In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

JEWISH SEGREGATIONISTS Looking back on the desegregation crisis, the white liberal journalist Pat Watters observed, "One of the sadder phenomena across the South was the figure of the lonely, fearful Jew who sought to outbigot his white neighbors, not merely a member but a leader, often, in the Citizens' Councils." Council membership lists are hard to come by. What evidence there is suggests that Jews did not join in large numbers. Although it would be absurd to claim scientific credibility for such a statistic, of some seventysix identifiable applications to the Capitol Citizens' Council of Little Rock, none, for instance, were signed by Jews.1 When Jews did join the Councils, it was often under duress. Faced with social ostracism, economic boycott, and the occasional death threat, they had little alternative. The smallera community, the more immediatelyidentifiable were those individualswho refused membershipwithin the Council. Take one small town of twelve thousand where only five Jewish familieslived. "This is my home and I want to stay here," exclaimed a member of one of those families . "I gave them my money and now maybe they'll forget it. I didn't feel I could stay here and not join."2 Yet there did exist those Jews who joined the Citizens' Council out of a genuine support for its segregationist ideals. As the white liberal journalist Hodding Carter ruefully observed, "One reason the Councils do not move against the Jewish citizens of Mississippi isthat in manycases they do, in truth, share the Council's views." Corroboration for this statement camein the form of an editorial published by the Jackson Daily News'm response to the expulsion of Jews from the North Alabama Citizens' Council. The paper wasadamant that such an episode should not be repeated in Mississippi. "That antiSemitism should be injected into the segregation battle in the South seems most unfortunate to Southern leaders who know that there are manyJewish patriots in Dixie—outstanding citizens just asdevoted to the cause of States' Rights asthe most ardent of Southern Gentiles."3 6 JEWISH SEGREGATIONISTS 115 This might initially appear a rather contentious remark. We have already seen that Jews ordinarily joined the Citizens' Council not out of any ideological conviction but as a means of deflecting attention from their true feelings on the race issue. Yetin Jackson itself one of the most articulate spokespersons in defense of segregation was indeed a Jew, Al Binder. Binder, an attorney, was closely associatedwith the power structure, not only in Jackson but throughout the state. It washe who led the prosecution of the Freedom Riders in May 1961. "Al's one of us," asserted leaders of the Mississippimassive resistance movement. "He's our Jew."4 Binder wasnot the only Jewwho publiclysupported the massiveresistance movement. Others were actively involved, especiallyin the Deep South. The earliest recruits to the Montgomery Citizens' Council includedfinancierLes Weinstein. Investigating the Citizens' Council phenomenon in the mid1950s , journalist Stan Opotowsky reported that the organization indeed enjoyed the ardent support of many Jews across the state of Alabama. "Let the New York Jews lick the anti-Semitism in their own back yard and leave us alone," snarled one Jewish Council member. "We're not complaining." A significant number of Alabama Jews also actively supported segregationist governor George Wallace,including Rubin Hanan, a leader of the Sephardic community in Montgomery.5 The vehement support of a minority of southern Jewsfor racial segregation is also evident from a letter written by a Jewish Council member to New Orleans rabbi Julian Feibelman. According to this anonymous author, Feibelman had no right to involve himself in the integration issue. Using the example of Israel, where Moslem and Jewish children were educated separately, the author argued that segregation was an essential element of Jewish social custom. "If segregation is sinful and in violation of the Jewish religion," he wrote, "then I guess that I'll have to join many of your relatives and myrelatives that will have preceded me to the domain of Satan."6 Further evidence of active Jewish participation in the Citizens' Council came in 1957. The Association of Citizens' Councils issued three leaflets, expounding the segregationist position from the viewpoint of a Protestant, a Catholic, and a Jew. Ironically, the anonymous author of A Jewish View on Segregation eschewed any religious justification for Jim Crow. His argument was one espoused endlessly by white southerners: that the innate inferiority of African Americans would leave them incapable of competing on equal terms in an integrated society. What northerners failed...

Share