Black-Jewish Relations on Trial: Leo Frank and Jim Conley in the New South (review)

This book addresses two compelling issues for Jewish Americans—the Leo Frank case and the continuing interest in its outcome, and the evolution of Black-Jewish relations. Melnick uses the Frank trial to analyze the nuances of that intergroup relationship. What is presented then is a very detailed study of an event along with a more important discussion of the interaction of Blacks and Jews.

Given the number of publications already covering the Frank case, Melnick offers little that is new about its essential elements. However, by drawing from that literature and developing his own detailed analytical framework, the author is able to present a carefully constructed work that does provide an informative portrait.

What is clear, as the book notes, is that regardless of the outcome of the trial, both Frank and Conley were victims of racial stereotyping—from Whites, Jews and Blacks. For example, those who defended Frank for racial reasons often used racial arguments to condemn Conley. Jewish and Black stereotypes were played off against each other as each groups' status in the South became connected. The trial itself then served the interests of southern Whites but split Blacks and Jews for, if Frank did not commit the crime, then Conley must have. Yet, after Frank's lynching, as Melnick contends, Blacks and Jews were able to form an alliance as mutual minority victims of majority bigotry.

The history of this alliance has become a recent focal point of interest. How did it emerge? What was the basis for it? How has it shifted over the years? Melnick is correct to say that this relationship cannot be viewed in a linear fashion but only as an ever changing association. But is this really a new interpretation? A look at intergroup relations studies reveals that all alliances and relationships are tenuous and transitory. Ethnic and racial groups are essentially interest groups and form their alliances, or define their rivals, based on their particular needs, real or imagined, at a specific time and place. Black-Jewish relations fit that common mold whether it is the Leo Frank case, the Civil Rights Movement or the 1968 New York City school controversy which is being discussed. Therefore while the author makes a good argument for understanding Black-Jewish relations as a "constant shifting of gears—from competitors to colleagues and back again (p. 132), this interpretation is hardly new to students of intergroup dynamics.

Furthermore, Melnick also is certainly correct in saying that African American-Jewish relations occur and should be understood in the context of White American attitudes toward each of these groups. Yet, how the majority perceives minorities is not necessarily the most important context. Minority-minority views are also important. Jews and Blacks form opinions and relate to each other separate from how the majority sees them. This scenario is especially applicable in areas where Blacks or Jews are the majority and are less defined by other Americans.

In all, this is a book worth reading. It adds to our understanding of the Frank case and its importance in the history of Black-Jewish relations. The trial has been, as the author states, "a jumping off point for so many artistic and rhetorical evaluations of the relationship of African Americans and Jews" (p. 132), and for that reason alone it deserves the special attention and analysis Melnick gives the case. Students of American Jewish history will find much that is useful in his study, but the book would have generated added interest for other scholars if Leo Frank, Jim Conley, Black-White and Black-Jewish relations had been discussed in the larger context of American intergroup relations. The short epilogue could easily have been expanded to broaden the study and contribute to the larger intergroup story.