Anti-Semitism Burned In Jewish Souls, As Enslavement Tortures African Americans
The roots of anti-Semitism are deep and bathed in blood, based on situations that are often misunderstood, misstated and intentionally minimized and repeated by those who have for many years blamed the Jews for the world’s problems.
To the victims of anti-Semitism, the accusations are nothing new as they reverberate painfully through the centuries. Most think of the Holocaust but anti-Semitism is so much more. It is the stories of Leo Frank, the victims of the Farhud, those falsely accused of the blood libel, those who were murdered in the Granada massacre, blamed for spreading the Black Death and and much more.
Non-Jews cannot understand anti-Semitism any more than whites cannot grasp the horror of enslavement or Americans of European background cannot possibly fathom the systematic murder and genocide of native Americans and theft of their homelands by conquering armies. Emotions hardened by a history of persecution are hard wired into the hearts and minds of Jews, African Americans and native Americans. Every Jew feels the horror of anti-Semitism; every African American feels the burning of the noose; every native American feels the whip as he is driven from his home.
The only way to avoid another cultural genocide is for the children to learn the realities and causes of violence through the years. Those who would whitewash history would do well to learn from the philosopher George Santayana, who said famously, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Right wing, historical revisionists preach that the schools are no place to teach about the historical events that shaped anti-Semitism and racism. Schools have been largely successful in keeping unsavory information about anti-Semitism and racism largely out of the textbooks. But with anti-Semitism and white racism surging, it is critical that all Americans understand the deep history of hatred and violence.
Some incidents of anti-Semitism are well known, others are shrouded in the fog of history but are no less an impact on Jews.
Nearly 22 million immigrants from all over the world entered the U.S. between 1881 and 1914. They included approximately 1.5 million European Jews who hoped to escape anti-Semitism of Europe, where Jews often were limited where they could live, what kinds of universities they could attend and what kinds of professions they could hold. Many American nativists opposed much of the immigration while the nation crafted laws to restrict immigrants. As the rejection of immigrants grew, so did anti-Semitism.
Among the Jewish immigrants was Leo M. Frank, a 30-year-old businessman who lived in Atlanta, Ga. Frank was the supervisor of the National Pencil Co. factory in Atlanta. In 1912, Frank was lynched in Marietta, Ga. by a mob that was convinced that Frank had murdered a teenage girl and must pay the ultimate price. Members of the mob that lynched Frank were active in the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. As a result, a wave of anti-Semitism swept the South and led to creation of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
The lifeless body of 14-year-old Mary Phagan was discovered in the basement of the pencil company factory on the morning of Confederate Memorial Day, April 27 (1912). The girl had been strangled after she went to collect the $1.20 she was owed for 10 hours of work the previous Monday.
The N.Y. Tribune reported that “James Conley, a negro sweeper, swore he had stood guard outside the factory office while Frank was alone with the Phagan girl and later helped Frank carry the body to the basement.” There were no other witnesses to the alleged crime.
The general consensus among modern historians is that Frank was wrongfully convicted of the murder. Alzono Mann of Bristol, Va., was Frank’s office boy in 1913 and many years later, he said that Conley had murdered the child and that he had seen Conley carrying the limp body.
The reaction to the guilty verdict were quick and resounding. As reported by the N.Y. Tribune, “As the news flashed to the crowd outside the courthouse there was loud cheering. Mounted policemen rode through the throng but the demonstration continued.
“As he stepped into the street, Solicitor Hugh Dorsey, who conducted the prosecution, was lifted to the shoulders of several men and carried more than a hundred feet through the shouting throng. Judge Roan also cheered.”
An editorial in the Jan. 18, 1915, Leavenworth Echo, noted that Frank was likely killed because he was Jewish.
“The well-meaning people of Atlanta appear to have a dislike for Jews and when it became known that circumstances pointed toward Frank having committed this awful deed, the citizens of that city and throughout all of Georgia Rose up, as if in one voice, cried for Frank’s execution. ‘Kill the damned Jew,’ was the most common remark on the streets of that southern city. The Georgians did not wait to see what would be the outcome of his trial, in their eyes he was guilty. The judge, the jury, and even Frank’s attorneys were threatened with death if he was not convicted.”
Frank was sentenced to death and the U.S. Supreme Court later refused his appeal to overturn the conviction. The Evening Public Ledger reported on Aug. 17, 1915, that before the execution was carried out, “Frank had been kidnapped at midnight from the Milledgeville prison farm by a mob of 20 men who overpowered the guards, was whisked away in one of seven or eight automobiles carrying the lynching party and was hanged from a tree near Marieta, the birthplace of Mary Phagan.
“The body was not finally cut down until after speeches had been made by a number of persons in the crowd. One address was by a Marietta man said to have slapped Detective W.J. Burns’ face when Burns was investigating the Frank case here. He urged that the body be mutilated. After the entire crowd had voted against mutilation, the body was lowered from the tree…
“There were then several thousand people in the crowd about the tree when the body was cut down. Despite Judge Morris’ pleadings, several men in the throng leaped forward as the body was laid on the ground and stamped on the face with their heels.”
Dr. Joseph Krauskopf, rabbi of Keneseth Israel Temple, Atlanta, wrote: “We cry out against the barbarity of European belligerents but what of our own barbarity, when such a lynching as that of Leo Frank or any other lynching, is possible within the shadow of the courthouses, the churches and the schools. We began with lynching negroes. Now comes the crime against Frank and there is no telling where lynching may end.”
The Farhud
A turning point in the history of Jews in Iraq was an outbreak of mob violence against the Jewish population on June 1, 1941, an incident known in Arabic as the “Farhud,” best translated as “pogrom” or “violent dispossession.”
Jewish communities had lived in the region since the 6th century BCE, hundreds of years before Muslim communities established a presence in Iraq during the 7th century. The Jews lived in separate communities but shared the Arab culture with Muslim and Christian neighbors.
The Iraqi state was established in 1921 and under the British Mandate, Jews were full-fledged citizens, free to vote and hold elected office. The Jewish community had four to six representatives in the Parliament and one member in the Senate. The status of the Jews did not change in 1932, when Iraq gained independence under British informal rule.
In the 1940s about 135,000 Jews lived in Iraq, accounting for nearly 3 percent of the total population. About 90,000 Jews were in Baghdad, 10,000 in Basra, and the rest scattered throughout many small towns and villages.
In the spring of 1941, the allies were losing the war. Most of Europe had fallen to the Axis forces, and British chances of winning the war appeared slim. The victories of the Axis severely impacted Britain’s presence in the Middle East. The Vichy government controlled Syria and Lebanon and Egypt’s government was pro-Axis. At this time, emboldened by the anti-Jewish violence, Hitler issued his Order 30, stepping up German offensive operations.
“The Arab Freedom Movement in the Middle East is our natural ally against England. In this connection special importance is attached to the liberation of Iraq … I have therefore decided to move forward in the Middle East by supporting Iraq,” Hitler wrote.
On April 2, 1941, Rashid ‘Ali al-Kailani, an anti-British nationalist politician from one of the leading families in Baghdad, led a military coup against the pro-British government in Iraq. Al-Kailani formed a pro-Nazi government, with the support of the Iraqi Army and administration. The rise of the pro-German government was a clear and dire threat to Iraqi Jews.
On the afternoon of June 1, 1941, British troops surrounded Baghdad, and the Jews believed that the danger from the pro-Nazi regime had passed. The Jews began celebrating the traditional Jewish harvest festival holiday of Shavuot when riots broke out. The riots, known as the Farhud, lasted for two days, ending on June 2, 1941.
After the Farhud, Baghdad’s Jews became increasingly worried about Axis victories in the war, increasing violence in Palestine, growing Iraqi nationalist opposition, and the departure of the British from Iraq.
Rioters murdered between 150 and 180 Jews, injured 600 others, and raped an undetermined number of women. They also looted around 1,500 stores and homes. Rioting ended on June 2, 1941, when Iraqi troops entered Baghdad, killed hundreds of the mob and reestablished order.
The Farhud was explained by Arab writers as a consequence of Zionist activity in the Middle East. Iraq’s Jews now perceived that their lives were threatened not just in Europe but also in the Middle East. In 1943, because of both the ongoing murder of European Jewry as well as anti-Semitism in Arab countries, Iraq’s Jewish communities were included in Zionist plans for immigration and establishing the Jewish state. By 1951, 10 years after the Farhud, most of the Iraqi Jewish community (about 124,000 Jews out of 135,000) had immigrated to Israel.
Many in the Arab nationalist movement and the religious and conservative right saw the Jews as collaborators and beneficiaries of British colonialism and its alleged Iraqi puppets.
Blood Libel Myth
A popular myth from more than 800 years ago is still circulating. It is called the blood libel myth. According to the myth, Jews began to ritually kill Christian children in the mid-12th century, after the death of 12-year-old William of Norwich, England, in 1144. Europeans later claimed that Jews murdered Christian children to use their blood. Jews were charged with poisoning wells and desecrating the communion host.
The conspiracy was furthered with development of the printing press in the mid-15th century. Tales were rampant of Jews killing Christians, notably Simon of Trent, a toddler whose body was found under a Jewish house in 1475.
Blood libels often claim that Jews require human blood to bake the matzos, an unleavened flatbread which is eaten during Passover. Earlier versions of the blood libel accused Jews of ritually re-enacting the crucifixion.
The repeat of the blood libel myth that began in early modern Europe spread to eight countries in 10 languages and remains a vibrant driver of anti-Semitism. In 2014 the Anti-Defamation League called on Facebook to take down a page titled “Jewish Ritual Murder.” The next year white supremacists gathered in England to honor Little Hugh of Lincoln as a sacrificial victim of the Jews.
In an interview which aired on Al-Hafez TV on May 12, 2013, Khaled Al-Zaafrani of the Egyptian Justice and Progress Party, said, “It’s well known that during the Passover, they [the Jews] make matzos called the ‘Blood of Zion.’ They take a Christian child, slit his throat and slaughter him. Then they take his blood and make their [matzos]. This is a very important rite for the Jews, which they never forgo… They slice it and fight over who gets to eat Christian blood.”
In the same interview, Al-Zaafrani said that “The French kings and the Russian czars discovered this in the Jewish quarters. All the massacring of Jews that occurred in those countries were because they discovered that the Jews had kidnapped and slaughtered children, in order to make the Passover matzos.”
Granada Massacre
On Dec. 30, 1066, a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada in Muslim-ruled Spain, crucified the Jewish vizier and slaughtered thousands of Jewish residents in what has been termed the Granada massacre.
Granada was the last bastion of Muslim rule before it fully fell to Spain in 1492. The Jewish presence in Granada goes back to the destruction of the First Temple, in the year 711. During the period of Muslim rule, the Jewish population thrived as Jews enjoyed more freedoms and prosperity than they had for over a thousand years, and Jewish culture, philosophy and science blossomed.
In later years of Muslim rule, Jews became victims of slander, notably by one, Ibrahim ibn Masud ibn Saad al-Tujibi, also known as Abu Ishaq.
“Do not consider it a breach of faith to kill them (Jews), the breach of faith would be to let them carry on. They have violated our covenant with them, so how can you be held guilty against the violators? How can they have any pact when we are obscure and they are prominent? Now we are humble, beside them, as if we were wrong and they were right!” said al-Tujibi.
The Granada massacre is traced back to the growing anti-Semitism. Not all Jews were killed, many others were forced to flee, selling their homes and lands to leave Granada. Ultimately, the long history of Jewish life in Granada ended in 1492, when the Jews were expelled from Spain.
Jews and the Black Death
The Black Death also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague was a bubonic plague pandemic that spread through Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. The pandemic killed 75 million to 200 million people, with 25 to 45 percent of Europe perishing. The Jews were accused of being a major cause of the plague by poisoning the wells that led to the outbreak. Jews were persecuted, many were murdered and hundreds of communities were abolished, sanctuaries were desecrated, and books and Torah scrolls were confiscated.
Kishinev Pogrom of 1903
Pogroms in the Russian Empire were large-scale, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish rioting. They began in the 19th century after Imperial Russia acquired territories with large Jewish populations from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire from 1772 to 1815. The pogroms largely took place in these territories where Jews were required to live in the designated “Pale of Settlement.”
The first pogroms were in 1821 in Odessa. After the Greek Orthodox patriarch, Gregory V, was executed in Constantinople, 14 Jews were killed in response.
By 1905, as many as 200,000 Jews were murdered in an estimated 600 massacres.
By Russian standards, the Kishinev pogrom brief as pogroms went. In three days in 1903, 49 Jews were killed, 600 Jewish women were raped and hundreds were injured. Until the Holocaust, the Kishinev pogrom defined anti-Jewish persecution.
The 1903 Kishinev pogrom started when an anti-Semitic newspaper wrote that a Christian Russian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubossary, and that Jews killed him in order to use the blood in preparation of matzo.
One of Kishinev’s chief instigators, the publisher, Pavel Krushevan, published the anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The fabricated text, still a major aspect of anti-Semitic thought, claimed to detail a Jewish plot for global domination. The protocols have been translated into multiple languages, and have played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. The notorious hoax made it into the hands of anti-Semites worldwide, including Henry Ford, who published half a million copies in the U.S.
Steven J. Zipperstein author of “Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History,” wrote that the Kishinev pogrom “was a moment that cast a shadow so deep, wide, and variegated as to leave its imprint on Jews, on Jew-haters, and on wounds licked ever since.”
Kishinev was home to about 55,000 Jews among a population of 280,000. The city is now known as Chisinau, and is the capital of the Republic of Moldova. As with other attacks against Jews, the Kishinev pogrom began with a “blood libel.”
“From its start their attack on Jews was justified as self-defense, a reasonable response to a pariah people, capable of any and all transgressions,” wrote Zipperstein.
By 1903, Zionist leaders began to meet on the shores of the Black Sea to plan for the Jewish future. Some heard of the Kishinev massacre and began to reconsider their beliefs about Jewish passivity. The impact of the pogrom was intensified with photographs published of the atrocities. One image showed 45 murdered victims laid out in prayer shawl.
In pre-state Israel, accounts of the violence from new immigrants helped spark creation of the self-defense group Bar-Giora, a forerunner to the Israel Defense Forces.