On July 30, 1902, tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of
New York’s Lower East Side to bid farewell to the city’s one and
only Chief Rabbi, Jacob Joseph, the eminent Talmudist who had
arrived from Europe to great fanfare 14 years earlier. The neighborhood had
never seen anything like it. A cortège of 500 yeshiva
boys chanting psalms and several hundred carriages carrying
dignitaries were followed by some 30,000 mourners as they snaked
through the narrow streets, stopping briefly at the entrances to six
synagogues for prayers and eulogies.
All went well until the procession reached Grand and Sheriff
Streets, where the huge R. Hoe and Co. printing press factory towered
over the intersection. Its workers had a history of harassing Jewish passers-by. Without warning, scraps of cotton waste,
blocks of steel and wood, iron bolts, bottles and bricks and
torrents of hot water began
raining down on the entourage from the building’s upper stories.
These were accompanied by insults and racial slurs from workers high above. Confusion morphed into fury as mourners
retrieved the missiles and hurled them back up at their attackers.
By the time the police appeared, the violence had subsided. But
under orders from the inspector in charge to “club the life” out of
the crowd anyway, officers pulled out their billy clubs and began
beating up Jews. By the time it was all over, men with heads bleeding
from the projectiles hurled from above and blows from the police nightsticks
were lying prostrate in the street, as were women and children
struck or trampled in the commotion. Many dozens were injured,
several people
seriously.
To the Yiddish-language daily Forverts (Forward), the
sordid event was nothing less than a pogrom. But this was
America, not Russia, and Jews were now present in sufficient
numbers, and possessed sufficient political clout, to fight back. By
unifying, organizing and building alliances, the Jewish community
deftly used its newfound influence to hold government accountable
for taking to task those who had done it harm.
This
book tells three related stories: that of the life of New
York City’s first and only Chief Rabbi; that of the single largest antisemitic incident the United States has ever seen, measured in
terms of numbers attacked and injured; and that of how the Jewish
community used its political influence to pursue justice for the
victims, setting a pattern for the future.
When people speak of antisemitism, or of racism in general, it is
often accompanied by a wringing of hands. It has always been with
us, and perhaps always will be. But even if eradicating it entirely
is a Sisyphean task, imposing a cost on it when it morphs into violent
expression is not.
In 1902, New York's Jewish community showed us
how.
On July 30, 1902, tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of
New York’s Lower East Side to bid farewell to the city’s one and
only Chief Rabbi, Jacob Joseph, the eminent Talmudist who had
arrived from Europe to great fanfare 14 years earlier. The neighborhood had
never seen anything like it. A cortège of 500 yeshiva
boys chanting psalms and several hundred carriages carrying
dignitaries were followed by some 30,000 mourners as they snaked
through the narrow streets, stopping briefly at the entrances to six
synagogues for prayers and eulogies.
By the time the police appeared, the violence had subsided. But
under orders from the inspector in charge to “club the life” out of
the crowd anyway, officers pulled out their billy clubs and began
beating up Jews. By the time it was all over, men with heads bleeding
from the projectiles hurled from above and blows from the police nightsticks
were lying prostrate in the street, as were women and children
struck or trampled in the commotion. Many dozens were injured,
several people
seriously.
This
book tells three related stories: that of the life of New
York City’s first and only Chief Rabbi; that of the single largest antisemitic incident the United States has ever seen, measured in
terms of numbers attacked and injured; and that of how the Jewish
community used its political influence to pursue justice for the
victims, setting a pattern for the future.