Anti-Semitism in the U.S.
From the 16oo's to the 193o's
∾ Early Anti-Semitism ∾
While Jews likely found more acceptance in North America than in many other parts of the world in the 1600s, acts of discrimination were still prevalent.1
“Manischewitz matza box cover issued in honor of the Tercentenary depicting 1654 arrival of 23 souls big and little to New Amsterdam.”3
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“Jew” was (and in certain contexts still is) seen as a bad word.2
Prior to the Revolutionary War, there were numerous incidents of discrimination that included mob attacks on Jewish funeral proceedings or defacing of Jewish cemeteries.4 Still, there were strong Jewish communities established in Georgia and South Carolina in these early years.5 Leading up to the Civil War, Jews were able to gain status and have successful careers. And yet they still faced serious discrimination.6 In 1862, General Ulysses Grant issued an order: “The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department… are hereby expelled from the Department.”7 |
∾ Early Anti-Semitism ∾
Jews were then ordered to leave a number of towns in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee supposedly for the crime of cotton speculation until the order was reversed by Lincoln.8
Discrimination grew even worse in the late 1800s, as more Jews began to arrive in the US.9 In the late 1800s, clubs, gyms, and vacation spots systematically excluded Jews and put up signs such as “No Dogs. No Jews. No Consumptives.”10 In the 1920s and 1930s, presidents of top colleges began to call for and implement informal quota and legacy admissions systems to intentionally limit the number of Jews who could gain admittance to top schools.11,12 |
Grant later felt remorse about his anti-semitic Order No. 11 and expressed sympathy for Jews being persecuted in Russia. Look closely at this critical political cartoon and think about about Grant’s motives. 13
∾ From Dutch New Amsterdam to British New York ∾
Jews were initially met with hostility in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (present-day NY) and the few that arrived there soon returned to Amsterdam, where they were met with greater acceptance.14
Peter Stuyvesant, director of New Amsterdam, called Judaism an “abominable religion.”15 Ultimately Jews were able to petition the city leaders and West India Company for the right to religious toleration and land ownership, putting forth practical, economic and moral arguments.16 When the British took over the territory, they respected basic rights for the Dutch along with the Jews.17 Jews played key roles in trade and were ultimately able to experience economic prosperity.18 |
"View of 17th century New Amsterdam, the site of the first organized Jewish community in North America."
Image and caption courtesy of the American Jewish Archives. |
∾Analysis - “Mythical Jew” vs. “Jew Next Door"∾
In an analysis of the history of anti-Semitism, professor of Jewish American History at Barnard, Jonathan Sarna, lays out the paradoxical dichotomy of “the ‘mythological Jew,’ that cursed figure of Christian tradition, and the ‘Jew next door’ who seemingly gave the lie to every element of the stereotype.”19
Famous historical figures, such as Thomas Jefferson and Henry Ford, to varying extents, had complex relationships with Jews: they would espouse anti-Semitic generalizations, while simultaneously having close friends who were Jewish, and in Jefferson’s case, guarding religious civil liberties.20 One of Jefferson’s critics writing under pseudonym “Social Christian” wrote, “if there be a few Jews, Mahomedans, Atheists or Deists among us, though I would not wish to torture or persecute then on account of their opinions, yet to exclude such from our publick offices, is prudent and just.”23 |
This image depicts a couple in early America standing next to a traditional Jewish Chanukiah, demonstrating a sometimes overlooked facet of Jewish American history; Jews first came to America even before the revolutionary war. 23
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Hover to read quotes from Thomas Jefferson.
“That sect [Jews] had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust... Jesus had to walk on the perilous confines of reason and religion: and a step to right or left might place him within the gripe of the priests of the superstition, a blood thirsty race, as cruel and remorseless as the being whom they represented as the family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel.”21
-Thomas Jefferson ∾ “Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion.”22 - Thomas Jefferson, quoting John Locke, 1776 |
∾ Reflection Questions ∾
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Work Cited
- Sarna, Jonathan. “Anti-Semitism and American History.” Commentary 71, no. 3 (March 1981). brandeis.edu/hornstein/sarna/popularandencyclopedia/Archive/Anti-SemitismandAm ericanHistory.pdf.
- Ibid.
- 2016. http://perspectives.ajsnet.org/freedom-issue/under-freedom/.
- Sarna, “Anti-Semitism and American History.”
- Ebel, Carol. “Samuel Nunes (Ca. 1667-Ca. 1741).” New Georgia Encyclopedia. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/samuel-nunes-ca-1667-ca-1741.
- Sarna, “Anti-Semitism and American History.”
- Blakemore, Erin. “During the Civil War, Gen. Ulysses Grant Began Expelling Southern Jews-Until Lincoln Stepped In.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, July 23, 2019. https://www.history.com/news/ulysses-grant-expulsion-jews-civil-war.
- Ibid.
- Sarna, “Anti-Semitism and American History.”
- Greenspoon, Leonard J. Jews in the Gym: Judaism, Sports, and Athletics -SJC Vol. 23. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2012. muse.jhu.edu/book/17358.
- Halperin, Edward C. "Frank Porter Graham, Isaac Hall Manning, and the Jewish Quota at the University of North Carolina Medical School." The North Carolina Historical Review 67, no. 4 (1990): 385-410. Accessed June 16, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/23519131.
- Jacobs, Peter. “Legacy Admissions Policies Were Originally Created To Keep Jewish Students Out Of Elite Colleges.” Business Insider. Business Insider, October 23, 2013. https://www.businessinsider.com/legacy-admissions-originally-created-keep-jewish-students-out-elite-colleges-2013-10.
- Blakemore, “Ulysses Grant and Southern Jews.”
- ROCK, HOWARD B., DEBORAH DASH MOORE, and DIANA L. LINDEN. "A Dutch Beginning." In Haven of Liberty: New York Jews in the New World, 1654-1865, 22-23. NYU Press, 2012. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt9qfccm.7.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Sarna, “Anti-Semitism and American History.”
- Ibid.
- Jefferson, Thomas. Letters and Addresses of Thomas Jefferson, 268. National Jefferson Society, 1903.
- Spellberg, Denise A. Thomas Jefferson's Qurʼan Islam and the Founders. New York: Vintage, 2014, 3.
- Ibid., 159.
- 2012. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2012/07/01/The-Jews-of-early-America/stories/201207010164.