two of the
American colonies was precisely alike. The various sects at the time of
the Revolution were grouped as follows: The Puritans in Massachusetts,
the Baptists in Rhode Island, the Congregationalists in Connecticut,
the Dutch and Swedish Protestants in New Jersey, the Church of England
in New York, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Baptists, Methodists
and Presbyterians in North Carolina, the Catholics in Maryland,
the Cavaliers in Virginia, the Huguenots and Episcopalians in South
Carolina, and the Methodists in Georgia. Owing to these diversities,
to the consciousness of danger from ecclesiastical ambition, the
intolerance of sects as exemplified among themselves as well as in
foreign lands, it was wisely foreseen that the only basis upon which it
was possible to form a Federal union was to exclude from the National
Government all power over religion.
The ♦separation of Church and State was therefore a practical necessity,
based on causes which were deeply rooted in the life of the people. It
was almost a forced step on the way of development, not an enthusiastic
outburst in favor of an abstract principle. This is why the ground
which was then gained was never lost again, why there was no reaction
and no reversion to the former order of a religious establishment as
happened in France after the great revolution which began in 1789.
The moderate, self-restrained liberalism of the colonists held its own
after the struggle was over and kept on progressing slowly. The violent
radicalism of the older country went so far that many steps had to
be retraced, and the fight of separating Church and State had to be
fought out all over again in our own time, more than a century after
all religion was abolished during the reign of terror.
A letter sent by an unnamed German Jew on behalf of himself and his
brethren to the President of the Continental Congress, in which the
wretched condition of the Jews in Germany at that time is depicted, and
their desire to become subjects of the thirteen provinces is expressed,
appeared in the _Deutsches Museum_ of June, 1783, and four years later
a separate edition of it was published under the title, _Schreiben
eines deutschen Juden an den Nord Amerikanischen Präsidenten_.[14]
As there is no record of its reception or discussion in America,
it probably attracted very little attention. The same is also true
of the letter which Jonas Phillips (b. in Rhenish Prussia, 1736;
d. in New York, Jan. 28, 1803), of Philadelphia, sent to the Federal
Convention in relation to the removal of the test oath in Pennsylvania
which discriminated against Jews and those who did not subscribe to
Christian doctrines (Sept. 7, 1787). When the fundamental law of the
land was adopted there were no exciting debates about the question of
religious liberty. The clause abolishing religious tests in the Federal
Constitution passed almost unanimously; the State of North Carolina
alone voted against it, and as there were hardly any Jews there at
that time, the fear of the Roman Catholics was the only cause for the
illiberal stand taken by its representatives. The extent of that fear
can be understood from the fact that when the State Convention of North
Carolina to adopt the Federal Constitution convened in Hillsborough, in
July, 1788, pamphlets were circulated “pointing out in all seriousness
the danger of the Pope being elected President should the Constitution
be adopted.” (See Hühner, _Religious Liberty in North Carolina_,
“Publications,” XVI, p. 42). The time for religious liberty as well
as for independence in national affairs had come and was accepted as
a matter of course, and it is the exceptional glory of the American
Revolution that all the liberties won were retained and the young
nation was enabled to continue on the way of progress unhindered by
post-revolutionary reaction, and to devote its energies to the solution
of the problems which the Revolution left unsolved, and to new problems
which arose after that period.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION.
Captain Isaac Meyers of the French and Indian War of 1754――David
S. Franks and Isaac Franks――David Franks, the loyalist――Solomon
and Lewis Bush――Major Benjamin Nones――Other Jewish Soldiers,
of whom one was exempted from duty on Friday nights――The Pinto
brothers――Commissary General Mordecai Sheftal of Georgia――Haym
Solomon, the Polish Jew, and his financial assistance to the
Revolution.
There were only about two thousand Jews in the colonies at the time
when the war broke out, mostly well-to-do merchants of Spanish and
Portuguese descent, of whom a considerable number had formerly lived in
England or had trade connections with the mother country and with its
various dependencies. Class interest and personal predilection for old
associations were therefore in favor of their being in sympathy with
the ruling power over the sea; still the number of Jewish loyalists
was small. The largest number cast their lot with the colonists, and
performed useful service in various ways――as merchants abstaining under
non-importation agreements from buying English goods, as tradesmen
furnishing supplies, as officials assisting the movements of the army,
and as officers and soldiers in the line. In most of the colonies the
Jews were then still barred from elective office by clauses in the
charters and restrictive laws; but this did not prevent them from
participating in the work of liberating the country, while on the other
hand there was no desire manifested to exclude them from doing their
patriotic duty, from which they were excluded in the middle of the
preceding century by the less liberal burghers of New Netherlands.
The names of more than forty Jews who served in the continental armies
of the Revolution have been preserved, and most of the data about them
is to be found in Mr. Simon Wolf’s valuable work.[15] As they almost
all belonged to the wealthier class, it is but natural that the number
of officers is disproportionately large in this small band. Four of
them reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, three became Majors, and
there were at least half a dozen Captains. Nor were these the first
Jews to bear arms or to hold military rank in the colonies. As early
as 1754, during the French and Indian War, Isaac Meyers, a Jewish
citizen of New York, called a town meeting at the “Rising Sun” Inn
and organized a company of bateau men of which he became the captain.
Two other Jews are named as taking part in the same war. Both of them
served in the expedition across the Allegheny Mountains in the year
above named.
Two members of the Franks family served creditably in the Continental
army, while a third (they were probably cousins) became known through
his sympathy for England. David Salisbury Franks, who is described as a
“young English merchant,” settled in Montreal, Canada, in 1774, and was
active both in business and in the affairs of the Jewish community. On
May 3, 1775, he was arrested for speaking disrespectfully of the king,
but was discharged six days later. In 1776 General Wooster appointed
him paymaster to the American garrison at Montreal, and when the army
retreated from Canada he enlisted as a volunteer and later joined a
Massachusetts regiment. In 1778 he was ordered to serve under Count
d’Estaing, then commanding the sea forces of the United States; upon
the failure of the expedition he went to Philadelphia, becoming a
member of General Benedict Arnold’s military family. In 1779 he went
as a volunteer to Charlestown, serving as aide-de-camp to General
Lincoln, and was later recalled to attend the trial of General Arnold
for improper conduct while in command of Philadelphia, in which trial
Franks was himself implicated. He was aide-de-camp to Arnold at the
time of the latter’s treason, in September, 1780; on October 2 he was
arrested, but when the case was tried the next day he was honorably
acquitted. Not satisfied with this, Franks wrote to General Washington
asking for a court of inquiry; on November 2, 1780, the court met
at West Point and completely exonerated him. In 1781 he was sent by
Robert Morris to Europe as bearer of dispatches to Jay in Madrid and
to Franklin in Paris. On his return Congress reinstated him into the
army with the rank of Major. On January 15, 1784, Congress resolved
“that a triplicate of the definitive treaty [of peace] be sent out
to the ministers plenipotentiary by Lieut.-Col. David S. Franks” and
he again left for Europe. The next year he was appointed Vice-Consul
at Marseilles; in 1786 he served in a confidential capacity in the
negotiations connected with the treaty of peace and commerce made with
Morocco, and on his return to New York in 1787 brought the treaty with
him. On January 28, 1789, he was granted four hundred acres of land in
recognition of his services during the Revolutionary War.
His relative, Isaac Franks (b. in New York, 1759; d. in Philadelphia,
1822), was only seventeen years old when he enlisted in Colonel
Lesher’s regiment, New York Volunteers, and served with it in
the battle of Long Island. On September 15 of the same year he
was taken prisoner at the capture of New York, but effected his
escape after three months’ detention. In 1777 he was appointed to
the quartermaster’s department, and in January, 1778, he was made
foragemaster, being stationed at West Point until February 22, 1781,
when he was appointed by Congress ensign in the Seventh Massachusetts
Regiment. He continued in that capacity until July, 1782, when he
resigned on account of ill-health. He settled in Philadelphia, where he
later held various civil offices, and was in 1794 appointed by Governor
Mifflin Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Regiment of Philadelphia
County Brigade of the Militia of the Commonwealth. It was at his house
at Germantown (now No. 5442 Main Street) that President Washington
resided during the prevalence of yellow fever in 1793, when the seat
of government was removed to that suburb of Philadelphia. His portrait,
painted by his friend, Gilbert Stewart, is now in the Gibson collection
of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
Illustration: Col. Isaac Franks.
The third and loyalist member of the family, David Franks (b. in
New York, 1720; d. in Philadelphia, 1793), son of Jacob Franks,
settled in Philadelphia early in life, and was elected a member of
the provincial Assembly in 1748. He supplied the army with provisions
during the French and Indian War, and in 1755 he assisted to raise a
fund for the defense of the colony. On November 7, 1765, he signed the
Non-Importation Resolution; his name is also appended to an agreement
to take the King’s paper money in lieu of gold and silver. During the
Revolution he was an intermediary in the exchange of prisoners, as well
as “an agent to the contractors for victualing the troops of the King
of Great Britain.” He was twice imprisoned by the Colonial Government
as an enemy to the American cause, and after his second release, in
1780, he left for England. He returned in 1783 and lived the last ten
years of his life in Philadelphia.
Solomon Bush, a native of Philadelphia, the son of Matthias Bush,
was an officer in the Pennsylvania militia for ten years. In 1777
he was appointed by the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania Deputy
Adjutant-General of the State militia. In September of that year
he was dangerously wounded during a skirmish and had to be taken to
Philadelphia. When the British captured the city in December, 1777,
he was taken prisoner, but released on parole. In 1779 he was promoted
to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was pensioned in 1785.
A Colonel Isaacs of the North Carolina militia is mentioned as “wounded
and taken prisoner at Camden, August 16, 1780; exchanged July, 1781.”
(Wolf, _l. c._, p. 49.)
Lewis Bush became First Lieutenant of the Sixth Pennsylvania Battalion
on January 9, 1776, and Captain on June 24 of the same year. He was
transferred to Colonel Thomas Hartley’s additional Continental Regiment
in January, 1777, and was commissioned Major March 12, 1777. He
participated in a number of battles, and at the battle of Brandywine,
on September 11, 1777, he received wounds from which he died four days
later.
Benjamin Nones (d. 1826), a native of Bordeaux, France, emigrated
to Philadelphia in 1777, and at once took up arms on behalf of the
colonies. He served as a volunteer in Captain Verdier’s regiment under
Count Pulaski during the siege of Savannah, and on September 15, 1779,
received a certificate for gallant conduct on the field of battle. He
attained the rank of Major, and it is stated that he was with General
De Kalb at the battle of Camden, S. C., on August 16, 1780.
Jacob de Leon and Jacob de la Motta were captains under de Kalb;
Captain Noah Abraham was called out with the battalion of Cumberland
County militia of Pennsylvania, July 28, 1777. Aaron Benjamin (d. 1829),
who started as an ensign in the Eighth Connecticut Regiment January 1,
1777, rose three years later to the rank of Regimental Adjutant. Manuel
Mordecai Noah (1747–1825) served under General Marion; Isaac Israel
rose to the rank of Captain in the Eighth Virginia Regiment in 1777,
and Nathaniel Levy, of Baltimore, is mentioned as having served under
Lafayette. There is a record of a certificate issued by the New York
Committee of Safety, in January, 1776, which read as follows: “Hart
Jacobs, of the Jewish religion, having signified to this committee that
it is inconsistent with his religious profession to perform military
duty on Friday nights, being part of the Jewish Sabbath, it is ordered
that he be exempted from military duty on that night of the week....”
(See “Publications,” XI, p. 163.)
Three, and probably four, brothers of the old Pinto family who resided
in Connecticut, took an active part in the Revolution. Abraham Pinto
was a member of Company X, Seventh Regiment, of that State, in 1775;
William Pinto (of whom it ♦is not certain that he was a brother)
appears as a volunteer in 1779 and 1781. Jacob Pinto, who was in New
Haven as early as 1759, appears to have been a member of a political
committee in that city in 1775, and his name is found among those of
other influential citizens of the place in a petition to the Council
of Safety for the removal of certain Tories in 1776. Solomon Pinto
served as an officer of the Connecticut line throughout the war, and
was wounded in the British attack on New Haven July 5 and 6, 1779. He
was one of the original members, in his State, of the Society of the
Cincinnati, which at the beginning included only meritorious officers
of the Revolutionary army.
Mordecai Sheftal (b. at Savannah, Ga., 1735; d. there 1797), who was
one of the first white children born in Savannah, being the son of
Benjamin Sheftal, who came there in 1733, was the chairman of the
Revolutionary Parochial Committee of his native city. In 1777 he was
appointed Commissary-General to the troops of Georgia, and in October
of the following year he became Deputy Commissary of Issues in South
Carolina and Georgia. His imprisonment after Savannah was taken by
the British attracted much attention and the description of it forms
an interesting part of the local history of that period. In 1782
Sheftal appeared in Philadelphia, which was then the haven for ♦patriot
refugees, as one of the founders of the Mickweh Israel congregation. In
the following year, in common with other officers, he received a grant
of land in what was called “The Georgia Continental Establishment” as
a reward for services during the war. He subsequently figures as one
of the incorporators of the Union Society (1786), which is still one of
Savannah’s representative organizations; and his name is also closely
associated with the early history of Freemasonry in the United States.
Sheftal and the above-named Manuel Mordecai Noah, besides their active
service in the army, also contributed large sums to the cause of the
Revolution. Other Jews advanced considerable sums, some of them almost
beyond their means. The list of those who rendered valuable and timely
assistance includes Benjamin Levy, Hyman Levy, Samuel Lyons, Isaac
Moses and Benjamin Jacobs.
There was one, however, who gave more than all of them together, who
gave away practically all he possessed, and neither he nor his rightful
heirs ever recovered the large debts which the new nation owed to him.
This man was Haym Salomon (b. in Lissa, Poland, now a part of Prussia,
in 1740; d. in Philadelphia, Jan. 6, 1785). He probably traveled
extensively before coming to America, because he could speak German,
French and Italian, besides Polish and Russian, an accomplishment which
could hardly have been acquired by a Jew in Poland in that period.
He settled in New York, and there married Rachel, a daughter of Moses
B. Franks (a brother of Jacob Franks). He was arrested by the British
as an American spy soon after they occupied New York in September,
1776, and was kept in confinement for a considerable period. When his
linguistic proficiency became known he was turned over to the Hessian
General, Heister, who gave him an appointment in the commissariat
department. He used the greater liberty which was now accorded him to
be of service to the French and American prisoners, and to assist a
number of them to effect their escape. On August 11, 1778, he escaped
from New York and settled in Philadelphia. He soon became a prominent
exchange broker, and did considerable business with Robert Morris
(1734–1806), the financier of the American Revolution,[16] who was
Superintendent of Finance for the colonies in 1781–84. He also became
broker to the French consul and the treasurer of the French army which
came to assist Washington, and fiscal agent to the French minister to
the United States, Chevalier de la Luzerne. In these capacities large
sums passed through his hands and he became the principal individual
depositor of the Bank of North America, which was founded by Morris.
The latter, who kept a diary, mentions in it nearly seventy-five
separate transactions in which Salomon’s name figures in the
negotiations of bills of exchange, by which means the credit of the
government was maintained in this period; Salomon practically being
the sole agent employed by Morris for this purpose. Most of the money
advanced by Louis XVI. to the cause of the Revolution and the proceeds
of the loans negotiated in Holland passed through his hands.
He advanced aid to numerous prominent men of this period. James Madison,
in a letter (Aug. 27, 1782) urging the forwarding of remittances from
his State which he represented in Philadelphia, wrote: “I have for some
time been a pensioner on the favor of Haym Salomon, a Jew broker.” On
September 30 of the same year he writes: “The kindness of our little
friend in Front Street, near the coffee house, is a fund which will
preserve me from extremities, but I never resort to it without great
mortification, as he obstinately rejects all recompense. The price of
money is so usurious that he thinks it ought to be extorted from none
but those who aim at profitable speculation. To a necessitous delegate
he gratuitously spares a supply out of his private stock.” James
Wilson (1742–98), another famous delegate to the Continental Congress,
who sometimes acted as Salomon’s attorney, relates that without his
client’s aid, “administered with equal generosity and delicacy” he
would have been forced to retire from the public service.
Haym Salomon died suddenly, at the age of forty-five, leaving a widow
and two infant children, named Ezekiel and Haym M. The inventory of his
estate showed that he had lent to the government more than $350,000,
but although these certificates of indebtedness were almost all that
was left of his wealth, they were never paid, and all efforts of his
heirs in later times to recover from Congress payment on these claims,
or even to obtain a token of recognition for his great services, have
thus far proved unsuccessful.
Salomon also took an active part in Jewish communal affairs in
Philadelphia and was one of the original members of the Congregation
Mickweh Israel. In 1784 he was treasurer of what was probably the first
Jewish charitable organization in that city.
His son, ♦Haym M. Salomon, lived in New York and was a dealer in powder
and shot, occupying a store in Front Street in the time of the great
fire of 1835. William Salomon (b. in Mobile, Ala., Oct. 9, 1852) of
New York is a great-grandson of ♦Haym Salomon.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DECLINE OF NEWPORT; WASHINGTON AND THE JEWS.
England’s special enmity to Newport caused the dispersion of its
Jewish congregation――The General Assembly of Rhode Island meets
in the historic Newport Synagogue――Moses Seixas’ address to
Washington on behalf of the Jews of Newport and the latter’s
reply――Washington’s letters to the Hebrew Congregations of
Savannah, Ga., and to the congregations of Philadelphia, New
York, Richmond and Charleston.
The breaking out of the Revolution put an end to the commercial
prosperity of Newport. Its situation upon the ocean, which made it
before so favorable for commerce, had now an opposite effect, and left
it more exposed to attacks from the enemy than any other place of equal
importance, in North America. Its inhabitants had especially provoked
the hostility of the mother country, as it was one of the first places
to manifest a spirit of resistance to the British Government by burning
an armed vessel of war that came to exact an odious tax. It could
expect no mercy and received none, when 8,000 British and Hessian
troops occupied it in 1776. Four hundred and eighty houses were
destroyed, its commerce was ruined and its commercial interests never
recovered from this blow, which fell with crushing effect upon the
Jewish residents.
The congregation was dispersed, the Synagogue was closed, and Rabbi
Isaac Touro went with his family to Jamaica, where he remained until
his death in 1782. Aaron Lopez, who was a heavy sufferer, accompanied
by a majority of the foremost Jews of Newport, removed to Leicester,
Mass., and their stay in that town had a favorable effect on its
development. Others went to Philadelphia and other places. When Newport
was evacuated, in 1779, after the enemy destroyed its wharves and
fortifications and carried off its library and records, some of the
exiles began to return. When the General Assembly of the State of Rhode
Island convened for the first time after the evacuation, it met in
the historic Synagogue (Sept., 1780). Aaron Lopez was one of a number
of the Leicester colony who set out for their former home, but he was
drowned on the way, and his body was later recovered and buried in the
old cemetery.
But those who returned did not remain long. New York had become the
great commercial center after the Revolution, and the important Newport
merchants left one by one for that city; others went to Philadelphia,
Charleston or Savannah. The congregation was, however, still in
existence when President Washington visited Newport in August, 1790,
and he was on that occasion formally addressed by Moses Seixas on
behalf of the Jews of Newport as follows:
Sir:――Permit the children of the stock of Abraham to approach
you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person
and merit, and to join with our fellow-citizens in welcoming you
to Newport.
With pleasure we reflect on those days of difficulty and danger
when the God of Israel, who delivered David from the peril
of the sword, shielded your head in the day of battle, and we
rejoice to think that the same spirit which rested in the bosom
of the greatly beloved Daniel, enabling him to preside over the
provinces of the Babylonian Empire, rests and ever will rest
upon you, enabling you to discharge the arduous duties of Chief
Magistrate of these States.
Deprived, as we have hitherto been, of invaluable rights of
free citizens, we now――with a deep sense of gratitude to the
Almighty Disposer of all events――behold a government erected by
the majesty of the people, a government which gives no sanction
to bigotry and no assistance to persecution, but generously
affording to all liberty of conscience and immunities of
citizenship, deeming every one, of whatever nation, tongue or
language, equal parts of the great governmental machine. This so
ample and extensive Federal Union, whose base is philanthropy,
mutual confidence and public virtue, we cannot but acknowledge
to be the work of the great God, who rules the armies of the
heavens and among the inhabitants of the earth, doing whatever
deemeth to Him good.
For all the blessings of civil and religious liberty which we
enjoy under an equal and benign administration, we desire to
send up thanks to the Ancient of days, the great Preserver of
men, beseeching Him that the angel who conducted our forefathers
through the wilderness into the promised land may graciously
conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this
mortal life; and when, like Joshua, full of days and of honors,
you are gathered to your fathers, may you be admitted into the
heavenly paradise to partake of the water of life and the tree
of immortality.
To this letter, which bears unmistakable traces of having been
originally composed in Rabbinical Hebrew, the Father of His Country
replied as follows:
TO THE HEBREW CONGREGATION OF NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND.
Gentlemen:――While I have received with much satisfaction your
address, replete with expressions of esteem, I rejoice in
the opportunity of assuring you that I shall always retain a
grateful remembrance of the cordial welcome I experienced in
my visit to Newport from all classes of citizens.
The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger, which are
passed, is rendered the more sweet from the consciousness that
they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security.
If we have the wisdom to make the best use of the advantage
with which we are now favored, we cannot fail under the just
administration of a good government to become a great and happy
people.
The citizens of the United States of America have the right to
applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an
enlarged and liberal policy worthy of imitation. All possess
alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were
by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed
the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for happily
the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no
sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they
who live under its protection should demean themselves as good
citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character
not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion
of my administration and fervent wishes of my felicity.
May the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this
land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other
inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own
vine and fig-tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.
May the Father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in
our paths and make us all in our several vocations useful here
and, in His own due time and way, everlastingly happy.[17]
G. WASHINGTON.
In the year following this correspondence the Synagogue was closed for
lack of attendance, and it was not reopened for nearly a century. The
above-named Moses Seixas, who for many years was cashier of the Bank of
Rhode Island, was one of the last Jews in Newport of that period. Moses
Lopez, the nephew of Aaron, is reputed to have been the last one who
remained there, and ultimately he, too, left for New York, where he
died in 1830. Sentiment caused the descendants of many of the original
families to direct that their remains should be buried in the old
cemetery, where tombstones show interments during the entire period
down to 1855. Abraham Touro (d. in Boston, 1822), the son of Rabbi
Isaac Touro, bequeathed a fund for perpetually keeping the Synagogue
in repair, and also made provisions for the care of the burial ground.
His brother Judah Touro of New Orleans replaced the old cemetery wall
with a massive one of stone, with an imposing granite gateway (1843);
and, at his own request, he himself was buried there. The street on
which the Synagogue is situated is known as Touro Street. The city
also possesses a park known as Touro Park. Though the Touro fund
provided for the support of the minister also, the Synagogue remained
closed until 1883, when the Rev. A. P. Mendes, on appointment by
the Congregation Shearith Israel of New York (which became the legal
proprietor of both Synagogue and cemetery of Newport), became minister
and conducted services until his death in 1891.
* * * * *
There are extant two other letters written by George Washington to
Jewish communities which felicitated him upon his advancement to the
presidency. One is in reply to an address signed by Levi Sheftal as
president, in behalf of the Hebrew Congregations of Savannah, and is
as follows:
TO THE HEBREW CONGREGATIONS OF THE CITY OF SAVANNAH, GEORGIA.
Gentlemen:――I thank you with great sincerity for your
congratulation on my appointment to the office which I have the
honor to hold by the unanimous choice of my fellow-citizens, and
especially the expressions you are pleased to use in testifying
the confidence that is reposed in me by your congregations.
As the delay which has naturally intervened between my election
and your address has afforded me an opportunity for appreciating
the merits of the Federal Government and for communicating
your sentiments of its administration, I have rather to express
my satisfaction rather than regret at a circumstance which
demonstrates (upon experiment) your attachment to the former as
well as approbation of the latter.
I rejoice that a spirit of liberality and philanthropy is
much more prevalent than it formerly was among the enlightened
nations of the earth, and that your brethren will benefit
thereby in proportion as it shall become still more extensive;
happily the people of the United States have in many instances
exhibited examples worthy of imitation, the salutary influence
of which will doubtless extend much further if gratefully
enjoying those blessings of peace which (under the favor of
heaven) have been attained by fortitude in war, they shall
conduct themselves with reverence to the Deity and charity
towards their fellow-creatures.
May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered
the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them
in a promised land, _whose providential agency has lately
been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an
independent nation_, still continue to water them with the
dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination
participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that
people whose God is Jehovah.
G. WASHINGTON.
The third address was from the Hebrew Congregations in the cities of
Philadelphia, New York, Richmond and Charleston, dated December 13,
1790, and signed on their behalf by Manuel Josephson, to which the
President returned the following:
Gentlemen:――The liberality of sentiment towards each other,
which marks every political and religious denomination of men
in this country, stands unparalleled in the history of nations.
The affection of such a people is a treasure beyond the reach
of calculation, and the repeated proofs which my fellow-citizens
have given of their attachment to me and approbation of my
doings form the purest sources of my temporal felicity.
The affectionate expressions of your address again excite my
gratitude and receive my warmest acknowledgment.
The power and goodness of the Almighty, so strongly manifested
in the events of our late glorious revolution, and His kind
interposition in our behalf, have been no less visible in
the establishment of our present equal government. In war He
directed the sword, and in peace He has ruled in our councils.
My agency in both has been guided by the best intentions and a
sense of duty I owe to my country.
And as my intentions have hitherto been amply rewarded by the
approbation of my fellow-citizens, I shall endeavor to deserve a
continuance of it by my future conduct.
May the same temporal and eternal blessing which you implore for
me rest upon your congregations.
G. WASHINGTON.
CHAPTER XIV.
OTHER COMMUNITIES IN THE FIRST PERIODS OF INDEPENDENCE.
Rabbi Gershom Mendez Seixas――Growth of the Jewish community
of Philadelphia on account of the War――Protest against the
religious test clause in the Constitution of Pennsylvania――
Benjamin Franklin contributes five pounds to Mickweh Israel――
Secession of the German-Polish element――New Societies――Jewish
lawyers; Judge Moses Levy――Congressman H. M. Phillips――The
Bush family of Delaware――New Jersey and New Hampshire――North
Carolina: the Mordecai family and other early settlers.
While the Jewish community of New York was not entirely dispersed, like
that of Newport, by the outbreak of the Revolution, a great majority
resolved to leave the city before it was occupied by the British
(Sept. 15, 1776). The patriotic minister of the Congregation Shearit
Israel, Rabbi Gershom Mendez Seixas (b. in New York, 1745; d. there
July 2, 1816), who was the spiritual head of the community since 1766,
early espoused the cause of the colonies, and it was mostly due to his
influence that the congregation closed the door of its Synagogue on the
approach of the British. Most of those who left went to Philadelphia;
Rabbi Seixas himself first went to Stratford, Conn., where he remained
about four years, and where several of his former congregants joined
him. In 1780 he, too, went to Philadelphia, but returned to New York
after the war (March, 1784), when the Synagogue was reopened and
he resumed his former position. He later (1787) became a trustee of
Columbia College, and was one of its incorporators whose name appeared
on the charter.
There was, however, notwithstanding the statement of Dr. Benjamin Rush
that “the Jews in all the States are Whigs,” a sprinkling of Tories
in New York Jewry, who remained at home, and some of them occasionally
held services in the Synagogue during the British occupation, under
the presidency of Lyon Jonas, and subsequently of Alexander Zuntz,
a Hessian officer, who settled in New York. On the reorganization of
the congregation at the close of the Revolution, Hyman Levy succeeded
Zuntz as president, and the congregation presented an address of
congratulation to Governor Clinton on the outcome of the war. Rabbi
Seixas was one of the fourteen ministers who participated in the
inauguration of Washington as President, in New York, on April 30,
1789. A list of the residents of New York in 1799 whose residences
were assessed at £2,000 or over includes the names of Benjamin Seixas,
Solomon Sampson, Alexander Zuntz and Ephraim Hart.
The community was still small――not quite half as large as that of
Newport in the preceding period; there were only about 500 Jews in New
York at the commencement of the War of 1812. But it was slowly growing
and several of the first communal institutions date from that time. A
Hebrah Gemilut Hasodim, for the burying of the dead, was organized in
1785; the Polonies Talmud Torah was founded in 1802, with a fund which
Myer Polonies bequeathed to the congregation for that purpose in the
preceding year. The Hebrah Hesed we-Emet was organized in the same year.
The Jewish community which gained most in the time of the war was
that of Philadelphia. The little building in Sterling Alley, where the
Congregation Mickweh Israel prayed at that time, soon became too small,
and a three-story brick house, in Cherry Alley, between Third and
Fourth Streets, was hired. But even the new place was soon too small,
and a plain building was constructed on a lot in Cherry Street, west
of Third Street, which was bought for the purpose. It was dedicated
on September 13, 1782, by Rabbi Seixas. A list of the members of the
congregation at that time contains 102 names[18] and the percentage
of Ashkenazic (German and Polish) names is much larger than in similar
lists of earlier dates.
A year after the Synagogue was built the Jews of Philadelphia for the
first time appeared as an organized body in any public proceeding.
On the 23d of December, 1783, the minister, Gershom Mendez Seixas;
the parnass, Simon Nathan; and Asher Myers, Barnard Gratz and Haym
Salomon, as members of the _Mahamad_ or Board of Trustees, in behalf of
themselves and brethren, addressed the Council of Censors in relation
to the declaration required to be made by each member of the Assembly,
which affirmed that “the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments
were given by Divine inspiration,” and also in relation to that part of
the Constitution which declared that “no other test should be required
of any other civil magistrate in that State.” They represented that the
provisions deprived them of the right of ever becoming representatives.
They did not covet office, they said, but they thought the provision
improper, and an injustice to the members of a persuasion that had
always been attached to the American cause. This memorial appeared
to have had no immediate effect; but it doubtless had its influence
in procuring the ultimate modification of the test clause in the
Constitution of Pennsylvania.
Rabbi Seixas was succeeded in Philadelphia by the Rev. Jacob Raphael
Cohen (d. Sept., 1811), who was formerly a reader or hazzan in Montreal,
Canada, and New York. The congregation was weakened by the departure
of a considerable number of members after the war, and probably
also by the death of Haym Salomon, who was one of its most generous
contributors, and found itself in financial difficulties about the year
1788. After an application to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania for
permission to set up a lottery to pay the amount due on the Synagogue
building was not granted, the congregation issued a general appeal to
citizens of all sects. Among the non-Jews who sent in contributions in
response to this appeal was the great Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) and
the astronomer, David Rittenhouse (1732–96), the former contributing
five pounds and the latter two.
In April, 1790, the Legislature passed an act to allow the Hebrew
Congregation to raise eight hundred pounds sterling by a lottery. The
managers were: Manuel Josephson, Solomon Lyon, Solomon Hays, Solomon
Etting, William Wistar and John Duffield. The last two were not Jews,
but were placed among the trustees probably to give the project some
influence with members of other denominations.
The inevitable secession of the Ashkenazic element took place in 1802,
when the “Hebrew-German Society Rodef Shalom,” one of the earliest
German-Jewish congregations in America was formed. It was reorganized
and chartered in 1812. Among its earliest rabbis were Wolf Benjamin,
Jacob Lipman, Bernhard Illowy, Henry Vidaver, Moses Sulzbacher and
Moses Rau.
A Society for the Visitation of the Sick and for Mutual Assistance was
organized in October, 1813, with Jacob Cohen as its first president.
In 1819 several ladies organized the still existing Female Hebrew
Benevolent Society, of which Miss Rebecca Gratz (1781–1869), who was
reputed to be the prototype of Rebecca in Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe,”
was the first secretary. Several other benevolent and educational
societies date their origin from the first half of the Nineteenth
Century, and have helped to give the Jewish community of Philadelphia
that substantiality and compactness of organization which is missing in
other large cities of the United States.
At the same time progress was being made in other directions, too. The
aptitude of the Jew for the legal profession could not be displayed and
utilized as early as his well known medical skill, which he exercised
even in the dark ages. But as soon as the opportunity of emancipation
was offered, good jurists appeared and soon occupied a prominent place
at the bar and also on the bench. The earliest Jewish practitioner
in Pennsylvania, of whom there is a record, was Moses Levy (d. May 9,
1826), whose admission to the bar dates as far back as 1778, and who
a year later was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of that
State. He held various offices and finally became Presiding Judge
of the District Court of the City and County of Philadelphia (1822),
after having served twenty years as Recorder. At least three other Jews
were admitted to the practice of law in Philadelphia in the eighteenth
century; Samson Levy (d. 1831) in 1787, Daniel Levy of Northumberland
county (d. 1844) in 1791, and Zalegman Phillips (1779–1839) in
1799. About a dozen more were admitted during the first half of the
nineteenth century, among them being the latter’s son, Henry Mayer
Phillips, who was admitted in 1832, and was, twenty-four years later,
elected to represent the fourth district of Pennsylvania in the 35th
Congress. (See Henry S. Morais, _The Jews of Philadelphia_, index.)
* * * * *
The number of Jews in the remainder of the thirteen original colonies
was at that time very small and they were mostly scattered. While there
are, for instance, records of Jews who lived or traded in Delaware
as early as 1655, there was no Jewish community in that State until
about two centuries later. But there was at least one Jewish family in
Wilmington, Del., immediately after the Revolution, several members of
which participated in that struggle. David Bush joined the Washington
Lodge of Freemasons of Wilmington on December 16, 1784.[19] He was its
Senior Warden in 1789, its Treasurer in 1791 and again Senior Warden in
1795. He was the father of Major Lewis Bush, who has been mentioned in
a former chapter (page 90), and of three other sons, two of whom also
held offices in the same lodge in the last decade of the eighteenth
century. Joseph Capelle (Carpelles?) was Master of the lodge in 1792.
The colony of New Jersey, whose Indians, according to a description
by William Penn, closely resembled Jews, had very few real Israelites
in Colonial times, despite its proximity to New York on one side and
to Pennsylvania on the other. In the test established in West Jersey
for office-holders in 1693, the candidate had to declare on oath or
affirmation that he “professes faith in God the father, and Jesus
Christ his eternal son....” In the East Jersey Bill of Rights was
inserted the provision “that no person or persons that profess faith
in God, by Jesus Christ his only son, shall at any time be any way
molested.... Provided this shall not be extended to any of the Romish
religion.” But, as it is justly observed by Mr. Friedenberg (see
“Publications,” XVII, p. 36), these provisions were not at all aimed
against the Jews, of whom there were hardly any in the colony at
that time, but against heathens, atheists, infidels and Catholics,
especially against the latter. No Jews were naturalized in New Jersey
before the Revolution. David Hays is known to have resided on a
plantation in Griggs Town, Somerset County, in 1744, when he offered
it for sale; and Myers Levy, a Dutch Jew, is reported to have absconded
from Spottsville, in East New Jersey, in 1760, leaving many debts
behind. Another Jew, Nathan Levy, a shop keeper of Philipsburg, Sussex
County, West Jersey, is mentioned many years later. There was only, as
far as it is known, one Jew in the New Jersey troops of the Continental
Army: Asher Levy or Lewis, a grandson of the well-known Asser Levy
of New Amsterdam. He was commissioned ensign in the first regiment,
September 12, 1778. “The New Jersey Journal” was established by David
Franks at Camden in 1778 and existed about four years.
The first families with Jewish names which are mentioned in the records
of New Hampshire, were the Moses and the Abrams family “descendants
of Jewish Christians.” The Abrams family, according to tradition, is
descended from two brothers who came from Palestine to New England at
an unknown date, their names being William Abrams, who was a ship’s
carpenter and fell into the sea and was drowned, and John, the other
brother, who settled at Amesbury, Mass. (“Publications,” XI, p. 79).
In the list of grants to settlers on the road, between Wolfsborough and
Leavits Town (Ossipee), issued in 1770, on condition that each settler
had to give a bond for £30 that a house would be erected by him within
a year, grant No. 11 was made to Joseph Levy. In 1777 mention is made
of William Levi, of Somersworth, as a private in the 2d New Hampshire
Continental Regiment. Abraham Isaac settled in Portsmouth about the
close of the Revolution and was active in Masonic affairs. A local
historian writes of him that “he and his wife were natives of Prussia
and Jews of the strictest sect. They were the first descendants of
the venerable Patriarchs that ever pitched their tents in Portsmouth,
and during their lives were the only Jews among us. He acquired a
good property and built a house on State street. Their shop was always
closed on Saturday.” Mr. Isaac died February 15, 1803, and on the stone
which marks his grave in the North Burying Ground is an epitaph written
by the poet J. M. Sewall, author of the popular revolutionary song
“Vain Britons Boast No Longer.”
It has already been mentioned in a former chapter (page 86) that
there were hardly any Jews in North Carolina at the time when its
representatives voted at the Constitutional Convention against the
abolition of religious tests. The provision of its State Constitution
of 1776, which read “That no person who shall deny the being of God or
the truth of the Protestant religion ... shall be capable of holding
any office or place of trust or profit in the Civil Department within
the State” was doubtless aimed primarily at Roman Catholics, though
it necessarily included Jews, Quakers, Mohamedans, etc. Jews did not
become directly interested in the struggle for religious liberty in
that State until the first decade in the Nineteenth Century, and the
description of it will be found in the following chapter. The annals
of Freemasonry, which usually disclose the earliest Jewish settlers in
various localities in the eighteenth century, do not contain any Jewish
names in the lodges of that fraternity until its very close. Jacob
Mordecai (b. in Philadelphia, 1762; d. in Richmond, 1838), the son of
Moses Mordecai (b. in Bonn, Germany, 1707; d. in Philadelphia, 1781),
was Master of Johnston Caswell Lodge No. 10, of Warrenton, N. C., in
1797, 1798 and 1799. He was the founder and proprietor of a female
seminary in that city which enjoyed a good reputation. One of his sons,
Major Alfred Mordecai (1804–87), was probably the first Jewish graduate
of the United States Military Academy of West Point.[20] Zachariah Hart
(also spelled Harte) was a member of David Glasgow Lodge, in Glasgow
County, in 1798 and 1799. Abraham Isaacs was Senior Warden of St.
Tammany Lodge No. 30, of Wilmington, in 1798. Aaron Lazarus (1777–1841),
who is mentioned as one of the first Hebrews to reach Wilmington and
later became one of the first directors of the Wilmington & Weldon
Railroad Company, was a member of the same lodge in 1803. There were
about half a dozen other Jewish Masons in the lodges of Wilmington,
Newbern and of Beaufort County about that time.
CHAPTER XV.
THE QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA
AND IN NORTH CAROLINA.
Little change in the basic systems of State institutions――Patrick
Henry, Madison and Jefferson on religious liberty in Virginia――
The similarity between the Virginia statute and the conclusions
of Moses Mendelssohn pointed out by Count Mirabeau――The first
congregation of Richmond――Article 32 of the Constitution of
North Carolina against Catholics, Jews, etc.――How Jacob Henry,
a Jewish member of the Legislature, defended and retained
his seat in 1809――Judge Gaston’s interpretation――The first
congregation of Wilmington, N. C.――Final emancipation in 1868.
The provision in Article VI of the Constitution of the United States
(§3) that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification
to any office or public trust under the United States” settled the
matter only as far as the National Government was concerned. Each
of the independent and sovereign States could solve this problem in
its own way, though most of them have already adopted full religious
freedom. But it must be remembered that the basic institutions of the
States were not directly changed by the Revolution, and in some of
them they were not changed at all. In some instances Royal Charters
remained, with some alterations, as State Constitutions; English common
law remained in force even to this day, unless otherwise provided for
by special enactment. The colonies were too free originally to require
or desire a sudden radical change when they threw off the British yoke.
They kept on progressing by the slow process of evolution, but not at
an equal pace, each emphasizing the questions in which its inhabitants
were mostly interested. Uniform or simultaneous action was not to be
expected under such conditions.
Virginia, the State of Washington and of Jefferson, the “mother of
presidents” and the home of the framers of the National Constitution,
began to consider the question of religious liberty seriously soon
after peace was declared. It was not a new question even then, for
as early as 1776, when a new Constitution for the Commonwealth was
drafted, there occurred a significant discussion about the difference
between toleration and rights. The Declaration of Rights, reported by
a committee of which Colonel Mason was chairman, contained a provision
relative to religious liberty whose authorship is attributed to Patrick
Henry (1736–99). It provided that all men should enjoy the fullest
toleration in the exercise of religion. Madison strongly opposed the
use of the word toleration, which recognized liberty of worship not
as a right but as a favor granted to dissenting denominations. At
his instance the provision was amended to read: “All men are equally
entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates
of conscience.”
But even this was still far from actual separation of Church and State
in Virginia. Even the annual assessments, which had been theretofore
levied in favor of the Episcopal Church, were not abolished outright,
they were simply suspended from year to year, until, at Jefferson’s
instance, the grant was defeated in 1779. In that year he introduced
a measure entitled “A bill for establishing religious freedom,” which,
after two readings, was sent throughout the State to secure the sense
of the people relative to it before taking final action at the next
legislature. It was permitted to languish unacted upon for several
years, and during that time an agitation was kept up against the spirit
which it embodied. Various measures were suggested, about 1784, looking
to establish Christianity in Virginia instead of any single Christian
sect, as before the Revolution, and for securing governmental support
to all Christian sects. The theory of the advocates of such measures
was, that while there should be no actual persecution of non-Christian
sects, the State ought to establish Christianity as the religion of
the great majority of the people, and that the Revolution had evolved
merely the principle that no single Christian sect should be preferred
over any other. On November 11, 1784, a resolution drafted by Patrick
Henry was reported to the Lower House of the Legislature, providing
that “the people of the Commonwealth, according to their respective
abilities, ought to pay a moderate tax or contribution for the support
of the Christian religion, or of some Christian church denomination
or communion....” In spite of Madison’s opposition, it was adopted by
a vote of 47 to 32, and a special committee, of which Mr. Henry was
chairman, was appointed to draft such a bill.[21]
It was clearly understood that this measure was intended to curtail the
rights of Jewish and other non-Christian residents. Beverly Randolph,
writing about this subject to James Monroe, says: “The only great point
that has been discussed since the sitting of the Assembly has been
a motion for a general assessment, upon more contracted ground than
I could ever have expected. The generals on the opposite sides were
Henry and Madison. The former advocated, with his usual art, the
establishment of the Christian religion in exclusion of all other
Denominations. By this I mean that Turks, Jews and Infidels were
to contribute to the support of a religion whose truth they did not
acknowledge. Madison displayed great learning and ingenuity, with all
the powers of a close reasoner; but was unsuccessful in the event,
having a majority against him. I am, however, inclined to think that
the measure will not be adopted.... The supporters of this holy system
will certainly split whenever they come to enter upon the minute
arrangements of the business.”
“A bill establishing a provision for teachers of the Christian
religion” was brought in December 23, 1784, and after it was amended,
but without materially changing its substance, it passed its second
reading. But on the next day (December 24) Madison was able to secure
the passage of a resolution postponing the third reading till the
following November, and copies of the bill were ordered to be printed
and distributed in every county of the Commonwealth. The people were
requested to signify their opinion respecting the adoption of such a
measure to the next session of the legislature. An active and thorough
discussion of the bill followed throughout the State. Madison prepared
a “Memorial and Remonstrance” against the bill, which was extensively
circulated and signed.
Madison made no mistake in suggesting this appeal to the people. When
the Assembly met in October, 1785, the table of the House of Delegates
almost sunk under the weight of the accumulated copies of the memorial
against the bill which came from different counties, each with its
long and dense columns of subscribers. The fate of the assessment was
sealed. The manifestation of the public judgment was too unequivocal
and overwhelming to leave the faintest hope to the friends of the
measure, and it was abandoned without a struggle. The declaratory act
for the establishment of religious liberty, which had been drawn by
Jefferson as one of the committee of revisors and presented to the
legislature in 1779, was then taken up and passed into a law. Madison’s
“Memorial and Remonstrance” had cleared away every obstruction.
In a letter to Madison, dated December 16, 1786, Jefferson, who was
then our Minister to France, wrote: “The Virginia Act for religious
freedom has been received with infinite approbation in Europe, and
♦propagated with enthusiasm. I do not mean by the governments, but by
the individuals who compose them. It has been translated into French
and Italian, has been sent to most of the courts of Europe, and has
been the best evidence of the falsehoods of those reports which stated
us to be in anarchy. It is inserted in the new Encyclopædia, and is
appearing in most of the publications respecting America. In fact, it
is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after
so many ages during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by
kings, priests and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced
the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of
men may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions.”
In the following year Count Mirabeau (1749–91) the most distinguished
of the advocates of Jewish emancipation in France, calls attention in
his essay _On Moses Mendelssohn and the Political Reform of the Jews_
(1787) to the striking similarity of the enactment of Virginia to
the conclusions at which the Jewish philosopher of Berlin arrived by
abstract reasoning; assuming that Mendelssohn never saw the preamble
of the American law, which was drafted by Jefferson four years before
the publication of “Jerusalem” in 1783. It is clear, however, that
about seven years later, when the great French Revolution, which
was influenced by the American Revolution much more than is commonly
supposed, was in full swing, even the debates of the Constitutional
Convention of Virginia of 1776 had become known to the friends of
religious liberty in France. In the course of a petition in favor of
their own emancipation, addressed by the French Jews to the National
Assembly on January 29th, 1790, they said: “America, to which politics
will owe so many useful lessons, has rejected the word toleration from
its code, as a term tending to compromise individual liberty and to
sacrifice certain classes of men to other classes. To tolerate is,
in fact, to suffer that which you could, if you wish, prevent and
prohibit.”
There were not many Jews in Virginia in the time when this momentous
question was discussed and solved. Individual Jews are mentioned in the
Seventeenth Century, but the first record of a congregation occurs in
connection with the address to Washington, mentioned above (page 102),
which was sent by the Hebrew congregations of Philadelphia, Richmond,
New York and Charleston. The minute-book of the Congregation Bet Shalom
of Richmond, Va., dates back to the year 1791, and it is assumed that
the first or Sephardic congregation was organized in that year. The
first place of worship was in a room of a three-story brick building on
the west side of 19th street, between Franklin and Grace streets, where
one of the members resided. It later moved to a small brick building,
erected on the west side of 19th street in the rear of the Union Hotel,
which then stood on the corner of Main street. After some years a lot
was purchased from Dr. Adams on the east side of Mayo street, above
Franklin street, on which a commodious synagogue was erected, in which
the congregation worshipped for upwards of three-quarters of a century.
The burial ground on Franklin street, near 21st street, which is now
enclosed with a substantial granite wall, was conveyed by Isaiah Isaac
to Jacob I. Cohen, Israel I. Cohen, David Isaac, Moses Mordecai, Jacob
I. Cohen, Jr., Simon Gratz, Aaron Levy, Moses Jacob and Levy Myers,
as trustees, on October 21st, 1791. It was used until about 1816, when
Benjamin Wolfe, then a member of the Common Council of the City of
Richmond, made application on behalf of the congregation for a new
piece of ground, which was granted by an ordinance passed on the 20th
day of May, giving for that purpose an acre of land belonging to the
City of Richmond lying upon Shockoe Hill.[22]
* * * * *
North Carolina, like Virginia, had an Established Church until a
short time before the outbreak of the Revolution, all citizens being
required to pay toward its support, and dissenting clergymen being
denied the privilege of performing even the marriage ceremony. But when
the Dissenters won their fight against the Establishment, they took
an uncompromising stand against the complete emancipation of Roman
Catholics, Jews and others not belonging to a Protestant denomination.
The opposition to Jews was mainly theoretical or academic, as there
were practically no Jews in North Carolina at that time. In happy
contrast to some Old World countries of the present time, opposition
to Jews in the United States developed only in parts of the country
where they were least known. In all the original States which had
considerable Jewish communities, like New York, Pennsylvania and
Rhode Island, full religious liberty was firmly established before
the adoption of the Federal Constitution.
Like Virginia, too, North Carolina adopted a Constitution in 1776.
It provided for liberty of worship and even excluded clergymen from
being members of the Senate, House of Commons or Council of State.
But when it came to the question of holding office, an exception was
incorporated in Article 32 which read as follows:
“That no person who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the
Protestant religion or the Divine Authority, either of the Old or New
Testament, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the
freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office
or place of trust or profit in the Civil Department within the State.”
This article was doubtless aimed primarily at Roman Catholics: but
the prohibition being a sweeping one, it necessarily included Jews,
Quakers, Mohamedans, Deists, etc. While there was some opposition
to the adoption of this section, it seems to have expressed the
predominating opinion of the State on that point, for, as it was
noted above (page 86), the delegates of North Carolina voted at the
Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787 against the clause abolishing
religious tests. The entire question was again discussed at the State
Convention which was called in 1788 to ratify the Constitution of the
United States, and the narrower view prevailed. The Convention resolved
neither to ratify nor reject the Constitution, but that a Declaration
of rights be laid before Congress and twenty-six amendments proposed.
North Carolina was therefore unrepresented in the extra session of the
first Congress which adopted the first amendment, “That Congress shall
make no laws respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof.” This amendment was partly a concession
to that State, implying a guaranty that even should a Papist or a
Mohamedan be elected President, he should not be able to force his
religion on those unwilling to accept it. After its adoption, North
Carolina adopted the Constitution, in November, 1789.
Despite all this prejudice, section 32 of the State Constitution soon
came to be regarded a dead letter. As a matter of fact, a Catholic was
elected Governor in 1781. It was not until 1809 that the whole subject
again came prominently to the front in the case of Jacob Henry, a Jew,
who was elected a member of the Legislature for Carteret County. He had
served throughout the year 1808 and had apparently been re-elected for
1809, and then a fellow member asked to have his seat declared vacant
on account of his faith.
Henry delivered a notable address in the Assembly in defense of his
rights to his seat. It made a strong impression at that time, and was
later republished as an example of fine composition in a work known
as the _American Orator_.[23] He was permitted to retain his seat, but
the principle at issue was rather avoided than settled. It was decided
that the article prohibiting non-Protestants from holding office in any
civil department of the State did not exclude such persons from serving
in the Legislature, because the legislative office was above all civil
offices. The view was more pointedly defined by saying that Catholics
and Jews could make the laws, but could neither execute nor interpret
them. Actually, however, both executive and judicial offices were held
by non-Protestants, before and after that incident.
When a distinguished Roman Catholic, William Gaston (1778‒1844), was
chosen Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina (1834) a doubt
arose, even in his own mind, whether he could accept the office. But he
resorted to an even more ingenious interpretation of the Constitution,
which was subsequently followed in other cases as well. He argued that
the word “deny” implied an overt act, and that “the Constitution does
not prescribe the faith which entitles to or excludes from civil office,
but demands from all those who hold office, that decent respect of the
prevalent religion of the country which forbids them to impugn it, to
declare it false, to arraign it as an imposition upon the credulity of
the people.”
While the acceptance of this decision made it possible for every one
to hold office, the efforts to abolish the religious test altogether
did not cease. The question was again thoroughly debated at the
Convention which came together in 1835 to amend the State Constitution.
There were practically no Jews in the State even then, but some of
the distinguished members of the Convention championed the cause of
absolute religious liberty and worked for the abolition of the entire
article which prescribed the test. Their efforts, however, were not
successful, and the change which was adopted emancipated only the
Catholics, by substituting the word “Christian” for “Protestant.”
The small Jewish Congregation of Wilmington, N. C., which was organized
in 1852 for burial purposes, began about four years later to circulate
a petition for the removal of the existing disability. A bill to that
effect was introduced in the Legislature in the same year (1858),
but the committee to which it was referred reported that while it
considered the objectionable clause “a relic of bigotry and intolerance
unfit to be associated in our fundamental law with the enlightened
principle of representative government ... it is highly inexpedient
to alter or amend the Constitution by legislative enactment in any
particular whatsoever.”
When the Constitution of North Carolina was again changed by
the Convention of 1861, which voted for secession and joined the
Confederacy, the article in question was changed in phraseology only.
The word “Christian” was omitted, but the clause still debarred from
holding office a “person who shall deny the being of God or the Divine
Authority of both the Old and the New Testament.” The convention of
the period of reconstruction, which met in 1865, afforded no relief,
but the Constitution which it framed was rejected by the people at the
polls in the following year, though on other grounds. It was not until
the Constitutional Convention of 1868 that Jewish emancipation was
accomplished in North Carolina. The time was ripe for the abolition of
all religious tests, and there appears to have been no debate on that
point. Only “persons who shall deny the being of Almighty God” were,
and still are, debarred from holding office in that State, as no change
has been made in this regard since 1868.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE WAR OF 1812 AND THE REMOVAL OF JEWISH DISABILITIES
IN MARYLAND.
The Jewish community almost at a standstill between the
Revolution and the War of 1812――Stoppage of immigration and
losses through emigration and assimilation――No Jews in the
newly admitted States――The small number of Jews who fought
in the second war with England included Judah Touro, the
philanthropist――The Jewish disabilities in Maryland――A Jew
appointed by Jefferson as United States Marshal for that
State――The “Jew Bill” as an issue in Maryland politics――Removal
of the disabilities in 1826.
The hopes of the Jews of western Europe were raised by the French
Revolution, which gave the Jews of France full citizenship. The
Napoleonic wars brought liberty and Jewish emancipation in the
countries and principalities which were conquered by the great Corsican,
and even where this was not achieved it became a probability for the
near future. The disturbed state of Europe made foreign travel, and
especially emigration over sea, hazardous, and there were hardly any
new arrivals of Jews from the Old World during the quarter century
following the establishment of the United States Government. There were,
on the other hand, numerous departures of Jews for England and its
American colonies, especially Jamaica, during and after the Revolution,
and the losses through baptism and mixed marriages, which account
for the disappearance of a large number of colonial Jewish families,
retarded the natural growth of the communities. As a result it is
doubtful whether there were as many Jews in the United States at
the time of the outbreak of the second war with England, in 1812, as
there were in the Revolutionary period. Neither had their wealth or
importance increased in those times; it seems that there was even some
deterioration in both, caused no doubt by the lack of new blood which
is indispensable to small communities.
There were hardly any Jews in the three new States which were admitted
to the Union in the eight years of Washington’s administration. In
Vermont, which came in in 1791, there was no Jewish Congregation
until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Kentucky (1792) and
Tennessee (1796) had very few Jews until a later period, and the stray
Jewish sounding names which are met with in various records in the
first half century of their existence as States are not safe material
for the foundation of a history of the Jews in these Commonwealths.
Ohio, which was admitted in 1803, had very few Jews at that time, and
the immense territory of Louisiana, which was purchased from Napoleon
in the same year, had practically none, as Jews never thrived in
the French possessions in the New World, except in colonies like
Martinique,[24] where there was a Jewish community prior to it being
occupied by the French (1635).
The number of Jews who took part in the War of 1812 was therefore
smaller than that of the participants in the War of Independence, and
the disproportionately large percentage of officers shows that they
still belonged mostly to the wealthier classes. In the list which is
enumerated in the valuable work of Mr. Simon Wolf, which was mentioned
above, there are mentioned thirteen officers, of whom one, Nathan Moses
of Pennsylvania, achieved the rank of Colonel, and two, Mayer Moses
of South Carolina and Mordecai Myers of Pennsylvania, were captains.
(General Joseph Bloomfield of New Jersey, who is included in the list,
was not a Jew, see “Publications,” XI. p. 190.) The balance comprises
three lieutenants, one adjutant, one ensign, two sergeants, three
corporals and twenty-seven privates. Among the latter were Jacob Hays,
and Benjamin Hays of New York, father and son; and Judah Touro, the
philanthropist, who was dangerously wounded at the battle of New
Orleans in January, 1815.
The War of 1812 gave the impetus to a renewal of the agitation for the
removal of the disabilities of the Jews of Maryland, the only State
which had a considerable Jewish community in such a disadvantageous
position. The church establishment in Maryland terminated with the
fall of the proprietary rule and the emergence into statehood. With
it fell, too, the force of the legislation which for a century and
a half had declared the profession of Jewish faith a capital offence,
as was already mentioned in a previous chapter (page 77).[25] But part
of the old spirit remained under the new conditions, and the new State
Constitution of 1776, which granted free exercise of religion, provided
for “a declaration of belief in the Christian religion” as a necessary
qualification for holding public office. But this did not prevent
a gradual influx of Jews during and after the Revolutionary War,
which is to be attributed to the commercial and industrial advantages
of Baltimore. The first formal effort to effect the removal of the
disability was made in December, 1797, when Solomon Etting (b. in York,
Pa., 1764; d. in Baltimore, 1847), Bernard Gratz (b. in York, Pa.,
1764; d. in Baltimore, 1801) and others presented a petition to the
General Assembly at Annapolis in which they averred “that they are
a sect of people called Jews, and thereby deprived of many of the
valuable rights of citizenship, and pray to be placed upon the same
footing with other good citizens.” The committee to whom this petition
was referred reported the same day that they “have taken the same into
consideration and conceive the prayer of the petition is reasonable,
but as it involves a constitutional question of considerable importance
they submit to the House the propriety of taking the same into
consideration at this advanced stage of the session.” This disposition
of the petition put a quietus upon further agitation for the next five
years. In the meantime (1801) Reuben Etting (b. in York, Pa., 1762; d.
in Philadelphia, 1848), a brother of the above-mentioned Solomon, was
appointed by President Jefferson United States Marshal for Maryland,
which presented the anomalous condition of a man who could not be
chosen constable under the State laws, holding a highly responsible
Federal office. A second petition with the same object in view as the
first was presented to the General Assembly in November, 1802, and this
time it came to a vote, but it was refused, thirty-eight voting against
it and only seventeen in its favor. The attempt was renewed in 1803
and in 1804, when it was again defeated by a vote of thirty-nine to
twenty-four. This fourth defeat disheartened the few determined spirits
upon whom the brunt of the struggle had thus far fallen, and the formal
agitation ceased for a time.
The arrival in Baltimore from Richmond, Va., in the year 1808, of the
Cohen family, consisting of the widow and six sons of Jacob J. Cohen,
a soldier of the Revolution (a native of Rhenish Prussia, who came to
America in 1773 and died in 1808), and other arrivals in that period,
helped to increase the material importance and the communal influence
of the Jews of Baltimore. After Solomon Etting and several members of
the Cohen family served with distinction in the defense of Baltimore
and in subsequent military engagements, the injustice of the Jewish
disabilities became more manifest. The sympathy of a group of men
active in public life was enlisted, and these conducted the legislative
struggle for full emancipation of the Jews in the General Assembly from
1816 to 1826. The most prominent figure in this group, which included
Thomas Brackenridge, E. S. Thomas, General Winder, Colonel W. G. D.
Worthington and John V. L. MacMahon, was Thomas Kennedy of Washington
county.
The “Jew Bill” became a clearly defined issue in Maryland politics, and
here we see again the American peculiarity mentioned above (page 118),
that those who knew the Jew best were his most ardent defenders.
Several representatives from country districts, where Jews were known
by name only, failed of re-election because they had voted for the
repeal of Jewish disabilities: while, on the other hand, a disposition
favorable to Jewish emancipation became at an early date a sine qua
non of election from Baltimore. The successful effort of Jacob Henry
to retain his seat in the Legislature of North Carolina, which has
been described in the previous chapter, was effectively used by the
friends of the Jews in Maryland. Speaking on the Jew Bill in 1818,
Mr. Brackenridge alluded to the incident as follows: “In the State of
North Carolina there is a memorable instance on record of an attempt to
expel Mr. Henry, a Jew, from the legislative body of which he had been
elected a member. The speech delivered on that occasion I hold in my
hand. It is published in a collection called “The American Orator,” a
book given to your children at school and containing those republican
truths you wish to see earliest implanted in their minds. Mr. Henry
prevailed, and it is a part of our education as Americans to love and
cherish the sentiments uttered by him on that occasion.” Six years
later Col. Worthington, in the course of a speech on the same subject,
also recalled Henry’s triumph in glowing terms. Some of the addresses
delivered on that subject were considered of sufficient importance
to be republished separately after the question was settled; one
collection of them entitled “Speeches on the Jew Bill in the House of
Delegates in Maryland” was published in Philadelphia in 1829.
Finally, in 1822, a bill to the desired effect passed both houses
of the General Assembly; but the Constitution of Maryland required
that any act amendatory thereto must be passed at one session and
published and confirmed at the succeeding session of the Legislature.
Accordingly, recourse was necessary to the session of 1823–24, in which
a confirmatory bill was introduced accompanied by a petition from the
Jews of Maryland. The bill was confirmed by the Senate, but defeated
in the House of Delegates after a stirring debate, and all formal
legislation hitherto enacted was rendered nugatory. But the time was
ripe for this act of justice, and on the last day of the following
session of the Legislature (Feb. 26, 1825) an act “for the relief of
the Jews of Maryland,” which had already received the sanction of the
Senate, was passed by the House of Delegates by a vote of twenty-six
to twenty-five. The bill provided that “every citizen of this State
professing the Jewish religion” who shall be appointed to any office
of profit or trust shall, in addition to the required oaths, make and
subscribe a declaration of his belief in a future state of rewards and
punishments, instead of the declaration now required by the government
of the State. In the following year a brief confirmatory act was passed
and the battle for Jewish emancipation was won. Theoretically there
still remained a discrimination, which was not eliminated until many
years afterwards; but practically there was no formal disability.
Solomon Etting and Jacob I. Cohen, both of whom had been throughout
the moving spirits of the legislative struggle, were promptly elected
in Baltimore (Oct., 1826) as members of the City Council, and the
former ultimately became president of that body. A number of Jews later
occupied and still occupy important political positions in Maryland
commensurate with their individual ability and with the prominence of
Jews in the business and professional life of the State.
CHAPTER XVII.
MORDECAI MANUEL NOAH AND HIS TERRITORIALIST-ZIONISTIC PLANS.
Noah’s family; his youth and his early successes as journalist
and as dramatist――His appointment as Consul in Tunis and
his recall――His insistence that the United States is not a
Christian nation――Editor and playwright, High-Sheriff and
Surveyor of the Port of New York――His invitation to the Jews
of the world to settle in the City of Refuge which he was to
found on Grand Island――Impressive ceremonies in Buffalo which
were the beginning and the end of “Ararat”――His “Discourse on
the Restoration of the Jews”――Short career on the bench――Jewish
activities.
While the last vestiges of discrimination against the Jews were being
removed in Maryland, a grandiose plan for solving the Jewish problem
through colonization in America was conceived by one of the most
prominent Jews of New York. This man was Mordecai Manuel Noah (b. in
Philadelphia, July 19, 1785; d. in New York March 22, 1851). He was of
Portuguese descent, a son of Manuel Mordecai Noah of South Carolina,
who served in the Revolutionary army, and a cousin of Henry M. Phillips
(b. in Philadelphia, 1811; d. there 1884), who was a member from the
fourth district of Pennsylvania in the Thirty-fifth Congress (elected
as a Democrat in 1856), and besides occupying various positions of
honor and trust, also served as Grand Master of Free Masons of his
native State. Noah was left an orphan at the age of four, and was
brought up by his maternal grandfather, Jonas Phillips (b. in Germany,
1736; d. in Philadelphia, 1803). Noah was apprenticed to a carver and
gilder, but his studious habits and abilities attracted the attention
of some prominent men, and it is said that the financier, Robert Morris,
procured the cancellation of his indentures and obtained for him an
appointment as clerk in the office of the Auditor of the United States
Treasury.
Upon the removal of the national capital to Washington, young Noah
resigned his clerkship and accepted employment as a reporter at the
sessions of the Pennsylvania Legislature at Harrisburg, where he
acquired his first experience in journalism. Several years later he
removed to Charleston, S. C., where he became in 1809 the editor of
“The City Gazette” and became an ardent advocate of war with England.
This was against the prevailing spirit of the wealthy seaport town, and
it involved him in many quarrels and in several duels, in one of which
he killed his opponent. It was also in this city that his first play,
“Paul and Alexis,” or “The Orphans of the Rhine,” was performed for the
first time. It was afterwards taken to England, where it was somewhat
altered, and with its name changed to “The Wandering Boys” was brought
out in 1820 at the Park Theatre in New York with great success.
After declining an appointment as Consul to Riga, Russia, in 1812, Noah
was appointed by President Madison a year later as American Consul to
Tunis, with a special mission to Algiers. He sailed from Charleston in
a vessel bound for France, which was captured by the British fleet off
the French coast. He was brought to England as a prisoner of war, but
being regarded as a person of importance he was allowed to remain at
liberty upon his parole, and to utilize the time in travelling through
the country. After some months he was released and proceeded by the
way of Spain to his post of duty. He was soon engaged in the work for
which he was specially commissioned――to ransom the American prisoners
then held in slavery by the Algerians. He was to endeavor to release
the captured sailors in such wise as to lead the Algerians to believe
that the relatives and friends of the captives, and not the American
government, was interested in their ransom. Noah effected this in a
creditable manner under the circumstances; but he was compelled to
expend a sum exceeding the amount allowed him by his government. Noah’s
political opponents at home made use of this apparent irregularity to
effect his recall. Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, wrote to him
that it was not known at the time of his appointment that his religion
would be any obstacle to the exercise of his consular functions, but
that recent information, on which entire reliance could be placed,
proved that it would have a very unfavorable effect; that the President
therefore had deemed it expedient to revoke his commission, and that
upon the receipt of this letter he should consider himself as no
longer in the service of the United States.[26] Noah finally extricated
himself from all his difficulties, and later was thoroughly vindicated,
his actions approved and his advances remitted.
One of his official acts as Consul deserves special mention. The war
between the United States and England was still raging, when one day
an American privateer came into the harbor of Tunis with three English
East Indiamen loaded with valuable cargoes as prizes. The prizes and
cargoes were turned over to the American Consul to sell at auction. The
British Minister protested against such sale on the ground of a clause
in the treaty with England which provided that no Christian power
should sell a British prize or its cargo in an Algerian port. Noah
admitted the _bona fides_ of the stipulation, but contended that under
proper interpretation of international law the United States could
not be held to be a Christian nation within the meaning of the treaty
and hence was excepted from the inhibition. To prove his contention
he exhibited the Constitution of the United States with its provisions
against sectarianism and religious tests, and finally cited the Joel
Barlow Treaty with Turkey of 1808, ratified by the United States Senate,
which declared that the United States made no objections to Mussulmen
because of their religion and that they are entitled to and should
receive all the privileges of citizens of the most favored nations.
This argument was sustained by the Bey and the prizes were accordingly
sold in Tunis. Noah’s contention thus became established as a principle
of international law which has never since been challenged. It was
perhaps this stand taken by Noah in declaring the American nation to be
non-Christian which convinced the government at home that his faith was
“an obstacle to the exercise of his consular functions.”
On his return to America Noah settled in New York (1816), where he
resided for the rest of his life in the enjoyment of many honors and
great popularity. He was successively the editor of the “National
Advocate,” “New York Enquirer,” “Evening Star,” “Commercial Advertiser,”
“Union” and “Times and Messenger.” In 1819 he published in New York
his “Travels in England, France, Spain and the Barbary States” in which
he described his experiences abroad, the services he had rendered to
his government in Tunis and the manner in which he was requited. His
occupation as a journalist, which brought him into frequent connection
with the theatre, led him to return to dramatic authorship, and he was
reputed to be one of the most popular American playwrights of his day.
Most of his plays were based on American history, but some of them
dealt with other themes, like his successful melodrama “Yousef Carmatti,
or The Siege of Tripoli.”
He also took an active part in politics, and was appointed High Sheriff
of New York in 1822; but when the office was made elective a short
time afterwards he was defeated after an exciting campaign. He was a
supporter of General Jackson, and was later appointed by him Surveyor
of the Port of New York.
But during all these varied activities he never forgot, as he
was indeed seldom permitted to forget, that he was a Jew. He had
strong convictions on the subject of Jewish nationality and devoted
considerable attention to the Jewish question in general. Finally,
in 1825, he turned to his long cherished scheme of the restoration of
the Jews to their past glory as a nation. For this purpose he acquired,
with the aid of some of his friends, an island thirteen miles in
length and about five miles broad, called Grand Island, in the Niagara
River, opposite Tonawanda, not far from Buffalo, N. Y., and issued a
proclamation to the Jews of the world, inviting them to come and settle
in the place, which he named “Ararat, a City of Refuge for the Jews.”
The plan had its practical side and attracted considerable attention.
Noah was at that time perhaps the most distinguished Jewish resident in
America, and could by no means be considered a visionary. The tract was
chosen with particular reference to its promising commercial prospects,
being close to the Great Lakes and opposite to the newly constructed
Erie Canal; and Noah deemed it “pre-eminently calculated to become
in time the greatest trading and commercial depot in the new and
better world.” After heralding this project for some time in his own
newspapers and in the press, religious and secular, generally, Noah
selected September 2, 1825, as the date for laying the foundation stone
of the new city. Impressive ceremonies, ushered in by the firing of
cannon, were held, and participated in by state and federal officials,
Christian clergymen, and even American Indians, whom Noah identified as
the “lost tribes” of Israel, and who were also to find refuge in this
new “Ararat.”
It was found on that day that there were not boats enough in Buffalo to
carry to Grand Island all who wished to go there, and the celebration,
in consequence, took place in Buffalo. A procession, headed by a
band of music, was formed, composed of military companies and several
Masonic bodies in full regalia, after which came Noah, as Governor and
Judge of Israel, wearing a judicial robe of crimson silk trimmed with
ermine, followed by fraternal officers and dignitaries. After marching
through the principal streets of Buffalo, the procession entered the
Episcopal Church, where exercises, including a long oration by Noah,
were held; the close of the ceremonies being announced by a salvo of
twenty-four guns.
The celebration in Buffalo was the beginning and the end of the scheme.
There was no response to the proclamation, the city was never built,
and the monument of brick and wood which was erected upon the island
on the site of the contemplated town fell to pieces, and in the course
of time wholly disappeared. The only relic of the enterprise is the
foundation stone of the proposed city, which is preserved in the rooms
of the Buffalo Historical Society, with the inscription of 1825 still
legible.
Noah’s plan was to establish “Ararat” as a merely temporary city
of refuge for the Jews, until in the fulness of time a Palestinian
restoration could be effected. The failure of this project of a
“temporary asylum” did not weaken his belief in the ultimate redemption
of the Jews and their return to the Holy Land. Nearly twenty years
after the unsuccessful attempt to concentrate the Jews on Grand Island,
Noah delivered the greatest oration of his life, “A Discourse on the
Restoration of the Jews,” which was soon afterwards published in book
form (New York, 1844), in which he urged the return to Palestine as the
only solution of the Jewish question, which had become acute in Europe
in the troublesome times preceding the upheavals of 1848.
Noah resigned the office of Surveyor of the Port of New York in 1833,
after having held it about four years. After eight years of intense
journalistic and political activity, he was, in 1841, appointed by
Governor Seward an Associate Judge of the New York Court of Sessions.
He had no sooner commenced to discharge his judicial duties than James
Gordon Bennett, in the “New York Herald,” began to assail and ridicule
him. Noah himself made no complaint, but others took up the defence of
the court’s dignity and Bennett was indicted for libel. Noah himself
was not anxious to have the case prosecuted, asserting that the attack
on him was the result of an old editorial quarrel, in which he had
been to a considerable degree the aggressor. Bennett came off with a
small pecuniary fine. Noah shortly afterwards resigned from the bench,
to avoid sitting upon the trial for forgery of a certain member of
Congress whom he had known from boyhood.
He took an active part in Jewish communal affairs of New York City,
and was in 1842 elected president of the Hebrew Benevolent Society.
He was also president of the Jewish Charity Organization of New York,
and remained at its head when it was merged into a B’nai ♦B’rith lodge.
Among his works of Jewish interest deserves also to be mentioned a
translation of the “Book of Jashar,” which he published in 1840.
He married Rebeccah Jackson of New York, and their offspring numbered
five sons and a daughter. He died in the 66th year of his age, and was
the last Jew that was buried within the limits of old New York City.
PART IV.
THE SECOND OR GERMAN PERIOD OF IMMIGRATION.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE FIRST COMMUNITIES IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.
Impetus given to immigration to America by the reaction after
the fall of Napoleon――The second period of Jewish immigration――
First legislation about immigration (1819)――The first Jew in
Cincinnati――Its first congregation, Bene Israel――Appeals to
outside communities for funds to build a synagogue――The first
Talmud Torah――Rabbis Gutheim, Wise and Lilienthal――Cleveland――
St. Louis――Louisville――Mobile――Montgomery and its alleged
Jewish founder, Abraham Mordecai――Savannah and Augusta――New
Orleans――Judah Touro.
The reaction in Western Europe after the fall of Napoleon in 1815
gave an impetus to emigration to America. This was especially true of
Germany and more particularly of the German Jews. Those who had already
tasted the sweets of freedom could not so easily endure the returning
hardships of the galling exceptional laws and discriminations, as did
their fathers and grandfathers who knew not the experience of better
conditions. While the struggle for political and religious liberty
was carried on with increased intensity in the various German states
and principalities, many ventured to come out to the New World in
quest of more favorable conditions and better opportunities. This
new immigration, which continued for about half a century, until
the Jews in all the German states were emancipated, much exceeded
the immigration of the preceding two centuries, while it now appears
almost insignificant in comparison with the large influx from the
Slavic countries in the last thirty years. These Jewish immigrants of
the second period, which is usually called the German period (though a
considerable number came from Austria-Hungary, Russian-Poland and even
Russia proper), were in one essential point more like the Slavic Jews
who came after them than like the Sephardim of former times; they came
poor, and grew up with the country. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews as
a class were wealthy; some of them brought more capital with them than
was found in the localities in which they settled. Their wealth and
their business connections made them welcome or secured them sufferance
at a time and at places――in the Old World as well as in the New――where
a poor Jew, coming to earn his living as a peddler or craftsman,
would probably never have been admitted. But better times had come;
an immensely large country, which had now increased its territory by
the Louisiana Purchase, and doubly secured its independence by the
successful issue of the second war with its former masters, now needed
men even more than money, and the immigrant who came to cast his lot
with the new nation was welcome. A substantial part of the Jewish
immigrants of this new era remained in the older communities, which
were thereby largely increased. But many penetrated far into the South
and the West; new settlements were founded in scores of places, and
almost in each case a congregation was formed as soon as there were a
sufficient number of Jews to warrant such an undertaking. As there was
no longer any struggle between the Jews, as such, and the surrounding
non-Jewish world, the history of the Jews of a locality is mainly the
history of its communal institutions and of its individual members, who
reflect credit on it by their distinction in various fields of activity.
We shall now follow the formation of these new communities in various
parts of the country, with an effort to understand the spirit which
moved the early settlers in their Jewish activities, which helped them
to rise to an eminent position in their new home and to be useful to
their fellow citizens, as well as to their co-religionists who arrived
at a later period.
* * * * *
There are no statistical figures for the number of immigrants who
arrived in the second decade of the nineteenth century; but what may be
considered as an official declaration (in the voluminous report of the
Immigration Commission, issued in 1910) states that after the year 1816
“an unprecedented emigration from Europe to the United States occurred.
It is estimated that no less than 20,000 persons arrived in 1817.”
The sudden demand for passage caused overcrowding, disease and death
in the steerage of the sailing vessels, which resulted in the first
“legislative interference” by a law which “became effective March 2,
1819, containing provisions intending to regulate the number of
passengers on each vessel and proper victualing of each vessel.” A
provision of this law also marked the beginning of statistics relative
to immigration into the United States. And as there was now a certain
percentage of Jews among the arrivals of each year, it may be presumed
that the Jews of that time were as much interested in these earliest
provisions relating to immigration, as we are to-day in that perennial
question.
Some of the pioneers of this new Jewish immigration came from England,
but as in the earlier period of the Spanish Jews, the Germans and the
Polish soon followed, or came simultaneously. A typical instance was
that of Cincinnati, where the first Jewish congregation in the Ohio
Valley was formed. The first Jew to settle there was Joseph Jonas
(b. in Exeter, England, 1792; d. in Cincinnati, May 5, 1869), who
came to America in 1816 and lived for a short time in New York and in
Philadelphia. He left the latter city on the second day of January,
1817, and arrived in Cincinnati on the eighth of March. He was a
watchmaker by trade, and had little difficulty in establishing himself.
He was a curiosity at first, as many in that part of the country had
never seen a Jew before. Numbers of people came from the country round
about to see him, and he related in his old age of an old Quakeress who
said to him: “Art thou a Jew? Thou art one of God’s chosen people. Wilt
thou let me examine thee?” She turned him round and round and at last
exclaimed: “Well, thou art no different to other people.”[27]
Jonas remained the only Jew in Cincinnati for about two years, when
he was joined by Lewis Cohen of London, Barnet Levi of Liverpool
and Joseph Levy of Exeter. These four, with David Israel Johnson of
Brookville, Ind. (a frontier trading-station), conducted in the autumn
of 1819 the first Jewish service in the western portion of the United
States. Solomon Buckingham, Moses Nathan and Solomon Menken came there
from Germany in 1820. The last named established the first wholesale
dry goods house in Cincinnati. The six Moses brothers, one of whom,
Phineas (d. 1895), lived to the age of ninety-seven, arrived in the
following two years, and about this time Joseph Jonas was joined by his
three brothers, Abraham, Samuel and George; their parents and a fourth
brother, Edward, coming some time afterwards. Services were held only
on Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur until 1824, when the number of Jewish
inhabitants reached about twenty. (See “Publications,” IX, p. 155, for
fourteen Jewish names from the Cincinnati Directory of 1825.) In the
first month of that year the Congregation “Bene Israel” was formally
organized, and at a meeting held some time thereafter it was resolved
to build a suitable house of worship.
There was not, however, sufficient wealth in the new community to
enable the congregation to undertake the work unaided, and an appeal
was sent to the older congregations in the United States and also to
England, for help in the proposed undertaking. A copy of this appeal
has been preserved (in “Publications,” X, pp. 98–99) and reads as
follows:
TO THE ELDERS OF THE JEWISH CONGREGATION AT CHARLESTON.
GENTLEMEN:――Being deputed by our Congregation in this place, as
their committee to address you in behalf of our holy Religion,
separated as we are and scattered through the wilds of America
as children of the same family and faith, we consider it as our
duty to apply to you for assistance in the erection of a House
to worship the God of our forefathers, agreeably to the Jewish
faith; we have always performed all in our power to promote
Judaism and for the last four or five years we have congregated
where a few years before nothing was heard but the howling of
wild beasts and the more hideous cry of savage man. We are well
assured that many Jews are lost in this country from not being
in the neighborhood of a congregation, they often marry with
Christians, and their posterity lose the true worship of God
forever; we have at this time a room fitted up for a synagogue,
two manuscripts of the law and a burying ground, in which we
have already interred four persons, who, but for us, would
have lain among the Christians; one of our members also acts
as Shochet. It will therefore be seen that nothing has been
left undone, which could be performed by eighteen assessed
and six unassessed members. Two of the deceased persons were
poor strangers, one of whom was brought to be interred from
Louisville, a distance of near 200 miles.
To you, Gentlemen, we are mostly strangers and have no further
claim on you, than that of children of the same faith and
family, requesting your pious and laudable assistance to promote
the decrees of our holy Religion. Several of our members are,
however, well known both in Philadelphia and New York――namely
Mr. Samuel Joseph, formerly of Philadelphia; Messrs. Moses Jonas
and Mr. Joseph Jonas, the two Mr. Jonas’s have both married
daughters of the late Rev. Gerson Mendes Seixas of New York.
Therefore with confidence, we solicit your aid to this truly
pious undertaking, we are unable to defray the whole expense,
and have made application to you as well as the other principal
congregations in America and England, and have no doubt of
ultimate success.
It is also worthy of remark that there is not a congregation
within 500 miles of this city, and we presume it is well known
how easy of access we are to New Orleans, and we are well
informed that had we a synagogue here, hundreds from that city
who now know and see nothing of their religion, would frequently
attend here during holidays.
We are, Gentlemen, your obedient servants,
S. Joseph Chan,
Joseph Jonas,
D. I. Johnson,
Phineas Moses.
I certify the above is agreeable to a Resolution of the Hebrew
Congregation of Cincinnati.
July 3, 1825.
Joseph Jonas, Parnas.
Both the congregation in Charleston and that in Philadelphia sent
contributions, and so did some individuals in New Orleans and in
Barbadoes, W. I. It was some time, however, until the necessary amount
was collected. The congregation was chartered by the General Assembly
of Ohio in 1830, and the synagogue was dedicated in the year 1836. The
first official reader was Joseph Samuels; he was succeeded by Henry
Harris, who was followed in 1838 by Hart Judah. In the same year was
organized the first benevolent association. The first religious school
was founded in 1842, but it existed only a short time. A Talmud Torah
was established in 1845, which gave way in the following year to the
Hebrew Institute, of which James K. Gutheim (b. in Prussia, 1817; d.
in New Orleans, 1886) was the founder. This also flourished but a short
time, for with the departure of Rabbi Gutheim for New Orleans in 1848
the institute was closed.
A considerable number of German Jews arrived in the city during the
fourth decade of the nineteenth century. They were not in sympathy with
the existing congregation, in which the influence of the English Jews
was predominant, and determined to form another congregation. The Bene
Yeshurun congregation was accordingly organized by these Germans in
September, 1841, and it was incorporated under the laws of the state
in 1842. Its first reader was Simon Bamberger, and when Gutheim, who
followed him, left it, he was succeeded by H. A. Henry and A. Rosenfeld.
The assumption of the office of rabbi in the Bene Yeshurun congregation
by Isaac M. Wise in April, 1854, and in the Bene Israel congregation
by Max Lilienthal (b. in Munich, 1815; d. in Cincinnati, 1882) in June,
1855, gave the Jewish community of Cincinnati a commanding position
and made it a Jewish center and the home of a number of movements which
were national in scope. But their activity in general Jewish matters
does not properly belong to the history of Jews in Cincinnati, and
will be treated in a succeeding chapter. Three other congregations were
formed before the close of the period of German-Polish immigration: the
Adath Israel, organized in 1847; the Ahabat Achim, organized in 1848;
and the Shearit Israel, in 1855.
The first Jew who is known to have settled in Cleveland, O., was a
Bavarian, Simson Thorman, who came there in 1837. He was soon joined
by Aaron Leventrite and by others of his countrymen, and the thriving
city, which had then about 6,000 inhabitants, soon had twenty Jews, who
organized the Israelitish Society in 1839. In 1842 there was a split,
and the seceding part formed the Anshe Chesed Society; but four years
later these two again united and formed the Anshe Chesed congregation,
the oldest existing congregation in Cleveland. The first services were
held in a hall on South Water street and Vineyard lane, with Thorman
as president and Isaac Hoffman as minister or reader. A burial ground
was purchased in 1840. New dissensions arose in 1848 in the rapidly
increasing community and resulted in the withdrawal of a number of
members, who in 1850 formed the Congregation Tifereth Israel, which
from the beginning represented the reform element. Isidor Kalish (b.
in Krotoschin, Prussia, 1816; d. in Newark, N. J., 1886) was its first
rabbi until 1855, and he was followed by Wolf Fassbinder, Jacob Cohen,
G. M. Cohen, Jacob Mayer, Aaron Hahn and the present incumbent, Moses
J. Gries (b. in Newark, 1868), who assumed his position in 1892. The
rabbis of the older congregation were: Fuld, 1850; E. Hertzman, 1860–61;
G. M. Cohen, 1861–66; Nathan, 1866–67; Gustave M. Cohen, 1867–75;
Moritz Tintner (b. in Austerlitz, Austria, 1828; d. in New York, May 11,
1910), 1875–76; and M. Machol (b. in Kolmar-in-Posen, 1845) since 1876.
The first Jewish congregation in St. Louis, Mo., was organized about
the same time as that of Cleveland, though individual Jews were living
there more than thirty years before. The Bloch, or Block, family of
Schwihau, Bohemia, settled there about 1816, the pioneer being Wolf
Bloch. Eliezer Block was an attorney-at-law there in 1821. Most of
the early arrivals intermarried with Christians, and were lost to
Judaism. It was not until the Jewish New Year in 1836 that the first
religious services were held, when ten men rented a little room over a
grocery store at the corner of Second and Spruce streets. The Achduth
Israel or United Hebrew Congregation was organized in 1839, Abraham
Weigel (d. 1888) being the first president and Samuel Davidson the
first reader. Services were held for many years in a private house in
Frenchtown. The first building used as a synagogue was located in Fifth
street, between Green and Washington avenues. According to Markens (p.
108), Bernard Illowy (b. in Kolin, Bohemia, 1814; d. near Cincinnati,
O., 1871), one of the leading conservative rabbis of America in his
time, a pupil of the great Rabbi Moses Sofer (1763–1839), of Presburg,
Hungary, was elected to the rabbinate of the St. Louis congregation
in 1854. Its temple on Sixth street, between Locust and St. Charles
streets, was dedicated in 1859. Rev. Henry J. Messing (b. 1848) held
the position of rabbi for about thirty years. The B’nai El congregation,
which was organized in 1852, moved into its own house of worship in
1855. Rabbi Moritz Spitz (b. in Csaba, Hungary, 1848), editor of the
“Jewish Voice,” has been at the head of this congregation since 1878.
The third of the earlier congregations, Shaare Emet, was organized in
1866, with H. S. Sonnenschein (b. in Hungary, 1839; d. in Des Moines,
Ia., 1908) as its first rabbi.
The first Jewish organization of Louisville, Ky., is mentioned in the
year 1832, and two brothers named Heymann, or Hyman, from Berlin, were
known to have settled there as early as 1814. Several Polish Jews from
Charlestown, S. C., and some German Jews from Baltimore arrived there
about 1836, and were soon joined by new arrivals direct from Germany.
They bought a graveyard, built a mikweh and engaged a _shochet_. A few
wealthy Jews came from Richmond, Va., but they did not associate with
the others and were soon absorbed by the non-Jewish population. The
first regular minister was J. Dinkelspiel (1841), and the congregation,
which was named Adath Israel, was incorporated in 1842. B. H. Gotthelf
was elected cantor and _shochet_ in 1848 and later became Hebrew
teacher of a school which was opened in 1854. In 1850 a synagogue was
built on Fourth street, between Green and Walnut streets, which was
consumed by fire in 1866. A regular preacher, L. Kleeberg, was then
engaged and remained till 1878. Another congregation was chartered by
the legislature in 1851, but it was not properly organized until 1856,
when it changed its name from “The Polish House of Israel” to Bet
Israel.
Farther to the south congregations were organized about that time in
Mobile, Ala., and in two other towns of that state. The most prominent
among the early settlers of Mobile was Israel I. Jones, who arrived
there from Charleston, S. C., and organized the Congregation Shaare
Shamayyim, the oldest in the state, in 1844. B. L. Tim, from Hamburg,
in whose residence the first services were held; I. Goldsmith, S. Lyons,
D. Markstein, Solomon Jones and A. Goldstucker, all from Germany, were
among the first members. The first synagogue was dedicated in December,
1846, with Mr. Jones as President and Rev. de Silva as minister. The
latter died in New Orleans in 1848 and was succeeded by Baruch M.
Emanuel, who served for five years. Montgomery, which is said to have
been founded by Abraham Mordecai, an intelligent Jew, who dwelt fifty
years in the Creek Nation, and confidently believed that the Indians
were originally of his people (see “Publications,” XIII, pp. 71–81,
83–88), had its first Jewish society for relieving the sick, organized
in 1846. Its first twelve members were from Germany and Poland. In
1849 this Chevra, which held religious services on Rosh ha-Shanah
and Yom Kippur, was enlarged into a regular congregation called Kahal
Montgomery or Temple Beth Or. Isaiah Weil was the first president and
the number of members was about thirty. No rabbi was employed until
about fifteen years later. There is also a record of a congregation
which was organized in Claiborne, Ala., in 1855, and had an officiating
rabbi. Most of the Jews, however, left the town and the congregation
passed out of existence.
While the older Jewish community of Savannah, Ga., which dated from
the eighteenth century, was strengthened by the new immigration, a
new community, in Augusta, grew up in the first half of the nineteenth
century. A Mr. Florence and his wife came there from Holland in 1825.
Isaac Hendricks arrived with his family from Charleston, S. C., in 1826,
and it is believed that Isaac and Jacob Moise, also Charlestonians,
reached Augusta about the same time. Jews from Germany began to arrive
in 1844. Isaac Levy, who came there about 1840, was for many years City
Sheriff, and Samuel Levy was for two years Judge of the Superior Court
and for ten years Judge of the Court of Ordinary (Markens, p. 113).
There is reason to believe that the sixth Governor of Georgia, David
Emanuel (d. 1808), who assumed the office March 3, 1801, and after
whom the largest county in the state, Emanuel, was named, was a Jew, or
at least of Jewish Descent.[28] The number of Jews in Augusta went on
increasing until about 1846, when the congregation B’nai Israel, which
is still in existence, was organized.
Illustration: Judah Touro.
The prominent figure of the philanthropist Judah Touro (b. in Newport,
R. I., 1775; d. in New Orleans, 1854) looms large in the early Jewish
history of New Orleans. Touro was educated by his uncle, Moses Michael
Hays (1739–1805), who had become an eminent merchant of Boston, and was
later employed in his counting house. Touro came to New Orleans about
a year before Louisiana was purchased by the United States from France
in 1803. He opened a store and built up a thriving trade in New England
products, and soon became one of the wealthiest and most prominent
merchants of the growing city. He gave liberally to many charities
and public spirited enterprises in New Orleans and elsewhere, at a
time when large gifts for such purposes were not as common as they
are now. When he donated $10,000 towards the erection of the Bunker
Hill Monument in 1840, those interested in raising the necessary funds
had almost given up their project in despair. Though the cornerstone
was laid in 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle which
it was to commemorate, Amos Lawrence’s generous offers of aid met
with no material response, even when aided by the eloquent appeals
of Edward Everett (1794–1865) and Daniel Webster (1782–1852), until
Touro privately offered to duplicate Lawrence’s donation, provided the
remaining necessary $30,000 would be raised. On the dedication of the
monument in 1843, when Daniel Webster was the orator of the day, the
generosity of the chief donors was praised in the lines read by the
presiding officer, which became very popular at that time.[29] At his
death he left, among many other bequests, a large sum in trust to Sir
Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) for the poor Jews of Jerusalem. His name
is connected with the oldest and largest Jewish institutions in New
Orleans, while Boston, Newport and other communities have benefited by
his generosity.
Alexander Isaacs and Asher Philips were also among the arrivals at New
Orleans early in the last century. Morris Jacobs and Aaron Daniels were
the Senior Wardens, and Abraham Plotz, Asher Philips and Abraham Green,
the Junior Wardens of a benevolent society named Shaare Chesed. In
that capacity they bought the first Jewish cemetery in New Orleans,
which was located just beyond the suburb of Lafayette, in the Parish of
Jefferson, fronting on Jackson street, where the first interment, that
of ♦Haym Harris, took place on June 28, 1828. The first congregation
adopted the name of the benevolent society, and worshipped in a room
on the top floor of a building in St. Louis street. The oldest existing
synagogue, the Shaare Chesed Nefuzot Judah, commonly known as the
Touro synagogue, was organized in its present form in 1854. The other
congregations belong to a later period, which will be described in a
subsequent part.
Another prominent Jew, the greatest in American public life――Judah
P. Benjamin――also lived in New Orleans in this period. But he took no
interest in Jewish affairs, and his career belongs to the chapters in
which the participation of Jews in the dispute about slavery and in the
Civil War will be described.
CHAPTER XIX.
NEW SETTLEMENTS IN THE MIDDLE WEST AND ON THE PACIFIC COAST.
Increase in general immigration――Estimated increase in the
number of Jews――The natural dispersion of small traders over
the country――Chicago――First congregations and other communal
institutions――Indiana――Iowa: Polish Jews settle in Keokuk and
German Jews in Davenport――Minnesota――Wisconsin――Congregation
“Bet El” of Detroit, Mich.――The first “minyan” of gold seekers
in San Francisco――“Mining congregations”――Solomon Heydenfeldt――
Portland, Ore.
The tide of immigration, which began to rise still higher than before
in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, now consisted to a
considerable part of Germans, and a goodly portion of them were Jews
from Germany and the surrounding countries. The official figures for
the number of immigrants who came to the United States in 1826 are
10,837; for 1832, 60,482; in 1842 it rose to 104,565. The rise was
very unequal, with marked recessions sometimes to less than half in
the intervening years; but when measured by decades the increase was
constant, and after 1845 there were only two years――1861 and 1862――in
which the number of immigrants fell below 100,000. While there are
no figures obtainable as to the number of Jews which came in those
years, it is certain that they soon outnumbered many times the few
comparatively small communities which existed before that period. The
estimates made by representative Jews at various times, giving the
number of Jews in the country in 1818 as 3,000, in 1826 as 6,000, in
1840 as 15,000 and in 1848 as 50,000, are merely guesses, but they give
a fair idea of the estimated ratio of increase in those thirty years.
The experience of to-day is that whenever actual figures are obtained
they prove to be in excess of the estimate made by communal leaders,
and it is probable that the same results would be disclosed in the
former times, too. On the other hand, care must be exercised to guard
against exaggerated estimates, made for various reasons, but mainly for
political effect.
As a large part of the Jewish immigrants then took to peddling or other
forms of trade on a small scale, it was natural for them to disperse
over all the states and territories, though, as we shall see farther
on, many settled in the larger cities, in which the number of Jews
soon rapidly multiplied. The problem of congestion never arose, or
could arise, among business people, no matter how small their business
might be at the beginning. It arose at a later period of immigration,
which brought to our shores large numbers of laborers, both skilled
and unskilled, with whom living near their centers of occupation was an
economic necessity as well as a convenience. This is why no artificial
aid or encouragement was at that time necessary to the scattering
of Jewish immigrants over all habitable places, and why many of them
became pioneers and early settlers in new communities. The same thing
happens now, too, with that small part of the immigrants which still
take to trading as their first vocation.
Thus we find in Chicago, the future metropolis of the great Middle
West, a Jew by the name of J. Gottlieb, arrived within a year after its
incorporation as a town, in 1837. Isaac Ziegler (1808–93), a peddler,
came there in 1840; in the same year came also the brothers Benedict
(d. 1854) and Nathan Shubert and P. Newburg, tailors. The last named
became a tobacco dealer and later removed to Cincinnati. Benedict
Shubert became a leading merchant tailor and built the first brick
house in Chicago, on Lake street, where he carried on his business
for a number of years. About twenty Jews from Germany, including Jacob
Rosenberg (d. 1900) and the brothers Julius, Abraham (b. in Bavaria,
1819; d. in Chicago, 1871) and Moses Kohn, came to Chicago between 1840
and 1844, and about as many in the following three years. A “Jewish
Burial Ground Society,” of which Isaac Wormser was president, was
organized in 1845, and bought from the city one acre of ground on the
north side (now within the confines of Lincoln Park) for a cemetery.
It was abandoned in 1857, when it was already within the city limits.
The first religious services were held in a private room above a
store on Wells street (now Fifth Avenue) on Yom Kippur of the same
year, Philip Newburg and Mayer Klein officiating as readers. Only an
exact _minyan_ or ten men attended those services, which had to be
discontinued whenever one left the room. The second services, with
about the same number of attendants, were held on Yom Kippur, 1846,
also in a private room, above the dry goods store of Rosenfeld &
Rosenberg, 155 Lake street, Philip Newburg and Abraham Kohn officiating.
A scroll of the Torah which the brothers Kohn had brought with them
from Germany was used on both occasions.
The “♦Kehillah Anshe Maarab” was organized with about twenty members in
1847. L. M. Leopold (b. in Würtemberg, 1821; d. in New York, 1889) was
the first president, and Rev. Ignatz Kunreuther (1811–84) was elected
rabbi, shochet and reader. He held the position six years, when he
retired to private life, and later engaged in the real estate and loan
business. The first synagogue, which was built on Clark street, between
Adams and Quincy streets (where the new post office now stands), was
dedicated Friday, June 13, 1851. Rev. Liebman Adler (b. in Saxe-Weimar,
1812; a. 1854: d. in Chicago, 1892), father of the prominent architect,
Dankmar Adler (1844–1900), was the second rabbi of the congregation,
and held the position for more than twenty years. The Hebrew Benevolent
Society was organized in 1851 and is still in existence. The second
congregation, under the name “B’nai Sholom,” consisting mostly of
natives of Prussian-Poland, was established in 1852. The “Jüdische
Reformverein,” which subsequently led to the organization of the Sinai
Congregation, was organized in 1858, with Leopold Mayer as president
and Dr. Bernhard Felsenthal (b. in Germany, 1822; d. in Chicago, Jan.
12, 1908) as secretary. The Hebrew Relief Association, which later
built the Michael Reese Hospital, the first Jewish hospital in Chicago,
was instituted in 1859. Henry ♦Greenebaum (b. in Germany, 1833) was
its first president. Isaac Greensfelder became treasurer, and Edward S.
Salomon, who afterwards served with distinction in the Civil War, was
brevetted to the rank of Brigadier-General, and later served for four
years as Governor of Washington Territory (1871–74), was its first
secretary. Salomon was elected Clerk of Cook County in 1861.[30]
The oldest Jewish congregation in Illinois outside of Chicago is that
of Peoria, surnamed Anshe Emet, which was organized in 1860.
In the neighboring State of Indiana, which was admitted to the Union
in 1816, Jews began to settle about the same time as in Illinois,
and there are four communities which date back to the period before
the Civil War. The oldest Jewish congregation in the state is the
Achdut we-Sholom of Fort Wayne, which was instituted in 1848. The
Congregation Ahawat Achim of Lafayette is but one year younger, while
the congregation of Evansville dates from about the same time. The
first Jewish settlers in Indianapolis, the capital, which now had
the largest community, were Moses Woolf, and Alexander and Daniel
Franco, who came there from England in 1849. A family of Hungarian
Jews named Knefler arrived soon afterwards. Adolph Rosenthal and Dr.
J. M. Rosenthal came in 1854, and Herman Bamberger, who later became a
leading merchant, arrived in 1855. The first congregation was organized
in 1856, but more than a decade passed until it was housed in its own
building.
Jewish immigrants also soon penetrated west of Illinois, into that part
of the Louisiana Purchase which was organized as the Iowa Territory
in 1838. Its pioneer Jew was Alexander Levi (b. in France, 1809) who
arrived to this country in 1833 and kept a store in Dubuque in 1836. He
was the first foreigner to be naturalized in Iowa, and was a justice of
the peace in 1846. A Mr. Samuel Jacobs was surveyor of Jefferson County
in 1840, and Nathan Louis and Solomon Fine are mentioned as peddlers
in Fort Madison in 1841. They settled in Keokuk and later in McGregor,
both of which places had a number of Jews in those early days. It is
stated (see Glazer, _The Jews of Iowa_, Des Moines, 1905) that about
one hundred Jewish peddlers arrived in Iowa in the decade following
its admission as a state (1846). Burlington and Keokuk were the centers
for peddlers, who were mostly from Poland and Russia, while most of the
German Jews preferred Davenport, which was largely settled by Germans.
According to the above-mentioned authority, the first _minyan_ was held
in Keokuk in 1855, on Passover, and in that year the Jews of that place
organized a society which later became the Congregation B’nai Israel.
In Davenport a congregation having the same name was organized in 1861,
which is still in existence. Among those who participated in public
affairs was William Krouse (b. about 1823), who arrived in Iowa in
1843, and furthered the movement to remove the capital from Iowa City
to Fort Des Moines, where he resided. He was the founder and one of the
directors of the first public school in that city. His brother Robert
was one of the earliest settlers of Davenport.
Farther to the north, there were only individual Jewish traders
in Minnesota before the Civil War, and the three brothers Samuels,
from England, who had an Indian trading post at Taylor Falls, on the
Minnesota side of the St. Croix River, seem to have been the first
Jewish settlers in that state. Morris Samuels, a captain in the Union
army, was one of them. Isaac Marks, who resided in Mankato about
that time, had a trading post near that place. About 1857 some Jews
came to St. Paul and engaged in general business, which likewise
consisted mostly in trading with the Indians. But there was no communal
organization there or in any other part of the state until about
fifteen years afterwards.
There is a record of one Jew who resided in Green Bay, Wisconsin, as
early as 1792. His name was Jacob Franks (see “Publications,” IX, p.
151, ff.). But we know little of other Jews there prior to the time of
its admission to the Union in 1848. Shortly afterward the Congregation
Bene Yeshurun was organized in Milwaukee by Löbl Rindskopf, Leopold
Newbauer, Emanuel Silverman and others. Alexander Lasker and Marcus
Heiman were its first cantors, in the order named. Isidor Kalish, M.
Folk, Elias Epstein and Emanuel Gerechter later succeeded one another
as rabbis.
Still farther to the north, Michigan, which became a state eleven years
before Wisconsin, received its first Jewish settlers about the same
time. About a dozen families of Bavarian Jews settled in Detroit in
1848. According to an account written by Dr. Leo M. Franklin (b. in
Cambridge City, Ind., 1870; rabbi of Temple Bet El, Detroit, since
1899), it was due to Isaac Cozens, and more especially to his wife,
Sophie, with whom he arrived in Detroit from New York about 1850,
that the Bet El Society was established in that year. In April, 1851,
steps were taken to incorporate the congregation by “the undersigned
Israelites of the City of Detroit for the purpose of forming a society
to provide themselves a place of public worship, teachers of their
religion and a burial ground, and give such society the name of
Congregation ‘Bet El’.” The signatures attached to the petition for
incorporation are those of Jacob Silberman, Solomon Bendit (d. in
St. Clair, Mich., 1902), Joseph Friedman, Max Cohen, Adam Hirsch,
Alex. Hein, Jacob Long, Aaron Joel Friedlander, Louis Bresler and
C. F. Bresler; an exact _minyan_, or the minimum number, required for
the formation of a synagogue. Like most congregations of that period,
Bet El was Orthodox in its ritual, but it was not long before the
Reform spirit began to create divisions in the community. In 1861 a
large number of the members withdrew because of the introduction of
an organ and a mixed choir into the synagogue, and they formed the
Congregation Shaare Zedek, of which Rev. A. M. Hershman is now the
rabbi. The first rabbi of Congregation Bet El was Rev. Samuel Marcus,
and he was followed by a number of well known rabbis, including Liebman
Adler, Isidor Kalish, Kaufman Kohler, Henry Zirndorf and Louis Grossman.
A large number of Jews crossed the continent or came by boats from
various parts of the world, along with the heavy tide of travel towards
the Pacific Coast, when the discoveries of gold in California in
1849 began to attract great multitudes. There was a _minyan_ in San
Francisco on Yom Kippur of that year in a tent owned by Louis Franklin.
Among those who participated were H. Joseph and Joel Noah, a brother
of Mordecai M. Noah. The organization of the Jewish community was
completed between July and October of the following year, when two
congregations came into existence about the same time. The Shearit
Israel congregation, which comprised the Polish and English elements,
was organized in August, 1850, under the leadership of Israel Solomons.
The Germans and Americans united in the Congregation Emanuel, the name
of whose president, Emanuel M. Berg, is signed on a contract dated
September 1, 1850, for the renting of a room on Bush street, below
Montgomery, as a place of worship. About a dozen “mining congregations”
sprang up in as many different places in California in the following
ten years; Sonora had a Hebrew Benevolent Society as early as 1851;
Stockton, a Congregation Re’im Ahubim in 1853. In Los Angeles the
founding of a benevolent society was brought about by Carvalho, a
Sephardic Jew, who was a member of General Fremont’s expedition.
Religious services were held there in 1852. In Nevada City a Hebrew
Society was organized in 1855, which numbered twenty members about
two years later. In Jackson a congregation was organized for the
autumn holidays in 1856, and it erected the first synagogue in the
mining districts. The building still stands, but it is used for other
purposes, as the Jews have left the place long ago. Fiddletown, Grass
Valley, Shasta, Folsom, Marysville and Jesu Maria all had temporary
congregations which did not long survive the “gold fever.” (See “Jewish
Encyclopedia,” s. v., California.) Sacramento is the only place in
the state outside of San Francisco which has Jewish organizations――a
congregation and two societies, which originated in this period.
A majority of the Jews from the mining communities who did not
return to the East finally drifted into San Francisco, which from the
beginning had the largest and most important Jewish community of the
Pacific Coast. The foremost among the Jews who attained eminence in
the new state, which was admitted into the Union in 1850, was Solomon
Heydenfeldt (b. in Charleston, S. C., in 1816; d. in San Francisco,
1890). He removed to Alabama at the age of twenty-one, where he
was admitted to the bar and practiced law for a number of years in
Tallapoosa County. He was obliged to leave the state on account of his
views on the slavery question, and came to San Francisco in 1850. He
was elected Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California two
years later and held the office with distinction from 1852 to 1857.
His brother Elkan and Isaac Cardozo were members of the Legislature
of California in 1852, while another Jew, Henry A. Lyons, was also
a member of the Supreme Court of the state about that time. A. C.
Labatt, one of the pioneers, was an alderman of San Francisco in 1851,
when Samuel Marx was United States appraiser of the port and Joseph
Shannon was county treasurer. Many Jews who began their careers in
San Francisco later became eminent merchants and financiers, like the
four brothers Seligman, the three brothers Lazard, the Glaziers and
the Wormsers, all of whom settled later in New York. Michael Reese, one
of the extensive realty brokers; Moritz Friedlander, who later became
one of the largest grain dealers in the country; and Adolph Sutro, the
engineer, were also among those whose modest beginnings belong to that
period. To the same class belong also Louis Sloss and Lewis Gerstle,
who later founded the Alaska Commercial Company.
What may be considered as an overflow of the Jewish immigration to
California reached Oregon about a decade before it attained statehood
in 1859. Most of the first Jewish settlers, who originally came from
various parts of Southern Germany, arrived in Oregon from New York
and other eastern states by way of Panama and California, and settled
principally in Portland. Its first congregation, Bet Israel, was
organized in 1858, the founders being Leopold Mayer, M. Mansfield,
B. Simon, Abraham Frank, Jacob Mayer, H. F. Bloch, Samuel Levy and
others. Rev. H. Bories was the first Hazan and Rev. Dr. Julius Eckman
the first rabbi and preacher. He was succeeded by Rev. Dr. Isaac
Schwab, who later went to St. Joseph, Mo. A burial society, or cemetery
association, was organized some time before and the first benevolent
society about a year later. The Jewish community of Portland has
practically remained the only one in the state to this day, and though
not large numerically, it has been from the beginning one of the most
influential and important of the Jewish communities of the country.
A proportionately larger number of Portland Jews have been elevated to
high positions in the service of the city, state and nation than those
of any other community. But they mostly belong to a later period which
will be treated in a subsequent part of this work.
CHAPTER XX.
THE JEWS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF TEXAS. THE MEXICAN WAR.
The first settler in 1821――Adolphus Sterne, who fought against
Mexico and later served in the Texan Congress――David S.
Kaufman――Surgeon-General Levy in the army of Sam Houston――A Jew
as the first meat “packer” in America――Major Leon Dyer and his
brother Isadore――Mayor Seeligsohn of Galveston (1853)――One Jew
laid out Waco; Castro County is named after another――Belated
communal and religious activities――The War with Mexico, in
which only a small number of Jews served――David Camden de Leon
and his brother Edwin, U. S. Consul-General in Egypt.
The history of the Jews of Texas begins at the time when the largest
state of the American Union was still a part of Mexico. The first
Jewish settler of whom any record is preserved was Samuel Isaacs, who
came there from the United States in 1821 with Austin’s first colony
of three hundred. He received a Spanish grant of land as a colonist,
and is later mentioned once more as the recipient of a bounty warrant
for 320 acres of land, located in Polk county, for services in the
army of Texas in 1836–37. When Abraham Cohen Labatt (b. in Charleston,
S. C., in 1802; d. in Texas after 1894), who has been mentioned in the
preceding chapter, visited Velasco, Texas, in 1831, he found there two
Jews――Jacob Henry from England and Jacob Lyons from Charleston――who
had been there for some years engaged in business. When the former of
the two died without issue he left his fortune for the building of a
hospital at that seaport.
Adolphus Sterne (b. in Cologne, Germany, 1801; d. in New Orleans, 1852)
was one of the first settlers in Nacogdoches, in the eastern portion of
Texas, where he came from New Orleans in 1824. He knew several European
languages and soon mastered various Indian dialects, which made him
very useful to the insurgents against Mexican rule, whose cause he
espoused. He was sentenced to death for his share in the Fredonian
war against Mexico. He was saved by a general amnesty which had been
declared by that time, and took an oath of allegiance to the Mexican
government, which he kept faithfully until Texas became an independent
republic in 1836. After having been Alcalde and official interpreter
under the old order, he served in both the upper and the lower houses
of the Texas Congress. Dr. Joseph Hertz came with his brother Hyman
to Nacogdoches about 1832; Simon Schloss (b. in Frankfort-on-the-Main,
1812) came there in 1836. David S. Kaufman (b. in Cumberland County,
Pa., in 1813; d. in Washington, D. C., 1851), a graduate of Princeton
College, came there from Louisiana in 1837. In 1838 he was elected
a Representative in the Texas Congress; was twice re-elected and was
twice chosen Speaker of the House. In 1843 was elected to the Senate,
where, in 1844, as a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he
presented a report in favor of annexation to the United States. When
this plan was carried out he was elected one of the first members of
the House of Representatives from Texas, serving from 1846 until his
death five years afterwards. Albert Emanuel (b. 1808) came there from
Germany in 1834, and was one of the first volunteers in the Texas army,
serving in the battle of San Jacinto. He later settled in New Orleans,
where he died in 1851. Samuel Mass (who married a sister of Offenbach,
the composer) and Simon Weiss were two other natives of Germany who
settled in Nacogdoches about that time. Four Jews are known to have
fought at Goliad under Fannin (March 26, 1836), one of whom, Edward J.
Johnson (b. in Cincinnati, O., 1816) was slain, together with his chief,
after the surrender to the Mexicans.
Moses Albert Levy served as surgeon-general in Sam Houston’s army
throughout the Texas-Mexican war. Dr. Isaac Lyons, of Charleston,
served as surgeon-general under General Tom Green in the war of 1836.
Among other Jews who rendered notable service to the Republic of Texas
were the brothers Leon and Isadore Dyer, natives of Germany, who, at an
early age, came with their parents to Baltimore, where the older Dyer
founded a meat-packing establishment, which is said to have been the
first in America. Leon Dyer (b. 1807; d. in Louisville, Ky., 1883),
who settled in New Orleans, was quartermaster-general of the state
militia of Louisiana in 1836, when Texas called for aid in her struggle
for independence. With several hundred other citizens of New Orleans,
he responded, and, coming to Galveston, he received a commission as
major in the Texas forces, signed by the first President, Burnett. The
Louisiana contingent was assigned to the force of General Green, and
saw much active service. Major Dyer also served on the guard which took
General Santa Anna, the captive President of Mexico, from Galveston to
Washington in the following year. His brother, Isadore Dyer (b. 1813;
d. in Waukesha, Wis., 1888), settled in Galveston as a merchant in 1840,
and was one of its public spirited citizens. He was one of the earliest
grand masters of the Order of Odd Fellows in Texas. The first Jewish
religious services in Galveston were held at his house in 1856.
Henry Seeligsohn (b. in Philadelphia, 1828; d. 1886) came to Texas
in 1839, and was elected first lieutenant of the Galveston Cadets, an
organization composed of young boys, which rendered efficient service.
His father was Michael Seeligsohn (d. 1868), who was elected Mayor of
Galveston in 1853. Levi Myers (sometimes also called Levi Charles or
Charles Levi) Harby (b. in Georgetown, S. C., 1793; d. in Galveston,
1870), who was a midshipman in the United States Navy in 1812 and
was taken prisoner by the British, also participated in the Texan war
of independence. A. Wolf was killed in the battle of Alamo in 1836,
and his name is inscribed on the Alamo monument at Austin. Jacob de
Cordova (b. in Spanish Town, Jamaica, 1808; d. in Texas, 1868) removed
to Galveston from New Orleans in 1837 and was the founder of several
newspapers, represented Harris county in the Texas Legislature in 1847,
and laid out the city of Waco in 1849. Henry Castro (b. in France,
1786; d. in Monterey, Mexico, 1861), a descendant of a wealthy Marrano
family, entered, in 1842, into a contract with President Sam Houston
of Texas to settle a colony west of the Medina. Houston also appointed
him consul-general in France for the Republic of Texas. Between 1843
and 1846 Castro sent to Texas about 5,000 emigrants from the Rhenish
provinces, who settled in the towns of Castroville, Quihi, Vandenburgh
and O’Harris. Castro county, in northwest Texas, was named in honor of
this early promoter of immigration to Texas, who sank large sums in the
venture.
There was little communal and religious activity in the stirring times
of the early development of Texas, and the first communal organizations
appeared a considerable time after Jews settled in some localities.
The first Jewish cemetery in Texas was established in Houston in
1844, where the first synagogue in the state was built exactly ten
years later. The Jews of Galveston acquired their first burial ground
in 1852: religious services were held since Yom Kippur 1856, but no
congregation was organized until twelve years later. In San Antonio
almost twenty years passed between the acquisition of a cemetery (1854)
and the organization of the first congregation. All the other Jewish
communities in the rapidly growing state date their foundation from a
later period.[31]
* * * * *
The war with Mexico, which began in 1846, was the least popular of
all the wars in which the United States has engaged, and this probably
accounts for the small number of Jews who volunteered to participate
in what was practically an attack on a weak neighbor. The number
of Jews in the country was now more than ten times as large as in
the time of the wars with England; but there are only about a dozen
more names in the list of the Jewish soldiers of the Mexican war (in
the above-mentioned work of Mr. Simon Wolf) than in the list of the
year 1812. New York now had the largest Jewish community, and was
represented by no less than fifteen in that small band of less than
sixty, in which there was only one from Pennsylvania (Gabriel Dropsie,
Co. E, 1st Regiment), one from New Jersey (Sergeant Alexander B.
Weinberg) and five from Maryland. The others were mostly from the South,
a large proportion of them having participated in the earlier struggle
between Texas and Mexico.
The most prominent Jewish soldier of the Mexican war was David Camden
de Leon (b. in South Carolina, 1813; d. in Santa Fé, N. M., 1872). He
graduated as a physician from the University of Pennsylvania in 1836
and two years later entered the United States army as an assistant
surgeon. He served with distinction in the Seminole war of 1835–42,
which was the most bloody and stubborn of all wars against Indian
tribes. For several years afterwards he was stationed on the Western
frontier. He served throughout the Mexican war and was present at
most of the battles. At Chapultepec he earned the sobriquet of “the
Fighting Doctor,” and on two occasions led a charge of cavalry after
the commanding officer had been killed or wounded. He twice received
the thanks of Congress for his distinguished services and for his
gallantry in action. He was afterwards again assigned to frontier
duty, and in 1856 became surgeon, with the rank of major. Like most
Southern officers in the regular army, de Leon resigned his commission
at the outbreak of the Civil war and joined the Confederacy, for whose
government he organized the medical department, becoming its first
surgeon-general. Edwin de Leon (b. in Columbus, S. C., 1818; d. 1891),
the journalist and author, who was appointed by President Pierce
consul-general to Egypt, and was later a confidential agent of the
Confederate States in Europe, was a brother of David C. de Leon.
Leon Dyer and Henry Seeligsohn, whose participation in the struggles
of Texas was described at the beginning of this chapter, also served
as officers in the war with Mexico. The names of Captain Michael
Styfft, who served on the staff of General Zachary Taylor, and of
Lieutenant-Colonel Israel Moses, who was promoted from the rank of
assistant-surgeon, have also been preserved. Among those who were
killed in action was Sergeant Abraham Adler of the New York Volunteers.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE RELIGIOUS REFORM MOVEMENT.
Political liberalism and religious radicalism of the German
Jewish immigrant――The struggle with Orthodoxy hardly more than
an animated controversy――No attempt made here by the Temple to
swallow the Synagogue, as was the case in Germany――The first
Reformers of Charleston, S. C.――Isaac Leeser, the conservative
leader, the first to make a serious effort to adjust Judaism to
American surroundings――Dr. Max Lilienthal――Isaac M. Wise, the
energetic organizer of Reform Judaism――Dr. David Einhorn――Dr.
Samuel Adler――Bernhard Felsenthal――Samuel Hirsch.
The Jewish immigrants, who were penetrating into various parts of
the country in that period, formed only a portion of the new arrivals.
The bulk of them, as in later times, remained in the East, principally
in New York City, where not less than ten new congregations were
established in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. While the
proportion of those unaffiliated with a synagogue was probably smaller
then than it is now, the tendency to establish very small synagogues
was also less, so that the existence of a dozen congregations in New
York about the year 1850 may denote a larger Jewish population at that
time than an equal or even a larger number would imply at the present
time. It would also not be safe to insist that there were not at that
time in existence several congregations whose names were not preserved
on account of their insignificance or for other reasons.
The German element, which predominated in this second period of
Jewish immigration, was mostly under the influence of the liberalism,
which was then prevalent in Germany. But the political liberal of
central Europe at that time found in the United States all, and in some
respects more than, he was striving for in the Old Country, including
that national unity which was then only a pious dream in Germany. Aside
from the question of slavery, which was not yet acute in the North at
the beginning of that period, the German liberal found here all his
ideals realized: perfect equality for all white men without distinction
of creed or nationality; absolute freedom of speech and of the press;
more individual liberty and better opportunities for work, for trade
and for enterprise than could be thought of in the localities from
which he came. It was natural for most of them to sympathize with the
abolitionist movement, and later they were among the first to join
the newly formed Republican party. But even the political radical or
revolutionary of the other side of the ocean had little to object to in
the democracy which he found here fully developed, and he soon became
a patriotic, and to some extent a conservative, American citizen.
It was different in regard to the religious liberalism or radicalism
which was then occupying the minds of the Jews of Germany. The
conditions in that country made religious reform one of the burning
questions of the day among them; some saw in its adoption a sure means
of obtaining the much coveted political emancipation, while others
thought it the only protection against the frightfully increasing
number of conversions which were then occurring. Orthodox Judaism was
certainly losing ground in Germany at that time, and it was difficult
to foresee where it would stop or how much of it would remain. Wherever
there was a struggle between the old order of things in religious
matters and the new, the latter was certain to prevail. Within a few
decades the real old style Orthodoxy almost totally disappeared from
most parts of Germany, retaining a foothold only in the province of
Posen and in isolated localities like Mayence and Frankfort-on-the-Main.
Elsewhere even those who did not join the extreme reformers adopted
a conservatism which was far from the old Orthodoxy. The bulwark of
Orthodoxy――the poor Jewish masses――was itself disappearing: the old
style rabbis who survived were in despair, and when they died modern
German preachers were chosen to fill their places. It seemed as if
the temple was swallowing the synagogue, and the religious radical was
victorious decades before the political radical obtained even a part of
what he desired.
The conditions in this country were entirely different. Emancipation
had been achieved, and there was practically no Jewish question as far
as the outside world was concerned. There were no wholesale desertions
from the camp of Judaism, but that slow drifting away of a part of
the wealthier class, which is not an unusual phenomenon wherever and
whenever there is no legal restriction or stubborn prejudice to prevent
gradual assimilation. There was also a steady replenishment, or rather
an augmentation, of the poorer Orthodox classes, among whom the Polish
and Russian element was steadily increasing, a prejudice which is
almost national keeping them apart from the Germans, who were rapidly
advancing in wealth, social and political position, as well as in
religious radicalism. The old American element which remained true to
traditional Judaism, the considerable part of the Germans who would
not accept reform, and the masses of later arrivals, gave to Orthodox
Judaism in America a strength which it never possessed in Germany after
the close of the eighteenth century. The steady increase in immigration
from the Slavic countries easily filled up the places of those whose
improved material and social condition caused them to drop out of the
ranks of the Orthodox; just as those who rose to wealth and joined the
reformers filled up the places left vacant by those who advanced beyond
Reform Judaism into that complete assimilation into which it must lead
those of its devotees who emphasize its progressive side and neglect
the eternal and historical sides.
These conditions reduced the struggle between Orthodoxy and Reform to
something hardly above an animated controversy in the denominational
periodicals, and its historical value consists chiefly as an indicator
of material progress. There was no class-struggle between the wealthy
Jews and their poorer brethren who came after them in increasingly
larger numbers, and there was no real conflict between the former’s
and the latter’s religious views for the same reason. Accession to the
ranks of wealth usually meant affiliation with a Reform congregation,
where the poor man could not afford to join and would not be welcome if
he came. While several of the young enthusiasts who came over permeated
with the fighting spirit of the German reformers might have thought at
the beginning of continuing the struggle in the Old-World fashion until
the “enemy” was annihilated, it did not take them long to discover the
futility of such efforts. The task of Reform Judaism in America was
plainly not to conquer the Orthodox synagogue or to win recruits from
the ranks of those who wished to remain faithful to traditional Judaism,
but to enroll under its banner the affluent American or Americanized
Jews who were on the point of drifting away altogether. The view of
the extremely conservative, who considered these reformers as already
lost to Judaism, has been shared by a large majority of the Jews of
the United States for the last sixty or seventy years. But aside from
condemning public declarations which were offensive to the Orthodox
spirit and which were occasionally made by reformed bodies or by
their conspicuous representatives, the Orthodox masses have, as usual,
displayed more fortitude than aggressiveness in religious matters. This
accounts for the presence of numerous leaders, agitators and organizers
in the Reform camp, where newly assumed positions had to be defended
to one’s own satisfaction even if there was no formidable attack; while
Orthodoxy easily held its own by force of increasing numbers, even if
its tenacity was relaxed by the stress of circumstances.
The autonomy of congregation, which is a characteristic feature of new
Jewish settlements, and which remained permanently in a country where
there are no general laws about religion and no special relations with
the government to force on the Jews official representatives, was also
favorable to the spread of Reform. Still, the first attempt which was
made in Charleston, S. C., in 1824, to imitate the Reform movement
of Germany was a failure. The “Reformed Society of Israelites,” which
was established there in that year by twelve former members of the
Congregation Bet Elohim, who left the latter religious body because a
memorial for the reformation of the ritual was rejected by the vestry
without discussion, had but a brief existence. But Charleston was
losing its comparative importance and was attracting less Jewish
immigration than the northern seaport communities. So there was a
continual drifting away into indifference, and when a new synagogue was
built to replace the one which was destroyed by the great conflagration
of 1838, the petition of thirty-eight members that an organ be placed
in the new structure, was granted. There was again a split in the
congregation, which did not become united until it was greatly reduced
by the ravages of the Civil War.
It was the rabbi of the Charleston congregation (Gustav Poznanski), a
man imbued with the spirit of the Reform Temple of Hamburg, who decided,
as an authority on Jewish matters, that an organ in the synagogue was
permissible according to religious law. This is typical of numerous
later cases in which an autonomous congregation, subject to no other
religious authority and not connected with any other religious body,
accepted the authority of its own rabbi to modify its ritual and
its religious practices in accordance with his personal views or
inclinations. Several other “Reform Vereine” in the East and the
Middle West had a more lasting success, because they obtained able and
energetic leaders from among the young German scholars who came over
at that time, and who were, so to speak, in duty bound to continue the
spread of Reform in their new home. But curiously enough, and perhaps
emblematic of the ultimate course of American Judaism, the first real
and successful attempt to adjust Judaism to its surroundings in the
United States was not made by an adherent of the Reform movement, but
by its strongest and ablest opponent which this country has developed.
Long before the new leaders of that movement arrived and began to
spread their ideas and ideals in the German language, there arose a
vigorous and diligent pioneer who introduced the English sermon in
the American synagogue, who established the first influential Jewish
periodical, a man whose strong intellect and organizing abilities left
their impress on the Jewish community of the entire country――Rabbi
Isaac Leeser.
Illustration: Rabbi Isaac Leeser.
He was born in Neuenkirchen, Prussia, in 1806, and received his secular
education in the gymnasium of Münster. But he was also instructed in
Hebrew and was well versed in several tractates of the Talmud, when
he left for the United States at the age of eighteen. He came to this
country in May, 1824, and settled in Richmond, Va., being employed
in the business of his uncle, Zalma Rehiné, for the following five
years. He went to a school for a short time, but studied much in his
leisure hours, increasing not only his secular knowledge but also his
acquaintance with Jewish lore. He early evinced interest in religious
affairs, and was soon assisting Rev. Isaac B. Seixas (1782–1839), of
the Portuguese Congregation of Richmond, in teaching religious classes.
In 1828 an article in the “London Quarterly” reflecting on the Jews was
answered by Leeser in the columns of the “Richmond Whig” and attracted
considerable attention on account of its excellence. This ultimately
led to his being elected Minister of Congregation Mickweh Israel in
Philadelphia in 1829.
He came to Philadelphia in that year and resided there for the
remainder of his life. He preached his first English sermon in 1830
and in the same year appeared his translation of Johlson’s “Instruction
in the Mosaic Religion.” In the following ten years appeared several
volumes of his articles and discourses, a Hebrew Spelling Book, and
a Catechism. In 1843 he established “The Occident and American Jewish
Advocate,” which he edited for twenty-five years, until his death,
when it was continued for one year longer by Mr. (now Judge) Mayer
Sulzberger, who had latterly assisted Rabbi Leeser in its direction.
In 1845 appeared his translation of the Bible, which “became an
authorized version for the Jews of America.” Besides writing, editing
and translating, he visited various parts of the United States, where
he lectured on divers topics relating to Judaism, always advocating and
spreading that enlightened conservatism for which he consistently stood
all his life.
The Hebrew Education Society, the Board of Hebrew Ministers, and the
Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia owe their foundation to his active
efforts; and he also advocated a union of all the Jewish charities
of that city, which was consummated some years after his decease. The
Board of Delegates of American Israelites, the first American Jewish
Publication Society and the Maimonides College (of which he was the
first president) were also created mostly through his influence.
After serving twenty-one years at the Mickweh Israel synagogue, Rabbi
Leeser retired in 1850 and held no clerical position until 1857, when
the Bet El Emet Congregation was organized by a number of his friends.
He became its rabbi, continuing until his death, on February 1, 1868.
The opinion that he was “the most distinguished of Hebrew spiritual
guides in this country”[32] is hardly exaggerated.
The first among the prominent leaders of the Reform movement to arrive
in this country was Dr. Max Lilienthal (b. in Munich, Bavaria, 1815;
d. in Cincinnati, O., 1882). He played an important part in the attempt
of the Russian Government to spread secular knowledge among the Jews of
that country by drastic means; but when he seemed to be at the height
of his career he suddenly left Russia under circumstances which have
never been thoroughly explained, and came to the United States in 1845.
Settling in New York he first became the rabbi of the Congregation
Anshe Chesed on Norfolk street, and later of Sha’ar ha-Shomayyim,
on Attorney street. These were Orthodox congregations, and there was
considerable friction between the religious members and the rabbi,
who was inclined towards Reform. He gave up the ♦rabbinate in 1850 and
established an educational institute, at the same time becoming one
of the most active spirits in the “Verein der Lichtfreunde,” a society
formed in 1849 for the discussion and spreading of the teachings of
Reform. In 1855 he was elected rabbi of the Congregation Bene Israel,
of Cincinnati, O., and held the position until his death. He wrote
many articles and several works of prose and poetry, both in German
and in English, and was an active communal worker, a teacher, and
even participated in the municipal affairs of Cincinnati, serving as a
member of the Board of Education, as a director of the Relief Union and
of the university board. But he was eclipsed and practically reduced to
the position of assistant to the man who surpassed him as a leader and
organizer, and who became the recognized head of the reformed Jews of
the West.
Illustration: Dr. Isaac M. Wise.
This man was Isaac Mayer Wise (b. in Bohemia, 1819; d. in Cincinnati,
1900), who came to this country in the summer of 1846 and after a
brief stay in New York became the rabbi of Congregation Bet El of
Albany (organized 1838), the first, and then the only, congregation
of that city. He had received an old-fashioned rabbinical education at
home, but he soon developed here into a radical reformer and introduced
in his synagogue many novel features and practices, often in the face
of strong opposition. A split in the community followed, in 1850,
and his followers organized a new congregation, the Anshe Emet, of
which he remained rabbi for four years. In 1854 he was chosen rabbi
of Congregation Bene Yeshurun in Cincinnati, and held the position
for the remaining forty-six years of his life. He established there
“The Israelite” (now “The American Israelite”) soon after his arrival
in Cincinnati, and through this organ he advocated, with much energy,
his ideas of Reform and the plans of organization which he succeeded
in carrying out, after many failures and setbacks, about twenty years
later, when the time for unification and organization had arrived. He
also established, in 1855, a German weekly, the “Deborah,” by means of
which he reached a part of the Jewish public which did not read English.
He wrote much for his periodicals, and was also the author of numerous
books on theological and historical subjects, and also several novels,
and even two plays (in German). But his chief strength was his ability
as an organizer. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Hebrew
Union College (opened 1875) and the Central Conference of American
Rabbis (organized 1889) owe their existence to him.
David Einhorn (b. in Bavaria, 1809; d. in New York, 1879), who came
to America in his mature years, had played a somewhat prominent part
in the Reform movement in Germany, where he held several important
rabbinical positions. His scholarly attainments were of a high order;
but he was even more radical than Wise and Lilienthal, whom he strongly
opposed soon after his arrival to this country in 1855. He became
in that year the rabbi of Har Sinai Congregation in Baltimore, Md.
(organized in 1843), and soon afterward he began to issue there a
monthly magazine in German under the name of “Sinai,” in which he
advocated his views of Reform. In 1861 Einhorn was compelled to leave
Baltimore on account of his anti-slavery views, which he courageously
expressed despite the local sympathy with the South. He went to
Philadelphia, where he became rabbi of Kenesset Israel, removing to New
York in 1866, where he became the rabbi of Congregation Adath Yeshurun,
a position which he held until a short time before his death. In later
years he became reconciled to his former opponents in the Reform camp,
and was the leading spirit in the rabbinical conference which was held
in Philadelphia in 1869.
Dr. Samuel Adler (b. in Worms, Germany, 1809; d. in New York, 1891) was
a preacher and assistant rabbi in his native city until 1842, when he
became rabbi of Alzey, Rhine Hesse, and remained there about fifteen
years. He also participated in the rabbinical conferences in Germany,
in which the Reform movement was to some extent systematized; and he
was considered one of its representatives there when he was called,
in 1857, to ♦become rabbi of Congregation Emanuel of New York. This
was the first avowedly Reform congregation in the city, and has since
become the wealthiest Jewish congregation in the country. It was
organized in 1845. Its first place of worship was a private house on
the corner of Clinton and Grand streets, and its first rabbi-preacher,
L. Merzbacher (d. 1856) began his duties at a salary of $200 per annum.
Dr. Adler was brought as his successor, and held the position until he
was retired as rabbi emeritus in 1874, being succeeded by Dr. Gustav
Gottheil (b. in Pinne, Prussian-Poland, 1827; d. in New York, 1903).
Adler was in his time practically the only Reform rabbi in New York,
and neither his disposition, which was that of a scholarly retired man,
nor the local circumstances, which were influenced by the fact that the
Poles and Russians had a large majority even in the supposedly German
period, were favorable to the spread of Reform. He was the possessor
of a large library of rabbinica, which was after his death presented by
his family to the Hebrew Union College. Dr. Felix Adler (b. in Alzey,
1851), the founder of the Society for Ethical Culture, is his second
son.
The last of the American pioneer Reform rabbis whose activities date
back to the time before the outbreak of the Civil War was Bernhard
Felsenthal (b. in Germany, 1822; d. in Chicago, 1908). While originally
intended for a secular career, he was a thorough Talmudical scholar,
and for a decade before he came to this country (in 1854) he was a
teacher in a Jewish congregational school. After three years spent
in Madison, Ind., as rabbi and teacher, he removed to Chicago, where
he became an employee of a Jewish banking firm. In 1858 the Jüdische
Reformverein of Chicago was formed, with Felsenthal as its secretary
and guiding spirit. In the following year he published a pamphlet in
favor of Reform which attracted much attention; and two years later,
after the Reformverein developed into Sinai Congregation, he became
its first rabbi. In 1864 he took charge of Zion Congregation, the
second Reform congregation of Chicago, and held the position until
he was retired as rabbi emeritus, in 1887. While he was theoretically
an extreme radical in religious matters, his extensive knowledge of
rabbinical literature and his love for Jewish learning, added to his
generous disposition and real affection for Jewish scholars of the old
type, helped to make his relations with the Orthodox Jews more pleasant
than in the case of other representative rabbis of his class. He was
probably the only Reform rabbi in this country who was really beloved
among the masses of the immigrants from the Slavic countries, and he
thus exemplified a possibility of a better understanding between the
different wings of American Judaism, which was then, and partly still
is, by many considered difficult of accomplishment.
Samuel Hirsch (b. in Rhenish Prussia, 1815; d. in Chicago, 1889)
belonged to this group, although he did not arrive in America until
1866, after having served as chief rabbi of Luxembourg for nearly
a quarter of a century. He succeeded David Einhorn in Philadelphia,
where he remained for twenty-two years. After retiring from the
ministry he removed to Chicago, where he spent his last days with his
son, Dr. Emil G. Hirsch (b. in Luxembourg, 1852), the eminent preacher
and professor of rabbinical literature at the University of Chicago.
Samuel Hirsch belonged to the extreme wing of radical reformers, and
was one of the first to advocate the holding of special services in
the Temple on Sunday. His chief work was written in Germany, “Die
Religionsphilosophie der Juden” (Leipsic, 1842), of which only one part
appeared. It is an effort to explain Judaism from the Hegelian point
of view, but as it was written long before he arrived in this country,
it has no interest for American Jewish history except, perhaps, as an
instance of the influence of the German method of abstract theorizing
on the uncompromising radical pioneers of the American Reform movement.
CHAPTER XXII.
CONSERVATIVE JUDAISM AND ITS STAND AGAINST REFORM.
“The poor Jews of Elm street and the rich Jews of Crosby
street”――Rabbis Samuel M. Isaacs, Morris J. Raphall and Jacques
J. Lyons――Sabato Morais――Kalish and Hübsch, the moderate
reformers――Benjamin Szold――Dr. Marcus Jastrow’s career in three
countries――Alexander Kohut――Russian Orthodoxy asserts itself in
New York, and the Bet ha-Midrash ha-Godol is founded in 1852――
Rabbi Abraham Joseph Ash and his various activities――Charity
work which remains subordinate to religious work in the
synagogue.
In New York, too, it was not a radical appealing to a wealthy
congregation, but a conservative in a neighborhood where the poorer
Jews dwelt, who first introduced the English sermon in the synagogue.
Reference is made by a correspondent from New York (see “Orient,” 1840,
p. 371) to “the poor Jews of Elm street and the rich Jews of Crosby
street” in that period; and it was, characteristically enough, in the
synagogue of the Bene Yeshurun, then situated at Elm street, that the
innovation was made. Samuel Mayer Isaacs (b. in Leeuwarden, Holland,
1804; d. in New York, 1878), the son of a Dutch banker who removed to
England, was called to the rabbinate of that congregation in 1839. When
members who seceded from that synagogue formed the Congregation Sha’are
Tefilah, in 1847, Rabbi Isaacs went with them and remained with his
new charge until his death. He was an able exponent of conservative
Judaism and was the founder of the “Jewish Messenger” (1857), which was
continued after his demise by his son, Professor Abraham Samuel Isaacs
(b. in New York, 1852), until 1902, when it was merged with another
Jewish periodical. Like Leeser, Rabbi Isaacs was a good organizer, and
influenced the foundation of various Jewish institutions.
His successor as rabbi of the Elm street congregation was Rabbi Morris
Jacob Raphall (b. in Stockholm, Sweden, 1798; d. in New York, 1868),
who was, like Isaacs, also the son of a banker. Raphall was a linguist
and a good rabbinical scholar, and while in England he delivered
lectures on Hebrew poetry, and also began there the publication of
the “Hebrew Review and Magazine of Rabbinical Literature,” which was
discontinued in 1836. For some time he acted as secretary to Solomon
Herschell (1762–1842); he also made translations from Maimonides,
Albo and Wessely; he participated in the translation of part of the
Mishna, and began a translation of the ♦Pentateuch, of which one
volume appeared. After being for eight years minister of the Birmingham
Synagogue, he sailed for New York in 1849, and remained with the Bene
Yeshurun until shortly before his death. Raphall was the only prominent
Northern rabbi who defended the institution of slavery in the pulpit,
as well as in one of his works, entitled “Bible View of Slavery.”
Rev. Jacques Judah Lyons (b. in Surinam, 1814; d. in New York, 1877),
who was a rabbi in his native city for several years, came to the
United States in 1837, went to Richmond, Va., where he was minister of
the Congregation Bene Shalom for two years, came to New York in 1839,
and became rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation, which had
removed from Mill street to Crosby street in 1834. He held the position
thirty-eight years, “successfully combating every movement to change
the form of worship in his congregation.”
Illustration: Rabbi Sabato Morais.
Photo by Gutekunst, Phila.
Leeser’s successor in the pulpit of Mickweh Israel in Philadelphia
was also a prominent conservative, Sabato Morais (b. in Leghorn,
Italy, 1823; d. in Philadelphia, 1897). After having spent five
years in London as the master of a Jewish Orphans’ School, he arrived
in Philadelphia in 1851, and “until his death his influence was a
continually growing power for conservative Judaism.... Though his
ministry covered the period of greatest activity in the adaptation
of Judaism in America to changed conditions, he, as the advocate
of Orthodox Judaism withstood every appeal in behalf of ritualistic
innovations and departures from traditional practice,” proving thereby
how much the personality of the rabbi counts in this country in
deciding the religious attitude of his congregation. When Maimonides
College was established in Philadelphia, in 1867, Morais was made
professor of the Bible and Biblical literature; and he held the chair
during the six years that the college existed. He was the founder and
the first president of the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary,
which was established in New York in 1886, which position, as well
as that of Professor of Bible, he held until his death. Henry Samuel
Morais (b. in Philadelphia, 1860), the writer on Jewish historical
subjects and the first editor of the Philadelphia “Jewish Exponent”
(established 1887), is a son of Sabato Morais.
Isidor Kalisch (b. in Krotoschin, Prussian-Poland, 1816; d. in Newark,
N. J., 1886) was another scholarly rabbi of that period, who came to
the United States in 1849, after having studied at several European
universities. While he was more inclined toward Reform, he is chiefly
known for his literary works and translations, which cover a wide range
of Jewish subjects in Hebrew, German and English. He officiated as
rabbi in various communities, beginning with Cleveland, O., and ending
in Newark, N. J., to which city he removed from Nashville, Tenn., after
he retired from the ministry in 1875. Supreme Court Justice Samuel
Kalisch (b. in Cleveland, O., 1851) of Newark is his son.
Rev. Adolph Hübsch (b. in Hungary, 1830; d. in New York, 1884) was also
a moderate Reformer with a good Rabbinical education. He came to New
York in 1866 and became rabbi and preacher of the Congregation Ahabat
Chesed, which grew considerably under him. He was one of those who
yielded to the temptation of the time to tamper with the Siddur, and
his edition of it, which was adopted by several other congregations for
a certain time, was an addition to the curiosities of American Jewish
liturgical literature.
Henry S. Jacobs (b. in Kingston, Jamaica, 1827; d. in New York,
1893), who came to Richmond, Va., as rabbi of Congregation Bet Shalom
in 1854 and later held similar positions in Charleston, S. C., New
Orleans and New York (Shearit Israel, 1873–74; Bene Yeshurun, 1874–93),
also belongs to the group of conservative rabbis of that period,
who did much to uphold traditional Judaism as a living faith without
treating it as a movement or considering themselves as agitators. His
conciliatory attitude enabled him to act as president of the Board of
Jewish Ministers of New York from its organization until his death.
Benjamin Szold (b. in Hungary, 1829; d. at Berkely Springs,
W. Va., 1902), who came to Baltimore in 1859 as rabbi of Oheb
Shalom congregation and remained with it as rabbi until 1892 and as
rabbi-emeritus until his death, was an opponent of radicalism who
influenced his congregation to adopt a more ♦conservative course
relating to prayers. The changes in the contents of the Siddur,
or traditional Prayer Book, are a characteristic of the extremely
individualistic period in the Reform movement, when almost every leader
of prominence tried his hand at it, and when the aim seemed to be to
make the services in each temple or Reform-synagogue as unlike that of
the other as possible. Most of those special “siddurim” have neither
literary nor historical value, and deserve to be mentioned only as
the curiosities or vagaries of an epoch of transition in American
Judaism. Szold used the prevailing method for the purpose of inducing
his congregation to retrace its steps; and his “Abodat Israel,” which
closely followed traditional lines, soon displaced the more radical
“Minhag America,” not only in his own synagogue but in a number of
others. It was re-published several times, once with an English
translation. His commentary on Job (Baltimore, 1886), written in Hebrew,
is one of the best works of that nature produced in the United States.
Miss Henrietta Szold, the translator and writer on Jewish subjects, is
his daughter.
Of the same age, and to some extent imbued with the same views as Szold,
was Mordecai or Marcus Jastrow (b. in Ragosen, Prussian-Poland, 1829;
d. in Germantown. Pa., 1903), who had a remarkable career as rabbi
in two countries before he came to America. Jastrow had a thorough
rabbinical education, and also a degree of Ph.D. from the University
of Halle. In 1858 he became the preacher of the modern or “German”
congregation at Warsaw, Russian-Poland, and threw himself into the
study of the Polish language and of the condition of the Jews of Poland.
His work “Die Lage der Juden in Polen”, which ♦appeared anonymously
(Hamburg, 1859), proves him to have possessed much valuable information
and clear views on the condition of the Jews of Poland; while a
collection of Polish sermons which was published in Posen (1863) attest
to his mastery of the language. He took the part of the Poles against
their Russian oppressors, and participated in the demonstrations
against the killing of five Poles in a suburb of Warsaw in February,
1861, which led to the beginning of the second Polish insurrection.
Jastrow was imprisoned, together with the great Rabbi Berush Meisels,
and after being held more than three months, was expelled from Russia.
His widely circulated patriotic Polish sermons, his efforts to bring
the Jews and Christians together in protest against the Muscovite
tyranny, and his imprisonment, made him one of the most popular men
in the old Polish capital at that time. He occupied the position of
rabbi at Mannheim, Germany, for a short time in 1862, but his sympathy
with Poland was too strong to permit him to remain there when, on
the supposed pacification of that unhappy country, the order for his
expulsion was revoked in November of that year. He soon returned to
Warsaw, but a few months later the actual insurrection broke out, and,
his passport being cancelled while he was visiting Germany, he could
not return to Russia. He then (1864) accepted a position as rabbi at
Worms, Hesse, where he remained until 1866, when he was chosen rabbi
of the Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.
In the first years of his American rabbinate, Jastrow ably seconded the
efforts of Leeser to preserve conservative Judaism in the East against
the advance of radical Reform, and continued to oppose that tendency
after Leeser’s death. Jastrow was one of the professors of Maimonides
College, and later collaborated with Szold in the revision of the
“Siddur Abodat Israel” and in its translation into English. Besides
his activity in local Jewish affairs and in other Jewish matters of
a more general nature, he contributed to many European and American
Jewish periodicals and was for several years the chief editor of a
new translation of the Bible into English, which was undertaken under
the auspices of the Jewish Publication Society of America. He also
found time to compile his great work, “A Dictionary of the Targumim,
the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature” (London
and New York, 1886–1903), and in his last years was editor of the
department of the Talmud in the “Jewish Encyclopedia.” Two of his
sons are renowned American scholars. The older, Prof. Morris Jastrow
(b. in Warsaw, 1861), has occupied the chair of Semitic languages at
the University of Pennsylvania since 1892, and is one of the foremost
Orientalists in the country. The younger, Joseph Jastrow (b. in Warsaw,
1863), has been prof. of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin
since 1888, and a recognized authority on his special subject. He
was in charge of the psychological section of the World’s Columbian
Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and served as president of the American
Psychological Association for the year 1900.
Illustration: Dr. Marcus Jastrow.
Photo by Gutekunst, Phila.
The last of the important rabbis to come here from a Western European
country was Alexander Kohut (b. in Hungary, 1842; d. in New York,
1894), the lexicographer and Orientalist, whose “Aruch Completum”
(Vienna, 1878–92), to which he devoted twenty-five years of his life,
is still the standard work on the subject. The first four volumes
were printed during his residence in Hungary, where he was rabbi first
at Stuhlweissenburg, then at Fünfkirchen, and lastly at Grosswardein
(1880–84). The last four appeared during his sojourn in America,
whither he came in 1885, when he was chosen rabbi of Congregation
Ahabat Chesed in New York. He was at once recognized as an eminent
conservative leader, and was associated with Morais in founding the
Jewish Theological Seminary, in which he became professor of Talmudic
methodology. In March, 1894, while delivering a eulogy on Kossuth,
he was stricken in the pulpit, and died after lingering several
weeks. A volume containing memorial addresses and tributes to his
memory was published by his congregation in 1894. Another volume,
containing essays by forty-four noted scholars in Europe and America,
entitled “Semitic Studies in Memory of Rev. Dr. Alexander Kohut,” was
published in Berlin in 1897 by his son, George Alexander Kohut (born
in Stuhlweissenburg, 1874), the bibliographer and writer on Jewish
subjects.
Extreme Russian Orthodoxy asserted itself in New York about the middle
of the nineteenth century. There were numerous Jews from Russia in
the country long before that, and the immigration from Russian-Poland
increased heavily after 1845, when Jews in the Kingdom of Poland were
first conscripted in the army, in violation of a promise made by the
Government that this was to be postponed until they were granted equal
rights with non-Jewish subjects. The first Russian congregation in
America was founded June 4, 1852, with twelve members, which soon
increased to about twenty-three, several of whom, however, were natives
of Germany who were dissatisfied with the Reform tendencies of the
congregations to which most of their countrymen belonged.[33] The first
place of worship was in a garret of the house, No. 83 Bayard street,
for which a monthly rental of eight dollars was paid. B. Lichtenstein
was the first Parnass or president, I. Cohen the secretary, H. S.
Isaacs the reader and Abraham Joseph Ash (Eisenstadt? b. in Semyatich,
Russia, 1813; d. in New York, 1888), who came to America in that year
and was a Talmudical scholar, acted as rabbi without compensation.
The place on Bayard street was soon too small for the rapidly
increasing congregation, and it removed in November of the same year
to larger quarters on the first floor of a house on the corner of
Canal and Elm streets, for which a monthly rental of twenty-five
dollars was paid, although there was a carpenter-shop on the floor
above. In another six months the continual increase necessitated
another removal, this time to the top floor of a former court house at
the corner of Pearl and Centre streets. There was a German congregation,
“Bet Abraham,” on the first floor of the same building; but it soon
moved out and, changing its name to “Sha’are Zedek,” located in Henry
street and was known as the Henry Street Synagogue, until it moved
uptown several years ago.
During the three years which the first Russian congregation, which
called itself simply the Bet ha-Midrash, remained on Pearl street,
Mr. Ash became the regularly appointed rabbi at a salary of two
dollars a week, and Joshua Falk ha-Kohen, author of “Abne Joshua”
(a commentary on Pirke Abot, New York, 1860), delivered occasional
sermons without compensation. About this time a quarrel between Rabbi
Ash and Judah Middleman, who was also a Talmudical scholar, about the
recognition of a shochet, in which the rabbi would not submit to the
decision of European rabbinical authorities, led to the first split
in the congregation. Middleman and his followers withdrew and formed a
separate _minyan_ on Bayard street, which later became the congregation
Bene Israel (Kalwarier, organized 1862), which now has its synagogue on
Pike street.
A Portuguese Jew by the name of John Hart, who visited the Pearl
street synagogue to say kaddish on his Jahrzeit, or anniversary of
his parents’ death, influenced his friend, Samson Simpson, the founder
of Mount Sinai Hospital (b. in Danbury, Conn., 1780; d. in New York,
1857), to donate three thousand dollars, which formed the largest
part of the fund with which the Welsh Chapel, No. 78 Allen street,
was purchased and turned into a synagogue. It was dedicated June 8,
1856. New quarrels between the rabbi’s adherents and the officers of
the congregation led to a lawsuit, and later to another split; this
time Rabbi Ash and twenty-three of his followers left the synagogue,
and they formed a new congregation which they named “Bet ha-Midrash
ha-Godol,” which was dedicated August 13, 1859, the first location
being the top floor of the house on Forsyth street, on the southwest
corner of Grand street. Henry Chuck was the first president of the new
congregation; Mayer Salwen, secretary; Israel Cohen, reader, and Nathan
Mayer, beadle and collector.
About the time of the beginning of the Civil War, Rabbi Ash left the
rabbinate and engaged in business, in which he was successful for a
time. During these years he became one of the largest contributing
members and acted for a time as the highest officer of the congregation.
But reverses came and he again became a rabbi, which, with a short
interruption in 1876, when he became a dealer in “Kosher” wine,
he remained until his death. The congregation removed from Forsyth
street to the corner of Clinton and Grand streets in 1865, and from
there moved into its own new building at 69 Ludlow street, which was
dedicated September 27, 1872. This building was sold in 1885 when
the congregation purchased the Methodist church at Nos. 52–60 Norfolk
street, which has been known as the Bet ha-Midrash ha-Godol for the
last quarter of a century.
This synagogue, which was increasing in wealth and membership, made
progress in true Orthodox fashion. A system of baking strictly kosher
matzoth for Passover was introduced in 1870. An extra shochet, Asher
Lemil Harris, was engaged for the special meat market which supplied
the members. A “Hebra Mishnayot” for the daily study of the Mishna was
organized in the same year and a “Hebrah Shas,” for the study of the
Talmud every evening after the services, was organized in 1874 by Rabbi
Ash and Judah David Eisenstein (b. in Mesericz, government of Siedlce,
Russian-Poland, 1855; a. 1872), who is now the editor and publisher and
practically the author of the Hebrew Encyclopedia “Ozar Israel.”
The congregation also did a considerable amount of direct and
unorganized charity work, the money often being contributed by members
or visitors who were called to the reading of the Torah on Saturdays or
other formal occasions. Poor transients and immigrants were assisted,
some were taken into the houses of the more wealthy members for
Sabbaths and festivals. Many of them were assisted to become peddlers,
and were even instructed in the rudiments of the occupation. The poor
of the Holy Land were also remembered by special donations once a year.
But charity work never overshadowed the religious work. The affairs of
the synagogue remained paramount, which is one of the principal reasons
why congregations of this kind retain their truly Orthodox character.
The increase of wealth brought the employment of the first professional
cantor, Judah Oberman (1877), who was succeeded by Simha Samuelson in
1880. Other large congregations were now growing up on the East Side,
where the Jewish population was increasing very fast; but the further
development of its religious and communal life belongs to a later
period.
CHAPTER XXIII.
INTERVENTION IN DAMASCUS. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST
SWISS DISCRIMINATION.
The Damascus Affair; the first occasion on which the Jews of
the United States requested the government to intercede in
behalf of persecuted Jews in another country――John Forsyth’s
instructions to American representatives in Turkey, in
which those requests were anticipated――A discrimination
in a treaty with Switzerland to which President Fillmore
objected, and which Clay and Webster disapproved――The case of
a Jewish-American citizen in Neufchatel――Newspaper agitation,
meetings and memorials against the Swiss treaty――President
Buchanan’s emphatic declaration, and Minister Fay’s “Israelite
Note” about the Jews of Alsace――Question is settled by the
emancipation of the Swiss Jews.
The Jewish community of the United States as a whole had no
difficulties with the outside world and no serious internal problems
in the period of expansion which is treated in this part. The results
of the treaty between our Government and that of Russia, which was
concluded in 1832, in which the rights of American Jews to enter
Russia on the same conditions as other American citizens were not
safeguarded as explicitly as ought to have been done in dealing with
a power so unfriendly to the Jews, had not become apparent until nearly
a half century afterwards, and must be ascribed more to oversight
and ignorance of Russia’s treatment of Jews than to wilful neglect.
Several unfavorable local decisions against Jews as such, mostly in
cases of violation of Sunday laws, or of exemption claimed by Jews from
attending court on Saturday,[34] were of an immediately more painful
nature: but this question also did not become acute until a much
later period, when there grew up communities containing large poor
Orthodox masses, for whom the observance of two day’s rest was a great
economic hardship. An occasional objection to a public functionary’s
forgetfulness about there being other citizens than Christians,
which was sometimes noticed in Thanksgiving Day Proclamations (see Dr.
Lilienthal’s correspondence about a case of that nature with Governor
Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, in “Publications,” XIII, pp. 30–36) would soon
itself be forgotten by Jew and gentile alike. The Jews were occasioning
and experiencing very little difficulties, contributing to the work of
developing the country, and thus unconsciously assisting in preparing
themselves and the general population for the larger influx of
immigrants which were to come later.
The Jews of America were therefore prepared to participate with
the Jews of Western Europe in arousing public sympathy and causing
diplomatic intervention in the case of the thirteen unfortunate Jews of
Damascus who were imprisoned and tortured under the Blood Accusation of
1840. While the distance and the absence of the present means of quick
communication delayed the action taken by the Jews of America until
after the necessary assistance was rendered by European governments at
the instance of the most influential Jews of England and France, the
steps taken by the Jews here and the noble response of the Government
under President Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) is of real historical
value, and has been so regarded by Jost.[35] It was for the first
time that the Jews of the United States interested themselves and
enlisted the interest of the government in the cause of suffering
Jews in another part of the world, and thus participated in that
consolidation of the Jewish public spirit which resulted from this
memorable occurrence, and which justifies the statement made by
Mr. Jacobs that “in a measure, modern Jewish history may be said to
date from the Damascus affair of 1840.” There were now emancipated
Jews in some countries who not only dared to come out in open protest
against anti-Jewish outrages in other countries, but could also
interest civilized governments to take official notice of such
outrages――something unknown in former times. The American government,
on its part, did not even wait for the request of the Jews to intercede
in behalf of the victims of barbarous cruelty; but of its own accord it
sent instructions to its representatives in Turkey and in Egypt to do
all in their power for the unfortunate Jews.
The first meeting of Jews “for the purpose of uniting in an expression
of sympathy for their brethren at Damascus, and of taking such steps
as may be necessary to procure for them equal and impartial justice”
was held in New York on August 19, 1840; and a letter containing the
Resolution which was adopted there was sent to President Van Buren
under the date of August 24, to which the following reply was received:
Washington, August 26, 1840.
Messrs. J. B. Kursheedt, Chairman, and Theodore J. Seixas,
Secretary.
_Gentlemen_:――The President has referred to this Department your
letter of the 24th inst., communicating a resolution unanimously
adopted at a meeting of the Israelites in the City of New York,
held for the purpose of uniting in an expression of sentiment
on the subject of the persecution of their brethren in Damascus.
By his direction I have the honor to inform you, that the
heart-rending scenes which took place at Damascus, had previously
been brought to the notice of the President by a communication
from our Consul at that place, in consequence thereof, a
letter of instruction was immediately written to our Consul at
Alexandria, a copy of which is herewith transmitted for your
satisfaction.
About the same time our Charge d’Affairs at Constantinople
was instructed to interpose his good offices in behalf of
the oppressed and persecuted race of the Jews in the Ottoman
Dominions, among whose kindred are found some of the most worthy
and patriotic of our own citizens, and the whole subject which
appeals so strongly to the universal sentiment of justice and
humanity was earnestly recommended to his zeal and discretion.
I have the honor to be, gentlemen,
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
JOHN FORSYTH.
The letter by Mr. John Forsyth (1780–1841) to the Consul, which is
mentioned in the above communication, was as follows:
Washington, August, 14, 1840.
JOHN GLIDDON, ESQ., United States Consul at Alexandria, Egypt.
Sir:――In common with all civilized nations, the people of the
United States have learned with horror the atrocious crimes
imputed to the Jews of Damascus, and the cruelties of which
they have been the victims. The President fully participates in
the public feeling, and he cannot refrain from expressing equal
surprise and pain, that in this advanced age, such unnatural
practices could be ascribed to any portion of the religious
world, and such barbarous measures be resorted to, in order to
compel the confession of imputed guilt; the offences with which
these unfortunate people are charged, resemble too much those
which, in less enlightened times, were made the pretexts of
fanatical persecution or mercenary extortion, to permit a doubt
that they are equally unfounded.
The President has witnessed, with the most lively satisfaction,
the effort of several of the Christian Governments of Europe,
to suppress or mitigate these horrors, and he has learned with
no common gratification their partial success. He is moreover
anxious that the active sympathy and generous interposition of
the Government of the United States should not be withheld from
so benevolent an object, and he has accordingly directed me to
instruct you to employ, should the occasion arise, all those
good offices and efforts which are compatible with discretion
and your official character, to the end that justice and
humanity may be extended to these persecuted people, whose cry
of distress has reached our shores. I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
JOHN FORSYTH.
The following letter was addressed to David Porter (1780–1843; the
father of Admiral David D. Porter), who was then United States Minister
to Turkey:
DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
Washington, August 17, 1840.
DAVID PORTER, ESQ.
Sir:――In common with the people of the United States, the
President has learned with profound feelings of surprise and
pain the atrocious cruelties which have been practiced upon
the Jews of Damascus and Rhodes, in consequence of charges
extravagant and strikingly similar to those, which, in less
enlightened ages, were made pretexts for the persecution and
spoliation of these unfortunate people. As the scene of these
barbarities are in the Mahomedan dominions, and, as such inhuman
practices are not of an infrequent occurrence in the East, the
President has directed me to instruct you to do everything in
your power with the government of his Imperial Highness, the
Sultan, to whom you are accredited, consistent with discretion
and your diplomatic character, to prevent or mitigate these
horrors,――the bare recital of which has caused a shudder
throughout the civilized world; and in an especial manner,
to direct your philanthropic efforts against the employment
of torture in order to compel the confession of imputed
guilt. The President is of the opinion that from no one can
such generous endeavors proceed with so much propriety and
effect, as from the representative of a friendly power, whose
institutions, political and civil, place upon the same footing,
the worshippers of God, of every faith and form, acknowledging
no distinction between the Mahomedan, the Jew, and the Christian.
Should you, in carrying out these instructions, find it
necessary or proper to address yourself to any of the Turkish
authorities, you will refer to _this distinctive characteristic_
of our government, as investing with a peculiar propriety and
right, the interposition of your good offices in behalf of an
oppressed and persecuted race, among whose kindred are found
some of the most worthy and patriotic of our citizens. In
communicating to you the wishes of the President, I do not think
it advisable to give you more explicit and minute instructions,
but earnestly commend to your zeal and discretion, a subject
which appeals so strongly to the universal sentiments of justice
and humanity.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN FORSYTH.
The Jews of Philadelphia held, on August 27, a meeting for the same
purpose in the vestry of the Mickweh Israel Synagogue, at which were
present, besides the prominent Jews of the city, several representative
Christian clergymen――Dr. Ducachet, Rector of St. Stephens, Dr. Ramsay,
a Presbyterian minister, and the Rev. Mr. Kennedy――all of whom spoke.
Isaac Leeser was the principal orator, and he argued that as both
Christianity and Islam are derived from Judaism, if the last advocated
ritual murder, the daughter-religions would equally be guilty of the
same practice. He contrasted the position of the Eastern Jews with that
of their brethren in this happy land, and declared that while the Jews
everywhere felt themselves true citizens of the lands in which they
dwelt, they still retained full sympathy with their co-religionists
throughout the world, especially when charges were brought against them
which affected the honor and good fame of their religion. A series of
resolutions were adopted and sent to Washington, whence Mr. Forsyth
replied in similar terms to those he had used in his letter to the
Jews of New York, and likewise enclosed a copy of his letter to Consul
Gliddon at Alexandria. Another meeting was held in Richmond, Va., where
a resolution was adopted thanking the President “for the prompt and
handsome manner in which he has acted in reference to the persecution
practiced upon our brethren in Damascus.”
The Jews of the United States were also in open sympathy with the
liberal movements in Central Europe, especially in Germany, which
culminated in the revolutions of the year 1848. While there was
no active co-operation or direct assistance in those times of slow
communication, those who wrote from America described the conditions
prevailing here as well-nigh ideal from the liberal point of view. A
poem by Sigmund Herzl, entitled “Auf! Nach Amerika!” which appeared
in the “Central Organ,” published in Vienna in 1848 by Isidor Bush
(b. in Prague, Bohemia, 1822; a. in New York, 1849; d. in St. Louis,
Mo., 1898), in which America is described as a place where true
brotherly love reigns supreme, where ignorance and base prejudice
are entirely unknown, may be taken as an example of the expression of
that sentiment. When the great Jewish champion of the liberal movement
in Germany, Gabriel Riesser (b. in Hamburg, Germany, 1806; d. there
1863), visited America in 1856, he was greeted by many former German
revolutionary soldiers――both Jewish and Christian――and in New York they
gave a public dinner in his honor. German Jews in Philadelphia formed
a Riesser Club, which existed for a number of years. (See Albert M.
Friedenberg in “Publications,” XVII, pp. 204–5.)
* * * * *
The first diplomatic difficulties which the Government of the United
States experienced on account of discrimination against its Jewish
citizens occurred about this time, and――strangely enough――it was not
with Russia, but with the Swiss Confederation. A general convention
between the two republics was drawn and signed at Berne, November 25,
1850, by Mr. A. Dudley Mann, American Minister to Switzerland, on the
part of the United States, and by Messrs. Druey and Frey-Hérosée on
the part of the Swiss Confederation. This treaty and a copy of the
instructions under which Mr. Mann acted, together with his dispatch
of November 30, 1850, explanatory of the Articles of Convention,
were transmitted to the United States Senate on February 13, 1851, by
President Millard Fillmore (1800–74). Neither the treaty nor the papers
accompanying it were ever made public, the ban of secrecy imposed by
the Senate having never been removed. But President Fillmore himself,
in the message transmitting the treaty, objected to it in the form
in which it was presented. He said: “There is a decisive objection
arising from the last clause in the First Article. That clause is in
these words: _On account of the tenor of the Federal Constitution of
Switzerland, Christians alone are entitled to the enjoyment of the
privileges guaranteed by the present Article in the Swiss Cantons. But
said cantons are not prohibited from extending the same privileges to
citizens of the United States of other religious persuasions._
“It is quite certain [continues the President] that neither by
law, nor by treaty, nor by any other official proceeding is it
competent for the Government of the United States to establish
any distinction between its citizens founded on differences in
religious beliefs. Any benefit or privilege conferred by law or
treaty on one must be common to all, and we are not at liberty,
on a question of such vital interest and plain constitutional
duty, to consider whether the particular case is one in which
substantial inconvenience or injustice might ensue. It is
enough that an inequality would be sanctioned, hostile to
the institutions of the United States and inconsistent with
the Constitution and the laws. Nor can the Government of the
United States rely on the individual Cantons of Switzerland
for extending the same privileges to other citizens of the
United States as this article extends to Christians. It is
indispensable not only that every privilege granted to any
of the citizens of the United States should be granted to all,
but also that the grant of such privileges should stand upon the
same stipulation and assurance by the whole Swiss Confederation,
as those of other articles of the convention.”[36]
The two most prominent men in American public life at that time,
Senator Henry Clay (1777–1852) and Secretary of State Daniel Webster
(1782–1852), strongly disapproved the discrimination which the
proposed treaty provided. The former wrote: “I disapprove entirely
the restrictions limiting certain provisions of the treaty, under the
operation of which a respectable portion of our fellow-citizens would
be excluded from their benefits. This is not the country nor the age
in which unjust prejudices should receive any countenance.” Webster
wrote about the same time to a Jew who addressed him on the subject
(presumably J. M. Cordozo): “The objections against certain specialties
of the Swiss Convention concerning the Israelites which you urge in
your letter to me have not escaped the attention of the Department, and
I hasten to inform you that they will be laid before the Senate with
the convention.” (The letter is dated February 11, 1851.)
In the meantime, although it was asserted on behalf of Switzerland that
the discriminations which it insisted upon were only “a precautionary
measure ... a safeguard against the immense itinerant (Jewish)
population of Alsace,” the two Cantons of Basle vigorously executed a
decree of banishment against the Jews which was promulgated November
17, 1851. The law was suspended for a few months because of a note sent
by Emperor Napoleon III. to the Council of the Federation, in which he
said “That France will expel all Swiss citizens established in France
in case the two Cantons should insist on carrying out this law against
the Jews.” But while the negotiations were pending, the two Cantons
carried out the law of expulsion, and no further steps were taken
by France. About this time there was set on foot in this country a
movement to procure religious toleration abroad for American citizens
generally. It appears to have been aimed at the persecution of American
Protestants in Catholic countries, and the movement to secure redress
in this direction culminated in a resolution introduced in the House of
Representatives, December 13, 1852, by John A. Wilcox, of Mississippi,
which declared “that the representatives of this Government at foreign
courts be instructed to urge such amendments of all existing treaties
between the United States and the other powers of the world as will
secure the same liberty of religious worship to all American citizens
residing under foreign flags which is guaranteed to all citizens of
every nation of the whole world who reside under the flag of our Union.”
Objection was made to this resolution as an encroachment upon the
powers of the Executive, and action was delayed for a long time. A
resolution of a similar nature, which was reported to the Senate from
the Committee on Foreign Relations, February 17, 1853, met the same
fate. But all these discussions had the effect of the Senate refusing
to ratify the treaty with Switzerland in the form in which it was sent
to it. Mr. Mann thereupon proceeded to negotiate another treaty which,
while striking from it the clause objected to by the President and
the other notable men mentioned above, yet in another form inserted a
clause, the effect of which was the same as that of the clause which
had been stricken out. Article I of this new treaty read as follows:
The citizens of the United States of America and the citizens
of Switzerland shall be admitted and treated upon a footing of
reciprocal equality in the two countries, where such admission
and treatment shall not conflict with the constitutional or
legal provisions, as well Federal as State and Cantonal of the
contracting parties.
Despite the previous and many subsequent protests from numerous Jews,
and also despite the attention of the government, which was attracted
to the case of A. H. Gootman, an American-Jewish citizen, who was
ordered expelled from the Canton of Neufchatel in 1853, the treaty
containing the above article was ratified by the Senate November 6,
1855. Ratifications were exchanged two days afterward, and the treaty
was proclaimed November 9, 1855, by President Franklin Pierce (1804–69),
when William Learned Marcy (1786–1857) was Secretary of State.
In 1856 the above mentioned Mr. Gootman, who had remained in Neufchatel
by special permission, again requested, through the American minister
to Switzerland, Mr. Theo. S. Fay, the intervention of the United States
Government against his expulsion. In his letter to the State Department
Mr. Fay states it as a matter of fact that the treaty between the
two republics “does not grant to Israelites the right of domicile
in Switzerland,” and in a second letter he says “that it may be
superfluous to repeat that the obnoxious clause in the treaty
was unavoidable without a revision of the federal constitution of
Switzerland.” He also repeats “that the admission of American Jews
would necessitate that of Jews of other nations, and particular
inconvenience is apprehended from the usurious Israelitish population
of the French province of Alsace.” This second Gootman case became
generally known, and public sentiment was aroused against the treaty.
The result of the agitation was apparent even in the general press of
the country, and many protest meetings were held, memorials drawn and
forwarded to Washington and committees appointed to consider the matter.
A delegation of prominent Jews went to the Capital in October, 1857,
and presented a memorial to President James Buchanan (1791–1868),
who gave an explicit promise to remedy the wrong of which the Jews
complained.
The declaration of the President on the subject was so emphatic that
most of the leaders and promoters of the agitation were completely
satisfied that the question was already settled in their favor. Dr.
Einhorn wrote in his “Sinai”: “We feel satisfied that the Israelites
of the United States may feel implicit confidence in the Executive, and
that their rights as citizens of the United States will be zealously
maintained.” Dr. Wise, in the “Israelite,” wrote: “No doubt was left
in the minds of the delegates, but that this matter is settled as far
as we are concerned.” Rabbi Leeser, however, was not so well satisfied,
and he did not agree that all agitation ought now to cease, but thought
it “advisable for all the congregations that have not yet acted to
draw up memorials and send them to the President, to show at least
that the interest in the question was not confined to the four States
represented at Washington on the 31st of October.”
Another long diplomatic correspondence followed, with reciprocal
requests for information about the condition of the Jews in both
countries, with urgent requests from Washington that something be
done, and with explanations from Mr. Fay that the Cantonal laws or
constitutions would have to be changed before favorable action could
be expected. In November of the same year Mr. Fay wrote: “I would wish
carefully to avoid offering encouragement to the Hebrews.” But he was
now working diligently to carry out the desire of the President, and
was even collecting material to disprove the charges made by the Swiss
against the Alsatian Jews. In November, 1858, he wrote to Secretary
of State Lewis Cass (1782–1866): “That the mouths of all foreign
governments and preceding treaty makers have been until now closed by
a plea about the Alsatian Jews. I think that after the renseignements
which I am now collecting no Swiss authority will ever dare to advance
that objection against us as an argument, and I am more and more of
the opinion that it may become expedient to denounce our treaty until
the expunction of the offensive clause.” The results of Mr. Fay’s
investigations were incorporated in his “Israelite Note,” which was
transmitted to the Secretary of State on June 3, 1859, and to the
Federal Council of Switzerland on the same day. It had a salutary
effect on Switzerland, where the Federal Council assisted in its
circulation. A German edition of it was printed in St. Gall in 1860.
The cause of the Jews in Switzerland gained much from this intervention
of the representative of a foreign government in their behalf; and the
consequences were felt in other countries where the struggle for Jewish
emancipation was then going on. According to a letter written by Mr.
Fay in October, 1859, the Bavarian Minister told him that should he
succeed in Switzerland, the Israelites of Bavaria would also be
emancipated.
The case of the Jews was making considerable progress, and other
enlightened governments also made representations to Switzerland
in favor of the Jews; still nothing definite was accomplished under
Buchanan’s administration, either. In March, 1861, Rabbi Leeser
expressed, in the “Occident,” his regret, that nothing was done, and
wrote that he expected that nothing would be done until “Switzerland
herself will render the laws harmless by repealing through her Cantonal
Councils all inequality laws existing against us.” This prediction
proved correct; for while the succeeding Secretary of State, William
H. Seward (1801–72) took up the matter with Mr. George G. Fogg, who
was then minister to Switzerland, several years passed before another
favorable report reached the State Department on the subject. The
appointment by the Government of the United States of a Jewish citizen,
Mr. Bernays, as its Consul to Zürich created a stir in both countries,
and clearly indicated the favorable disposition of the administration
of President Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) towards the Jews.
In 1864 Mr. Fogg wrote to Mr. Seward that the President of the
Confederation, Mr. Dubs, had informed him that the Federal Council were
then disposed to so amend the treaty that no discrimination founded
on religious belief should thereafter be made or endured by citizens
of the United States within the limits of the Swiss Confederation.
The remaining Cantons were removing the Jewish disabilities one after
another; but in some of them, as in Basle, the hotbed of opposition and
prejudice against the Jews, full civil rights were not granted until
1872, although the right of residence was freely accorded ten years
earlier. The new Swiss Constitution, which was adopted in 1874, at
last established full religious liberty, and also made the question
of treatments of aliens a Federal, as distinguished from a Cantonal,
matter. It was not until then that the question was solved, so to speak,
automatically; but it is conceded that the efforts of the Government
of the United States contributed to the result, although it could not
attain its object by direct diplomatic negotiations.
PART V.
THE CIVIL WAR AND THE FORMATIVE PERIOD.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DISCUSSION ABOUT SLAVERY. LINCOLN AND THE JEWS.
Pro-slavery tendencies of the aristocratic Spaniards and
Portuguese――David Yulee (Levy)――Michael Heilprin and his reply
to Rabbi Raphall’s _Bible View on Slavery_――Immigrants of the
second period as opponents of slavery――Two Jewish delegates in
the Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln, and one member
of the Electoral College in 1860――Two other Jews officially
participate in Lincoln’s renomination and re-election in
1864――Abraham Jonas――Encouragement from the Scripture in
original Hebrew.
As almost all the early Jewish settlers in America belonged to the
wealthy classes, and most of them were in everything, except as to
their faith, aristocratic Spaniards or Portuguese, it was natural
for them to accept the institution of slavery as they found it, and
to derive as much benefit from it as other affluent men. There were
numerous Jewish slave holders in various parts of the New World,
including the West Indies, New York and New England, long before and
down to the American Revolution. There are several early references
even to American-Jewish slave dealers. The growth of democracy and
changed economic conditions had gradually put an end to slavery in
the north soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century; but in
the South slavery remained common, among Jews as well as among others.
Public opinion in the South not only sanctioned slavery, but considered
it the basis of its prosperity and predominance; and the prominent
Jew of that part of the country was simply acting and feeling like
his non-Jewish neighbors and fellow-citizens when he owned slaves or
defended the institution at every possible opportunity. And those Jews
who attained high political or social position in the South were by
force of circumstances pro-slavery men. There was no lack of individual
instances of Jews who evinced special tenderness for the black man,
and even went so far as to liberate the negroes of whom they were the
owners. It is thus related of the philanthropist Judah Touro “that
the negroes who waited upon him in the house of the Shepards――with
whom he lived for forty years――were all emancipated by his aid and
supplied with the means of establishing themselves; and the only slave
he personally possessed he trained to business, then emancipated,
furnishing him with money and valuable advice.” The American and
Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, in its report in 1853, noted that some
Jews in the Southern States “have refused to have any right of property
in man, or even to have any slaves about them” and that the cruel
persecutions they themselves were subjected to tended to make them
friends of universal freedom.[37] But these were exceptional, not
typical cases, and not more common among Jews than among gentiles.
It was therefore natural to find in a man like David Yulee (originally
David Levy, b. in St. Thomas, W. I., 1811; d. in New York City, 1886),
who after studying at Richmond, Va., became a planter in Florida, a
stanch supporter and defender of slavery. He was a Delegate to Congress
from the Territory of Florida from 1841 to 1845, bearing the name of
Levy. When Florida was admitted as a state in 1845, Levy, who had then
assumed the name of Yulee, was elected a United States Senator from
that state, being the first Jew who was elected to the upper house of
the American Congress. He served a full term and later he was elected
for another term, beginning in 1855 which he did not finish, because he
retired in January, 1861, to join the Confederacy, later serving as a
member of the Confederate Congress. We find even a resident of the far
West, Judge Samuel Heydenfeldt, of California――mentioned in a former
part――who, as a native of the South, was a strong partisan of the
Confederacy, going so far as to withdraw from a lucrative practice
in the courts, because he felt that he could not subscribe to the
“iron clad” oath of loyalty required by law as a condition precedent
to argument in every case (see _Friedenberg_, in “Publications,” X,
p. 138).
In the religious controversies which went on at the time when the
question of slavery began to absorb the attention of the American
people, the Jews also took part on both sides. It has already been
mentioned that Dr. Einhorn was forced to quit Baltimore on account of
the strong stand against slavery which he took in his sermons and in
his German monthly “Sinai.” Rabbi Sabato Morais found in Philadelphia,
and so did Rabbis Bernhard Felsenthal and Liebman Adler in Chicago,
more congenial surroundings for their work against slavery. Rabbi
Morris J. Raphall, of New York, came out in 1860 with a strong sermon,
which later appeared in a pamphlet, entitled “_Bible View on Slavery_,”
in which he attempted to prove that since the Bible, which is the
highest law, sanctioned slavery, it was futile to invoke an alleged
“higher law” against it. There was, of course, no lack of replies
and refutations to this argument, but none was so strong or attracted
so much attention as one that came from the pen of a scholar who
represented the very latest class of Jewish immigrants to the United
States.
Illustration: Michael Heilprin.
This man was Michael Heilprin (b. in Piotrkow, Russian-Poland,
1823; d. in Summit, N. J., 1888), the son of Pinhas Mendel Heilprin
(b. in Lublin, Russian-Poland, 1801; d. in Washington, D. C., 1863).
His father, who was a scholarly merchant of the old Polish-Jewish type
and the author of several works in Hebrew, was his only teacher, and
brought him up in that spirit of enlightened Orthodoxy which was not
antagonistic to the acquisition of secular learning. Michael’s almost
phenomenal memory and diligence helped him to master many languages
and to become proficient in numerous sciences, which enabled him later
to become one of the associate editors and an important contributor
to _Appleton’s New American Cyclopaedia_. The Heilprins removed to
Northern Hungary about 1843, where Michael established himself as a
bookseller in Miskolcz. He soon mastered the Hungarian language, and
his articles and poems in the cause of liberty attracted much attention
during the stormy days of 1848 and 1849. He became the friend and
confidant of Louis Kossuth (1802–94) and other leaders, and when the
short-lived independent Hungarian government was established, he became
secretary of the literary bureau which was attached to its ministry
of the interior. After the suppression of the Revolution he spent some
time in Cracow and in France, but returned to Hungary in 1850, and
settled as a teacher in Satoralja-Ujhely, where his second son, the
well-known American naturalist, Angelo Heilprin, was born in 1853 (d.
in New York, 1907); the elder son, Louis, the encyclopedist (b. in
Miskolcz, 1851), died in New York in 1912.
Michael Heilprin came to the United States in 1856 and settled in
Philadelphia, where for two years he taught in the schools of the
Hebrew Education Society. He “saw but one struggle here and in Hungary,”
and his sympathies were actively engaged in the anti-slavery movement.
In 1858 he settled in Brooklyn, where he resided until 1863, when he
removed to Washington, returning to New York in 1865. On January 16,
1861, he contributed a fiery denunciation and an exhaustive scholarly
refutation of Raphall’s views to the _New York Tribune_ which commanded
wide attention; and owing to this vehement but convincing repudiation
of alleged Jewish pro-slavery views, Heilprin succeeded in arousing
the public in a more marked degree than any other Jewish anti-slavery
champion.
The bulk of the Jewish immigrants who came from Germany in the
forty years preceding the Civil War were almost unanimous against
slavery, because they were under the influence of the liberal movements
of the Old World. These immigrants were intensely interested in
the anti-slavery movement and were among the first and the most
enthusiastic members of the newly formed Republican party. The two
Jews who were chosen delegates to the National Convention of that party
in 1860, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency, and the
Jewish member of the Electoral College which ratified the choice of the
people in that year, were all natives of Germany. The oldest among them
was Sigismund Kaufman (b. in Darmstadt, 1824; d. in Berlin, 1889), who
participated in the German Revolution of 1848–49, and coming to America,
became a representative of the German Republican element in the United
States. He took an active part in the leadership of German social
and fraternal organizations in New York, was a director of the Hebrew
Orphan Asylum, and held the position of Commissioner of Immigration. He
addressed anti-slavery meetings in English, German and French, and was
considered one of the influential politicians of New York in his time.
He was chosen a Presidential Elector for the State of New York in 1860.
Moritz Pinner (b. in Germany about 1828), one of the members of the
Republican State Convention which was held in St. Louis on February 12,
1860, was elected a delegate to the National Republican Convention
to be held in Chicago the following May. He was opposed to the
Presidential candidate who was put forward by that convention, and
when it adopted the unit rule, thereby forcing him to vote against his
own favorite candidate (Seward), he offered his resignation; but the
convention adjourned without taking action on it. He was at the Chicago
Convention as a delegate, but abstained from voting, on account of his
declination to be bound by the decree of the State Convention, which
is one of the reasons why his name does not appear on the official
roll of the Missouri delegates. Pinner, who later removed to Elizabeth,
N. J., was actively engaged for a number of years before the outbreak
of the war in circulating anti-slavery literature in Missouri, and was
for some time the editor of a German periodical devoted to the same
cause.[38]
Illustration: Lewis N. Dembitz.
Photo by Klauber, Louisville.
The third and youngest of the three Jews who directly participated
in the official part of the work of nominating and electing Abraham
Lincoln to the Presidency in 1860, was Lewis Naphtali Dembitz (b. in
Zirke, Province of Posen, Prussian-Poland in 1833; d. in Louisville,
Ky., 1907), who had been a practicing attorney at Louisville since
1853. He was previously occupied as a journalist and had at a later
time written several works on legal and general, as well as on Jewish,
subjects. Dembitz took an active interest in Jewish affairs and
held various communal positions in local and national bodies. He was
considered one of the leaders of Conservative Judaism in America, and
is best known as the author of _Jewish Services in the Synagogue and
Home_ (1898). At the Convention of 1860 he was a delegate from the city
of Louisville, where he resided for more than a half century, and where
he held the position of Assistant City Attorney from 1884 to 1888.
The one Jewish delegate to the Convention which re-nominated Mr.
Lincoln in 1864 was likewise a native of Germany, while the one
Jewish member of the Electoral College which re-elected him was of
German parentage. The former was Maier Hirsch (1829–76), a merchant of
Salem, Oregon, who was one of the six delegates from that state to the
Republican National Convention of 1864. He settled in Oregon in 1852,
when he came to the United States from Würtemberg. He settled in New
York in 1874, where he died two years later. Maier Hirsch was a brother
of Solomon Hirsch, who was United States Minister to Turkey from 1889
to 1892, and of Edward Hirsch, at one time State Treasurer and later a
State Senator of Oregon.
The Presidential elector of 1864 was A. J. Dittenhoefer (b. in South
Carolina, 1836), who came with his parents to New York when he was
four years old, and has resided there continually since. He served as
Justice of the Marine (now City) Court, and held several positions of
trust and honor in the Republican Party, of which he was one of the
earliest members in New York.
Among the personal friends of Lincoln was Abraham Jonas (b. in Exeter,
England, 1801; d. in Quincy, Ill., 1864), whose four sons, strangely
enough, fought in the Confederate Army. Jonas, who first lived in
Kentucky, was a member of the Legislature of that State in 1828–30 and
in 1833; and in the last named year he was also chosen Grand Master
of Masons of the State of Kentucky. He removed to Illinois in 1838,
and there also became Grand Master of the newly organized Masonic
Grand Lodge, which was founded in 1839. He was elected a member of the
Illinois Legislature in 1842, retiring from his mercantile pursuits on
being admitted to the bar in 1843. He served as Postmaster of Quincy
from 1849 to 1852. Jonas, with Lincoln, was chosen by the Illinois
State Republican Convention, held at Bloomington on May 29, 1856, a
Presidential elector on the Fremont ticket. A confidential letter which
Lincoln, after his first nomination in 1860 wrote to Jonas, denying
that he was affiliated with the American or “Know Nothing” party, is
preserved in the authoritative Lincoln biography by Nicolay and Hay.
During his last illness, when he knew that the doctors had no hope
for his recovery, Jonas’s only wish was to see his son, Charles H.,
a member of the Twelfth Arkansas Regiment, who was at that time
a prisoner of war on Johnson’s Island, Lake Erie. This wish was
communicated by telegraph to Lincoln, who issued an order, dated
June 2d, 1864, to “Allow Charles H. Jonas, now a prisoner of war at
Johnson’s Island, a parole of three weeks to visit his dying father,
Abraham Jonas, at Quincy, Ill.” Benjamin F. Jonas (b. in Williamstown,
Ky., 1834; d. in New Orleans, 1911), who served in the artillery of
Hood’s Corps in the Army of Tennessee, and who, after serving several
terms in the Legislature of Louisiana, was elected a United States
Senator from that state, serving from 1879 until 1885, was one of
the above mentioned four sons of Abraham Jonas who served in the
Confederate Army.
The admiration which Jews felt for Lincoln was probably best expressed
by the silk flag which City Clerk Abraham Kohn of Chicago sent to the
President-elect before his departure for Washington in February, 1861.
It was painted in colors, its folds bearing Hebrew characters lettered
in black with the third to ninth verses of the first chapter in Joshua,
the last verse being: “Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of good
courage; be not afraid neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God
is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
CHAPTER XXV.
PARTICIPATION OF JEWS IN THE CIVIL WAR.
JUDAH P. BENJAMIN.
Probable number of Jews in the United States at the time of the
outbreak of the Civil War――Seddon’s estimate of “from ten to
twelve thousand Jews in the Southern Army”――Judah P. Benjamin,
the greatest Jew in American public life――His early life and
his marriage――Whig politician, planter and slave owner――Elected
to the United States Senate and re-elected as a Democrat――Quits
Washington when Louisiana seceded and enters the cabinet of the
Confederacy――Attorney-General, Secretary of War and Secretary
of State――His foreign policy――His capacity for work――When
all is lost he goes to England and becomes one of its great
lawyers――His last days are spent in France.
The highest estimate of the number of Jews in the United States about
the time of the outbreak of the Civil War was about four hundred
thousand (Jonas P. Levy in 1858; see “Publications,” XI, p. 39), while
the lowest, given by Mr. Simon Wolf in his work, which is the standard
authority on the participation of the Jews in the war,[39] thinks it
“altogether doubtful whether there were more than 150,000, if that
many, when hostilities commenced.” But it is certain that even if the
higher estimate is nearer the truth, the Jews took their full share
in the struggle and “that the enlistment of Jewish soldiers, North and
South, reached proportions considerably in excess of their ratio to
the general population.” Mr. Wolf has collected data to the effect
that over seven thousand Jews took part in the conflict on both sides,
but he has by no means been able to come near completeness. Neither
the Government of the United States nor that of the Confederacy took
notice of the religion of its soldiers; a large number of the young
German-Jewish volunteers were far from being strict adherents of
religion, while many among the native Jews had American names and could
not be easily recognized as Jews. Mr. Seddon, the Secretary of War
of the Confederacy, when requested, in the fall of 1864, to grant a
furlough to Jewish soldiers who would like to keep Rosh ha-Shanah and
Yom Kippur, is quoted as replying that he believed that there were from
ten to twelve thousand Jews in the Southern Army, and that it would
perhaps disintegrate certain commands if the request was granted. While
this number is probably an exaggeration, it cannot be very far from the
truth, and considering the comparatively small number of Jews in the
South at that time, this is a really remarkable showing.
The number of Jews who distinguished themselves by their bravery
and who attained high rank and other forms of recognition, was also
correspondingly large, especially if we consider their inexperience
in war. But before treating of the men who gained eminence on the
field of battle, and of the others whose creditable record in the
war helped them to attain positions of prominence in other walks of
life afterwards, we shall speak of the one man who occupied a really
commanding position in this gigantic struggle, the greatest Jew in
American public life――Judah P. Benjamin.
Illustration: Judah P. Benjamin.
From Pierce Butler’s “Judah P. Benjamin.”
He was the son of Philip (b. about 1782) and Rebecca de Mendes
Benjamin, who emigrated from London, England, to St. Thomas, W. I.,
in 1808, shortly after their marriage, where the son was born August 6,
1811. The Benjamins removed to the United States, where they originally
intended to go, about 1818, and settled in Charleston, S. C. Judah
Philip entered Yale University in 1825, and left in 1827, without
taking a degree. A year later he came to New Orleans, where he
taught English, learned French and studied law as a notary’s clerk.
He was admitted to the bar in 1832 and a year later married his former
pupil, Natalie St. Martin, who remained all her life a devout Roman
Catholic. The marriage was not a happy one, and when their only child
which survived infancy was about five years old, Mrs. Benjamin moved
permanently to France to educate her, and Mr. Benjamin saw them only
on his visits to Paris, which he made almost annually.
Benjamin was associated with Thomas Slidell, who later became Chief
Justice of Louisiana, in the preparation of the _Digest of the Reported
Decisions of the Superior Courts in the Territory of Orleans and State
of Louisiana_, which was published in 1834. He soon afterward became
interested in politics, and was elected to the lower house of the
General Assembly of Louisiana on the Whig ticket in 1842. When he was
forced by weakened eyesight to relinquish his law practice for a time,
he took up sugar planting, in which he likewise succeeded very well.
The plantation, however, was ruined by a flood, and Benjamin removed to
New Orleans, together with the members of his family, whom he brought
over from South Carolina. They were his mother (d. 1847), his oldest
sister, the widow of Abraham Levy (whom she married in 1826), and his
younger sister, who later became the mother of Julius Kruttschnitt
(b. in New Orleans, 1854), the railroad manager. As a planter Benjamin
became a slave owner, and some of his slaves, who were still living at
the beginning of the present century, “would tell visitors all sorts of
tales of the master of long ago――none but kindly memories and romantic
legends of the glory of the old place.”[40]
He soon became one of the recognized leaders of the Whig party in his
state, and “no small share of the flashes of success that came to it
in the last decade of its existence in Louisiana is attributable to his
energy and political sagacity.” He was, according to the journalistic
custom of that time, savagely assailed by the newspapers which opposed
him, and he was even charged, in 1844, with belonging to the “Know
Nothing” party, despite the fact that he was himself foreign born. But
he agreed with that party in his opposition to the granting of suffrage
to immigrants into the state, even to natives of Northern States, in
whom he saw a source of danger to the South.
His seat in the Constitutional Convention of 1844 being contested, he
resigned and was re-elected by a much larger majority. When he again
took his seat at the convention which re-assembled in New Orleans,
Benjamin was the recognized leader of the delegates of that city in its
disputes with the representatives of the country districts. One of his
speeches at that convention proved that he clearly foresaw the war in
1845, though he was then considered an alarmist. He was elected a State
Senator in 1852, and soon became a leading candidate for the United
States Senate. He received the nomination by an unexpectedly large
majority and was elected in the same year, as a Whig. When that party
was split by the antagonism between the North and the South, he came
out openly in 1855 with the declaration that it did not exist any more
as a national party. He urged the necessity of uniting in one great
Southern party, on a platform “on which we can all stand together
to meet with firmness the coming shock.” When the formation of such
a party proved impracticable, he turned to the Democratic party and
became more friendly to the administration. His first really powerful
speech in the Senate was delivered May 2d, 1856, on the Kansas bill, in
which he distinctly and calmly enunciated the right of secession.
In 1859 Benjamin was re-elected to the United States Senate by a
majority of one vote (that of the last “Know Nothing” in the Louisiana
Legislature). He was now one of the prominent Senators, and chairman
of the Judiciary Committee. He was in favor of secession only as a
last resort; but he thought that this last resort was reached after
Lincoln’s election in 1860. He delivered two powerful orations in
the Senate in the following winter, and a memorable farewell speech,
February 4, 1861, on the right of Louisiana to secede. His last
speech in the capital was delivered before the Washington Artillery on
Washington’s birthday, and soon after, in New Orleans, he took leave
from his family, whom he was never to see again.
Louisiana had already seceded from the Union on January 26, 1861, and
one month later, February 25, Benjamin was named by the President of
the new Confederacy, Jefferson Davis (1808–89) as his Attorney-General.
Benjamin assumed his new office at the new capital, Montgomery, Ala.;
but there was hardly any work for him to do as an Attorney-General to a
government that practically had no courts. But he was often called upon
by President Davis to perform other services which required tact and
delicacy, and he soon gained the latter’s confidence to a marked degree.
On September 17, 1861, Benjamin was named Secretary of War ad interim,
to succeed Secretary Walker, acting also as Attorney-General until
November 15 of that year. He proved unpopular in his new office, and
was blamed by a Congressional committee for not sending ammunition
to General Wise, who lost an important battle about that time. But
as a matter of fact there was nothing to send, and the President and
his Secretary of War preferred to accept official blame to disclosing
the dearth and scarcity of powder to a committee of the Confederate
Congress, fearing that it might become known to the Yankees. Benjamin
shouldered the odium, as usual; but he rose in the estimation of
Davis and the other leaders who were conversant with the true state
of affairs. Thus it happened that while almost everybody in the South
expected Benjamin to be dismissed in disgrace, the surprising news
was published on March 27, 1862, that he was promoted to the office
of Secretary of State.
His new Department was the one for which he was pre-eminently fit; and
while he could not, in the nature of things, accomplish all that was
expected of him, he earned the undying fame which was best expressed
in the description of him as the “Brains of the Confederacy.” The
great problem was to obtain assistance from a maritime power, the
only one who could help the blockaded Confederacy, which was prevented
by the blockade from selling its chief staple article――cotton. Spain,
though a slave power herself at that time, was unfriendly to the
former persistent filibusters, and her distrust could not be overcome.
France was too friendly with England and would not interfere without
the latter’s consent or co-operation, so that even if the South
could send out a new Benjamin Franklin to Paris he could accomplish
little. Benjamin, like almost all Southern statesmen, believed that
England will be unable to get along without cotton, and ignoring
or misunderstanding the moral forces which the cause of the North
awakened in Europe, he displayed more independence at the beginning
than was justifiable. Later, when he was in England, Benjamin declared:
“I did not believe that your government would allow such misery to
your operatives, such loss to your manufacturers, or that the people
themselves would have borne it.” Benjamin believed that recognition (by
England and France) even without intervention would end the war, and he
might have been right if recognition came early.
Mason, the Southern representative in England, made little headway,
and even had his cause been stronger, he was no match for Adams, the
minister of the North. Slidell, Benjamin’s friend, was apparently
more successful in France. Benjamin authorized him to offer France a
cotton subsidy valued at over sixty million francs for breaking the
blockade or even for simple recognition of the Confederacy. Emperor
Louis Napoleon (1808–73) seemed to have been favorably inclined, and
Mercier, the French minister at Washington, who visited Richmond with
Lincoln’s permission, was so influenced by Benjamin that he became
almost enthusiastic. But communications were unsteady and unsafe, and
some dispatches came seven months after they were sent from Paris. As
an instance: Benjamin received from Slidell on February 27, 1863, a
message written December 27, 1862, stating that the envoy to France was
“without any dispatch from you later than April 15th.” The fall of New
Orleans, May 1, 1862, blasted the hopes of early intervention.
Benjamin worked very hard as Secretary of State, although there were
no ambassadors to be received and no social functions to be attended
in Richmond. It has been stated on good authority that President Davis
consulted with his Secretary of State more freely than with any other
member of his cabinet, and finding him always willing and able, got in
the habit of referring to the State Department anything that did not
beyond any hope belong to some other department. Benjamin’s assistant
secretary, L. O. Washington, writes of him: “He was ever calm,
self-poised, and master of all his resources. His grasp of a subject
seemed instantaneous. His mind appeared to move without friction.
His thought was clear.” Mrs. Jefferson Davis wrote; “Mr. Benjamin was
always ready for work; sometimes with half an hour recess, he remained
with the Executive from ten in the morning until night.... Both the
President and the Secretary of State worked like galley slaves, early
and late. Mr. Davis came home fasting, a mere mass of throbbing nerves,
and perfectly exhausted; but Mr. Benjamin was always fresh and buoyant.”
When New Orleans fell, his little family, after privations and
misadventures, moved to La Grange, Ga., where he could again supply
them with money. When the fortune of the Confederacy began to wane,
his unpopularity increased, and attacks upon the score of his religion
and race, which were never neglected by his opponents during his entire
career, were now redoubled. He was especially blamed for the desperate
plan, which was carried out through the desire and influence of General
Robert E. Lee (1807–70) of enlisting negroes in the Confederate army.
On February 9, 1865, Benjamin made, at a mass meeting in Richmond,
the last public speech of his life. His power over his audience was
still great, but all was lost. Richmond fell in less than two months.
After an anxious week at Danville, he accompanied President Davis to
Greensboro, where the fugitive government halted for a few days. Taking
leave from Mr. Davis, to whom he could no longer be of any assistance,
he escaped to the West Indies, where he visited his native place for
the last time, and after many dangers and adventures he arrived in
England, July 22, 1865.
* * * * *
Although England did not recognize the Confederacy, many sympathized
with it, and Benjamin, whose fame preceded him, was received in London
with great friendliness, despite the order which he gave as Secretary
of State, expelling from the Confederate States all British Consuls,
because they persisted in acting under orders from their superiors
in Washington. He was befriended by many of the important men of the
time in London, including both Benjamin Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield,
1804–81) and William E. Gladstone (1809–98). Having been born in an
English colony, the son of an Englishman, he simply returned to his
original allegiance, seemingly trying to forget his experience of more
than forty years as an American. He never made a political address or
a public declaration after leaving America.
His subsequent career as an English barrister, as one of the greatest
of barristers in his time, was wonderful, especially when we remember
that it was begun when he was over fifty-five years of age; with a past
history which was so crowded with activity and exciting experience to
wear out any man. He wrote there his _Treatise on the Law of Sale of
Personal Property, with References to the American Decisions, to the
French Code and Civil Law_ which became a legal classic on both sides
of the Atlantic. His income from his law practice was for some years
as high as £15,000 annually, which was much rarer then than it is now.
In 1872 he received a “patent of precedence,” which gave him rank above
all other Queen’s Counsels. About 1877 he began to build a new house on
Avenue d’Jena (No. 41), in Paris, in which city his wife and only child
continued to reside, even after he settled in England. A bad accident
caused by an attempt to jump off a tram-car, in 1880, left him a sick
man for the rest of his life. Diabetes developed, and in February, 1883,
he was forced to announce his retirement from the English Bar. After a
notable banquet given in his honor by the Bench and Bar――the first of
its kind in England――he retired to his mansion in Paris, where he died
May 6, 1884, about seventy-three years old. He was buried according to
the rites of the Catholic Church, although it is not believed that he
was converted to Christianity. His wife survived him seven years. His
only daughter, Ninette, who married Captain Henri de Bousignac, of the
French army, died without issue in 1898.
CHAPTER XXVI.
DISTINGUISHED SERVICES OF JEWS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE STRUGGLE.
More “brothers in arms” and a larger proportion of officers in
the Confederate Army than in that of the North, because most
Southern Jews were natives of the country――Some distinguished
officers――A gallant private who later became a rabbi――Paucity
of Southern records――Generals Knefler, Solomon, Blumenberg,
Joachimsen and other officers of high rank in the Union
Army――New York ranks first, Ohio second and Illinois third
in the number of Jews who went to the front――Two Pennsylvania
regiments which started with Jewish colonels――Commodore Uriah
P. Levy, the ranking officer of the United States navy at
the time of the outbreak of the war, is prevented by age from
taking part in it.
The disproportionately large number of Jews who served in the
Confederate army was already alluded to in the former chapter.
Another proof of it is the preponderance among the Jews in that army
of instances of “brothers in arms” (as Mr. Wolf calls them), i. e., of
groups of several brothers who went to the front with their neighbors
to fight the battles of the state and the section of the country in
which they lived. Six brothers Cohen――Aaron, Jacob H., Julius, Edward,
Gustavus A. and Henry M.――came from North Carolina. South Carolina
contributed the five brothers Moses――Percy, Joshua L., Horace, J. Harby
and A. Jackson. The four brothers Jonas have been mentioned in a former
chapter, but they also had a fifth brother who, like their father,
embraced the Union cause. Raphael Moses and his three sons were four
Southern soldiers from Georgia, while Alabama sent also three Moses
brothers: Mordecai, Henry C. and Alfred. Three brothers Cohen came from
Arkansas. Virginia and Louisiana each sent three brothers surnamed Levy,
while of the three brothers Goldsmith two came from Georgia and one
from South Carolina. The reason for the presence of so many brothers
in arms in the Confederate army is given by the above named authority
as due to the fact that the Jews of the Southern States were, in a
much larger proportion than those of the North, natives of the soil or
residents of long standing. While the Jews of the North were much more
numerous, they were, for the most part, immigrants of a comparatively
recent date, and therefore less intensely imbued with the spirit of the
conflict.
Illustration: Hon. Simon Wolf.
Photo by Harris & Ewing, Wash., D. C.
There were about twenty-three Jewish staff officers in the Confederate
army, which is likewise a larger number than those who held similar
positions in the Union army, and probably for the same reason given
above. The most distinguished of them were: Surgeon-General David de
Leon, who participated in the Mexican war (see page 162); Assistant
Adjutant-General J. Randolph Mordecai, and Colonel Raphael J. Moses,
who served on the staff of General Longstreet and was chief commissary
for the State of Georgia. Adolph Meyer (b. in New Orleans, 1842; d.
there 1908), who later served nine terms as a member of the House of
Representatives in Washington from the First District of Louisiana (52d
to 60th Congresses, inclusive), entered the Confederate army in 1862,
and served until the close of the war on the staff of Brigadier-General
John S. Williams of Kentucky. There were also about a dozen Jewish
officers in the Confederate navy, one of whom, Captain Levy Myers
Harby (b. in Georgetown, S. C., 1793; d. in Galveston, Tex., 1870),
who had previously served in the war of 1812, in the Mexican war and
in the Bolivian war, and, after resigning from the service of the
United States and joining the Confederacy, distinguished himself in
the defence of Galveston, and was in command of its harbor at the close
of the Civil War.
Lionel Levy, a nephew of Judah P. Benjamin, served as Judge-Advocate of
the Military Court of the Confederate Army. Among those who served as
privates in the ranks who deserve to be mentioned was Samuel Ullman of
the 16th Infantry Regiment of Mississippi, who served gallantly through
the war, being twice wounded, and later (1891–94) was rabbi of Emanuel
Congregation of Birmingham, Ala. There have also been preserved the
names of twenty-five Jews among the Confederate prisoners who died in
Elmira, N. Y., during the time which they were detained there. A list
of seventeen soldiers interred at the Jewish burying ground of Richmond,
Va., contains the names of one captain, three lieutenants, and one
corporal, which is an exceptionally large ratio of officers for the
Civil War on either side. Even in the South the Jews could at that time
be numbered by tens of thousands, with a much larger proportion of poor
men, or immigrants, than in former times, and the relative number of
officers was perforce much smaller than at the time of the Revolution
or of the War of 1812. Still the Jews of the South were then, as it was
stated above, much more assimilated or Americanized than those of the
North, and the records of the Confederate army were less carefully kept
or preserved. Thus it happens that, while judging from inference and
some general statements, it may appear that the number of Jews in the
armies of the Confederacy was almost as large as, if not larger than,
their number in the Union Army, the actual records compiled by Mr. Wolf
tell an entirely different story. His lists contain about six thousand
names of Jews who supported the Union cause, while among those who
defended secession and slavery there were only about a fifth of that
number whose names and identity he ascertained.
It is also to the Union army that we have to go to find Jewish officers
who commanded regiments on the battlefields. Brevet Major General
Frederick Knefler, a native of Hungary, who rose to the colonelcy of
the 79th Indiana Regiment and subsequently became a Brigadier-General,
and was made Brevet Major-General for meritorious conduct at
Chickamauga, is classed as a Jew. Edward S. Solomon (known also as
Salomon; b. in Sleswick-Holstein, 1826; d. 1909) emigrated to the
United States after receiving a high school education in his native
town, and settled in Chicago, where he was elected alderman in 1860.
At the outbreak of the war he joined the 24th Illinois Infantry as
second-lieutenant, participating in the battles of Frederickton and
Mainfordsville, Kentucky, and was promoted to the rank of major in 1862.
He then resigned and assisted in the organization of the Eighty-second
Illinois Infantry, in which regiment he became lieutenant-colonel, and
afterwards became its colonel. He took part, under General Howe, in the
battles of Chancellorville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain
and Missionary Ridge. In 1865 he was brevetted brigadier-general. When
peace was restored he returned to Chicago and became clerk of Cook
County, Ill. In 1870 he was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant
(1822–85) governor of Washington Territory, and held the position about
four years. After resigning, in 1874, he settled in San Francisco,
where he was twice elected to the Legislature of California, and also
held the office of District Attorney of San Francisco.
Leopold Blumenberg (b. in Prussia, 1827; d. in Baltimore, 1876) served
with distinction in the Prussian-Danish war of 1848–49 and was promoted
to the rank of first lieutenant. He came to the United States in 1854
and settled in Baltimore, where he engaged in a profitable business,
which he abandoned at the outbreak of the war. He helped to organize
the Fifth Maryland Regiment, in which he became a major. His work
for the Union cause excited the animosity of local secessionists, who
attempted to hang him, and he was forced to have his house barricaded
and guarded for several nights. Blumenberg was acting colonel of his
regiment near Hampton Roads. He was later attached to Mansfield’s corps
at the Peninsular campaign, and commanded his regiment as colonel at
Antietam, where he was severely wounded. When he had partly recovered
he was appointed by President Lincoln provost-marshal of the third
Maryland district, which position he held for two years. President
Andrew Johnson (1808–75) gave him a position in the revenue department
and commissioned him brigadier-general, United States Volunteers, by
brevet. General Blumenberg was a member of the Har-Sinai Congregation
and of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Baltimore.
Philip J. Joachimsen (b. in Breslau, Germany, 1817; a. 1831; d. in New
York, 1890) was appointed Assistant Corporation Attorney of the City
of New York soon after his admission to the bar, in 1840, and fifteen
years later he became Assistant United States District Attorney, being
afterward appointed Substitute United States Attorney under a special
provision of an act of Congress. (_Markens_ 223.) During his term of
office he secured the first capital conviction for slave trading, and
also the conviction of some Nicaraguan filibusterers. He organized
and commanded the 59th New York Volunteer Regiment and was injured
at New Orleans. He was made brigadier-general by brevet. In 1870 he
was elected a Judge of the Marine Court of the City of New York and
served a full term of six years. Judge Joachimsen was active in Jewish
communal affairs, and was the first president of the Hebrew Orphan
Asylum (1859). Twenty years later he organized the Hebrew Sheltering
Guardian Society.
General William Mayer rendered valuable service during the Draft Riots
in New York City, for which he received an autograph letter of thanks
from President Lincoln. Subsequently General Mayer devoted himself to
journalism and was the editor of several German newspapers.
Marcus M. Spiegel, the son of a rabbi of Oppenheim-on-the-Rhine,
enlisted in the 67th Ohio Infantry Regiment and was promoted step by
step until he became lieutenant-colonel, and for bravery manifested
on the battle field, was appointed Colonel of the 120th Ohio Infantry.
He was wounded at Vicksburg, and after joining his regiment again,
fell at Snaggy Point, on the Red River, Louisiana. But for his
untimely death, Colonel Spiegel would have been promoted to the rank
of Brigadier-General, to which he was recommended by his superior
officers.
Max Einstein (b. in ♦Würtemberg, 1822; a. 1844) had considerable
military experience prior to the outbreak of the war. He was a silk
merchant, and became First Lieutenant of the Washington Guards in 1852.
In the following year he joined the Philadelphia (Flying) Artillery
Company and was chosen its Captain. He became Aide-de-Camp (with the
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel) to Governor James Pollock of Pennsylvania
in 1856. In 1860 he was elected Brigadier-General of the Second Brigade
of Pennsylvania Militia. In the succeeding year he organized the 27th
Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, which was mustered into service May 31,
1861, for a three years’ term. This regiment, under Colonel Einstein’s
command, succeeded in covering the retreat of the Union Army in the
first battle of Bull Run and won credit by its conduct. Einstein was
subsequently appointed by President Lincoln United States Consul at
Nüremberg, Germany, and later served as United States Revenue Agent at
Philadelphia.
It is worth noting as an example that this one regiment had nearly
thirty Jewish officers, most of them in minor positions, and about
sixty privates in the ranks. This was, of course, an exceptional case,
but Jews were represented in most of the regiments, especially those
of Philadelphia, almost if not quite as much as in the regiments of
those states which sent a larger contingent of Jewish soldiers to
the front than Pennsylvania. The first of those states was New York,
with nearly two thousand, which had already at that time achieved
the distinction of having the largest Jewish community in the New
World. Ohio, which came second, with 1,134, and Illinois, with 1,076,
clearly indicated the growing importance of the Middle West for the
new immigration. Indiana contributed over five hundred――almost as
many as Pennsylvania――while Michigan had more than two hundred of its
Jewish inhabitants in the Union Army. New England had the smallest
representation, for the number of Jews there was very small at that
time.
There was still another Pennsylvania regiment, the 65th (Fifth
Cavalry), known as the “Cameron Dragoons” (on account of its being
recruited under the authority of an order issued by Secretary of War
Simon Cameron (1799–1889) July 6, 1861), which first went to the front
under the command of a Jewish colonel. His name was Max Friedman (b. in
Mühlhausen, Germany, 1825), and he came to the United States in 1848,
settling in Philadelphia. He served as Major of a Regiment in the State
Militia prior to the Civil War. Colonel Friedman remained with his
regiment in the field until a severe wound received at the battle of
Vienna, Virginia, forced him to resign in the following month. He later
(1869) settled in New York as the cashier of the Union Square National
Bank, of which he was one of the organizers.
Abraham Hart (b. in Hesse-Darmstadt, 1832), who arrived in this
country at the age of eighteen, was a captain in the 73d Pennsylvania
Infantry Regiment, and when Colonel Kolter, under whom he served, was
elevated to the command of a brigade in General Blenker’s Division of
the Army of the Potomac, Captain Hart was detailed as Adjutant-General
of the brigade. Moses Isaac of New York attained the same rank,
that of adjutant-general in the Third Army Corps of the Army of the
Potomac, and participated in the battles of the Peninsular campaign,
subsequently serving under General Banks. Another New York Jew, of whom
little else is known besides a brief notice by Mr. Wolf (p. 285), was
Lieutenant-♦Colonel Leopold C. Newman, of the 31st Infantry Regiment of
that state, whose foot was shattered by a cannon ball in the battle of
Chancellorville (May 2, 1863), and he was taken to Washington, where he
died. President Lincoln visited him at his bedside, and brought along
his commission promoting him to the rank of Brigadier-General.
While the number of Jewish soldiers was proportionally large, and
many of them became distinguished for bravery and were promoted to
responsible positions, it was in the other branch of the service, the
Navy, in which a member of the Jewish community attained the highest
rank up to that time. Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy (b. in Philadelphia,
1792; d. in New York, 1862) held the highest rank in the United States
Navy prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, though his age prevented
him from participating in that struggle. Levy sailed as a cabin boy
before he was eleven years old, and at the age of fourteen he was
apprenticed as a sailor, and also attended a naval school for one year,
becoming a second mate four years later. He soon rose to be first mate,
and was master of a schooner at twenty. While he was on a cruise on
the “George Washington,” of which he was part owner as well as master,
a mutiny took place, his vessel was seized and he was left penniless;
but he managed to return to the United States, and after obtaining the
necessary means, he secured the mutineers, brought them to the United
States and had them convicted.
Levy received his commission from the United States Navy as sailing
master in October, 1812, when the war with England had already begun.
Until June 13 he served on the ship “Alert,” doing shore duty; then
he went on the brig “Argus,” bound for France. The “Argus” captured
several prizes, and Levy was placed in command of one, but the prize
was recaptured by the English, and Levy and the crew were kept as
prisoners for sixteen months in England. In 1816 he was assigned as
sailing master to the “Franklin,” and in March, 1817, he was appointed
lieutenant in the Navy, which appointment was confirmed by the Senate.
Illustration: Commodore Uriah P. Levy.
Levy had many difficulties in the Navy, partly due to his promotion
from the line, which is never popular among officers who receive their
training at the Naval Academy, and partly, as he himself and many
others thought, on account of his faith and descent. He fought a duel,
in which he killed his opponent, was court-martialed six times, and
finally dropped from the list as captain, to which rank he had been
promoted. He defended his conduct before a court of inquiry in 1855,
which restored him to the navy as captain. Subsequently he rose to the
rank of commodore.
Levy was the descendant of an old Philadelphia family, always
acknowledged his Jewish allegiance, and was one of the charter members
of the Washington Hebrew Congregation. He purchased Monticello, the
home of Thomas Jefferson, whom he greatly admired, and it is still
owned by the family, the present owner being Congressman Jefferson M.
Levy, a nephew of the commodore. A statue of Jefferson, presented to
the government by Uriah P. Levy, is still standing in the Statuary Hall
of the Capitol in Washington. Levy is buried in the portion of Cypress
Hills Cemetery in New York which belongs to Congregation Shearit
Israel (of which another nephew, Louis Napoleon Levy, a brother of the
Congressman, is president), and on his imposing tombstone is recorded
that “he was the father of the law for the abolition of the barbarous
practice of corporal punishment in the United States Navy.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FORMATIVE PERIOD AFTER THE CIVIL WAR.
Ebb and flow of immigration between 1850 and 1880――Decrease and
practical stoppage of Jewish immigration from Germany――The
breathing spell between two periods of immigration, and the
preparation for the vast influx which was to follow――The
period of great charitable institutions――Organization and
consolidation――The Hebrew Union College and the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations――The Independent Order B’nai
B’rith――Other large fraternal organizations and their
usefulness――Important local institutions in New York,
Philadelphia, Chicago, etc.
The number of immigrants arriving in the United States increased in
the middle of the last century, and reached its highest point of that
period in 1854, when the new arrivals numbered 427,833. It then began
to diminish, and fell to about 150,000 in 1860, and to less than 90,000
in each of the two first years of the Civil War, 1861 and 1862. In
the following year it began to rise again, and in the two last years
of the war, when the final outcome was already easily foreseen in the
Old World, it was considerably above the three years preceding the
beginning of the conflict. In 1865 there came 247,453; in 1867 (when
the present system of figuring by the fiscal year, ending June 30, was
adopted) they numbered 298,967, and only a little less in 1868. In 1869
it rose to 352,569; in 1870 to 387,203. After a slight relapse in 1871
to 321,350, it rose in 1872 to 404,806 and in 1873 to 459,803, when
the current receded again on account of the slackening of all business
activity which followed the panic of that year. It sank to as low as
138,469 in 1878, rose again to 177,826 in 1879, and to 457,257 in 1880,
when the country had fully recovered from the effects of the panic, as
well as from the ravages of the great struggle.
But while Germans formed a large part of those who arrived in the
two or three decades after the war, the number of Jews who left that
country was now very small, and sank to almost nothing about 1880.
What was described by a Jewish traveler[41] as the second German-Jewish
migration to America, which began about 1836, and to which “Bavaria
contributed the largest quota of (Jewish) immigrants, because of
her peculiarly harsh (anti-Jewish) marriage laws and commercial
restrictions,” practically ended in the decade of the Civil War,
when the Jews were emancipated in most of the German states. The
progress made by these immigrants in less than one generation can be
best illustrated by quoting two passages from the same article by Mr.
Kohler: “The early German settlers commonly arrived here without means,
frequently without any education other than of the most rudimentary
character.” Subsequently (p. 102) he quotes a German-American
politician, who wrote in 1869: “The German Jews in America gain
in influence daily, being rich, intelligent and educated, or at
least seeking education. They read better books than the rest of the
Germans....”
This progress was largely accelerated by the great business activity
which followed the war. A large number of the German-Jewish immigrants
amassed wealth, and the stoppage of the arrival of new poor immigrants,
or rather of poor relatives, reduced the number of the needy and
helpless among them to an insignificant fraction. It may be said that
it was during these fifteen years (1865–80), between the preceding
large German-Jewish immigration and the following incomparably larger
Russian-Jewish influx, that the Jews of the United States succeeded
in bringing their communal house to order, and in preparing for
their historic mission of receiving the great masses which were soon
to be driven thither from the Slavic countries by the iron hand of
persecution. Most of the large charitable institutions, which are the
pride of American Judaism, and have served to relieve want and pain in
various forms, actually date from that period. The date of organization
or original foundation is in most cases much earlier. But at the
beginning these institutions were more like the small charities which
are now founded by poor immigrants. There were very few great Jewish
institutions in the United States prior to the Civil War, although most
of the magnificent organizations in the older communities justly claim
a continued existence from ante-bellum days. The largest number and the
most important of them grew to their imposing size and vast usefulness
in “the seventies,” i. e., in that breathing spell which the Jews of
America had between two periods of immigration.
The tendency to organize, to consolidate and take up the work
of American Judaism in earnest, which characterized that period,
manifested itself in the conferences of the Reform Rabbis, although
as occasions for squabbles about destructive innovations and for
extremely radical declarations, they deserve to be classed as ephemeral
sensationalism rather than events of historical importance. It was at
the third of these conventions, held in Cincinnati in June, 1871, that
it was decided to establish the Hebrew Union College and to organize
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. The last named organization,
which was founded in July, 1873, with thirty-four congregations,
numbering about 1,800 members,[42] now comprises about two hundred
congregations, with a total membership of nearly twenty thousand,
and includes practically the entire American and Americanized German
elements which are affiliated with Jewish religious institutions. The
College, which was established two years later, has educated nearly one
hundred and fifty American Rabbis, some of whom have attained eminence
as preachers and communal workers.
Illustration: Julius Bien.
Principal organizer of the Ind. Order B’nai B’rith.
The Independent Order B’nai B’rith (Sons of the Covenant), which seems
destined to be the great Jewish international organization of the
future, though founded in 1843, did not assume its commanding position
until about a quarter of a century afterward. It had less than 3,000
members in 1857. Three years after the close of the Civil War its
membership rose to 20,000, which was probably a larger proportion of
the Jewish population of the country at that time than it ever had
before or after. It now has about 34,000 members, distributed in the
seven districts into which it has divided the United States, and in
Germany, Austria and Roumania, where there are flourishing lodges.
A lodge has also recently been established in England. The guiding
spirit of the order was Julius Bien (b. in Hesse-Nassau, Germany, 1826;
d. in New York, 1909), who was its president in the years 1854–57 and
1868–1900. His successor was Leo N. Levi (b. in Victoria, Tex., 1856; d.
in New York, 1904), who was in turn succeeded by the present incumbent,
Adolf Kraus (b. in Bohemia, 1850; a. 1865), an eminent attorney, who
has resided in Chicago since 1871, where he has served as President of
the Board of Education, Corporation Counsel of the city and President
of the Civil Service Commission.
While no other Jewish fraternal organization succeeded in accomplishing
as much as the B’nai B’rith in communal or charitable work and in
representing general Jewish interests for a number of years, other
organizations of the same kind, which kept more strictly to the
activities for the benefits of their own members, also originated in
that period. They are the Order Brith Abraham (organized 1859) and its
offshoots, the Kesher shel Barzel (founded 1860), the Independent Order
Brith Abraham (1887), the Free Sons of Israel (1849), and the Free
Sons of Benjamin (1879). The two Brith Abraham Orders, the second of
which was formed by a secession from the first, have grown very fast
of late years, the former having about 70,000 members of both sexes
and the latter about twice that number. Like most of the other Jewish
orders which originated later, the bulk of their membership consists of
immigrants of the last period from the Slavic countries. Aside from the
pecuniary benefits which members and their families derive from these
organizations at lower rates than they could have obtained elsewhere,
the educational value of these bodies is also great, for many obtain
there the first glimpse of the systematic working of an organization
which is amenable to its own rules.
As much, if not more, progress was made in that time with the founding
of institutions which are considered as local in their character,
but which in large communities like New York, Philadelphia or Chicago
ultimately helped more people at a larger cost than many of the
national organizations. The United Hebrew Charities of New York was
organized in 1874, two years after the incorporation of the Home for
Aged and Infirm Hebrews. The Mount Sinai Hospital was originally the
Jews’ Hospital (organized 1857), but it was then a small institution,
and its large structure (which was abandoned for a still larger one
in 1901) which first bore the name of Mount Sinai was erected in
1870. The Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum, which was organized in its
original form in the first quarter of the last century, had only thirty
children, in a rented house, in 1860. Its first building, on the corner
of Third avenue and Seventy-seventh street, was erected in 1862, and
its magnificent structure on Amsterdam avenue more than twenty years
afterwards. The Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum Society was
organized in 1879. The Hebrew Free School Association, which gave the
impetus to the organization in later years of important educational
institutions, like the Hebrew Technical Institute, the Technical School
for Girls, and ultimately also to the Educational Alliance (originally
The Hebrew Institute, organized 1891), originated in that period
and existed until about 1899. The Young Men’s Hebrew Association was
organized in 1874.
Philadelphia likewise enjoyed much communal activity in that formative
period of American-Jewish history. The first Jewish theological
seminary in America, Maimonides College, was opened there in 1867
and existed for six years. The Hebrew Education Society, which was
organized in 1848 and opened its school with twenty-two pupils in 1851,
opened a second school in the vestry room of the Bene Israel Synagogue
on Fifth street in 1878, and a third school on the northwest corner of
Marshall street and Girard avenue in 1879. The first Jewish Hospital
Association of that city was incorporated in 1865. The Jewish Maternity
Association was founded in 1873. The Jewish Foster Home, which erected
its first small building in 1855, was organized in its present form in
1874, since which time it has become one of the most important communal
institutions there. The Young Men’s Hebrew Association was organized in
1875, a year later than the one in New York.
The first Jewish Hospital in Chicago was erected on Lasalle avenue
in 1868. It was destroyed by the great fire of 1871, and eight years
later the funds which made possible the erection of the Michael Reese
Hospital were donated for that purpose. The United Hebrew Charities of
Chicago, originally the United Hebrew Relief Association, was organized
in 1859, and changed its name later. The United Hebrew Charities of
St. Louis was organized in 1875.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
NEW SYNAGOGUES AND TEMPLES.
IMMIGRATION FROM RUSSIA PRIOR TO 1880.
Continued increase in the wealth and importance of the
German-Jewish congregations――New and spacious synagogues and
temples erected in various parts of the country in the “sixties”
and the “seventies”――Problems of Russian-Jewish immigration
prior to 1880――Economic condition of the Jewish masses in
Russia worse in the “golden era” than under Nicholas I.――
Emigration from Russia after the famine of 1867–68 and after
the pogrom of Odessa in 1871――Presumption of the existence of
a Hebrew reading public in New York in 1868――The first Hebrew
and Yiddish periodicals.
The charitable institutions which were founded or enlarged in this
period were not the only indication of the improved and settled
condition of the Jews who came here in the preceding half century.
These institutions were later to be even more enlarged, and numerous
others were to be established to meet the demands made upon them in
the following quarter century. It is to the synagogues or temples which
date from these times that we have to turn in order to gain a true
conception of the general condition of the Jews. In this respect there
is a striking similarity between the condition of the Sephardim at the
beginning of the nineteenth century and the German Jews at the end of
its third quarter. In both cases the numerical growth almost stopped
with the cessation of immigration from the home country. The small
number of arrivals and the natural increase were barely enough to
replace the losses through death and through estrangements which
were caused by outright defections or by the slower process of mixed
marriages. And just as the Spanish and Portuguese element in American
Judaism, which had barely held its own after the suspension of the
Inquisition, permitted the surviving Marranos to remain where they
were, and improved conditions in Western Europe obviated the necessity
of the Sephardim of Holland, France or England looking for new homes,
so did the much larger and more active German element practically stop
growing numerically after the emancipation of the Jews in the German
States. The number of Jews who arrived here from Germany after 1880
is insignificant, and the same may be said of the relative number of
German-Jewish synagogues which were established after that time.
As a matter of fact the formation of German congregations stopped
several years earlier. The better cohesiveness and discipline among
the Americanized Jews made splits a very rare occurrence. Only in large
cities the removal of many members of a congregation too far from the
location of its synagogue caused the formation of new congregations,
consisting mostly of members of older bodies, with some accessions of
immigrants from the Slavic countries. In the smaller cities there is
even now only one German-American congregation, usually dating from
before the Civil War or from the decade following it. In the larger
cities there may be several of them of about the same age, except in
some communities, like Charleston. S. C., where the Spanish and the
Germans are fused in the one Reform congregation, or in New York, where
each section of the community is sufficiently large to have several
congregations of its own.
It is therefore not to the increase in the number of German-Jewish
congregations, but to their increase in wealth and importance, as
demonstrated by the increase in the size and splendor of the synagogues
and temples, that we have to look for proof of the great progress
which was made in that period. The most representative congregations
of New York have been described in the preceding parts of this work.
In Philadelphia a new, spacious synagogue of its oldest congregation,
Mickweh Israel, was dedicated in 1860, and the new beautiful temple
of the Congregation Rodef Shalom, “one of the earliest German-Jewish
congregations in America,” was built in 1870. ♦Kehillah Anshe Maarab of
Chicago had its first large synagogue ready (converted from a church)
in 1868. The second oldest congregation, Bene Shalom, erected its first
temple, on the corner of Harrison street and Fourth avenue, in 1864,
“at that time the handsomest Jewish house of worship in Chicago.” The
third eldest, Sinai Congregation, purchased the site of its temple in
1872 (after the fire of 1871 had destroyed its former house of worship),
and the structure was finished four years later. In distant California,
Temple Emanuel, of San Francisco, was dedicated in 1866. In the
District of Columbia (Washington) the first synagogue was dedicated
in 1863 and the second in 1873. The old congregation of Savannah, Ga.,
erected a new and much larger synagogue in 1876.
Temple Achdut we-Shalom of Evansville, Ind., which was erected in
1856, was replaced by a more costly one in 1874. In Indianapolis, the
capital and largest city of that state, a new temple was dedicated
in 1868, about three years after the cornerstone was laid. The first
temple of the Congregation Adath Israel of Louisville, Ky., was
finished in 1868; about three years later congregations were organized
in Owensboro and Paducah, in the same state. Temple Sinai of New
Orleans, La., of which Dr. Maximilian Heller (b. in Prague, Bohemia,
1860), has been rabbi since 1887, dates from 1870. In Monroe, in
the same state, a congregation was organized in that year, and in
Shreveport, La., several years before. The synagogue of the Baltimore
Hebrew Congregation, which was erected in 1845, was enlarged in 1860,
while the “Chizzuk Amoonah,” which seceded from it in 1871, erected its
synagogue on Lloyd street five years later.
The older synagogues of both Boston, Mass., and Detroit, Mich., date
from the same period. Mount Zion Congregation of St. Paul, Minn.,
was founded in 1871. Meridian, Natchez, Port Gibson and Vicksburg, in
the State of Mississippi, have synagogues which originated within the
decade of the war. The same is true of Kansas City, St. Joseph and
St. Louis, in Missouri, and of Temple Israel of Omaha, Neb. The first
houses of worship of Hoboken and Jersey City, N. J., were established
about 1870, while in the largest city of that state, Newark, the
synagogue (built 1858) of the Congregation B’nai Jeshurun (organized
1848) was replaced by an imposing temple which was dedicated in 1868.
In the State of New York, outside of its chief city, the same can be
seen. The first considerable synagogue of Albany, that of Congregation
Beth El, was erected in 1865. The first congregation of Buffalo,
organized in 1847, built its own synagogue in 1874. In both of these
cities, like in many others, larger and more costly temples were
erected later; but there was much less wealth in the country in general
after the Civil War, and a building costing fifty thousand dollars
which was erected in the “sixties” or the “seventies” represented
perhaps a further advance from preceding times than one three times
as costly indicated in the “nineties.” In some instances, like that
of Rochester, where the first Jewish community was organized in 1848,
the purchase of a spacious church building early in its career (1856)
postponed the necessity of a large edifice until later. It was not
until Rabbi Max Landsberg (b. in Berlin, 1845; a. 1871) had been with
the Congregation “Berith Kodesh” of Rochester for nearly a quarter
century that the present fine temple was erected (1894). In other
communities divisions or splits made it impracticable to build large
houses of worship until a later time; so we find that in Syracuse,
where the first religious organization was formed in 1841, and the
first synagogue was opened in 1846, a building erected in 1850 sufficed
for the needs of the congregation more than half a century afterwards.
This was because a new congregation was formed in 1854; another
secession took place in 1864 and one more congregation was founded in
1870. Brooklyn, on account of its proximity to New York City, could not
develop a really independent communal life until it had a very large
Jewish population, and in some respects has not done so even yet. The
Keap Street Synagogue, which dates from the period which we deal with
in this chapter, was the largest of its kind in the city for many years.
* * * * *
The marked diminution or practical cessation of Jewish immigration from
Germany by no means meant a stoppage of Jewish immigration. There was
a steady flow of immigration from Russia, which, beginning with the
exodus from Russian-Poland of 1845 (see above, page 189), has actually
never ceased until this day, although it did not assume the immense
proportions of the last thirty years. The “Aufruf” on behalf of the
Russian-Jewish refugees, which Rabbi S. M. Schiller (Schiller-Szinessy,
b. in Alt-Ofen, Hungary, 1820; d. in Cambridge, England, 1890)
published in the _Orient_ for 1846 (pp. 67–68), is a sufficient
indication of the comparative antiquity of a problem which many suppose
never arose until after the anti-Jewish riots in 1881. What is even
less known in Western countries is that the economic condition of the
Jews in Russia was much worse in the so-called “golden period” under
Czar Alexander II. (1818–81) than under his more despotic predecessor.
There was a popular saying among the Russian-Jews at that time――when it
could not have occurred to anybody that these years of starvation would
later be considered a golden age――that Czar Nicholas I. (1796–1855)
wanted the persons of the Jews but left them their goods, while his
son was less concerned about the persons, but despoiled them of their
goods. This allusion to the passage in the Pentateuch (Gen. 14.21),
in which the king of Sodom says to Abraham “Give me the persons and
take the goods to thyself,” meant that Nicholas, who first began
to enroll Jews in the Russian army and attempted to convert as many
Jews to Christianity as possible, afforded the Jews in general better
opportunities to earn a living than the more liberal Alexander.
The fact that no proper provision was made for the Jews in the
re-adjustment which followed the emancipation of the serfs, and that
even the slight concessions, like the permission to skilled artizans
to live outside of the “Pale of Settlement,” were never carried out
honestly, is at the bottom of much of the Jews’ trouble there.
In less than five years after the emancipation of the Russian serfs
there came a crisis, occasioned by the hard times which followed the
crop failure of 1867, which caused “a state of distress in East Prussia
and a famine on the other side of the border.”[43] The Jews of Germany
did much to alleviate the distress of the large number of Russian Jews
who lived at that time in East Prussia, and also to send relief to
the needy co-religionists of Western Russia. But then, as now, the
suffering was too widespread and the general condition too hopeless to
be relieved by almsgiving, and the result was an exodus of considerable
magnitude. This new exodus was treated in a series of articles in the
_Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums_ of 1869 entitled “Auswanderung der
Juden aus den Westrussischen Prowinzen” (Emigration of Jews from the
provinces of Western Russia). M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu (in his _Les
Immigrants juifs et le Judaisme aux Etats-Unis_, Paris, 1905, p. 5)
tells of 500 Jewish emigrants from Russian-♦Poland which the Alliance
Israelite Universelle sent to the United States in 1869 from the famine
stricken districts. The great anti-Jewish riot in Odessa on Passover,
1871, which shattered the hope of the Jews for emancipation in the then
near future, and marked the beginning of the reaction which culminated
in the reign of the following Czar, was also followed by ♦considerable
emigration of Jews. Many remained in Prussia, which was yet open for
Russian subjects; but a large number proceeded to the United States, or
went there after remaining for some time in England.
The Jewish population of the United States, and especially of the City
of New York, was therefore constantly increasing, though neither the
number of Jews nor the relative proportion as to country of origin is
possible to ascertain for that time. Judge Daly (p. 56) quotes Joseph
A. Scovil, author of “Old Merchants of New York” as saying (in 1868),
“There are now 80,000 Israelites in this city, and it is the high
standard of excellence of the old Israelite merchant of 1800 that has
made the race occupy the proud position it now holds in this city and
in the nation.” Daly himself thought the number to be somewhat smaller.
He says (p. 58), “The Jews have now (1872) in New York twenty-nine
synagogues, and as a proportional part of the population they are now
estimated at about 70,000.”
Whether the lower estimate or the higher is nearer the truth, it is
clear that there were already in New York a large number of Jews, and
that a considerable portion of them were from Russia. A rare little
volume in rabbinical Hebrew, entitled _Emek Rephaim_, against the
heresy of the Reform Jews, which was published by the author, Elijah
Holzman, a shochet from Courland, in New York, in 1868, is a good
indication that there were already here at that time a sufficient
number of readers of that language to warrant the publication of a
work of that nature. As only the intellectual aristocracy among the
Jews of the Slavic countries reads Hebrew and a large majority of the
Russian-Jewish immigrants of that period belonged to the poorest and
most ignorant classes, the belief in the existence of a Hebrew reading
public, even if it proved to be a mistaken one, implies the presence of
a large number of Russians.
The first attempts to establish periodicals for this public soon
followed. Hirsch Bernstein (b. in Wladislavov or Neustadt-Schirwint,
government of Suwalki, 1846; d. in Tannersville, New York, 1907)
arrived in New York in 1870, and in the same year established the
first Judaeo-German or Yiddish paper, and also the first periodical
publication in the Neo-Hebraic language in the United States. The
Yiddish publication, called “The Post,” had a brief existence; but the
second, _ha-Zofeh be’ Erez ha-Hadashah_, of which Mordecai ben David
Jalomstein (b. in Suwalki, 1835; a. 1871; d. in New York, 1897) was
editor for most of the time, appeared weekly for more than five years.
His brother-in-law, Kasriel H. ♦Sarasohn (b. in Paiser, Russian-Poland,
1835; d. in New York, 1905), who arrived in the United States in 1866,
and settled in New York, founded there, in 1874, the weekly “Jewish
Gazette,” which, with its daily edition, the _Jewish Daily News_
(established 1886), later became the most prosperous Jewish periodical
publications in any country. Jalomstein was the principal contributor
to these publications for about twenty years. Another Yiddish weekly,
the _Israelitische Presse_, was founded in Chicago in 1879, by Nachman
Baer Ettelson and S. L. Marcus. It had a Hebrew supplement, and existed
for several years. The Jewish press in general will be treated in a
later chapter; but it deserves to be mentioned here that some of the
best representative Jewish papers of the country, like the _American
Hebrew_ of New York and the _Jewish Exponent_ of Philadelphia (both
founded in 1879) and the _Jewish Advance_ of Chicago (founded 1878;
existed about four years) contributed to place the Jews of the country
in the proper condition for the reception of the large number of
persecuted Jews which were soon to arrive.
Illustration: Kasriel H. Sarasohn.
PART VI.
THE THIRD OR RUSSIAN PERIOD OF IMMIGRATION.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE INFLUX AFTER THE ANTI-JEWISH RIOTS IN RUSSIA IN 1881.
The country itself is well prepared for the reception of a larger
number of Jewish immigrants――Absence of organized or political
Antisemitism――Increase in general immigration in 1880 and
1881――Arrival of the “Am Olam”――Imposing protest meetings
against the riots in Russia――Welcome and assistance――Emma
Lazarus――Heilprin and the attempts to found agricultural
colonies――Herman Rosenthal――Failures in many States――Some
success in Connecticut and more in New Jersey――Woodbine――
Distribution――Industrial workers and the new radicalism.
The favorable economical and political conditions of the country itself
were, however, the best preparation for the reception of a larger
number of Jewish immigrants from Russia, who came as the result of
the greatest Jewish migration since the exodus from Egypt. The strong
congregations, the well-organized charities and the considerable number
of wealthy Jews who were able and willing to assist the refugees, as
well as the numerous able, energetic and tireless workers who did their
best to alleviate the sufferings of the new arrivals and to help them
to find their way in the new surroundings――all these were necessary
and to some degree indispensable to solve as much of the problem as
circumstances would permit. But all would have been useless if there
was not room for new immigrants to settle here, and work for them to
do. It would also have been well nigh impossible to take full advantage
of the opportunities which this country offers to willing workers,
were it not for the absence of that organized or official anti-Semitism
which is found in one form or another in almost all civilized countries
outside of the English-speaking world. Individual instances of social
antipathy and personal dislike, or even hatred, of Jews, were not
rare in the United States, at that period or at any other. But the
Jew baiter was never encouraged, or even approved, by the all-powerful
public opinion of the country at large; sympathy for the suffering Jew
was easily aroused, and those who pleaded the cause of the victim of
persecution were not hampered by open opposition or by covert political
influences.
There was a sudden increase in immigration in the two years preceding
the Russian influx. The country was recovering from the panic of
1873 and from the effect of the contraction of the currency which was
incident to the resumption of specie payment by the government at the
beginning of 1879. The number of immigrants who came here in 1876 was
169,986; in 1877 it fell to 141,857; in 1878 to 138,469. There was a
slight rise in 1879 to 177,826; but in 1880 it jumped to 457,257 and
in 1881 (in the fiscal year ending June 30, when there was as yet no
increased immigration from Russia on account of the riots) to 669,431.
The people who came were needed, as is the case with the million or
more who had come here in the three years preceding the panic of 1907
and again in the last two or three years, which is proven by the fact
that they are easily absorbed. Not only the general conditions, but
even the times, were favorable for an increased Jewish immigration.
There was neither economic nor national or racial cause for abstaining
from giving those who fled from the _pogroms_ the best public and
open-hearted welcome that Jewish refugees ever received when coming in
masses from one country to another.
The first of the anti-Jewish riots of that period took place in
Yelisavetgrad, on April 27, 1881. Another outbreak in Kiev followed on
May 8, and there were “over 160 towns and villages in which cases of
riot, rapine, murder and spoliation have been known to occur during the
last nine months of 1881” (Joseph Jacobs, “Persecution of the Jews in
Russia, 1881,” p. 13). These riots, and the relief which was afforded
to its victims, and especially to those who left Russia by way of
Germany and Austria, have created a small literature of their own;
but the subject in general belongs rather to the history of the Jews
in Russia than to the present work, which can only be concerned with
the emigrants after their arrival here. The first to arrive as a
direct result of the riots, and among whom the new tendencies which
were called forth by the calamities were prevalent to an appreciable
degree, were included in a group of about 250 members of the “Am Olam”
(“Eternal People”) Society which came to New York July 29, 1881.
Unlike the time of the Damascus affair in 1840 (see above, p. 193),
the Jews of America not only took the leading part in arousing public
opinion against the outrages, but they could do much more than enlist
the sympathies of their non-Jewish fellow-citizens: they collected
money to aid the sufferers and bade them welcome to these shores. A
call for “A meeting of the citizens of New York without distinction of
creed, to be held on Wednesday evening, February 1st, 1882, ... for the
purpose of expressing their sympathy with the persecuted Hebrews in the
Russian Empire,” was signed by about seventy-five of the most prominent
non-Jewish citizens of New York, headed by ex-President U. S. Grant.
The memorable meeting was held in Chickering Hall, and was presided
over by Mayor William R. Grace; it was addressed by distinguished men
in various walks of life, including three Christian clergymen, and
had a marked effect on public opinion. It was on the same day that a
similar meeting, at which the Lord Mayor presided, was held in London,
at the Mansion House. Two weeks later (February 15) a meeting of
the same nature with the same excellent moral result was held in
Philadelphia, where four clergymen, two of them Protestant Bishops
and one representing the Roman Catholic Archbishop, were among the
speakers. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society collected over $300,000 for
the new arrivals, and nearly two-thirds of that sum was contributed
by residents of this country, the balance coming from Germany, England
and France. Some groups of immigrants were given a public welcome;
temporary quarters were built for their accommodation on Ward’s Island
and at Greenpoint, L. I., where several thousand were housed and
maintained until they found employment.
Illustration: Emma Lazarus.
There was one other voice raised at that time in behalf of the Jew
and of Judaism, only to be prematurely silenced forever a few years
afterwards. The most gifted poet which American Jewry has produced,
Emma Lazarus (b. in New York 1849; d. there 1887) was aroused, and
her noble spirit reached its full height, by the stirring events of
the martyrdom of the Russian Jew. Like so many other intelligent Jews
in various countries, Emma Lazarus, the daughter of an old Sephardic
family of social position, the friend of Emerson and other noted
literary men, was up to that time mainly interested in general and
classic subjects, and devoted to them her poetical and literary talents.
“She needed a great theme to bring her genius to full flower, and she
found that theme in the Russian persecution of 1881.... Her poetry
took on a warmer, more human glow; it thrilled with the suffering,
the passion, the exaltation of a nation of the Maccabees.”[44] Her
family, though nominally Orthodox, had hitherto not participated in the
activities of the synagogue or of the Jewish community. But contact
with the unfortunates from Russia led her to study the Bible, the
Hebrew language, Judaism and Jewish history. She suggested, and in part
saw executed, plans for the welfare of the immigrants. The fruit of
her latter literary activity include “_Songs of the Semite_” (1882);
“_An Epistle to the Hebrews_”; poems like “_The Banner of the Jew_,”
“_The New Ezekiel_,” and “_By the Waters of Babylon: Little Poems in
Prose_” (1887), her last published work. A collection of her works,
in two volumes, appeared after her death (1889), and in 1903 a bronze
tablet commemorative of her was placed inside the pedestal of the
Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. (See _Jewish Encyclopedia_,
s.v. Lazarus, Emma, by Miss ♦Henrietta Szold.)
The number of those who received direct assistance was only a small
fraction of the arrivals from Russia at that time. According to the
opinion of the author of the article _United States_ in the “Jewish
Encyclopedia,” “The various committees and societies assisted about
five per cent. of the total Jewish immigrants.” One of the most active
and self-sacrificing of the workers for the refugees, Michael Heilprin,
who was himself brought up under the influence of the _Haskalah_
movement, was, like all Maskilim of the old school, a strong believer
in the theory that the Jewish problem was to be solved by inducing or
helping the Jews to become agriculturists. Many of the immigrants who
belonged to the class described as _Intellectuals_ or _Intelligents_,
whose dreams of political liberty and assimilation in Russia were
shattered by the pogroms, also entertained fantastic notions about the
virtue of agriculture. They fell in with all colonization plans, for
which they had more enthusiasm than natural aptitude, and this gave
rise to a series of experiments in the colonizing of Russian immigrants,
none of which were immediately successful, though it contributed to the
inception of a small class of Jewish farmers which is slowly growing in
the United States, and in which many see considerable promise for the
future.
Illustration: Herman Rosenthal.
Photo by Schill, Newark, N. J.
The first Jewish agricultural colony of that period was founded on
Sicily Island, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana. The settlers, including
thirty-five families from Kiev and twenty-five from Yelisavetgrad,
had been partly organized in Russia. Its leading spirit was Herman
Rosenthal (b. in Friedrichstadt, Courland, 1843; a. 1881), who is
now chief of the Slavonic department of the New York Public Library.
Before the colony was fairly started it was literally swept away by an
overflow of the Mississippi in the spring of 1882, and the colonists
scattered; a few of them, however, settling as independent farmers in
Kansas and ♦Missouri. In July, 1882, Rosenthal headed another group of
twenty families which formed the colony Cremieux, in Davison county,
in the present State of South Dakota. It led a precarious existence
for about three years and was finally abandoned. Another attempt, which
was made by the Alliance Israelite Universelle, with the formation of
a colony surnamed “Betlehem Yehudah,” in the same region, was no more
successful. Colonies founded in the same year in Colorado and Oregon
met with no better fate. The colonies founded in North Dakota (one),
in Kansas (five), in Michigan (one), and in Virginia (two) remain but
memories. Those founded later in Connecticut were more successful,
and some of them are still in existence and even growing. The most
successful were those established in New Jersey, where four of the
nine which were founded there since 1882 are still in existence and,
considering the drawbacks of such enterprises, are in a flourishing
condition. They are: Alliance, Salem county, founded by the Alliance
Israelite in 1882; Carmel, Cumberland county, founded by the aid of
Michael Heilprin in the same year; Rosenhayn, in the same county, which
owes its origin to six families which were settled there by the Hebrew
Emigrant Aid Society of New York in 1883; and Woodbine, Cape May county,
which was founded by the trustees of the Baron de Hirsch Fund in 1891,
and is the largest as well as the most thriving of all Jewish colonies
in America. Woodbine now has over two thousand inhabitants, and is an
incorporated borough with a government of its own, which was instituted
in 1903, with Professor Hirsch Loeb Sabsovich (b. in Berdyansk, Russia,
1860; a. 1888), the former superintendent of The Baron de Hirsch
Agricultural and Industrial School of that place, as the first Mayor.
He was succeeded by M. L. Bayard, who is likewise a native of Russia.
While the assistance rendered to the needy immigrants, and the large
sums expended in the formation of colonies and in supporting them,
attracted the most attention, a larger number were effectively helped
by being distributed over various parts of the country where they
could engage in trade or find work for which they were much better
fitted than for farming. The largest number received little, if
any, assistance, except such as was rendered by their relatives or
countrymen whom they found here. The least successful and those who
became helpless or dependent from various causes were assisted by the
old charitable institutions, which were enlarged or strengthened by the
new demands made upon them, and by new ones which sprang up everywhere
as the occasion required. But the bulk of the new comers succeeded
remarkably well, and many of them were soon in a position to assist
those who came after them, and to contribute to charities from which
they received assistance but a short time before, or to found new
charitable institutions which were conducted in a manner more suitable
to the character of the immigrants.
The number of applicants to Jewish charitable institutions was
increasing, and so was the number of people who crowded the districts
in the larger cities where Jews live together. But in both cases
there was going on a continual change, due to the steady inflow of new
immigrants, on the one hand, and on the other to the steady rising in
the social and economic scale, and the continued departure to other and
better neighborhoods or to other cities. The same people did not apply
for charity or dwell in tenement houses long. They soon made room for
those who came after them, and what seemed to the superficial observer
a solid, unmovable mass of poverty and helplessness which presented
a very difficult problem, was in reality in a state of constant flux.
This transient, fleeting mass slowly spread over the country, until we
find communities of Jewish immigrants practically in every city in the
Union, and hardly a place without some individuals of that class. Most
of those Jewish immigrants living in smaller places, as well as almost
all of them who live in more comfortable quarters in the large cities
or their suburbs, passed through the tenement house districts or the
so-called “Ghetti”; which proves that the distribution considered by
some as a desirable process which must be artificially accelerated, is
actually being accomplished by the free movement of individuals and is
hardly noticed.
The number of those who remained, though temporarily, in the congested
centers of population, especially in New York, was very large, and
was constantly becoming larger, because more immigrants came in each
year than the number of those who left those centers. This mass was
hardly affected by the small withdrawals from it for the purpose of
colonization. It was too large and was replenished too fast to be able
to disperse as small traders over the country or to go in business even
on a small scale in the cities, as did the smaller number of Jewish
immigrants who came in the former periods. And so, after all deductions
are made, including those who went to become farmers and those who
went to become peddlers, of those whose intelligence and the learning
which they brought with them enabled them, sometimes with a little aid,
to pursue their studies; and those whose business acumen or the small
capital which they brought, enabled them to engage in trade and to
prosper in a short time――after all these deductions, there remained a
very large class, steadily increasing by the excess of arrivals over
departures, which could do the only thing which poor people can do in a
country where capital is abundant and industries flourish――go to work.
The Jewish immigrants soon began to fill the factories and the shops,
especially those of the clothing trade, which was then to a certain
extent already in Jewish hands. The trades to which they flocked began
to extend fast; immigrant workers themselves soon ventured to open
small shops, where they employed those who came after them. While wages
were comparatively small and “sweating” was common, the earnings were
so much above what the poor man can make in Russia, and the standard of
living so much higher than the one to which the laborer is accustomed
over there, that even those who worked under what an American would
consider the worst circumstances, soon saved enough money to begin
sending for their families, their relatives, and even their friends.
The great mass was solving its own problem by hard work and by thrift;
it built up and multiplied the industries in which it was occupied, and
thus made it easy to absorb the newcomers year by year and to become
a part of the great industrial army which is doing the work of the
country.
Thus there arose a third and new class of Jewish immigrants, unlike
the first or Sephardic small groups who came here usually with large
means and took their position among the higher classes as soon as they
arrived; also unlike the second and larger groups of German, Polish
and Hungarian Jews who came in the second period, most of whom began as
peddlers and artizans, but ultimately became merchants or professional
men. Among the immigrants of the third period, which began in 1881,
there were many men of means and skilled men who at once joined the
better situated classes. There were also among them a large number
who took up peddling or petty trade with various degrees of success.
But the agriculturists and the industrial workers, or proletariat,
are distinctive features of the new period. The colonist was mostly
assisted and usually failed; then he joined the trading or the working
classes in the cities. The industrial classes took care of themselves
and fared much better. Even their new problems presented difficulties
which were more apparent than real. The seeming persistence in errors
which are characteristic of those who are here only a short time is
easily explained when it is considered that in cities like Philadelphia
or Chicago there are always thousands, and in New York there are always
tens of thousands, of Jewish immigrants from Slavic countries who came
to this country within the last year. So there is always at hand a
mass which is not aware of what a similar mass――which to the outsider
seems the same――did a year before; and what seem to be repetitions year
after year of the same actions which lead to the same results or to the
same lack of results, are actually experiments made but once by each
successive wave of immigration and soon abandoned, only to be taken up
later as a novel experience by those who come later.
As the worker succeeded the trader, so the political extremist comes to
the fore in this period, as the radical in religious matters did in the
former. Many of the “intellectuals” sympathized with the revolutionary
movement in Russia, and were infected by the Socialistic virus which
is the bane of that movement and has made its success well nigh
impossible. While the German or Austrian revolutionary of the “forties”
or “fifties” wanted nothing for his fatherland which the people of the
United States did not already enjoy, the Russian theorist was dreaming
of a social revolution and of fantastic victories for the peasantry
and the proletariat which should put Russia far in advance of the
civilization of the “rotten West.” There was plenty of opportunity
under the freedom of speech and of the press prevailing in this
country “to continue the struggle against capital” among the sweat-shop
workers. For a while the Socialist agitator became the most active
leader among the immigrant masses; the “maskilim,” or half-Germanized,
Hebrew scholars were forced into the background, and the large Orthodox
majority confined itself to the ever-increasing number of synagogues
and kept quiet, as usual. But as the years went by and the immigrants
of the beginning of the period became more Americanized and more
conservative, it became clear that radicalism was a passing phase
in the development of the Russian-Jewish immigrant, that the largest
number outgrow it in several years at the utmost, and that the extreme
movements depend almost entirely on the new arrivals who are attracted
by its novelty, and on those who cater to them. Excepting what may
be described as a pronounced tendency to Socialism in the Yiddish
sensational press――differing in degree more than in kind from the
general press of that type――the Socialist movement has not held its
own proportionally among the Russian immigrants, and the fears of some
of their friends that the neighborhoods where the noisy agitation was
carried on would develop into politically Socialistic strongholds,
were dispelled almost before the first decade of this period was over.
CHAPTER XXX.
COMMUNAL AND RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES AMONG THE NEW COMERS.
Congregational and social activities among the new comers――
Ephemeral organizations――The striving after professional
education――Synagogues as the most stable of the new
establishments――“Landsleut” congregations――The first efforts to
consolidate the Orthodox community of New York――The Federation
of Synagogues――Chief Rabbi Jacob Joseph――Other “chief rabbis”
in Chicago and Boston――Prominent Orthodox rabbis in many
cities――Dr. Philip Klein――The short period in which the cantor
was the most important functionary in the Orthodox synagogue――
Synagogues change hands, but are rarely abandoned.
A large majority of the Russian immigrants, like the overwhelming
majority of the Jews in Russia, were Orthodox Jews, and the younger
men who were temporarily attracted by the radical movements which were,
in Russian fashion, mostly anti-religious, began drifting back into
the synagogues as soon as they grew older and became more settled and
more Americanized. The older and the middle-aged needed congregational
life from the moment of their arrival, and this gave rise to the
establishment of a surprisingly large number of new synagogues in all
places where the new arrivals settled. The situation in New York is
again typical; the twenty-nine congregations in 1872 increased more
than tenfold in about sixteen years, which far exceeds the growth of
charitable institutions, of labor-organizations and of fraternal or
self-education societies, all of which were springing up at that time
in large numbers. The legal restrictions which make the organization
of any form of societies a difficult matter in Russia, were to some
extent responsible for the formation of numerous organizations here
for the most variegated number of purposes. The ease with which a
charter or papers of incorporation could be obtained, tempted many
to form themselves into organizations to enjoy that privilege; while
the equally novel experience of being permitted to form organizations
without obtaining charters, to hold meetings and elect officers without
fear of interference by the authorities, was another strong inducement
to overdo things in the matter of organizations. But that same lack of
experience was also the cause of unfamiliarity with voluntary corporate
existence and of inability to hold the organization together after it
was formed. A large percentage of the societies formed existed only a
short time: the same was true of all forms of organizations, especially
of labor unions. Only those which were subject to the discipline of a
central body――notably lodges which form part of the larger and better
conducted orders――showed a better proportion of survivals.
The conditions prevailing in Russia were also largely the cause of the
disproportionately large number of young people who attempted, by their
own efforts or assisted by their often hard pressed parents, to study
for the professions. Under the educational restrictions in Russia only
the highly gifted or the children of the wealthy could hope to enter
the higher institutions of learning; here the same opportunities were
open to all alike, with free education up to the universities. It was
natural for the poor to strive to make use of those opportunities, and
to spare no efforts to enter the ranks of the college graduates, who
are looked upon by the Russian populace as superior beings.
But in the course of years, as the proportion of those who are more
Americanized became larger, and the newer arrivals, though they kept on
coming in increasing numbers, were in a constantly diminishing minority
as compared with the entire mass of immigrants, there was a decrease
in the number of hastily conceived and immature organizations, and a
larger proportion of those which were formed had sufficient strength
to survive. Of late years there has been even a slackening of the rush
for higher or professional education among the children of the poorer
classes; which is also partly due to the more exacting requirements for
entrance into the better class of colleges and universities.
All these economic, fraternal and educational activities――the last, of
course, only as far as it concerns adults who could not benefit by the
public school system――and the agitation about political and economic
questions, and, to some extent, even the occupation of the immigrants,
were novel experiences and largely temporary. The only activity which
might be considered as normal, and to which there was a constant
reversion even among those who abandoned it abruptly――one may almost
say, violently――was that relating to the synagogue. As compared with
other institutions, a surprisingly small number of congregations formed
by the immigrants succumbed; and the steady increase in the number and
solidity of these religious establishments, as well as of the Talmud
Torahs, or religious schools, and later of the Yeshibot or strictly
Orthodox Talmudical academies, are the best proof of Israel’s taking
root in the United States. Most of the work of a public or semi-public
character in the new Jewish settlements or communities, including
even the work of numerous charitable institutions ministering to wants
which are due to the exigencies of immigration, cannot in the nature
of things be otherwise than temporary, even if they last for decades.
It is only the building of synagogues which represents that continuity
of Jewish existence throughout the centuries, which unites us with the
Jews of other countries and other times, and demonstrates the ability
and the willingness of the Jewish masses to support the old faith under
all circumstances.
These thousands of small synagogues all over the country, of which
there are now about eight hundred in New York, bear also strong marks
of Slavic, especially Russian, influence. The only place where it was
safe for Jews to gather and have intercourse in that country was the
synagogue, which for that reason served not only as a house of worship,
but also as a meeting room, and, to some degree, as a club house. Here
it served all these purposes for the old-fashioned Jew, to whom the
new social organizations which grew up here remained strange or became
repugnant after a short contact. In addition to this, the――exceedingly
unchurchlike――small synagogue is usually composed of members who come
from the same town in the Old Country, or from the same district. The
“♦landsleut” meet there, receive the newest arrivals and the latest
news from home; it is not unfrequently made the headquarters for
extraordinary charitable activity when the home town is visited by a
conflagration or a “Pogrom.”
The tendency is to break away from those little synagogues and to
join larger ones in the more comfortable neighborhoods, as well as to
enlarge them by admitting members who hail from other towns and even
from other countries. But the changes are mainly accomplished by slow
transition, the gaps which are left by departures are easily filled up
by new arrivals; so that the transformation is much nearer to a slow
process of evolution than to the “decay of Judaism in this country”
of which many are complaining. The earliest manifestation of this new
development was the first effort which was made, less than a decade
after the beginning of the new immigration, to consolidate the Orthodox
Jewish community of New York under the leadership of a great rabbinical
authority, and to raise the expense of the new institution by the same
method by which the Jewish communities of Russia are financed――by an
income from the Kosher-meat business.
In Russian-Poland, as in Germany or Austria, members of the Jewish
community pay a direct tax for the support of the rabbinate and
the communal institutions, and while the Jewish taxpayers elect the
officers who assess them, the tax or “etat” is collectible by force,
i. e., with the aid of the police authorities, if it is not paid
voluntarily. Only those members of the community who pay comparatively
larger sums are entitled to vote for communal officers, so that the
poorer classes are taxed without being represented in the governing
body of the community, and the very poor are not taxed at all. In
Russia proper, including Lithuania and the balance of the “pale of
settlement,” where the masses of the Jews dwell, the “Korobka” or tax
on Kosher meat (more correctly a tax on the slaughtering of animals
for Kosher food) takes the place of the “etat” of Poland and the
“Kultussteuer” of some western countries. This indirect tax, which
rests more heavily on the poor, is less felt and therefore considered
less burdensome, though it is and always has been hated by the Jewish
masses in Russia. The absolute separation of Church and State in this
country made any form of enforced taxation out of the question. And
when the want of a recognized religious authority for the large mass of
Orthodox Jews of New York began to be seriously felt, and the question
of providing for his salary and for other communal needs of a general
nature, for which the individual synagogues did not feel themselves
bound to provide, became a subject for discussion among the public
spirited Jews in the community, the plan of a control over the business
of Kosher meat, over which the new rabbi should have complete religious
supervision, suggested itself as the only practicable solution of the
problem.
Illustration: Chief Rabbi Jacob Joseph.
A Federation of Congregations, comprising about fifteen of the more
important Orthodox synagogues, was consequently formed in 1888, and one
of the greatest rabbinical authorities of Russia, Rabbi Jacob Joseph
(b. in Krozh, government of Kovno, Russia, 1840; a. 1888; d. in New
York, July 28, 1902), who was at that time the preacher of the old
Jewish community of Wilna, was brought over as Chief Rabbi of the
Federation. He was received with great honor by the Orthodox masses,
and was recognized by them as the greatest rabbi that ever came to
this country. But the federation of synagogues soon fell to pieces; the
scheme of controlling the supervision of the Kosher meat supply failed
almost from the beginning. There was too much prejudice against a form
of “Korobka” even among the Orthodox masses, despite the fact that they
continued to pay, as they still do, a higher price for Kosher meat,
and a systematization of the business could produce a large revenue
for communal purposes without a further increase in the price. Many
independent Orthodox rabbis did not submit to the authority of the
great rabbi; his influence was weakened, and several years afterward he
fell the victim of a severe illness, which incapacitated him for hard
work or for leadership. But the failure of the system was due to the
impossibility of conducting Jewish affairs in America after patterns
designed in and for Russia. The chief rabbi personally was revered by
the multitudes of religious Jews, and when he died after a lingering
illness, his funeral (July 30, 1902), though it was marred by a
disturbance in which a number of persons were injured, was one of the
most imposing ever seen in New York.
Several other attempts to choose chief rabbis, with the hope of uniting
or solidifying under them the Orthodox congregations of a large city,
were not more successful. The most notable of them was the selection,
by a union of congregations which was formed for that purpose in
Chicago, of another great Talmudical scholar, Rabbi Jacob David
Wilowski (Ridbaz, b. in Kobrin, government of Kovno, 1845), as its
chief rabbi in 1903. Rabbi Wilowski, who was Rabbi Joseph’s predecessor
in Wilna, first came to the United States in 1900 in the interest of
his great work on the Talmud Yerushalmi. It was during his second visit
to this country that the effort to detain him as the spiritual head of
a united Orthodox community in the second largest city of the New World
was made. But a strong opposition, which centered around Rabbi Zebi
Simon Album, made his position untenable, and he resigned after holding
it for ten months. After travelling for more than a year over the
United States, he left (1905) for the Holy Land and settled in Safed,
where he still resides. It was again seen in his case, and confirmed
because it occurred fifteen years after the importation of the first
and greatest chief rabbi in the greatest Jewish community, that
both the rabbis and the religious laymen are too independent here to
submit to a chief rabbi, regardless of his importance as a Talmudical
authority. The last to assume the title was Rabbi Gabriel Zeeh
Margolioth (b. in Wilna, 1848; a. 1906), who is considered the greatest
rabbinical scholar among the Orthodox rabbis of the United States.
Rabbi Margolioth held the office of Chief Rabbi in Boston about four
years, until his removal (1911) to New York to become rabbi of the
“Adat Israel.”
In most of the other large cities there are prominent Orthodox rabbis
who are held in high esteem and recognized as spiritual leaders of
the religious masses, although their actual jurisdiction extends only
over the one or several congregations of which they are the appointed
rabbis. The best known of that class in New York was the “Moscower Rab”
Chayyim Jacob Vidrevitz (b. in Dobromysl, government of Mohilev, 1836;
a. 1891; d. in New York, 1911). Among the living, Rabbi Moses Zebullon
Margolioth (b. in Krozh, 1851; a. 1889), formerly of Boston; Rabbi
Abraham Eliezer Alperstein (b. in Kobrin about 1854; a. 1881), formerly
of Chicago; and Rabbi Shalom Elhanan Jaffe (b. in Wobolnik; government
of Wilna, 1858; a. 1889), formerly of St. Louis, are among the better
known of the numerous Orthodox rabbis of New York.
Outside of New York Rabbi Abraham Jacob Gerson Lesser (b. in Mir,
government of Minsk, 1835; a. about 1880), formerly of Chicago, and for
about the last ten years in Cincinnati, is considered the dean of the
Orthodox rabbis in this country. He is the author of several rabbinical
works, one of which was translated into English by Mr. H. Eliassof.
Of about the same age is the nestor of the Chicago rabbinate, Rabbi
Eliezer Anixter, who occupied the rabbinical position there for about
forty years. In Philadelphia Rabbi Bernhard Louis Levinthal (b. in
Kovno, 1864; a. 1891) occupies a leading position and is perhaps the
most Americanized of the strictly Orthodox rabbis in the country. Rabbi
Moses Simon Sivitz (b. in Zittawan, government of Kovno, 1853; a. 1886),
formerly of Baltimore (1886–89), and Rabbi Aaron Mordecai Ashinsky
(b. in Reygrod, Russian-Poland, 1866), formerly of Detroit, Mich.,
and Montreal, Canada, are the foremost representatives of the Orthodox
element in Pittsburg, Pa. Rabbi Asher Lipman Zarehy (b. in Kovno, 1862;
a. 1892), formerly of Brooklyn, N. Y. (1892), and of Des Moines, Ia.
(1893–1903), is at the head of the United Orthodox Hebrew Congregations
of Louisville, Ky.
The number of prominent Orthodox rabbis among the immigrants who came
from other countries than Russia is comparatively very small. The
Hungarians, who belong to an earlier period, slowly draw nearer to
the German and American element in religious matters. The Austrians or
Galicians, who began to arrive in larger numbers somewhat later than
the Russians, took a longer time to settle down to local conditions,
and being at liberty to return to their old home whenever they liked,
the large number who went back, only to return again in a few years,
retarded the gradual development of their communal life. They are,
on the other hand, much more successful, relatively, in their social
organizations, such as lodges and “landsleut” societies, on account of
the larger liberty of organization which they enjoyed at home. Their
leading rabbi in New York was Rabbi Naftali Reiter (born in Hungary,
1844; a. 1887; d. in New York, 1911), who officiated as rabbi of
the Congregation Magen Abraham Dukler (Attorney street), the leading
Galician synagogue of New York from 1893 until his death. The leading
Hungarian rabbi of New York is Dr. Hillel ha-Kohen or Philip Klein (b.
in Baraeska, Hungary, 1849; a. 1891), who occupies a unique position
in the Jewry of New York and of the country, being recognized as a
Talmudical authority, and at the same time possessing the secular
learning obtained by studying at the University of Berlin. Dr. Klein
was rabbi of Libau, Russia, for ten years before he came to this
country to officiate as rabbi of the Hungarian Congregation Oheb Zedek
of New York, which position he still holds.
* * * * *
At the beginning of the period of development among the Jewish
immigrants from Slavic countries it was, however, not the rabbi,
but the hazzan or cantor who was considered the most important
functionary of the Orthodox congregation, especially of the larger ones.
The number of wealthy members was insignificant, and while the smaller
congregations holding services in rented rooms could subsist on the
modest contributions and donations from regular attendants and from
those who came occasionally for the high holidays or on account of
marriages, the naming of newborn children, “jahrzeiten,” etc., the
large synagogue with a building of its own, which was usually heavily
mortgaged, often had a hard struggle for existence. The rabbi, unless
he was a popular preacher, was considered as a somewhat superfluous
burden; he received only a small salary, or none at all, having to
rely for a living on the emoluments of the rabbinical office. But a
popular cantor attracted new members and also large audiences on the
special occasions when a charge for admission was made. His salary
was therefore considered a profitable investment, and some of the best
known cantors of Russia were induced to come to America, especially to
New York.
The most renowned among the synagogue singers who were brought over
in that period were Israel Michalovsky (b. in Suwalki, Russian-Poland,
1831; a. 1886; d. in New York, 1911), Israel Cooper (b. in Alusenitz,
government of Kamenetz-Podolsk, 1840; a. 1885; d. in New York, 1909),
and Pinhas Minkovsky (b. in Byelaya Tzerkov, 1859), who, after spending
a short time in New York, returned, in 1892, to Odessa, whence he
came. But the circumstances under which the influence of the cantor
was predominant were abnormal and could not last long. The improvement
in the general material conditions, the increase in the number and
proportion of wealthy members, and the growing sense of duty and
responsibility in religious matters, helped to bring the rabbi nearer
to the front, where he belongs. There are even now many excellent and
well paid hazzanim in the large cities, and the Orthodox rabbis are
yet far from the security of tenure and of income which is enjoyed by
the rabbis in the Old World. But some sort of an equilibrium has been
restored, and the rabbinate has gained, morally as well as materially.
In the last few years many of the larger synagogues in the older Jewish
neighborhoods of the great cities have been again in a precarious
financial condition, which is due to the removal of its older and
♦wealthier members to the more fashionable quarters or to the suburbs.
But no one would think now, as it was thought a quarter century
before, of attempting to strengthen the position of a ♦synagogue
by the importation of a famous hazzan. In many cases the well-to-do
older members feel it to be their religious duty to keep up the large
synagogues which they built in districts which are now inhabited
mostly by the poorer and later arrivals, though they themselves now
live too far to reach it, and have built new synagogues in their new
neighborhoods and have even engaged English-speaking rabbis to deliver
sermons. In other instances the immigrants of latter years are ready
and willing to take over the synagogues, sometimes by the simple method
of joining as members and obtaining control by becoming the majority.
It also happens that the synagogue itself is removed to a location to
which most of the members have moved, and the old building is sold to a
smaller or to a newly formed congregation. But, as it was stated above,
the number of congregations which disbanded, and of synagogue buildings
which are abandoned for other purposes, is small. The continuance of
immigration and the steady increase among the earlier comers of the
number who affiliate themselves with the religious community obviates
the necessity of giving up old religious organizations at the time when
new ones are being established all over the country.
CHAPTER XXXI.
NEW COMMUNAL AND INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES.
The Jewish Alliance of 1891 as the first attempt to form a
general organization in which the immigrants of the latest
period should be officially recognized――Some of the prominent
participators――The new Exodus of 1891――The Baron de Hirsch
Fund――Various activities――Decrease in the numbers and proportion
of the helpless and the needy――The American Jewish Historical
Society――The Jewish Publication Society of America――The Jewish
Chautauqua――Participation in the World’s Columbian Exposition
in 1893――The Council of Jewish Women.
In less than a decade after the first influx from Russia, an attempt
was made to establish some form of co-operation between the immigrants
of the new period and the American or Americanized Jews who belonged
to the former periods. The latter were complaining that the burden of
charities was becoming too heavy, while from the former, especially
from the more intelligent immigrants who were interested in Jewish
matters, there arose even at that early date a demand for recognition
and a share of responsibility in communal work. The theory that the two
elements, described respectively as the German and the Russian, must be
brought nearer together, and that the latter element must be prepared
to take over the hegemony of the Jewish community from the former,
just as the German took it over from the Sephardim, was already then,
as it is to some extent still now, a favorite with those who consider
themselves representatives of the immigrants. And it was the effort to
apply part of this theory to practice, and perhaps, according to some,
to put it to the test, that a call was issued for a convention of the
Jewish Alliance of America, which met in Philadelphia on February 15,
1891.
Nineteen cities were represented, some of them as far as San Francisco,
Cal. (by Bernhard Marks), and Portland, Ore. (David Solis-Cohen).
Boston was represented by David Blaustein (b. in Lida, Russia, 1866; a.
1886), who later became eminent as an educator and communal worker. The
Hon. Simon Wolf (b. in Rhenish Bavaria, 1836; a. 1848), a recognized
representative in Washington of the Jews of the country, came from the
capital. There were twenty delegates from Baltimore, including Samuel
Dorf and B. H. Hartogensis. Chicago sent six men, including Dr. A. P.
Kadison and Leon Zolotkoff (b. in Wilna, 1865(?); a. 1887). Among the
seven delegates from New York were the Russian immigrants Nicholas
Aleinikoff and P. Caplan, and the native American, Ferdinand Levy (b.
in Milwaukee, Wis., 1843), who served in the Union army with his father
and two brothers during the Civil War, and held various offices in New
York City and in Jewish fraternal organizations. The largest contingent
was, of course, from Philadelphia, its fifty-four delegates including
many well-known men from both elements, like the inventor, Louis E.
Levy (b. in Bohemia, 1846), Dr. Solomon Solis-Cohen, a native of
Philadelphia; Bernhard Harris, who was chosen secretary, and Dr.
Charles D. Spivak (b. in Krementshug, Russia, 1861; a. 1882), who was
president of the temporary organization.
A constitution was adopted and a permanent organization formed, of
which a well known local Jewish philanthropist, Simon Muhr (b. in
Bavaria, 1845; d. in Philadelphia, 1895), was elected president;
Simon Wolf, treasurer, and Bernhard Harris, secretary. The board of
trustees which was elected included, as representatives of New York,
the communal leader, Daniel P. Hays (b. in Pleasantville, N. Y., 1854),
and the educator, Henry M. Leipziger (b. in Manchester, England, 1854).
There was some enthusiasm in numerous communities for the plan which
was “to unite Israelites in a common bond for the purpose of more
effectually coping with the grave problems presented by enforced
emigration ...” and thirty-one branches were formed throughout the
country.[45] But the entire plan came to nothing. In February, 1892,
the Jewish Alliance was consolidated with “The American Committee
for Ameliorating the Condition of the Russian Refugees,” which was
organized in New York apparently for the purpose of heading off the
activity of the Alliance. Both organizations were soon forgotten, and
the historical value of the Alliance consists chiefly in its having
been the first formal manifestation of a desire which was partly
satisfied in an entirely different manner fifteen years later by the
formation of the American Jewish Committee.
There was another recurrence of persecutions in Russia in the same year,
which did not take the sensational form of massacre and pillage, but
had as much or even more effect in forcing Jews to leave the country.
Relentless expulsions from Moscow and from villages in which the Jews
have dwelt peacefully and on good terms with their neighbors forced
tens of thousands to leave the country, and as many of them now had
relatives or friends in the United States, it was natural for them to
turn their faces towards the New World. Conditions were again favorable,
for several reasons. The tide of general immigration, which fell from
788,992 in 1882 to 334,203 in 1886, rose after some vaccillations in
the following three years to 455,302 in 1890, to 560,319 in 1891 and to
623,084 in 1892. In the year ending June 30, 1893, which includes a few
months of the hard times which began in the spring of that year, the
number of immigrants was still as high as 502,917, and it is only in
the following twelvemonth, when only 314,467 arrived, and in 1895, when
immigration fell to 279,948, which was the lowest number since 1879,
that the deterrent effects of the panic of 1893 were visible.
Not only had the Jews in general made progress in the decade after
1881, and were better able to cope with the new situation because
they discovered their own strength in the work of helping their
less fortunate brethren, and had also learned by experience that
the new element adjusted itself to the new surroundings with
remarkable rapidity, but there was also a new agency to assist in the
work of helping some of the newcomers to find their way to work and
independence. The great Jewish philanthropist, Baron Maurice de Hirsch
(b. in Munich, Bavaria, 1831; d. in Hungary, 1896), some time before
the new increase of immigration from Russia, created and endowed the
Baron de Hirsch Fund for the ameliorating of the condition of certain
Jewish immigrants in the United States. The fund, which he originally
endowed with the sum of $2,400,000 (and which had grown later to
nearly a million more), was incorporated under the laws of the State
of New York, February 12, 1891, the trustees being: M. S. Isaacs,
president; Jacob H. Schiff (b. in Frankfort o. t. Main, 1847; a. 1865),
vice-president; Jesse Seligman (b. in Bavaria, 1827; d. in California,
1894), treasurer; Dr. Julius Goldman (who later became president),
honorary secretary. The other trustees were Henry Rice (b. in Bavaria,
1835; a. 1850), who for many years was president of the United Hebrew
Charities of New York; James H. Hoffman and Oscar S. Straus (b. in
Germany, 1850; a. 1854), of New York, and Mayer Sulzberger (b. in
Hildesheim, Baden, 1843; a. 1848) and William B. Hackenburg (b. in
Philadelphia, 1837), of Philadelphia. Adolphus S. Solomons (b. in
New York, 1826; d. in Washington, 1910) was the first general agent.
The present trustees are: Eugene S. Benjamin, president; Jacob H.
Schiff, vice-president; Murry Guggenheim, treasurer; Max J. Kohler,
honorary secretary; Nathan Bijur, Abram I. Elkus, Henry Rice, Louis
Siegbert, S. G. Rosenbaum, all of New York City; Mayer Sulzberger,
W. B. Hackenburg and S. S. Fleischer, of Philadelphia. H. L. Sabsovich
succeeded A. S. Solomons as general agent.
The trustees of this fund, which has an annual income of about $125,000,
at first used the amount at their disposal in relieving the immediate
necessities of the refugees, and in order to make the immigrants
self-supporting, a number of them were given instruction in the work
which is required in the manufacture of clothing, white goods, etc. The
United Hebrew Charities of New York was made the agent through which
the material necessities were relieved, and certain sums are still
granted by the fund to institutions which make a specialty of assisting
immigrants. On the other hand, the fund itself is receiving assistance
from the Jewish Colonization Association (I. C. A., to which Baron
de Hirsch left a large share of his fortune) in the activities which
it carries on through the Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid
Society for the encouragement of farming, and the Industrial Removal
Office, for the distribution of workingmen from the crowded centers
of population to places further inland (both of these institutions
were organized in 1900). When the great pressure due to the rapid
immigration had ♦somewhat relaxed, the trustees carefully matured their
plans of education and of colonization, doing a large amount of good
with the various forms of instruction, including technical as well as
elementary knowledge; while the colonization plans, which resulted in
the establishment of the colonies which have been mentioned in a former
chapter, meet with so many difficulties that progress is made at a less
rapid pace.
The Jews of America were thus even better prepared to receive a large
number of Jewish immigrants at the beginning of the last decade of the
nineteenth century than they were ten years before. There was also at
this time a smaller number and a much smaller proportion of helpless
people among the Russian refugees, for those who lived in the interior
of Russia, outside of the “pale of settlement”, and would have remained
there had it not been for the expulsions, were as a rule active and
fairly successful men, and therefore better able to take care of
themselves than those whom poverty or lack of employment forced to
emigrate. Many more found relatives and friends here than in 1881–82,
and among those who were here there were also many more who could be
of assistance to new arrivals than in former times. As a matter of
fact, Jewish immigration from the Slavic countries had then assumed
its natural form, which it has retained ever since, except in the
years following the massacres in the present century. Most men come to
kinsmen or personal friends, who are willing and able to assist them in
finding their way. A large majority consists of wives and children, of
parents and other near relatives, who come because they were sent for
and because the breadwinner or the most energetic member of the family
has previously established himself here and demands their ♦presence,
or feels certain that they will soon be able to provide for themselves.
The helpless Jewish immigrant who has nowhere to go and nothing to do
when he arrives, is now very rare, and has been rare for the last two
decades.
The number of the new immigrants needing assistance immediately after
their arrival had been reduced to such a small fraction that those
having the interest of the Jewish masses at heart began to express
their opinion that it would perhaps be better if organized charity
would leave them alone altogether. At first this opinion was uttered
mostly in the Yiddish press or at meetings of immigrants. But in
time there came not only a still further improvement in the general
condition of the Jews, and also a further diminution in the number
of helpless immigrants, but the voice of the immigrant-citizen became
more potent in communal affairs. The folly of appeals, in which the
wants of that class were exaggerated, became apparent; a large number
of the employees of charitable institutions, and even some of the
directors, were now Russian or Galician or Roumanian Jews, with a
closer acquaintance with the needs, and also with the lack of needs,
of the new arrivals. Much of the friction due to the resentment against
help, which was rendered sometimes with more ostentation than the
circumstances required, was obviated under the altered conditions, and
the ground was prepared for a new co-operation of all elements of the
community.
The foundation about this time of the American-Jewish Historical
Society, whose objects are the collection and preservation of material
bearing upon the history of the Jews in America, may be taken as an
indication that the times were now again considered normal in the
Jewish community. It was organized in June, 1892, with Oscar S. Straus
as president, and Dr. Cyrus Adler (b. in Van Buren, Ark., 1863) as
secretary. The latter is now (since 1899) its president, and Albert
M. Friedenberg and Dr. Herbert Friedenwald, secretaries. It has thus
far issued twenty annual volumes of its “Publications,” which form
an invaluable collection of material on the subject, much of which
has been used in the preparation of this work. The president and both
secretaries, as well as its curator, Leon Hühner, and some of its
officers and members of its Executive Council, like Professor Richard
J. H. Gottheil (b. in Manchester, England, 1862; who came here with his
father, Rabbi Gustave Gottheil (1827–1903) of Temple Emanuel, New York,
in 1873), of Columbia University; Professor Jacob H. Hollander (b. in
Baltimore, 1871), of Johns Hopkins University, and Max J. Kohler (b.
in Detroit, Mich., 1871), are among the most important contributors of
papers and monograms on various historical subjects to the publications
of the society.
Another society of a kindred nature, but appealing to a wider circle,
The Jewish Publication Society of America (organized in Philadelphia,
1888; incorporated there 1896), began to attain prominence about that
time. It has published for distribution among its members and also for
sale to the general public about sixty books on a large variety of
subjects, some of them, like the English edition of Graetz’s History
of the Jews, Schechter’s “Studies in Judaism” and the earliest works
of fiction by Israel Zangwill, are highly valuable. Morris Newburger
(b. in Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, 1834; a. 1854) was its first president
and held the office for fourteen years, until he was succeeded by
the present incumbent, Edwin Wolf, in 1902. The leading spirit of the
society is the chairman of its Publication Committee, Mayer Sulzberger,
the eminent communal leader and Jewish bibliophile, who has been a
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia since 1895. The
secretary of that committee, Henrietta Szold, has done much useful work
in translating or preparing for publication a considerable part of the
works which the society has published.
This society is the third of its kind in the United States. The first,
which was called the “American Jewish Publication Society,” was founded
by Isaac Leeser in 1845, and in the same year an auxiliary society was
established at Richmond, Va. It published fourteen works between that
year and 1849; but went out of existence after its plates and books
were destroyed by fire, in 1851. The second, The Jewish Publication
Society, was established in New York in 1873, by Leopold Bamberger,
Benjamin I. Hart, Myer Stern, Edward Morrison and several others of New
York, William B. Hackenburg (b. in Philadelphia, 1837) of Philadelphia
and Simon Wolf of Washington. Rabbis Gustave Gottheil, Moses Mielziner
(b. in Schubin, Posen, 1828; d. in Cincinnati, 1903, where he had been
Professor of Talmud in the Hebrew Union College since 1879, and Wise’s
successor as president) and Frederick de Sola Mendes (b. in Jamaica,
W. I., 1850; since 1874 rabbi of Congregation Shaarey Tefilla); Marcus
Jastrow of Philadelphia, and ♦Moritz Ellinger (b. in Germany, 1830;
a. 1854; d. 1907), editor of the “Menorah” and of the “Jewish Times,”
constituted its publication committee. It existed only for two years.
The Jewish Chautauqua Society, “for the dissemination of knowledge
of the Jewish religion by fostering the study of its history and
literature, giving popular courses of instruction, issuing publications,
establishing reading circles, holding general assemblies, and by such
other means as may from time to time be found necessary and proper,”
is also a product of this new period of spiritual and literary activity
in the American-Jewish world. It was founded in 1893 by Dr. Henry
Berkowitz (b. in Pittsburg, Pa., 1857; since 1892 rabbi of the
Congregation Rodeph Shalom, Philadelphia), who is still its chancellor.
It now has about three thousand members.
Illustration: Miss Sadie American.
The World’s Columbian Exposition, which was held in Chicago in the
year 1893, offered the Jews ♦an opportunity to participate in the great
event in diversified ways. What they did and what they exhibited as
artists, scientists, manufacturers and merchants does not belong to the
subject of this work, which is mostly concerned with Jewish matters.
But the Jews participated, as such, in the World’s Parliament of
Religions which was held in Chicago at that time. Among the separate
denominational congresses which constituted that Parliament was also
a Congress of Jewish Women, the first of its kind ever held. This
congress resulted in the organization of the National Council of Jewish
Women, “to further united efforts in behalf of Judaism by supplying
means of study; by an organic union to bring about closer relations
among Jewish women; to furnish a medium of interchange of thought and
a means of communication and of prosecuting work of common interest;
to further united efforts in the work of social betterment through
religion, philanthropy and education.” Hannah G. Solomon and Sadie
American, respectively chairman and secretary of the congress, were
elected president and secretary of the council. In 1896 the word
“National” was eliminated from the name, on account of the entrance
of sections from Canada. The council now consists of more than sixty
sections and is doing noble work in pursuance of its program. Miss
American still retains the office of secretary, while Mrs. Solomon was
succeeded as president by Mrs. Marion L. Misch, of Providence, R. I.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE LABOR MOVEMENT AND NEW LITERARY ACTIVITIES.
Difficulty of securing data for the history of the Labor Movement
among Jewish immigrants――John R. Commons’ characterization of
a Jewish labor union――A constantly changing army of followers
under the same leaders――The movement under the control of the
radical press――The leaders as journalists and literary men――
They popularize the press and teach the rudiments of politics――
The voter――The “Heften”――Neo-Hebrew periodicals――The Yiddish
stylists――The plight of the Hebraists.
Any attempt to give even the merest outline of the history of the labor
movement among the immigrant Jews in the United States would lead into
a maze of unreliable figures, exaggerations, and conflicting statements,
not only between opponents, but also among those most friendly to their
cause. The Russian Jew, in America, like the Russian himself at home,
has not yet learned to divorce trade unionism from politics; his labor
organizations are either organized and managed by Socialistic agitators
and politicians, and in the end split from within on account of the
continuous wars among the adherents of various schools of Socialistic
principles and tactics; or, if it is not Socialistic, and would not
permit the machinery of its organization to be used for the benefit of
the party――or, rather, of one of the Socialistic parties――it is opposed,
and sometimes ruined, by open attacks or by neglect. And so it comes
that as long as a labor union is typically Jewish, i. e., as long as it
differs from the American trade union in its being much more political
and being more interested in a general struggle against capital or
against the present order of society, it leads a precarious existence.
The small number of labor unions whose members are exclusively Jewish
immigrants, which are strictly trade unions and permit their members to
have their own political views or preferences, are usually affiliated
with American central labor bodies, and belong to the history of the
labor movement of the country rather than to one which deals with the
Jews as a separate entity.
But the radicalism of the laborer as such, and the radicalism of
the union which he enters and upholds, is like the radicalism of
the immigrant in general and like his dwelling in tenement houses:
a passing phase which seems permanent because new arrivals take up
the place of those who are continually dropping out from the ranks
on account of their improved material and educational condition.
Isaac A. Hourwich (b. in Wilna, 1860; a. 1892), the economist and
statistician, in his attempt to review the labor movement among the
Jews in this country, could do no better than to quote the following
characterization from the pen of a recognized specialist on the
subject:
The Jew’s conception of a labor organization is that of a
tradesman rather than that of a workman. In the clothing
manufacture, whenever any real abuse arises among the Jewish
workmen, they all come together and form a giant union, and at
once engage in a strike. They bring in 95 per cent. of the trade.
They are energetic and determined. They demand the entire and
complete elimination of the abuse. The demand is almost always
unanimous, and is made with enthusiasm and bitterness. They stay
out a long time, even under the greatest of suffering. During a
strike large numbers of them are to be found with almost nothing
to live upon and their families suffering, still insisting, on
the streets and in their halls, that the great cause must be
won. But when once the strike is settled, either in favor of
or against the cause, they are contented, and that usually ends
the union, since they do not see any practical use for a union
when there is no cause to fight for. Consequently the membership
of a Jewish union is wholly uncertain. The secretary’s books
will show 60,000 members in one month and not 5,000 within
three months later. If, perchance, a local branch has a steady
thousand members, and if they are indeed paying members, it
is likely that they are not the same members as in the year
before.[46]
This is, with the modifications pertaining to time and place, the
history of practically every trades-union organization among the Jewish
immigrants from the Slavic countries. From the first union of Jewish
tailors, which was organized in New York in 1877, through the time of
the first comprehensive strike of workers in the clothing trade in that
city in 1890, the still larger one in 1894; down to the great waist
makers’ strike in 1909 and the great strikes in New York, Chicago and
Cleveland in 1910 and 1911, the leadership has remained almost the
same for about a quarter century. Abraham Cahan (b. in Podberezhye,
near Wilna, 1860; a. 1882), who was the first to deliver Socialist
speeches in Yiddish in the United States, is still practically at the
head of that movement among his countrymen. Morris Hillquit (b. in
Riga, Russia, 1870; a. 1887) began his activity as a Socialist leader
among the immigrants before he was of age, and is now a recognized
leader of the Socialists of the country, being also the author of
a History of Socialism in the United States. Joseph Barondess (b.
in Kamenetz-Podolsk, 1867; a. 1885), the leader of the second great
cloak makers’ strike, who is now a communal worker and a leader among
the Zionists, is still looked upon as a representative of the Jewish
working classes in New York. The same conditions prevail in other
large cities; only there the movement began somewhat later, and the
local leaders seldom attained lasting prominence even locally; for the
movement is more than anything else a newspaper movement, and those
who control the Yiddish Socialist press in New York are masters of
the situation in every center of population where there is a Socialist
movement among the Jewish immigrants.
As the radical press is the means by which the unstable and mostly
temporary labor organizations are held in control, it has played a
much more important part in the entire Jewish labor movement than the
general labor press has played in the much stronger and more lasting
American labor movement. This is again on account of its political
radicalism, which appeals to a wide circle of readers, who may be
neither trade union laborers nor even Socialists. In its latest phase
of development the Jewish radical press becomes a sensational afternoon
paper, only with a stronger tinge of “red” than the journal of the same
type printed in the vernacular. This preponderance of the literary side
of the movement had the results which were to be expected: it produced
better writers than labor leaders, more talented literary artists
than organizers or disciplinarians. And while most of the radical
periodicals also succumbed sooner or later, they had a more lasting
effect on the development of the immigrant than the extremist labor
organizations. This is also a reflex of Russian conditions, where
the labor movement is entirely in the hands of the “intelligencia” or
learned classes, though for an entirely different reason, the laborers
themselves being mostly illiterate. Here every Jewish labor leader is
a journalist or an author, often both; and they belong more properly to
the chapters treating of Jewish literature in America.
The agitator among the immigrants has also rendered other highly useful
service, besides the impetus which he gave to the development and
popularization of the Yiddish press. The average laborer immigrant
from Russia knew very little of newspapers, although practically every
one of them could read his mother tongue――Judeo-German or Yiddish. But
the Russian government did not permit at that time the publication of
popular newspapers, and we find, for instance, in the year 1886, three
daily papers in Russia in the old Hebrew language, which is understood
by the more educated classes, and not one in Yiddish. But little as the
immigrant knew about newspapers, he knew less, or actually nothing at
all, about politics. The explanation of the aims of the one party for
which the agitator wanted to win him had to be preceded by introductory
explanations of the nature and functions of parties generally, of their
utility as a means of inaugurating reforms, and their power to carry
them out when a successful campaign places the government in their
hands. The Socialist agitator was thus the first teacher of civics,
and he was a very active worker for the cause of naturalization. He was
anxious that the immigrant workingman should become a citizen and build
up with his vote the Socialist party which the native laborer was so
slow to recognize.
But the large majority of the Jewish laborers had enough of Socialism
by the time they were entitled to citizenship; the number of voters of
that party increased very slowly, and, like the above-mentioned case of
the unions, they were not the same from year to year. While the Jewish
population was increasing rapidly in some parts of New York and other
large cities, and the number of non-Jewish, or rather non-immigrant,
voters in some districts became very small or practically disappeared,
the number of Socialist votes was fluctuating, and never became a
majority or even a plurality in a district. While the leaders were
preaching that all opportunities were now gone and all avenues of
advancement were closed for the poor man, every individual among their
followers was struggling to raise himself above his surroundings.
Americanization meant the abandonment of extreme views on all subjects,
and the naturalized immigrant, even when he remained a manual worker,
was soon voting for one of the two great American parties. He still
retained a leaning towards radical reform, for the Russian mind is much
inclined to theorizing; but he would now seldom go further than support
an American reformer or join one of the movements instituted by the
better elements for the purpose of purifying city governments. But
as the reform element usually signalizes its accession to power by a
severe enforcement of Sunday-closing laws and other interferences with
personal liberty which smack of persecution, the immigrant Jew usually
joins the other disappointed classes to turn the reformers out of
office at the next election.
There was a slow and steady turning away from the dry and monotonous
radical literature of that period, which was a counterpart of the
turning away from extreme politics. In one respect the change in
literary tastes or requirements amounted to a revulsion――one might
almost say, to a revolution. The first attempt to publish in Yiddish
a sensational novel in weekly or semi-weekly installments, popularly
known as “Heften,” which was made in New York about 1890, met with
extraordinary success. The number of such ventures soon multiplied,
and the sales were large in other cities as well as in the place
of publication. The Yiddish periodical press became endangered, but
it saved――and revenged――itself by beginning to publish one, two and
sometimes as much as three serial stories in daily installments, a
practice which in a short time ruined the business of the “Heften.”
It was also about this time that the “Maskilim” or half-Germanized
Hebrew scholars, who were forced to the background by the domination of
the radicals at the beginning of the “Russian period,” began to forge
to the front again. The number of Jews who could read Hebrew was fast
increasing, the proportion of intelligent and well-educated men being
much larger among those who were forced to emigrate than among the
earlier immigrants. Well known Hebrew scholars who arrived in that
period began the publication of Hebrew periodicals, and while none
of the publications survived, some of them existed for a number of
years and exerted a certain influence; besides contributing to develop
the talents of new writers and to lay the foundation for a Neo-Hebrew
literature in America, which is progressing slowly but surely.
One of the first of the Hebrew editors of the new period was Ephraim
Deinard (b. in Courland, 1846; a. 1888), the author and traveler. He
established the weekly “Ha-Leomi” (Nationalist) in New York in 1889,
and it existed for about two years. Another traveler and author, Wolf
(or William) Schur (b. in Utian, Russia, 1844; d. in Chicago, 1910),
established his weekly “Ha-Pisgah” (The Summit), which appeared in New
York and Baltimore in the years 1890–94 and in Chicago in 1897–1900.
The “ha-Ibri” (The Hebrew), also a weekly, was founded by K. H.
Sarasohn and edited by Gerson Rosenzweig (b. in Karatchin, in the
government of Grodno, Russia, 1861; a. 1888) during the time of its
existence, from 1892 to 1898. Of the Hebrew monthlies of that period
only the “Ner he-Maarabi” (Western Light), which appeared in 1895–97,
edited first by Abraham H. Rosenberg (b. in Pinsk, 1838; a. 1891) and
afterwards by Samuel B. Schwarzberg, deserves to be mentioned.
In one respect the Hebrew and the Yiddish writers were struggling
with the same difficulty――that of making themselves understood to the
largest possible number of readers. The method prevailing in Russia,
of writing as hard or using as high a language as possible so that
the highly intelligent reader――the title to which every reader of a
newspaper there at that time laid claim――should take pride in being
able to understand the contents, would not attract readers here as
it does where scarcity of printed matter makes the public accept with
eagerness whatever is offered. But the Hebrew writer came here with
a style that may be termed aristocratic, and the Yiddish writer, who
had to begin everything anew, had hardly any style. It was all easy
as far as the work of the agitator was concerned; denunciations and
accusations are always easily understood, and this alone is one of the
reasons of their popularity. But when it came to the parts where the
writer wanted to describe or to explain, especially in the scientific
or semi-scientific articles which a public that had no systematic
schooling so eagerly devoured, the language of most of the writers was
inadequate and not easily understood.
Thus it comes that, although most of the Yiddish periodicals of that
time were advocating, some of them with great vehemence, certain
principles, or leading certain movements, the earliest reputations were
made by stylists who were not identified with particular movements.
The highest popularity among the reading masses was attained by Abner
Tannenbaum (b. in Shirwint, Russia, 1848; a. 1887), whose perspicuous
writing, whether as the author of the “Heften,” which he inaugurated,
or on his favorite subject, popular science, simply could not be
misunderstood. George Selikovich (b. in Retovo, government of Kovno,
Russia, in 1863; a. 1887), a linguist and a good Hebrew stylist, is
another writer whom everybody could easily understand, and who acquired
popularity with the public to whom Yiddish periodical literature
was brought down here, for the first time in its history. Nahum Meir
Schaikewitz (Shomer, b. in Nesvizh, government of Minsk, Russia, 1849;
a. 1888; d. in New York, 1905), the novelist and playwright, also
appealed to the masses with his easy flowing style, and was a favorite
here with the same classes which used to read his works and see his
plays in the old country.
The recognition accorded to these writers, none of whom were agitators
or even party men, proves that even in the time when it seemed that the
“ghetti” or neighborhoods of the Jewish immigrants were seething with
movements and agitations, the great masses were not much interested in
them; though the curious crowded the largest meeting rooms, and many
who were not yet sure of their newly found freedom were inclined to
test it by participating in a march or some other form of demonstration
which was forbidden in their old home. Some writers, on the other
hand, who followed the Russian usage of subordinating their art to the
cause which they were advocating, were extolled by their partisans as
great geniuses, but had a much smaller public than the above-mentioned
literati.
The writers of Hebrew, who by reason of their training and inclination
held more aloof even from their own public, have not yet solved the
great question of style; which partly accounts for the remarkable
fact that their periodical literature has actually vanished in the two
decades in which the possible number of their readers has increased
almost tenfold. Some of the best known Hebrew literati from the Old
World came here since the establishment of the Neo-Hebrew periodicals
which were mentioned above: men like the poet Menahem Mendel Dolitzki
(b. in Byelostok, 1856; a. 1892); the exegete Abraham Baer Dobsevage
(b. in Pinsk, 1843; a. 1891; d. in New York, 1900); the philosopher
Joseph Loeb ♦Sossnitz (b. in Birz, 1837; a. 1891; d. in New York,
1910); the grammarian Moses Reicherson (b. in Wilna, 1827; a. 1890;
d. in New York, 1903), and the knight-errant of Hebrew literature,
Naphtali Hirz Imber (b. in Zloczow, Galicia, 1856; a. 1892(?); d. in
New York, 1909). But neither they nor others less known, who could
perhaps be more productive under more favorable circumstances, could
accomplish much even in those branches of literary journalism where
Yiddish has not penetrated. They were not entirely idle, and some
of the results of their literary labor will be mentioned in the
proper place in a following part of this work. But they have not
influenced the Jewish spirit and have contributed little to the general
intellectual development of the community. The traditional war for
progress which they waged in their old homes, where they were often
the only learned or enlightened men in the community, had no place in
a world where general education is so easily accessible; and they could
not feel at home in the ranks of the conservatives, where they belong
in this country. Most of them floundered until the rise of the Zionist
movement, which they joined half-heartedly. Many took to teaching of
Hebrew, and are still waiting for the expected revival of interest in
Hebrew literature which the new nationalism is supposed to produce.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA. THE PASSPORT QUESTION.
The normal rate of Jewish immigration is but slightly affected by
the panic of 1893――Oppressiveness of the Sunday Laws are felt
by the new immigrants――The Extradition Treaty with Russia――
Beginning of the struggle about the Passport Question――The
first Resolution against Russia’s discrimination, introduced
in Congress by Mr. Cox in 1879――Diplomacy and diplomatic
correspondence――More resolutions――Rayner, Fitzgerald, Perkins――
Henry M. Goldfogle――John Hay’s letter to the House――More
letters, speeches and discussions――The Sulzer Resolution and
the last step to abrogate the Treaty of 1832.
The large increase in Jewish immigration from Russia after the renewed
persecutions of 1891, like the general increase in the beginning of the
last decade of the nineteenth century, lasted only till the effects of
the hard times, which began in the spring of 1893, began to be felt.
But the increase in Jewish immigration was more than ordinarily
large, or what might be considered for those times as abnormal,
only in one year――1892. If this year, in which there arrived 76,417
Jews from Russia,[47] should be eliminated, it is seen that Jewish
immigration fell off much less in proportion than general immigration.
The general figures are: 560,319 for 1891; 502,917 for 1893; 314,467
for 1894; and 279,948 for 1895. The number of Jewish immigrants from
Russia for those years was: 42,145 for 1891; 35,626 for 1893; 36,725
for 1894, and 33,332 for 1895. The cause of it was mentioned in a
former chapter――that the largest part of the Jewish immigration now
consisted of families or near relatives brought over by those who have
established themselves here. The condition of those remaining there
was becoming continually worse, while those who were here could, with
a little exertion and self-denial, save enough, even in slack times, to
save their immediate relatives from the conditions which were becoming
unendurable in Russia.
For this large and increasing mass of Russians, the relations between
the United States and Russia were a matter of grave concern. And to
them, in conjunction with the Galician Jews and the Roumanian Jews,
who were, roughly estimated, nearly half as strong numerically as the
Russians, the question of the restriction of immigration, which was
then being discussed in Congress and in the country generally, was of
most vital interest. The fear that the oppressed Jews who were left
home could not come in now, and that there might be difficulty even
in bringing over members of the family, sufficed to make this question
overshadow all others in the mind of the Jewish immigrant; to make it
not only the most important, but with many, the sole Jewish problem.
A minor problem which had also become more acute under the changed
conditions was the Sunday Laws of the various states. While the laws
themselves date further back, some of them from the eighteenth century,
and they were not enforced with any more severity than before, the
opportunities for conflict with them were now much more frequent. The
Jewish immigrants of the former periods, who were mostly traders doing
business with their Gentile neighbors, and were also inclined toward
Reform Judaism, usually rested Sunday, for economic reasons as well as
on account of their religious views. But now there were in many large
cities, and especially in New York, large Jewish neighborhoods where
brisk trading was done among Jews themselves. There were Jewish shops
and factories in which the owners, the managers and foremen, as well
as the workers, were Jews. And not only was the proportion of Orthodox
Jews among them very large, but even the unbelievers and the radicals
among them thought the Sunday laws oppressive and incongruous. It
was certainly not what most of them expected to find in the Land of
Liberty: to be hampered and interfered with for practices which were
then practically permissible in countries like Russia and Austria,
where the Churches rule supreme and where Jews are harassed on every
imaginable pretext.
Two incidents in the relations with Russia aroused the interest of the
Russian Jews in America at that time. The first related to the Treaty
of Extradition which was negotiated between the two governments during
the first administration of President Cleveland, but was not pressed
for ratification, owing to protests which were made against it by
Russian Jews and which were seconded by many liberal Americans and by
a considerable portion of the press. But the document itself, signed by
the representatives of the two governments seven or eight years before,
remained in the State Department, and was again presented to the Senate
by John W. Foster, a former American Minister to Russia, who held the
office of Secretary of State in the last months of the administration
of President Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901). It was ratified by the
Senate in February, 1893, and the report of its ratification and
exchange with Russia was a painful surprise for the Jews of the country,
especially for the natives of Russia. Happily the fears about the
possible effects of the treaty proved absolutely groundless. Every
extradition case under this treaty which was fought in the United
States courts was won, and, as far as it is known, not one Russian
refugee who made the plea against extradition, claiming that he was
wanted for political offences, was ever delivered to Russia.
The second occurrence pertained to a difficulty of long standing:
to the general treaty between the United States and Russia which was
concluded in 1832. The number of Jews in the United States at that time
was comparatively small, and very few of them came from Russia. The
intercourse between the two countries was insignificant, and probably
no Jew of that time thought of going from America to Russia for any
purpose. It could therefore not have occurred to the representatives of
our Government in negotiating the treaty that Russia would discriminate
against American Jews who might come there. As a matter of fact,
the language of the treaty implied equal treatment for all American
citizens alike, and is much less objectionable than was the treaty
with Switzerland, which was concluded later (see above Chapter XXIII),
in which discrimination against Jews was knowingly accepted. And
while a case of discrimination against an American-Jewish citizen
in Switzerland was under consideration by the State Department in
Washington at the very time when the treaty of 1855, with the highly
objectionable clause, was adopted, more than forty years passed after
the adoption of the Russian treaty of 1832 before the question of
Russia’s disloyalty to the terms of the treaty attracted the attention
of the American Government, although there seems to have been some
correspondence about it as early as 1866.[48] The name of a naturalized
Jewish citizen, Theodore Rosenstrauss, appears frequently in the
diplomatic correspondence of the State Department from 1873 to 1879,
and his case was the cause of the following Joint Resolution being
introduced in the House of Representatives of the 46th Congress in
June, 1879, by Mr. Samuel S. Cox of New York, a member of the Committee
on Foreign Affairs:
JOINT RESOLUTION IN RELATION TO TREATY NEGOTIATIONS
WITH RUSSIA AS TO AMERICAN CITIZENS.
_Whereas_, It is alleged that by the laws of the Russian
Government, no Hebrew can hold real estate, which unjust
discrimination is enforced against Hebrew citizens of the
United States resident in Russia; and
_Whereas_, The Russian Government has discriminated against one
T. Rosenstrauss, a naturalized citizen of the United States, by
prohibiting him from holding real estate after his purchasing
and paying for the same, because of his being an Israelite; and
_Whereas_, Such disabilities are antagonistic to the enlightened
spirit of our institutions and age, which demand free exercise
of religious belief, and no disabilities therefrom; and
_Whereas_, The Secretary of State, under date of April 29, 1879,
expresses doubt of his ability to grant the relief required
under existing treaty stipulations; therefore
_Resolved_, By the Senate and the House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress Assembled, that the
rights of the citizens of the United States should not be
impaired at home or abroad because of religious belief; and
that if existing treaties between the United States and Russia
be found, as is alleged, to discriminate in this or any other
particular, as to any other classes of our citizens, the
President is requested to take immediate action, to have the
treaties so amended as to remedy this grievance.
After a debate, in which the fact that English Jews were permitted to
own land in Russia, was brought out, this Resolution passed the House
of Representatives June 10, 1879, and as far as known was not heard of
again.
In the diplomatic correspondence which followed, the American
Government insisted on its rights under the treaty and urged its
minister to claim absolutely equal treatment for all American citizens
alike, Jews as well as others. The arguments and the mode of procedure
which are now familiar to every one who is interested in the question,
were all used thirty years ago, though the only effective remedy,
suggested by the first resolution, “to take immediate steps to have
the treaties amended,” had not been resorted to. But the question of
former Russian subjects who return to Russia as American citizens,
in which the principle of expatriation and right of naturalization is
involved, is not touched upon in these early disputes. There is even
a clear intimation that the Russian Government’s chief objection was
against naturalized Jews from Germany. Mr. Foster, who was then our
representative in St. Petersburg, in a dispatch dated December 30,
1880, reports an interview which he had with M. de Giers, the Russian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, and says:
So far as concerned Jews who are bona fide American citizens
(not disguised German Jews), he would assure me of the most
liberal treatment, as he knew it was the desire of the Emperor
to show all possible consideration to American citizens. If such
came to St. Petersburg and encountered any trouble, if I would
merely send him an unofficial note, he would give them all the
time I might ask for them to remain here to attend to their
business....
The same dispatch reports also a conversation with the Minister of
Worship, who “listened with much interest to my presentation of the
subject. He said that a commission was now engaged in studying the
question of reform in these laws,” and “frankly recognized that the
laws were not fully in accordance with the spirit of the age.” But in
the end of this document Mr. Foster acknowledges his failure to obtain
what he wanted and says that “the Russian Government was disposed to
grant what we desired only as a favor when my government asked it as
a right” (quoting Loris Melikov).
In a dispatch sent by Secretary of State James G. Blaine to Mr. Foster,
dated July 29, 1881, the entire subject is historically reviewed and
the principles involved are restated in strong and lucid terms. Two
passages from this dispatch are worth quoting. One reads: “From the
time when the treaty of 1832 was signed down to within a very recent
period, there had been nothing in our relations with Russia to lead to
the supposition that our flag did not carry with it equal protection
to every American within the dominions of the empire.” The second is
the last sentence of the dispatch and reads: “I cannot but feel assured
that this earnest presentation of the views of this government will
accord with the sense of justice and equity of that of Russia, and that
the questions at issue will soon find their natural solution in harmony
with the spirit of tolerance which pervaded the ukase of the Empress
Catherine a century ago, and with the statesman-like declaration
of the principle of reciprocity found in the later decree of the
Czar Alexander II. in 1860.” Actual dealings with Russia were a novel
experience for American diplomatists, and even so eminent a statesman
as Mr. Blaine could believe――after the pogroms of the spring of that
year――that the question would be solved in the same manner as in
Switzerland――by the final emancipation of the Jews of that country.
In the meantime new cases had arisen, and the question was again
brought before Congress. Representative Samuel S. Cox of New York
introduced a second resolution in the House of Representatives on
January 26, 1882, which was passed four days later, requesting the
President, if it was not incompatible with the public service, to
communicate to the House all correspondence between the Department of
State and the United States minister at St. Petersburg, relative to the
expulsion of American Israelites from Russia, and the persecution of
the Jews in the Russian Empire. Another resolution, asking for further
correspondence on the subject, was introduced by Mr. Cox on July 31
of the same year and referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
He submitted the same resolution again in February, 1883, when it was
passed. There was another resolution in 1884, and more correspondence
in 1886 between Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard and the American
representative in Russia, with no better results than before.
The subject was taken up more earnestly than before in the following
decade. Congressman S. Logan Chipman of Michigan introduced in the
House, in February, 1892, a resolution “To inquire into the operation
of the Anti-Jewish Laws of Russia on American Citizens.” It was
referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs and reported on April 6,
1892, in a much amplified form, but its passage is not recorded.
Mr. Irvine Dungan, of Ohio, introduced, on June 10, 1892, a joint
resolution “directing the severance of diplomatic relations with
Russia,” which seems not to have gone any further than the Committee
on Foreign Affairs. There was new correspondence, too, as the result of
new cases, and probably also as an indirect result of the resolutions
which were introduced in the House. A letter written from the State
Department in 1893 to Mr. Andrew D. White (b. 1832), the educator and
historian, the greatest man who ever represented the United States in
Russia, contained the “surmise that some strange misapprehension exists
in this regard in the mind of His Majesty’s Government, which your
accustomed ability and tact may explain and perhaps remove.” The events
proved that he could do neither.
In 1894 the subject was again brought before the House, for the
first time by a representative of Jewish extraction. Isidor Rayner
(b. in Baltimore, 1850), who was successively a member of the Maryland
Legislature, a State Senator, a representative in Congress for three
terms, the Attorney-General of the State of Maryland, and is now
serving his second term as United States Senator from that State
(beginning March 4, 1911), was then serving his third term in the
House and was recognized as one of the ablest orators and leaders of
his party (the Democratic) in the popular branch of Congress. But his
resolution, which was introduced May 28, 1894, in which the President
was “directed to call the attention of the Government of Russia to its
continued violation of the treaty rights,” met with no better fate than
the preceding ones which were introduced by non-Jews. The disposition
of the resolutions made, however, little difference, for the Government
was urging a settlement of the difficulties as strongly as if it was
commanded by Congress to do so.
Minister Breckinridge, who was in St. Petersburg in 1895, writing to
the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs in that year, states “that it
has long been a matter of deep regret and concern to the United States
that any of its citizens should be discriminated against for religious
reasons while peacefully sojourning in this country.” The subject
was apparently taken up more seriously now than before, and there was
justification for the belief that it would have to be settled soon.
Mr. H. H. D. Peirce, Secretary of Legation, writing in June, 1895, of
an interview which he had with a high Russian official, declares that
the latter admitted the force of the argument and “expressed himself
as hopeful that it would be possible to bring about a satisfactory
revision of Russian practice as regards the admission of American Jews
into the Empire.” In the following month Assistant Secretary of State
A. A. Adee wrote to the Legation at St. Petersburg:
Your conclusion that it is inexpedient to press the complaint
to a formal answer at present appears to be discreet, but
the Department must express its deep regret that you have
encountered in the foreign office a reluctance to consider
the matter in the light in which this Government has presented
it. The Russian Government can not expect that its course in
asserting inquisitorial authority in the United States over
citizens of the United States as to their religious or civil
status can ever be acceptable or even tolerable to such a
Government as ours, and continuance in such a course after our
views have been clearly but considerately made known may trench
upon the just limits of consideration.
There were three more dispatches of considerable length sent about this
subject in the same year, 1895; one from Mr. Breckinridge to Secretary
of State Richard Olney, dated July 4; the second from Mr. Adee to
Mr. Breckinridge, dated August 22, and a third, dated October 23, from
Washington to the Russian capital, beginning with the acknowledgment
of the receipt of a set of regulations relating to the Jews in Russia
and commenting on it that: “If anything, it presents the subject
in a still more unfavorable light, for it seems that those Russian
agents in a foreign territory may in their discretion inquire into the
business standing of the principal of the commercial house employing
a Hebrew agent, and act favorably or unfavorably, according to their
own judgment of its importance.” It continues that even “assuming for
the ♦argument’s sake but not by way of admission, that such a right
may technically exist, the question remains whether the assumption
to exercise it in face of the temperate but earnest remonstrances of
this Government against foreign interference with the private concerns
of its citizens, is in accordance with those courteous principles of
comity which this Government is so anxious to observe in its relations
with all foreign states.”
All this was of no avail, and the question was again brought before
Congress. Representative John F. Fitzgerald (b. in Boston, 1863; now
Mayor of Boston) of Massachusetts introduced the following resolution
in the House of Representatives, March 31, 1897, which was referred to
the Committee on Foreign Affairs:
_Resolved_, That the Secretary of State be requested to demand
from the Russian Government that the same rights be given to
Hebrew-American citizens in the matter of passports as now
are accorded to all other classes of American citizens, and
also inform the House of Representatives whether any American
citizens have been ordered to be expelled from Russia or
forbidden the exercise of the ordinary privileges enjoyed by the
inhabitants, because of their religion.
The same resolution was re-introduced by Mr. Fitzgerald in December,
1899, with no better results. In the meantime, a Jewish banker from
California, Mr. Adolf Kutner, was refused admission to Russia in 1897,
and this caused Senator J. C. Perkins of that State to introduce a
lengthy resolution about this question in the United States Senate
(May 25, 1897), which was followed by a shorter one presented in the
House by Representative Curtice H. Castle of the same State in December
of that year.
In 1902 the question was again brought to the attention of the House
by a Representative who not only is himself a Jew, but represents
a district most of whose inhabitants are immigrant Jews who are
interested in the passport question. Henry Mayer Goldfogle (b. in New
York City, 1856), who was twice elected Judge of the Municipal Court in
an East Side district, was in 1900 elected, as a Democrat, to represent
the Ninth Congress District of New York, which includes the most
thickly populated part of the East Side, and has been re-elected at
every Congressional election since, serving now (1911) his sixth term.
It was during his first term that he introduced what became well known
as the “Goldfogle Resolution” and has been before Congress in one form
or another for nearly a decade. Its original form as it was introduced,
March 28, 1902, was as follows:
_Resolved_, By the House of Representatives of the United States,
that the Secretary of State be, and he is hereby, respectfully
requested to inform the House whether American citizens of
the Jewish religious faith, holding passports issued by this
Government, are barred or excluded from entering the territory
of the Empire of Russia, and whether the Russian Government
has made, or is making, any discrimination between citizens of
the United States of different religious faiths or persuasions,
visiting or attempting to visit Russia, provided with American
passports; and whether the Russian Government has made
regulations restricting or specially applying to American
citizens, whether native or naturalized, of the Jewish religious
denomination, holding United States passports, and if so, to
report the facts in relation thereto, and what action concerning
such exclusion, discrimination or restriction, if any, has been
taken by any department of the Government of the United States.
This resolution was amended by adding the words “if not incompatible
with the public interest” after the word “House” in the third line. It
was passed by the House April 30, 1902. Shortly afterwards (June 27)
Senator E. W. Pettus of Alabama introduced a resolution in the Senate
requesting the President, “if not incompatible with the public interest,
to inform the Senate as to the attitude of the Russian Government
toward American citizens attempting to enter its territory with
American passports.” This was also passed by the Senate, but the reply
was given to the House before the Senate Resolution was introduced. The
essence of the letter to the House, written by Secretary of State John
Hay (1838–1905), dated May 2, 1902, that American Jews are not at a
greater disadvantage before that Government than are the Jews of other
countries; that the exclusion of naturalized citizens of Russian origin
was explained by Secretary Olney in his report to the President in 1896
as due to circumstances under which a “conflict between national laws,
each absolute within its domestic sphere and inoperative beyond it,
is hardly to be averted”; that the effort to secure uniform treatment
for American citizens in Russia, begun many years ago, had continued,
although it had not been attended with encouraging success; and
that the Department of State send to all persons of Russian birth
who received passports an unofficial notice showing what were the
provisions of Russian law liable to affect them, in order that they
might not incur danger through ignorance.
The subject has been treated officially and semi-officially in
various manners since that time, but practically without results. It
came up several times in Congress, and was ably discussed by Jewish
representatives and their friendly colleagues, hardly a voice ever
being raised in defence of the Russian Government. There were new
resolutions by Judge Goldfogle, who was now recognized as the Jewish
Representative in Congress; new correspondence between the State
Department and the American Ambassador in St. Petersburg; a personal
letter from President Theodore Roosevelt to Count Witte (who came to
the United States to negotiate a treaty of peace with Japan in 1905),
in which that Muscovite statesman was begged “to consider the question
of granting passports to reputable American citizens of the Jewish
faith,” and a letter from Secretary of State Elihu Root (b. 1845; now a
Senator from New York) to Mr. Jacob H. Schiff in October, 1908, telling
him that the Administration “has urged the making of a new treaty for
the purpose of regulating the subject.” It was the subject of a notable
address delivered by the well known attorney and communal worker, Louis
Marshall (b. in Syracuse, N. Y., 1856), at the convention of the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations which was held in New York in January,
1911, and was afterward brought before President William H. Taft (b.
1857) by a delegation which was appointed by that convention. Public
men in various parts of the country became interested in the question.
They were encouraged by an almost unanimous public press to stand up
for the rights of American Citizenship, regardless of creed, and the
movement became well-nigh irresistible. Numerous State Legislatures
adopted resolutions favoring the abrogation of the treaty unless
the American passport be fully recognized as conferring the right of
domicile in all parts of the Russian Empire. Congress was flooded with
resolutions which were adopted by Jewish organizations all over the
country, and many meetings were held to express the public indignation,
as well as the dissatisfaction with the Government’s dilatoriness in
obtaining justice for its Jewish citizens. The most imposing meetings
were held under the auspices of the National Citizens’ League, a newly
formed organization, composed mostly of prominent non-Jews, of which
Andrew D. White became the chairman.
In December, 1911, the resolution for the abrogating of the treaty,
which was introduced in the House of Representatives by William Sulzer,
of New York, was adopted with practical unanimity. But President Taft
had anticipated this action by the instructions which he gave several
days before to the American Ambassador in St. Petersburg, to serve
formal notice on Russia that the Treaty of 1832 would be abrogated
on December 31, 1912, i. e., after one full year shall have elapsed
after the notice of abrogation, as it is provided by the terms of the
agreement itself. Both houses of Congress soon afterwards approved
the President’s act without a dissenting vote, and the battle was
won, as far as the American side of it was concerned. But the work of
negotiating and concluding a new treaty was perforce left to the slow
procedure of diplomacy, which is doubly slow when a government, like
the Russian, which is so unwilling to recognize the rights of Jews, is
one of the contracting parties.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LEGISLATION ABOUT IMMIGRATION.
SUNDAY LAWS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT.
Jewish interest in immigration――The first legislation on the
subject――The Nativists or “Know Nothings”――A Congressional
investigation in 1838――President Taylor’s invitation to
foreigners to come and settle here――A law to encourage
immigration passed on Lincoln’s recommendation in 1864――The
General Immigration Law of 1882――The “Ford Committee”――Permanent
Immigration Committees in Congress――Continued agitation and
legislation on the subject――A bill containing the requirement
of an educational test is vetoed by President Grover Cleveland
in 1897――The last Immigration Law of 1907――The Immigration
Commission of 1907 and its report in 1910――Sunday Laws and
their significance for the Orthodox Jew――Laws of various
States and Territories――Their effect on movements for municipal
reform――Status of the problems.
The question of immigration, or rather of its restriction, was
always of great interest to the Jews, not only because they are great
wanderers and many of them are looking for a home, but also because
to the many who came from countries where they were persecuted or from
which they were exiled, exclusion meant a much more serious matter than
to those who had a home to go back to. The immigrants of the second
period, from 1815 to 1880, were more fortunate in this respect than
those who came very early and were harrassed by frank discrimination
against them as Jews, as was related in earlier parts of this work;
and also more than the later arrivals, many of whom were excluded as
undesirable, along with the defective and helpless of other races and
nationalities. From the time of the establishment of the Government of
the United States until about 1835, immigration was taken as a matter
of course; the only legislation enacted, and practically all that
was proposed, was the law of 1819 for the regulation of the carriage
of steerage passengers at sea, which law also for the first time
provided that statistics relative to immigration to the United States
be recorded.
The second period, from 1835 to 1860, is sharply defined by the
so-called “Native American” and “Know Nothing” movements, which, as
is well known, were largely based on the opposition to the immigration
of Catholics.[49] The hostility early took the form of a political
movement, and in 1835 there was a Nativist candidate for Congress
in New York City, where that party nominated a candidate for mayor
in the following year. It spread over various states, and in 1845,
when it held its first national convention in Philadelphia, it
had six Representatives in Congress from New York and two from
Pennsylvania. The chief demands of this convention were a repeal of
the naturalization laws and the appointments of native Americans only
to office.
While these societies were stronger in local politics than in national,
their few Representatives in Congress attempted to make Nativism a
national question. As a result of their efforts, the United States
Senate in 1836 agreed to a resolution directing the Secretary of State
to collect certain information respecting the immigration of foreign
paupers and criminals. In the House of Representatives on February 19,
1838, a resolution was agreed to which provided that the Committee
on Judiciary be instructed to consider the expediency of revising the
naturalization laws so as to require a longer term of residence in the
United States, and also to consider the propriety and expediency of
providing by law against the introduction into the United States of
vagabonds and paupers deported from foreign countries. This resolution
was referred to a select committee of seven members, and its report
(House Report No. 1040, 25th Congress, 2d session) was the first
resulting from a Congressional investigation of any question bearing
upon immigration. It proposed a system of consular inspection, and
there was even talk of a tax of $20 to be paid by the immigrant upon
his receipt of a passport from the consul. The bill presented on
recommendation of the committee provided heavy penalties for any master
taking on board his vessel with the intention of transporting to the
United States any alien passenger who was an idiot, lunatic, maniac or
one afflicted with any incurable disease, or any one convicted of an
infamous crime; it was further provided that the master should forfeit
$1,000 for any alien brought in who had not the ability to maintain
himself.
Congress did not even consider this bill, and during the next ten years
little attempt was made to secure legislation against the foreigner.
In a message to Congress on June 1, 1841, President John Tyler (1813–62)
referred to immigration, in part, as follows:
We hold out to the people of other countries an invitation
to come and settle among us as members of our rapidly growing
family; and for the blessing which we offer them, we require of
them to look upon our country as their country, and unite with
us in the great task of preserving our institutions and thereby
perpetuating our liberties.
As a consequence of the increase of immigration about the middle of
the nineteenth century, the old dread of the foreigner was revived,
and in the early fifties the Nativist politicians again became active.
The new, like the earlier movement, was closely associated with the
anti-Catholic propaganda. The new organization assumed the form of a
secret society. It was organized probably, in 1850, in New York City,
and in 1852 it was increased in membership by drawing largely from the
old established Order of United Americans. Its meetings were secret,
its indorsements were never made openly, and even its name and purpose
were said to be known only to those who reached the highest degree.
Consequently the rank and file, when questioned about their party,
were obliged to answer: “I don’t know”; so they came to be called
“Know Nothings.” They participated in local, State and even in national
elections, and claimed as many as forty-three Representatives and five
Senators in the Thirty-fourth Congress. But in the end they disappeared
without having accomplished anything against immigration, adopted
citizens, or Catholics, and, as a matter of fact, some legislation
favorable to foreigners was passed during these periods of agitation.
The passenger law of 1819 was amended in 1847, and again in 1848, in
order to improve the condition of the steerage of immigrant ships. The
act organizing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, passed in 1854,
was also favorable to foreigners, it being provided that the right of
suffrage in such Territories should be exercised by those declaring
their intentions to become citizens and taking an oath to support
the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of the act.
During the discussion of the homestead act in 1854, which act, however,
was not finally passed until 1862, there was considerable reference
to immigrants and to whether they should be allowed to enjoy the
advantages of the act. The “Know Nothings” proposed to strike out the
section of the bill permitting the granting of land to foreigners who
had filed their intention of becoming citizens; but the attempt failed.
Although the National Government did not assume control of immigration
until 1882, Congress in 1864, on the recommendation of President
Lincoln, passed a law to encourage immigration. It provided for
a Commissioner of Immigration, to be under the direction of the
Department of State, and that all contracts that should be made in
foreign countries by emigrants to the United States, whereby emigrants
pledged the wages of their labor for a term not exceeding twelve months
to repay the expense of emigration, should be held to be valid in law
and might be enforced in the courts of the United States or by the
several States and Territories, and that no such contract could in
any way be considered as creating a condition of slavery or servitude.
Following the enactment of the law several companies were established
to deal in contract labor, but they were not satisfied with the law and
wanted its scope enlarged. This indirectly led to the abolition of the
entire law in 1868, and the brief period of national encouragement of
immigration was over. A campaign against contracting for foreign labor
began soon afterward, though no legislation to forbid it was enacted
until many years later. A law, enacted in 1875, which provided for the
exclusion of prostitutes, was chiefly designated to regulate Chinese
immigration, and thus early touched two subjects with reference to
which the most stringent exclusion laws were to be enacted in the
period of national control over immigration, which was now approaching.
In 1876 the Supreme Court of the United States declared laws enacted by
several States to regulate and tax immigration to be unconstitutional,
and expressly recommended that Congress should exercise full authority
over immigration. This ultimately led to the enactment of the first
general immigration law, which was approved by President Chester A.
Arthur (1830–86) August 3, 1882. It provided for a head tax of 50 cents
on all aliens landed at United States ports, the money thus collected
to be used to defray the expenses of regulating immigration and for
the care of immigrants after landing. It also provided that foreign
convicts, except those convicted for political offences, lunatics,
idiots and persons likely to become public charges, should not be
permitted to land. Aside from a law forbidding the importation of
contract laborers, adopted in 1885 and strengthened by supplementary
laws in 1887 and 1888, and aside from the laws about Chinese
immigration which do not concern us here, there was no legislation
affecting general immigration for nearly a decade, though the question
was now widely discussed in the press and there was considerable
agitation for further restriction.
In 1888 the House of Representatives authorized, by resolution, the
appointment of a select committee to investigate the charges which
were made that the immigration laws were being extensively evaded.
The committee, known as the “Ford Committee,” in its report more
than sustained the charges; it praised the immigrants of the past and
deprecated those who were then coming; and proposed a new bill which
added polygamists, anarchists and persons afflicted with a loathsome or
dangerous contagious disease to the excluded classes. Congress, however,
did not act upon the recommendations of that committee.
In 1889 a Standing Committee on Immigration in the Senate and a
Select Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in the House were
established. In 1890 these committees were authorized jointly to make
an inquiry relative to immigration. Various reports were submitted, and
the conclusion was that a radical change was not advisable, although
it had been found that throughout the country there existed a demand
for a stricter enforcement of the immigration laws. During 1890 one or
more political parties in twenty-three States had demanded additional
regulation of immigration. Consequently a law strengthening the
existing law in several important details, but making no radical
departure from the former policy, was adopted in 1891.
But the question continued to receive the attention of Congress. There
was another investigation by a joint committee in 1892, which reported
in July of that year, and still another investigation ordered by
the Senate. Two new bills were proposed――one establishing additional
regulations, the other entirely prohibiting immigration for one year,
on account of the epidemic of cholera then prevailing in Europe. But
neither this measure, nor the educational test which was then for the
first time recommended by a Congressional committee, was adopted, and
the revised immigration law, which was approved by President Harrison
March 3, 1893, was by no means radical. The head tax on immigrants was
raised from fifty cents to one dollar by an amendment to an
appropriation act in 1894.
The agitation of the subject in Congress continued, however, and
finally both houses adopted a bill for an educational test, excluding
persons physically capable and over sixteen years of age who could not
read and write the English language or some other language, parents,
grandparents, wives and minor children of admissible immigrants being
excepted. President Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) returned the bill with
his veto on March 2, 1897. He objected to the radical departure from
the previous national policy relating to immigration, which welcomed
all who came, the success of which policy was attested by the last
century’s great growth. In referring to the claim that the quality
of recent immigration was undesirable, he said: “The time is quite
within recent memory when the same thing was said of immigrants who,
with their descendants, are now numbered among our best citizens.”
In referring to “the best reason that could be given for this radical
restriction,” the “protecting of our population against degeneration
and saving our national peace and quiet from imported turbulence and
disorder,” President Cleveland said that he did not think that the
nation would be protected against these evils by limiting immigration
to those who could read and write, for, in his mind, it was safer “to
admit a hundred thousand immigrants, who, though unable to read and
write, seek among us only a home and an opportunity to work, than to
admit one of those unruly agitators who can not only read and write,
but delight in arousing by inflammatory speech the illiterate and
peacefully inclined to discontent.” Those classes which we ought
to exclude, he claimed, should be legislated against directly. Some
sections of the bill against aliens who come regularly into the United
States from neighboring countries for the purpose of obtaining work, he
declared to be “illiberal, narrow and un-American.”
On March 3, 1897, the House passed the bill over the President’s veto
by a vote of 193 to 37, but no action was taken in the Senate, and the
veto was thus sustained. The same bill was introduced in the following
Congress (fifty-fifth) and passed by the Senate, but the House, by a
vote of 103 to 101 refused to consider it.
By an act of June 18, 1898, Congress created an Industrial Commission
“to investigate questions pertaining to immigration, and to report
to Congress and to suggest such legislation as it may deem best upon
these subjects.” The final report of this commission was submitted
to Congress in February, 1902, and shortly afterwards a bill was
introduced in the House which was substantially in accord with the
recommendations made. The House added a literary test to this bill,
but it was eliminated by the Senate, which raised the head tax from
one dollar to two. This was accepted by the House, and the bill, as it
was approved by the President March 3, 1903, made no radical change in
the existing laws. The same may be said of the present immigration law,
which was approved February 20, 1907, which, besides raising the head
tax from two to four dollars and somewhat strengthening the provisions
against the defective or undesirable classes, made no innovation or
departure from the policy of admitting all who may be expected to be
able to provide for themselves and to become good citizens. The number
as well as the percentage of those excluded is now considerably larger
than in former years; but the tide of immigration is not stemmed, and
after the quick recovery from the hard times which began with the panic
of 1907, there is now again a very large influx of immigrants, among
whom the proportion of Jews is by no means smaller than in former years.
The act of 1907 also created an Immigration Commission to “make full
inquiry, examination, and investigation, by sub-committee or otherwise,
into the subject of immigration.” This commission submitted its report,
in forty volumes, in 1910, and recommended some strong restrictions,
with the view that “a sufficient number may be debarred to produce
a marked effect upon the present supply of unskilled labor.” It also
advised that “as far as possible the aliens excluded should be those
who come to this country with no intention to become American citizens
or even to maintain a permanent residence here; but merely to save
enough, by the adoption, if necessary, of low standards of living,
to return permanently to their home country.... A majority of the
Commission favor the reading and writing test as the most feasible
single method of restricting undesirable immigration.” Congress has
not acted on these recommendations at the time of this writing (1911).
* * * * *
The question of enforced rest on Sunday is much older than the question
of regulating immigration. Several States have Sunday laws which
were in their original form enacted in the eighteenth century. In the
Carolinas these laws have been but little changed since Colonial times.
But the reviews of these laws in the various States and Territories,
their effect on the Jews, and the leading cases under them in various
times and places, give no adequate idea of their significance for the
Orthodox immigrant of the later period. What our best authority on the
subject, Albert M. Friedenberg,[50] could collect and collate, contains
only a record of such cases which originated in, or were carried up to,
higher courts of record. These are usually lawsuits which affected men
of means, who could hire attorneys and fight the question as a matter
of principle. But these recorded cases give no indication of the tens
of thousands of arrests which were made in the large cities, especially
in New York City, in the last years, where the cases never went higher
than the first instance, because the poor man, if he was not discharged
in the Police Court, had to pay his fine or be imprisoned. Appeals to
higher courts and insistence upon constitutional or statutory rights
are out of the question, not only on account of poverty or ignorance,
but also because of familiarity with such procedure in the Old World.
The Sunday laws are not constantly enforced in the same manner, there
being periods of severity and periods of lenience even under the same
local administration, and often a complete change of policy under a new
administration, though the statute or State law remains the same. The
Jew of Russia or Roumania has been too well accustomed to intermittent
police tyranny for the purpose of extortion at home, to be able to
interpret the frequent changes in administrative policy or in police
regulations here in any other way, and this also tends to discourage
appeals to higher courts. The question ought to be investigated not
juristically but statistically; the number of arrests made, the loss
of time and money sustained by those who are charged with transgressing
these laws, and the contrast in the enforcement of them at various
periods: if such facts and figures were placed before the American
people and before legislators, the attitude of many in regard to Sunday
laws would probably be changed. But the figures are not available in
a form to be used in a work like the present, and only the hope can be
expressed here that they will be collected in the near future by one of
the agencies which gather data of that kind relating to Jewish subjects.
There is no Federal Sunday Law, although the distillation of spirituous
liquors on the first day of the week is prohibited. California only
prohibits labor by any employee on more than six days out of every
seven, but not specifying any compulsory day of rest. In Colorado only
trafficking in liquors and barbering are prohibited on Sunday and in
Montana there is a law against barbering only.
In most of the other States, as well as in the Territories and in the
District of Columbia (which is also counted as a Territory), there are
more or less stringent laws, most of them forbidding not only manual
labor but also the carrying on of trade or business. There are eleven
States――Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska,
New Jersey, New York, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia――where servile
or manual labor is permitted on Sunday to those who observe Saturday
as their day of rest. In thirteen more――Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa,
Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma,
Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin――the exceptions in favor
of Seventh-Day Sabbatarians affect both manual labor and trade or
business. But the statute is not always a criterion of the observance
or enforcement of Sunday laws in a certain locality. Some of the laws,
like that of New York, decree that “it is a sufficient defense to a
prosecution for work on the first day of the week, that the defendant
uniformly keeps another day of the week as holy time, and does not
labor on that day, and that the labor complained of was done in such
manner as not to interrupt or disturb other persons in observing the
first day of the week as holy time.” In many localities, especially
in large cities, the Sunday laws are simply obsolete, and are usually
revived in the name of Reform after the success of a Reform Party
at the polls, only to become obsolete again when that party is voted
out of office at the succeeding election. The defeat usually comes
for no other reason than the dissatisfaction of a large number of
citizens with the strict enforcement of the Sunday laws. Jews are by
no means the only element of the population which resents stringency
in these matters. It may be said that the coupling together of strict
enforcement of the Sunday laws with the good government movements in
the large cities has been a greater drawback to municipal reform in the
United States than any other single cause.
Of all these three problems which are of special interest to the Jews
of the United States, the first, or the passport question, seems at the
present moment to be nearest to solution. The immigration question is
certain to remain open for many years to come, as neither side of the
conflicting interests who work against each other is likely to yield in
the near future. The trade unions, which see in the immigrant a menace
to the highly-paid laborer, and the so-called patriotic societies,
which fear a deterioration of the American race or stock by the
admixture of people from nationalities and races which they consider
to be inferior, keep up a constant agitation for more restrictive
measures against the influx of strangers. On the other hand, there is
a constantly increasing demand for workmen in the expanding industries,
for farm laborers and for domestic servants, and the million or more
immigrants who now arrive in a year of ordinary business activity are
so easily absorbed that their usefulness cannot be denied. While the
adoption of some restrictive legislation may be forced on Congress by
the pressure of those who agitate for it, real restriction seems to be
out of the question before the country is filled up and built up; and
this will take so long a time that all speculations as to what may
happen afterwards are at present premature.
There is hardly any agitation for or against the Sunday laws, as
such. New and mostly restrictive measures are adopted, either against
the liquor business as a concession to the Prohibition element, which
is backed by the churches; or against single trades, like those of
butchers or barbers, as a concession to the sentiment in favor of
overworked laborers. The time for abolishing the Sunday laws or for
adopting explicit exemptions in favor of Jews, making the observance
of Saturday not a defense against prosecution but a security against
molestation, has not yet arrived; but the sense of justice and
righteousness is unmistakably growing, and there is no doubt of the
ultimate triumph of liberal tendencies over this heritage of intolerant
ages, when nobody considered himself bound to respect the rights,
especially the religious rights, of helpless minorities.
CHAPTER XXXV.
END OF THE CENTURY. THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR.
THE DREYFUS AFFAIR. ZIONISM.
Jews in the Spanish-American war――Commissioned and
non-commissioned officers, privates and “Rough Riders”――Jews in
the Navy: Simon Cook, Joseph Strauss and Edward David Taussig――
The career of Rear-Admiral Adolph Marix――His part in the
Inquiry about the “Maine” and in the war――The significance of
the Dreyfus Affair――Its influence on the spread of Zionism――The
American press almost as pro-Dreyfus as the Jewish――The Zionist
movement in America――The rank and file consists of immigrants
from Slavic countries, under the leadership of Americans.
In the short war between the United States and Spain in 1898, in which
the most progressive and liberal of modern nations was pitted against
a nation whose greatness began to wane soon after it expelled the
Jews in the year of the discovery of America, a large number of Jews
enlisted as volunteers, besides the number who were in the regular
service of the Army and the Navy. It is roughly estimated that about
four thousand Jews were found in the military and naval forces which
operated against Spain[51] most of them immigrants of the last period,
of whom a considerable proportion had served in the armies of Russia,
Austria and Roumania before their arrival here. The Jewish army
officers of the highest rank were four Majors, who were officers in the
army before the outbreak of the war. They were: Major Surgeon Daniel
M. Appel (b. in Pennsylvania, 1854) and Major Surgeon Aaron H. Appel
(b. 1856), both of whom are now colonels in the Medical Corps of the
regular army; the third was Major (of volunteers) George W. Moses, a
native of Ohio, who graduated from the Military Academy of West Point
in 1892, and was a Lieutenant in the 3rd Cavalry Regiment when he was
assigned to duty as a major of volunteers and returned to the regular
service in 1899; the fourth was Major Felix Rosenberg of Cleveland, O.,
who was stationed at Fort Thomas. There were also in the army about
a half dozen Captains, one of whom, Moses G. Zalinski (b. in New
York, 1863), a graduate of the Artillery School (1894), is now a
Lieutenant-Colonel in the regular army. There were also about a dozen
Lieutenants, most of whom graduated from the Military Academy of West
Point.
Several hundred Jews served as non-commissioned officers and privates
in the regular army, or enlisted as United States Volunteers. The
bulk of the Jewish soldiers, however, served in the regiments of State
Volunteers, and were represented among the soldiers of every State of
the Union, having among them a goodly proportion of non-commissioned
officers, and also a number who held commissions from the State
organizations. They were naturally represented in largest numbers in
the regiments or companies which were organized in the large cities;
some companies in New York regiments containing between twenty-five and
thirty Jewish recruits. At least a half dozen Jews are known to have
served in the First United States Volunteer Cavalry Regiment (known
as the regiment of “Rough Riders”), which was organized by Theodore
Roosevelt (b. in New York City, 1858), who later served as President
of the United States, from September 14, 1901, to March 4, 1905, as the
successor of President William McKinley (1843–1901), and then served a
full term (March 4, 1905, to March 4, 1909), until he was succeeded by
the present incumbent, William Howard Taft (b. in Cincinnati, O., 1857).
There were about twenty Jewish officers of various ranks in the Navy
during this war, and almost all of them were graduates from the United
States Naval Academy of Annapolis, Md. One of them, Simon Cook (b.
in Illinois, 1856; d. in St. Louis, Mo., 1907), who was appointed to
Annapolis from the old Third Congressional District of Missouri in
1873 and graduated in 1877, served with distinction in the Philippines;
and a disease which he contracted there forced his retirement, with
the rank of Commander, before he reached the age limit of retirement.
Another Jewish officer of the Navy during the war, Lieutenant Joseph
Strauss, is still in the active service with the rank of Commander
(which is equivalent to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army). A
third officer of Jewish descent attained to a higher rank. Edward David
Taussig (b. in St. Louis, 1847) entered the Naval Academy in 1863 and
graduated in 1867, and was a Lieutenant-Commander (since 1892) at the
time of the outbreak of the war. He served on the Pacific and European
Stations and in the coast survey until 1893, when he was made commander
of the “Bennington.” He took possession of Wake Island (Oceanica) for
the United States, and was placed in charge of Guam when that island
was ceded by Spain on February 1, 1899. In 1902 he became a Captain
(which is equal to the rank of Colonel in the Army); in 1903 he was
appointed commander of the Navy Yard at Pensacola, Fla. He was retired
with the rank of Rear-Admiral (the equivalent of Brigadier-General) in
1909.
The most conspicuous part played by a Jew in the events which led
to the war with Spain, if not in the war itself, fell to the lot of
Lieutenant-Commander (now Rear-Admiral, retired) Adolph Marix (b. in
Germany, probably of Russian parents, 1848), who came to America in
his boyhood, and entered the Naval Academy in 1864, graduating four
years later. He advanced step by step, becoming an ensign in 1869, a
master in 1870, a lieutenant in 1872, after which he was assigned to
special service in the Judge Advocate-General’s office, where he gained
valuable experience and became an expert in naval and maritime law.
In 1893 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander, and in
September, 1895, he was transferred from the command of the receiving
ship “Minnesota” to be the first commander of the ill-fated battleship
“Maine,” which was then put in commission. He was transferred to the
“Scorpion” in January, 1898, several weeks before the “Maine” arrived
in the harbor of Havana, where she was destroyed by an explosion on
February 15 of the same year.
Lieutenant-Commander Marix was chosen secretary or recorder of the
Court of Inquiry which investigated the blowing up of the “Maine,” and
he prepared the report, which was one of the contributing causes of
the war. He himself laid the ominous document before President McKinley
on March 26, 1898, and soon returned to engage in the war which was to
terminate Spanish dominion in the New World. In the same month he was
advanced to the rank of Commander and was later advanced, by act of
Congress, two numbers for “eminent and conspicuous conduct in battle
in two engagements at Manzanillo (Cuba), July 1 and July 18, 1898.”
When President Taft was Governor-General of the Philippines, Commander
Marix was a naval attaché in the islands. He later rose to the rank of
Rear-Admiral, and having attained the age-limit (62), he was retired
in April, 1910, after forty-six years of service. He now resides in New
York City.
* * * * *
By the time the Spanish War was over and Spain was stripped of the
last vestige of advantage which she gained by the discovery of America,
the attention of the civilized world was concentrated on the celebrated
Dreyfus Case. The last desperate effort of the forces of reaction
to foist an anti-Jewish policy on a great progressive nation served
only to prove in the end that the world has advanced beyond such
tactics, and that the voice of Justice cannot be stifled in a civilized
community, where the people ultimately decide all-important questions.
Not only was France shaken to its foundations and the existence of the
Government itself endangered on account of the grievous wrong which
was done to the Jewish army officer, but the entire civilized world was
aroused by the incident as it probably never was before by the fate of
one insignificant individual. It was the first and only attempt of a
real “Judenhetze” in a modern free country, and so much depended on the
outcome, that not only the Jews everywhere were intensely interested,
but also their friends and their enemies felt the full importance
of the “affaire” and the bearing which the issue must have on Jewish
conditions everywhere. Had anti-Semitism triumphed in France, it would
mean that even political liberty, universal suffrage and government
by the people could not solve the Jewish problem; that Western Culture
could not effect the true emancipation which was expected of it,
and that other means than those suggested by the principles of the
great liberal movement of the last century――adjustment to surroundings,
adoption of the speech and mode of life of the nations among whom they
live――must be sought to deliver Israel from his ancient suffering even
in the most highly civilized countries.
Fortunately for France, for civilization and for the Jews,
anti-Semitism was utterly defeated in the open political combat for
the first time in modern history. The barrier erected by Liberty proved
sufficiently strong to stem the tide of raging injustice; the very
excitement caused by the wrong was the best warning against the danger
which the revival of medieval bigotry brings to an enlightened country.
Persecution and discrimination were again forced back and confined
to the more shady corners of the earth, to the countries where the
masses of the people are still oppressed by tyranny and handicapped
by ignorance. It was in these countries that the Dreyfus agitation was
seized upon by the enemies of the Jews and exploited to the ♦utmost
extent, and it was there that many Jews began to despair. If France
could become anti-Semitic at the end of the nineteenth century, what
hope was there for the Jew in the backward countries, in political
progress and cultural development? The full force of the victory over
the French reactionaries was known and felt only in the free countries;
elsewhere the impression remained that the Jews of France remained in a
lamentable position, and that the future looked as gloomy to them as is
usually the case in Russia after a new outbreak of anti-Jewish riots.
The result of this new hopeless view of the Jewish situation was
the sudden spread of the new Zionist movement, which was inaugurated
about that time on the Continent by Dr. Theodore Herzl (1860–1904). He
and his first supporters were Austrians, they obtained their largest
following in Russia and Galicia, and in the large cities in other
countries where there were numbers of Jewish Immigrants from slavic
countries. When the movement began to show signs of life in the English
speaking countries, native or assimilated Jews joined it and became
its leaders. And so it came to pass that although the American press,
with few and unimportant exceptions, was as strongly pro-Dreyfus as
the Jewish press itself, and the victory of Justice and liberalism was
as much emphasized here as in Paris, a limited field was prepared here
for the Zionist movement, as well as in Russia, Austria and Roumania.
The old “Chowewe Zion,” or believers in the colonization of Palestine,
joined the new political movement here, as they did abroad, and the
“Maskilim,” or Germanized Hebrew scholars, who were forced to the
background by the advent of the popular radical leaders of the new
period of immigration, were also attracted by the new movement which
helped to restore the equilibrium among the intellectual Jewish classes.
The first Zionist societies of New York consisted almost entirely of
immigrants. But when the “Federation of Zionist Societies of Greater
New York and Vicinity” (organized 1897) expanded by absorbing societies
outside of New York, and became, at a convention held in New York in
July, 1898, the “Federation of American Zionists,” American Jews were
placed at the head of the movement.
Professor Richard J. H. Gottheil was elected President of the
Federation, and held the position for six years, when he was succeeded,
in 1904, by Dr. Harry Friedenwald (b. in Baltimore, 1864), whose father,
Dr. Aaron Friedenwald (b. in Baltimore, 1836; d. there 1902), was one
of the first Vice-Presidents of the Federation. The first Secretary was
Rev. Stephen S. Wise (b. in Budapest, Hungary, 1872), who was brought
to this country in his childhood, and is now the minister of the Free
Synagogue in New York. His successors were Isidore D. Morrison, Jacob
de Haas, Rev. Dr. Judah L. Magnes (b. in San Francisco, Cal., 1877) and
Miss Henrietta Szold. The Federation consisted of about twenty-five
societies, having a membership of about one thousand when it was first
organized. At the Thirteenth Annual Convention, which was held in
Pittsburg in July, 1910, it was reported that the number of societies
was 215, and of Shekel payers 14,000.
The Order Knights of Zion, which has its headquarters in Chicago, is
considered as an independent Western Federation of Zionists.
PART VII.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. PRESENT CONDITIONS.