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“The Jew Usually Left Those Crimes to Esau”: The Jewish Responses to Accusations about Jewish Criminality in New York, 1908–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2014

Gil Ribak
Gil Ribak*
Affiliation:
American Jewish University, Los Angeles, California
*
gribak@aju.edu
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Abstract

This article examines how communal activists, leaders, intellectuals, and the Yiddish press understood and reacted to charges regarding purported Jewish criminality, which accusers often linked to the need to curtail immigration to America. The Jewish self-image as a nonviolent people proved to be quite resilient, and one of the ways to reconcile the existence of Jewish criminals with that self-perception was to put the blame on the surrounding (American) influence, or to evoke generalized negative images of gentiles as a foil for applauding Jewish qualities. New York Jews construed their relations with the larger non-Jewish society as a continuation of old-world patterns of Jewish-gentile relations rather than a change or reversal of them. The criminal episodes demonstrated how a cultural net of transnational meanings shaped Jews' understanding and reaction to allegations against them.

Type
Research Article
Information
AJS Review , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , April 2014 , pp. 1 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2014 

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References

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47. One can only mention a fraction of the literature about the “true womanhood” ideal: Eisenstein, Sarah, Give Us Bread but Give Us Roses: Working Women's Consciousness in the United States, 1890 to the First World War (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983), 32–33Google Scholar; Glenn, Susan A., Daughters of the Shtetl: Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 79, 207–27Google Scholar; Klapper, Melissa R., Jewish Girls Coming of Age in America, 1860–1920 (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 137–38Google Scholar; Cogan, Frances B., All-American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America (Athens: Georgia University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

48. This quote is in Goren, New York Jews, 143.

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50. Lesin wrote in the Forverts, October 30, 1909, 5. See also Forverts, October 29, 1909, 4.

51. MZ, October 25, 1909, 4. On the conservative politics of the Morgen zhurnal, see Goren, Arthur A., The Politics and Public Culture of American Jews (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 100–09Google Scholar. See also Henderson, Thomas M., Tammany Hall and the New Immigrants: The Progressive Years (New York: Arno, 1976)Google Scholar, 41. On Charles Murphy's career see Allen, Oliver E., The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall (Reading, MA: Addison, Wesley, 1993), 206–31Google Scholar. Allen has argued that Murphy reduced Tammany's involvement in prostitution. Weiss, Nancy Joan, Charles Francis Murphy, 1858–1924: Respectability and Responsibility in Tammany Politics (Northampton, MA: Smith College, 1968)Google Scholar.

52. Tanenboym's piece appeared in MZ, October 31, 1909, 4. See also MZ, October 22, 1909, 4, October 25, 1909, 4, October 27, 1909, 4. See also the “anonymous” attack against the Christian “frumakes” (the self-righteous pious), MZ, November 7, 1909, 4. That attack focused on the Committee of Fourteen that was formed in 1905, partly to pursue the recommendations of its predecessor, the Committee of Fifteen. The committee had a few Jewish members, like rabbi H. Pereira Mendes and Isaac Seligman. Committee of Fourteen, Social Evil, xi.

53. YT, November 8, 1909, 4. Leon Zolotkof became the Tageblat's editor in 1911, and Bublik replaced him in 1915. Until 1914 Yankev Fishman was also a coeditor. On the personnel changes in the Tageblat see Khaykin, Yidishe bleter in amerike, 297–303.

54. YT, November 8, 1909, 4.

55. YT, October 29, 1909, 6. Cf. YT, November 2, 1909, 4.

56. Masliansky wrote in YT November 9, 1909, 4. See also Masliansky's attack on those who associated Jews with the white slave trade: The Minutes and Reports of HIAS Meetings and Conventions [11 January 1910], YIVO, HIAS Papers, reel 15.1.

57. MZ, October 25, 1909, 4; See also Varhayt, October 27, 1909, 4.

58. Daniels, Roger, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants since 1882 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004), 30–33Google Scholar; Zeidel, Robert F., Immigrants, Progressives and Exclusion Politics: The Dillingham Commission, 1900–1927 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004), 15–18Google Scholar, 25; Steffens, Lincoln, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (1931, reprinted New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1958), 2: 400Google Scholar. Higham, John, Send These to Me: Jews and Other Immigrants in Urban America (New York: Atheneum, 1975), 41–52Google Scholar; Asher, Robert, “Union Nativism and the Immigrant Response,” Labor History 23 (1982): 333–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59. Reports of the Immigration Commission, 37: 57, 77–78, 81. On Jewish criminals in general see Reports of the Immigration Commission, 36: 18–23, 69–70, 101–02, 194–95. Oscar Handlin's critique of the commission's conclusions is Reports of the Immigration Commission, 1: i–xlvi. See also Kraut, Alan M., The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880–1921 (Wheeling, Il: Harlan Davidson, 1982), 157–59Google Scholar; Boyer, Urban Masses, 191–204; Bennett, Marion T., American Immigration Policies: A History (Washington D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1963), 26–28Google Scholar; Zeidel, Immigrants, Progressives and Exclusion Politics, 26–50.

60. On working with other immigrant groups see the letter from the president of HIAS, Leon Sanders to Jacob Schiff, 10 January, 1911, YIVO, HIAS Papers, reel 15.16; Der amerikaner, January 13, 1911, 1–3. See also Goldstein, Judith S., Politics of Ethnic Pressure: The American Jewish Committee Fight against Immigration Restriction, 1907–1917 (New York: Garland, 1990), 66–134Google Scholar; Neuringer, Sheldon Morris, American Jewry and United States Immigration Policy, 1881–1953 (1969, reprinted New York: Arno, 1980), 82–84Google Scholar; Cohen, Naomi W., Not Free to Desist: The American Jewish Committee, 1906–1966 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1972), 37–53Google Scholar; Panitz, Esther, “In Defense of the Jewish Immigrant, 1891–1924,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 55 (1965): 57–97Google Scholar; Szajkowski, Zosa, “The Yahudi and the Immigrant: A Reappraisal,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 63 (1973): 13–44Google Scholar.

61. Syrkin was quoted in the YT, April 6, 1910: 4 (the paper quoted the St. Louis Star without providing a date). On Syrkin's brand of Zionism see Tsukerman, Borekh, Afn veg (New York: Yidisher kemfer, 1956), 59–118Google Scholar; Frankel, Jonathan, Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews 1862–1917 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 288–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62. Forverts, January 3, 1910, 4 (the word “superior” is in quotes and “certain” is emphasized in the original). Actually it was German Jewish anthropologist Franz Boas who headed the study on immigrants' physiognomy for the immigration commission—see Zeidel, Immigrants, Progressives and Exclusion Politics, 86–100.

63. Forverts, Auguat 11, 1910, 4 (quotes in the original). On the attempted assassination against Gaynor's life, see NYT, August 10, 1910, 1–5, August 11, 1910, 1–2. See also Thomas, Lately, The Mayor Who Mastered New York: The Life and Opinions of William J. Gaynor (New York: Morrow and Co., 1969), 290–95Google Scholar; Smith, Mortimer B., William Jay Gaynor: Mayor of New York (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), 104–07Google Scholar.

64. Hermalin wrote in Varhayt, April 10, 1911, 4.

65. A letter from Behar to Abraham Schomer, 18 July 1907, YIVO, Abraham Schomer Papers, box 1, folder 2. Jacob Schiff expressed a similar fear, in a letter (July 5, 1912) to Leon Sanders, YIVO, HIAS Papers, reel 15.16. On the league, see Lauterbach, Edward, “Keeping the Door Open: The Story of the National Liberal Immigration League,” American Citizen 1 (1912): 286–88Google Scholar; Hebrew Standard, June 8, 1906, 4; Forverts, June 4, 1906, 7; Goldstein, Politics of Ethnic Pressure, 105–07.

66. The most detailed account of Rosenthal's murder and its aftermath is in Andy Logan, Against the Evidence. A more recent popular history book that focuses more on Becker's trial is Cohen, Stanley, The Execution of Officer Becker: The Murder of a Gambler, the Trial of a Cop, and the Birth of Organized Crime (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006)Google Scholar. Henry H. Klein, a press agent for Hearst, who had covered this episode for the New York American, was convinced of Becker's innocence and argued that rival gamblers wanted to prevent Rosenthal from testifying— Klein, Henry H., Sacrificed: The Story of Police Lieutenant Charles Becker (New York: published by author, 1927)Google Scholar. New York American, July 17, 1912, 1, July 18, 1912, 1–2; World, July 13, 1912, 1, July 20, 1912, 1–2; NYT, July 16, 1912, 1; July 17, 1912, 1; Goren, New York Jews, 148–58; Joselit, Our Gang, 75–84; Fried, Rise and Fall, 72–81.

67. NYT, April 14, 1914, 1, July 31, 1915, 1; “The Rosenthal Murder and the System,” Outlook, July 27, 1912, 739; Literary Digest, July 27, 1912, 136; Logan, Against the Evidence, 68–80.

68. The New York Herald and Evening Telegraph are cited in Joselit, Our Gang, 76, 187 n.15. See also, Asbury, Gangs of New York, 340–43. Less than three months after Rosenthal's murder, Big Jack Zelig, whose gang included the three Jewish gunmen, was scheduled to testify before the grand jury that he had furnished the gunmen at Becker's behest. On October 5, 1912, a day before his testimony, a man called “Red Phil” Davidson shot and killed Zelig aboard a streetcar. Davidson was also Jewish—Logan, Against the Evidence, 170–71; Cohen, Execution of Officer Becker, 103–05.

69. World, July 8, 1912, 1, July 17, 1912, 18; NYT, July 8, 1912, 1, July 14, 1912, 9, July 19, 1912, 18; MZ, July 17, 1912, 1; July 19, 1912, 1. Frederic E. Rusch has claimed that Theodore Dreiser based much of the action and characters in his play, The Hand of the Potter, on the Swartz case—in A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia, ed. Newlin, Keith (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003), 177–78Google Scholar.

70. Sulzberger is quoted in Joselit, Our Gang, 77.

71. Varhayt, August 3, 1912, 4.

72. Caplan wrote in MZ, July 19, 1912, 5.

73. Magnes is quoted in American Hebrew, August 2, 1912, 365. See also Bogen, “Jews of Many Lands,” 3–4; James Forbes, “Where the Gunmen Come From,” Outlook, November 30, 1912, 719–22.

74. On the Kehillah's Bureau of Social Morals see the letter from Magnes to journalist Herman Bernstein, 6 August 1912, YIVO, Herman Bernstein Papers, folder 111. Jewish Community of New York, Fourth Annual Report (1913), 16–17. Abe Shoenfeld, NYPL, William Wiener Oral History Library of the American Jewish Committee, 125, 215. On the bureau and the Kehillah's crime fighting see Goren, New York Jews, 159–85. On other private civic organizations that fought vice in New York, see Waterman, Willoughby Cyrus, Prostitution and Its Repression in New York City, 1900–1931 (1932, reprinted New York: AMS, 1968), 80–116Google Scholar.

75. MZ, August 1, 1912, 4. Goren has argued that the Morgen zhurnal's publisher, Jacob Saphirstein, had a jaundiced view of any of the Kehillah's endeavors—New York Jews, 157.

76. Yidisher sotsyalist, March 15, 1914, 3. On the Jewish Socialist Federation, see Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 506–09, 512–13. On the “khapers” see Stanislawski, Michael, Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia, 1825–1855 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983), 13–34Google Scholar.

77. Forverts, July 27, 1912, 4.

78. Baranov wrote in Forverts, July 24, 1912, 4. See also, Forverts, July 21, 1912, 4.

79. Forverts, July 23, 1912, 4. Cf. Goren, New York Jews, 155–56.

80. MZ, July 18, 1912, 4.

81. MZ, August 1, 1912, 4.

82. MZ, July 22, 1912, 4. See also MZ, July 19, 1912, 1. On Jewish criminality in America as a one-generation phenomenon and its decline in the interwar period see Joselit, Our Gang, 157–67. See also Ellis, Lee, “Religiosity and Criminality: Evidence and Explanations of Complex Relations,” Sociological Perspectives 28 (1985): 509–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83. MZ, July 19, 1912, 5.

84. MZ, July 19, 1912, 5, Caplan's article and especially the argument about the dangers of physical training were ridiculed by radicals—see Groyser kundes, July 26, 1912, 6. Two years earlier, famous Yiddish poet Morris Rosenfeld criticized what he saw as the Jewish aversion to physical activity—Forverts, July 6, 1910, 4. On conceptions regarding Jews and physical weakness see Whitfield, Stephen J., “Unathletic Department,” in Jews, Sports, and the Rites of Citizenship, ed. Kugelmass, Jack, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 51–71.Google Scholar

85. MZ, August 1, 1912, 4. See also MZ, August 2, 1912, 4.

86. YT, July 15, 1912, 4. See also YT, July 29, 1912, 4, July 30, 1912, 4. The Tageblat's editor, Bublik, Gedaliah, criticized American Jews for considering themselves lower than gentiles—Min ha-meiẓar (New York: published by author, 1923), 22–23Google Scholar. A Brooklyn Yiddish weekly blamed the Jewish press for disseminating negative images of Jews as criminals: Bronzvil un ist nu york progres, November 28, 1913, 4.

87. YT, July 18, 1912, 4.

88. YT, April 13, 1914, 4.

89. YT, July 24, 1912, 4.

90. Varhayt, July 17, 1912, 4. A personal impression of Miller is by Kobrin, Leon, Mayne fuftsik yor in amerike (New York: YKUF, 1966), 108–14.Google Scholar

91. Varhayt, July 22, 1912, 4.

92. Varhayt, July 18, 1912, 4.

93. Varhayt, July 22, 1912, 4.

94. Goren, New York Jews, 155. That argument is cited in later scholarship: see Gertzman, Jay A., Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920–1940 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 121–22.Google Scholar

95. Varhayt, July 14, 1912, 4. Hermalin hinted that a powerful newspaper magnate (William Randolph Hearst) was responsible for the libel as a way to “get even” with Jews who supposedly did not support his political aspirations. On New York immigrant Jews and Hearst, see Ribak, Gentile New York, 81; a laudatory letter from Joseph Barondess to Hearst, 20 May 1903, NYPL, Joseph Barondess Papers, letterbook 8; NYT, November 3, 1905, 4; Rischin, Moses, The Promised City: New York Jews 1870–1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 229–33Google Scholar; Swanberg, W.A., Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961), 195–207, 230–38.Google Scholar

96. On the blood libel against Beilis see AJYB 5675 (1914/15), 19–89; Rogger, Hans, “The Beilis Case: Anti-Semitism and Politics in the Reign of Nicholas II,” Slavic Review 25 (1966): 615–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; most recently, Weinberg, Robert, Blood Libel in Late Imperial Russia: The Ritual Murder Trial of Mendel Beilis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013).Google Scholar

97. On the coverage of this case among American Jews, see Berkowitz, Joel, “The ‘Mendel Beilis Epidemic’ on the Yiddish Stage,” Jewish Social Studies 8 (2001): 199–225Google Scholar; Lifshits, Yekhezkel, “Hedei ‘alilat ha-dam ‘al Beilis be-’amerikah,” Zion 28 (1963): 206–22.Google Scholar

98. Varhayt, August 3, 1912, 4.

99. Hermalin, Dovid M., Zhurnalistishe shriftn (New York: Hebrew Publishing, 1912), 72–73.Google Scholar

100. Varhayt, July 17, 1912, 4.

101. Varhayt, July 30, 1912, 4.

102. Varhayt, July 27, 1912, 4.

103. Varhayt, July 22, 1912, 4.

104. NYT, August 2, 1912, 2. See also Thomas, The Mayor Who Mastered New York, 417, 137–42, 424–27; Smith, William Jay Gaynor, 131; Allen, The Tiger, 227–30.

105. Gaynor's explanation was in a letter to B. E. Greenspan (Aug. 1, 1912), in Gaynor, William Jay, Some of Mayor Gaynor's Letters and Speeches (New York: Greaves, 1913), 91–92Google Scholar. In 1910 Gaynor defended Jews and attacked missionaries who tried to convert them—Gaynor, Letters and Speeches, 21.

106. Wise is quoted in Logan, Against the Evidence, 96.

107. MZ, July 29, 1912, 4.

108. YT, August 1, 1912, 4. The Forverts termed Gaynor's words “foolish” but added that Gaynor was not antisemitic —July 28, 1912, 4.

109. Varhayt, July 31, 1912, 4. One historian has argued that the incident did not weaken Jewish support—Pink, Louis Heaton, Gaynor: The Tammany Mayor Who Swallowed the Tiger (New York: International Press, 1931), 220–23Google Scholar. See also Goren, New York Jews, 182–83.

110. The quote is in Filler, Louis, Crusaders for American Liberalism (1939, new edition Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch, 1950), 117–18Google Scholar. For a similar view, see Glanz, Rudolf, “Jewish Social Conditions as Seen by the Muckrakers,” Studies in Judaica Americana (New York: Ktav, 1970), 384–407Google Scholar. Cf. Burton Hendricks, “The Jewish Invasion of New York,” McClure's Magazine 41 (March 1913): 138–41. On the WASP, middle-class proponents of reform see Hofstadter, Age of Reform, 137–40, 177–78.