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PERMISSION STATEMENT Consent by the Southern Jewish Historical Society is given for private use of articles and images that have appeared in Southern Jewish History. Copying or distributing any journal, article, image, or portion thereof, for any use other than private, is forbidden without the written permission of Southern Jewish History. To obtain that permission, contact the editor, Mark K. Bauman, at [email protected] or the managing editor, Bryan Edward Stone, at [email protected]. SOUTHERN JEWISH HISTORY Journal of the Southern Jewish Historical Society Mark K. Bauman, Editor Rachel B. Heimovics, Managing Editor 2 0 0 3 Volume 6 Southern Jewish History Mark K. Bauman, Editor Rachel B. Heimovics, Managing Editor Editorial Board Dianne Ashton Karl Preuss Canter Brown, Jr. Stuart Rockoff Cheryl Greenberg Clive J. Webb Mark I. Greenberg Deborah R. Weiner Scott Langston Stephen J. Whitfield Phyllis Leffler George Wilkes Southern Jewish Historical Society OFFICERS: Hollace Ava Weiner, Presi- dent; Sue Anne Bangel, Vice President; Minette Cooper, Secretary; Bernard Wax, Treasurer. BOARD OF TRUSTEES: Irwin Lachoff, Scott M. Langston, Sumner Levine, Robert N. Rosen, Betsy Blumberg Teplis, Deborah R. Weiner, and Catherine C. Kahn, ex-officio. Correspondence concerning author’s guidelines, contributions, and all edi- torial matters should be addressed to the Editor, Southern Jewish History, 2517 Hartford Dr., Ellenwood, GA 30294; email: [email protected]. The journal is interested in unpublished articles pertaining to the Jewish experience in the American South. Southern Jewish History (SJH) is a publication of the Southern Jewish His- torical Society. Subscriptions are a benefit of membership. Send memberships ($15 [student] $35, $50, or $100 a year, $1000 for life) to PO Box 5024, Atlanta, GA 30302. For more information visit: www.jewishsouth.org Order additional copies of SJH, (v. 6—$15 for members; $20 for non- members; $25 for libraries/institutions. Back issues—$10 for members; $15 for non-members; $25 for libraries/institutions. Add $5 s&h for Canada; $10 for other foreign countries) from the Managing Editor, 954 Stonewood La., Maitland, FL 32751; email: [email protected]. SJH invites benefactors ($1,000), pa- trons ($500), and sponsors ($250). Southern Jewish History acknowledges with deep appreciation grants from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation of New York and the Gale Foundation of Beaumont, Texas. Copyright © 2003 by the Southern Jewish Historical Society. ISSN 1521-4206 Table of Contents FROM THE EDITOR v Christian Science, Jewish Science, and Alfred Geiger Moses Ellen M. Umansky 1 Synagogue Music for Birmingham, Alabama: Arthur Foote’s AZI V’ZIMRAT YOH John H. Baron 37 Two Far South: Rabbinical Responses to Apartheid and Segregation in South Africa and the American South Adam Mendelsohn 63 The Ku Klux Klan and the Jewish Community of Dallas, 1921–1923 Rosalind Benjet 133 Articles relating to Southern Jewish History Published in AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY, AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES JOURNAL, Their Predecessors, and SOUTHERN JEWISH HISTORY Mark K. Bauman 163 GLOSSARY 187 NOTE ON AUTHORS 189 From the Editor . eflecting the diversity and depth of the field, this issue’s authors are professors of musicology, religion, and Eng- Rlish/literature, and a graduate student in history. If there is a tie binding the essays together, it is interaction between Jews and non-Jews and its impact. Ellen Umansky explores how the perception of Christian Sci- ence’s lure especially to Reform Jews contributed to the creation of the little-known Jewish Science movement and how Rabbi Alfred Geiger Moses’ thoughts on Jewish Science changed as he was ex- posed to different ideas. From Moses’ residence in Mobile the reader travels north to Birmingham. John Baron explicates the roles of Christian musi- cians in a Reform congregation and how a highly regarded composer put a Friday night service to music with some intrigu- ing twists. Jewish liturgical music becomes a lens for acculturation in a majority-Christian society. Adam Mendelsohn offers the first comparative study of Jew- ish responses to black civil rights in South Africa and in the American South. Mendelsohn emphasizes forces within congrega- tions as non-conformist rabbis press boundaries along frontier lands. In doing so, he expands our understanding of rabbinical behavior in relation to local environments. These studies treat aspects of acculturation. Rosalind Benjet revised her Shreveport conference presentation for publication. Her study delves into ambiguous incidents that occurred in Dallas during the early 1920s concerning the Klan and Jews that reflect acculturation but also marginality. Were Jews subject to Klan bru- tality or did the business climate mitigate bigotry? Did Jews support the Klan or did they go along to get along? Finally, this volume includes as a research/study tool a bibli- ography of articles published in the three major Jewish historical vi SOUTHERN JEWISH HISTORY journals that I compiled as part of a larger project. This bibliogra- phy is a work in progress. If readers are aware of articles missing from the list, I would appreciate being informed. FOR THE RECORD: Instead of making the decision to pub- lish the bibliography, I polled the editorial board without informing the members that it was my work. The vote was over- whelmingly in favor. John Baron is Rachel Heimovics’ brother. Following the journal’s practice, two peer reviewers recom- mended publication of the blind manuscript and Rachel played no part in the peer review process. The Gale Foundation increased its support of the journal with a five-year grant and the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation con- tinued its annual donations. To Rachel and me, the commitment on the part of these foundations is as important as their financial contributions. Thanks to the editorial board and especially Dianne Ashton, Mark Greenberg, Karl Preuss, Deb Weiner, and Steve Whitfield rotating off after three-year terms, and to outside peer reviewers Cathy Kahn, Mark Kligman, Mark Slobin, and Hollace Weiner. Mark K. Bauman Christian Science, Jewish Science, and Alfred Geiger Moses by Ellen M. Umansky n March 1911, a headline in the weekly Jewish newspaper the American Hebrew declared, “International Order of B’nai B’rith IExcludes Christian Scientists.” Reporting on B’nai B’rith’s an- nual convention in San Francisco, the American Hebrew described in detail the attention paid to the growing number of American Jews attracted to Christian Science. These Jews diligently studied Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, first published in 1875, regularly attended Christian Science ser- vices, availed themselves of Christian Science practitioners, and eventually joined the Christian Science church. By an overwhelm- ing majority, members of B’nai B’rith voted to exclude such Jews from their fraternal order on the grounds that it was impossible for one to be both a Jew and a Christian Scientist. Believing that Christian Science had already made serious inroads into the American Jewish community, it insisted that the American rab- binate “do more constructive work,” beginning with a recognition of the reasons why so many Jews had been “led astray” by Chris- tian Science teachings. Jewish Attraction to Christian Science Like most non-Jews who joined Christian Science, Jews often found themselves initially drawn to the religion because of its promise of health, peace, and comfort. In an age of rapid urbanization, and the anxiety and tension that observers main- tained went with it, many American city dwellers found 2 SOUTHERN JEWISH HISTORY themselves suffering from such ideational or functional illnesses as neurasthenia (nervous exhaustion) and hysteria. Hysteria was especially widespread among urban middle and upper-middle class women between the ages of fifteen and forty, with symp- toms that included nervousness, depression, fatigue, headaches, pain, seizures, and even paralysis.1 Whether hysteria was a dis- ease that had some identifiable cause or was simply a functional illness frequently used by late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century women as a way of consciously or unconsciously express- ing dissatisfaction with their lives, hysteria became one of the classic diseases of the era and one for which many women sought relief through practitioners of such mind-cure faiths as Christian Science. Given the fact that most American Jews were both middle class and city dwellers, it should come as no surprise that Jews were said to be especially prone or, as one contemporary observer put it, were “notorious sufferers” of nervous or functional disor- ders.2 The argument that one simultaneously could be a Jew and a Christian Scientist was repeatedly used both by Christian Scientist missionary activists and by Jews attracted to Eddy’s teachings. In fact, however, as Rabbi Max Heller, spiritual leader of Temple Si- nai in New Orleans and president of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) from 1909 to 1911, noted, one could not justifiably claim to be a Jew and a Christian Scientist since membership in the church required that one formally abjure membership from any denomination or reli- gious group to which he or she previously had belonged. Jews had to produce a certificate of dismissal from their former rabbis before they could join Christian Science. 3 Yet many Jews contin- ued to perpetuate this argument perhaps in order to justify their actions to themselves and to their families. While undoubtedly the initial attraction of hundreds if not thousands of Jews to Christian Science was physical, what Christian Science offered was spiritual sustenance, only part of which was relief from apparent physical pain. Many Jews who first went to Christian Science in order to be healed stayed in it long after the symptoms of the illness from which they had been suffering had disappeared. Their reason for UMANSKY/CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, JEWISH SCIENCE 3 initially going to Christian Science may have been physical, but their reasons for actually joining the church were spiritual in na- ture.