Jews and the Civil War: A Reader

3. Revolution and Reform: The Antebellum Jewish Abolitionists

125 3 Revolution and Reform The Antebellum Jewish Abolitionists Jayme A. Sokolow Many antebellum abolitionists condemned discrimination throughout the world and tried to enlist the aid of traditionally oppressed ethnic groups in the antislavery crusade. They were spectacularly unsuccessful, however, in soliciting Irish support.1 The antebellum Jews’ apparent unwillingness to participate in the emancipation struggle also puzzled and hurt the abolitionists . In the 1853 report of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society , they wondered why the Jews of the United States have never taken any steps whatever with regard to the Slavery question. As citizens, they deem it their policy “to have everyone choose which ever side he may deem best to promote his own interests and the welfare of his country.” . . . It cannot be said that the Jews have formed any denominational opinion on the subject of American slavery . . . . The objects of so much mean prejudice and unrighteous oppression as the Jews have been for ages, surely they, it would seem, more than any other denomination, ought to be the enemies of caste, and the friends of universal freedom.2 The abolitionists’ evaluation was essentially correct. Before the 1850s, there were only a few scattered examples of Jewish antislavery activities. While some Jews emancipated their slaves, most Southern Jews accepted Reprinted, without accompanying table, with permission of Jayme A. Sokolow from the Journal of Ethnic Studies 9 (Spring 1981): 27–43. Jayme A. Sokolow is founder and president of the Development Source, Inc. 126 Jayme A. Sokolow and defended slavery until the Civil War ended. They supported the peculiar institution because Southern Jews lived in a proslavery environment, profited economically and psychologically from slavery, and lacked Reform Jewish temples which might have challenged slavery. Most antebellum northern and midwestern Jews also maintained a discreet silence on the subject. Their European experiences and religious traditions, their lowly economic and educational backgrounds, and the fear of antisemitic backlash made them politically conservative and detached from controversial causes outside the scope of Judaism.3 Previous scholars have examined the abolitionists’ attitude toward antebellum Jews, but they have ignored any significant abolitionist activities by pre–Civil War Jews.4 Bertram W. Korn, a prominent historian of nineteenth -century American Judaism, has contended that most abolitionist leaders were uninterested in defending the civil rights of Jews and sometimes uttered antisemitic statements because their obsessive concern for Blacks blinded them to the plight of the Jews.5 Although the abolitionists could have been more vocal during the Mortara case and Grant’s infamous 1862 Order No. 11 barring Jews from trading in Tennessee, Louis Ruchames’s contentions appear valid: the antislavery crusade’s attempts to help Blacks involved a considerable effort to understand and defend Judaism.6 In the 1850s, however, Jewish abolitionists emerged who publicly criticized slavery and participated in antebellum America’s most controversial reform. By examining the social backgrounds, careers, and ideology of the Jewish abolitionists, we can better understand the origins and complexity of antebellum abolitionism and the momentous changes taking place in American Judaism, for with one exception all the Jewish abolitionists were Reform Jewish émigrés. While most native abolitionists were motivated by evangelical Protestantism and American democratic ideals, the Jewish abolitionists’ decision to participate in antislavery activities was primarily a function of their European political and religious experiences. Until the 1840s, Jewish immigration to America usually involved individuals and isolated families. After this period there was a mass migration of German and Eastern European Jews (Austria, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia) which raised America’s Jewish population from 50,000 in 1850 to 150,000 by the Civil War. During this decade the number of congregations increased from 37 to 77; seating capacity almost doubled from 19,588 to 34,412, and there was a threefold increase in the value of religious Revolution and Reform 127 property. In 1850 there were eleven states with congregations; by 1860, nineteen states, led by New York and Pennsylvania, registered congregations according to the second American Census of Social Statistics. Crop failures, the disruption of internal trade, the failures of the 1848 revolutions , and continuous outbreaks of antisemitic violence propelled Jews to America.7 From these immigrant ranks came all the Jewish abolitionists. The revolutions of 1848 encouraged two groups of Jews to enter America . The largest group migrated because they were determined to find the personal opportunity, economic freedom, and civic equality denied them in Europe. For these immigrants...