Jews and the Civil War: A Reader

4. The Abolitionists and the Jews: Some Further Thoughts

145 4 The Abolitionists and the Jews Some Further Thoughts Louis Ruchames About twenty-five years ago, in a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society,1 this writer delivered a rather vigorous critique of the views of Isaac Mayer Wise and Bertram Korn— especially of the latter’s volume, American Jewry and the Civil War2 —concerning the abolitionists and other antislavery leaders. The paper was essentially polemical in nature. It consisted, for the most part, of a defense of the antislavery movement against the accusations that had been made against it by Wise and Korn, who, in the words of this writer, pictured abolitionists “as power-hungry politicians, heedless of the welfare of minority groups other than Negroes, and guilty of prejudice and discriminatory acts toward foreigners and Jews.”3 It did not pretend to be a complete evaluation of all that had been written by antislavery men and women about foreigners and Jews. It sought rather to provide evidence warranting a different and more sympathetic interpretation of a misunderstood and much maligned group of American reformers. In essence, it argued, their efforts were concentrated upon helping the free Negro and the slave, for these were the most oppressed elements of the population of their day; but their devotion to equal rights extended also to the Jew, the foreigner and members of other minority groups. Although one sometimes finds in their letters and other writings expressions of racial stereotypes and prejuReprinted with permission of Ktav Publishing House from A Bicentennial Festschrift for Jacob Rader Marcus, ed. Bertram Korn (New York: Ktav, 1976), 505–516, copyright © 1976 by Ktav Publishing House, Inc. 146 Louis Ruchames dices, concerning both Negroes and Jews, these are infrequent and atypical, and do not affect their devotion to equal rights for Negroes and Jews.4 In the perspective of twenty-five years, a rereading of the essay evokes several thoughts. First, because of its limited theme and polemical nature, the essay presents a negative impression of Korn’s volume, one that does not accord with this writer’s view of the volume as a whole. For American Jewry and the Civil War is an important contribution to our understanding of the history of American Jewry during the Civil War, of the many political and social issues which it faced, and its relations to the broader American community. Whatever Korn’s views of abolitionist attitudes toward the Jews, these constitute but a very small portion of the entire work, which is a distinguished contribution to the history of the period. Second, although the essay mentioned abolitionist “racial stereotypes and prejudices,” it emphasized that these were “infrequent and atypical” and did not weaken the abolitionist devotion to equal rights for Jews and Negroes. It may not be amiss, however, to discuss the nature of these stereotypes and prejudices, some of which are to be found in the writings of the most prominent abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison. There are several references to Jews and Judaism in his letters and editorials, almost always of a religious and derogatory nature. Thus, on September 23, 1836, in a letter to Samuel May, a prominent abolitionist and Unitarian clergyman , who was then a minister in South Scituate, Massachusetts, Garrison writes as follows: O, the rottenness of Christendom! Judaism and Romanism are the leading features of Protestantism. I am forced to believe, that, as it respects the greater portion of professing Christians in this land, Christ has died in vain. In their traditions, their forms and ceremonies, their vain janglings, their self-righteousness, their will-worship, their sectarian zeal and devotion , their infallibility and exclusiveness, they are Pharisees and Sadducees, they are Papists and Jews.5 A year later, in another letter, he exclaims, “What an oath-taking, warmaking , man-enslaving religion is that which is preached, professed, and practised in this country! . . . Its main pillars are Judaism and Popery.”6 Finally, in a reply to a newspaper editor in Boston, who had attacked him for Christian infidelity and for non-attendance at Sunday church services, Garrison writes: “It is one of your legal impostures to represent a building The Abolitionists and the Jews 147 made of bricks and mortar as ‘the house of God.’ There is no such holy locality, or holy building on earth, and if you were not groping in Jewish darkness, you would perceive this truth.”7 In these excerpts, Garrison expresses...