Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans

Rabbi Ira E. Sanders

Rabbi Ira E. Sanders One of the most amazing religious leaders inArkansas history is Reform Jewish Rabbi Ira E. Sanders of Little Rock’s Temple B’nai Israel. Over a tenure of thirty-seven years, and another twenty-two years as rabbi emeritus, Sanders was a mighty presence on both the religious and secular fronts.His pioneering work for social welfare brought about a more humane society, and he mentored others to carry on the work. He took a firm stand against racial segregation long before most other white religious leaders found the courage to stand up. Ira Eugene Sanders was born on May ,,in Rich Hill,Missouri, the son of Pauline and Daniel Sanders. His father was a wholesale meat packer. The family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, when Ira was six, and he attended local public schools there. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in  and then entered Hebrew Union College, a leading seminary for followers of the reform movement. He later received a graduate degree in sociology from Columbia University. On March , , Sanders married Selma Loeb, a fellow Rich Hill, Missouri, native and a Wellesley graduate. They had one child, Flora Louise. After ordination in , Sanders served a congregation in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and in  he became an associate rabbi at Temple Israel in NewYork City. One spring day in , Rabbi Sanders gave a sermon on “Why the North and the South Should Meet Together.” Among the audience members stirred by the heartfelt message of reconciliation and healing of old Civil War wounds was the “Pulpit Committee” from Temple B’nai Israel of Little Rock. They immediately asked Sanders to accept the leadership of their synagogue. Sanders arrived at the Little Rock train station on September ,, and was not pleased with what he found.Compared to NewYork,Little Rock seemed provincial and isolated, but he agreed to give it a try. Little Rock was probably not as unwelcoming to a new Jewish rabbi as one might assume. The city had a long tradition of religious  toleration, with Jews holding political and social positions of note. Historian Carolyn Gray LeMaster of Little Rock noted in her encyclopedic history of Judaism in Arkansas, A Corner of the Tapestry (), that of thirty-six social and fraternal clubs in Little Rock in , twenty-five had Jewish members. Sanders’s predecessor at Temple B’nai Israel, Rabbi Emanuel Jack, a World War I veteran, was aVeteran of Foreign Wars commander and chairman of the American Legion’s Americanization Committee.(It is true that some candidates endorsed by the revived Ku Klux Klan won election in Pulaski County in , but the hooded bigots saw their power wane quickly.) Sanders threw himself into his new community. He immediately noticed the need for improved social services for the poor. Within a year of arriving,he began the Little Rock School of Social Work,which soon became a part of the University of Arkansas extension program. Within two years, the school had sixty tuition-paying students. The School of Social Work was the source of a bitter lesson in racial segregation for the newly arrived Sanders.When three black students applied to the school, Sanders accepted them. He overrode the objections of white students,but he could not convince university officials to disregard state laws mandating segregation in the classroom. Sanders managed to keep the School of Social Work going during the Great Depression,and many of his students took jobs with the federal relief programs created during the New Deal. Sanders was the founding president of the Pulaski County Public Welfare Commission and helped create the Arkansas Human Betterment League,the Urban League of Greater Little Rock, and the Lighthouse for the Blind. He served on the board of the Little Rock Public Library for forty-one years. The new rabbi also made a splash in the local press when he invited the great defense lawyer and religious skeptic Clarence Darrow to come to Little Rock for a debate. Sanders came up with the idea as a way to raise money for the new Temple Men’s Club. On November , , more than two thousand people filled the auditorium at the new Central High School to hear Sanders debate Darrow on the question “Is man immortal?” The rabbi made his case without ever mentioning God, Judaism, Christianity,or religion in general.He took a scientific approach,which Rabbi Ira E. Sanders  might have surprised...