Rabbis and Their Work

ewish Stars in Texas ~ Rabbis and Their Work H O L LACE AVA WEINER Foreword by Rabbi Jimmy Kessler Texas A&M University Press ~)::!,,~ COLLEGE STATION Preface When I arrived in Texas the summer Ofi977, my Dallas cousins, Irene and Joe, had an old issue of D: The Magazine ofDallas propped on their man tel like some favorite family portrait. The cover pictured Rabbi Levi Olan, a local icon with a countenance guaranteed to sell magazines. l Nine months later, I moved to Fort Worth, a city of half a million, where Rabbi Robert Schur's name was a household word. He was a civil rights leader and humanitarian with a reputation disproportionate to his 350-member Reform congregation. The city's Orthodox rabbi, Isadore Garsek, was like wise a giant in the public eye. A scholarly entertainer and educator, Garsek drew busloads of Jews and non-Jews to hi s book reviews, where he breathed expression into characters from best-selling novels. The prominence of these rabbis gave me culture shock. I was born in Washington, D.C., where 5 percent of the populace is Jewish and rabbis are too numerous to gain much notice. In Texas, where Jews are a minuscule portion of the population - six-tenths of 1 percent-rabbis had evolved into public personalities, precious resources recruited for a variety of roles. Their scarcity guaranteed their visibility and entree to leadership circles. In a Bible Belt state that historically prized individuality over con formity, rabbis were objects of curiosity and respect who brought erudi tion and an exotic element to the Western mix. Their Old Testament roots engendered deference, while their educational training outside the region elevated them to a lofty intellectual plane. Moreover, a rabbi's keen sense of social justice, honed through centuries of Talmudic commentary, gave him moral clout, particularly in Texas where other ministers stressed sal vation in the next wo rld rather than justice on earth. The reason a rabbi was on a magazine cover became clear. Fast-forward to 1991. I was a veteran reporter with the Fort Worth Star Telegram, interviewing an Israeli at the home of Fay Brachman, president of the Texas Jewish Historical Society. In persuasive, Jewish-mother style, Fay pulled me aside and practically ordered me to write a book about the Lone Star State's Jewish past. So much has occurred; so little is recorded. Preface xv XIV PREFA C E that affiliated with Judaism's Reform movement-the denomination that Her directive echoed in my soul. Al though I was a news reporter rather interprets the faith in light of Western culture and stresses social justice than a religion writer, stories of Jewish inlere5t often carried my byline. and community service. One of the rabbis was affiliated with both the Re Recording my heritage comes naturally. Still, a book topic eluded me for a form and the Conservative branch ofJudaism, which seeks to balance tra year. Then I foun d myself at a banquet, seated next to a grandmother from dition with modernity. Not surprisingly, Reform rabbis best fit the book's Lubbock who had a crucifix dangling from her neck and a twang to rival selection criteria of rabbinical figures who became civic leaders. Texas his LBJ's. "Ah knew a Jew once," Emily Finnell told me. "He was Rabbi Alex tory, however, includes many Orthodox and Conservative rabbis who be Kline. He brought art and culture to Lubbock, Texas." So great was this came well-known municipal leaders. Traditional rabbis mentioned in the rabbi's reputation that when he died, the local museum named a room in book and who merit further study in this regard include Isadore Garsek of his honor. Fort Worth, Abraham Schechter of Houston, and Joseph Roth of EI Paso. Click! Then and there I decided to examine Texas history through the The breadth and shape of Texas made geography another selection eyes of its rabbis. Stories about their careers and their communities could criteria for this study of influential rabbis. A vast state, Texas stretches provide a new window on Texas' past and the American Jewish experience. 800 miles, north to south, from the Panhandle to the Gulf of Mexico, and So many nearly forgotten rabbis have left imprints on twentieth-century 77 miles, east to west, from the forests bordering the Deep South to the Texas. As civic leaders they founded hospitals, symphonies, and charities. 0 deserts of the Southwest. Surely the Jewish community in Lubbock-an As moral leaders, they confronted the Ku Klux Klan and championed arid, agricultural hub on the edge of the Great Plains-developed with racial minorities. Appointed to state boards, rabbis worked for academic a different profile than Brownsville's congregation on the Gulf Coast's freedom and prison reform. Within the Jewish world, they were instru Mexican border. The dynamics of Houston- with its population explo mental in resettling ten thousand refugees who entered the United States sions-seemed evident in the recurrent schisms within its Jewish congre through Galveston and eight thousand penniless Jews who arrived in gations. Dallas, a more stable city, historically resolved its frictions behind North America via Mexico's port ofVeracruz. Outside the Jewish commu the scenes. Fort Worth, although only forty miles west of Dallas, developed nity, they delivered invocations at rodeos and instinctively formed ecu a Jewish community a world apart-smaller, less organized, more indif menical alliances with Texans of all creeds. The names of Lone Star rabbis ferent, and less munificent toward Jewish causes. When rabbis stepped up appear on state documents, on cornerstones, and in Texas and Mexican to pulpits across Texas, the interaction of place and personality shaped history books. Elsewhere they might not have been as proactive or prominent. Rabbis their careers. Scattered Jews have been part of the Texas landscape since before its who accepted a call to the Lone Star State, especially when it was still a far founding as a republic. Jewish soldiers of fortune and land developers corner of the Diaspora, often did so as a last resort. Several were never or came as single men into what was a Catholic province of Mexico. When dained. Others had no better pulpit offers. Those from Europe were often Texas gained its independence in 1836, the republic'S thirty-nine thousand rebelling against traditional religious practices. These maverick rabbis inhabitants included two hundred Jews, among them at least a dozen vet were drawn to places with little Jewish history or hierarchy, communities erans of the Texas Revolution.2 A decade later, when Texas attained state where they could create their own religious blueprint. Texas provided am hood, it had one Jewish institution-a Hebrew cemetery consecrated in ple room. Houston in 1844 by a visiting rabbi. Mixers, mavericks, and motivators, the eleven rabbis profiled in this The first concentrated wave ofJewish settlers to Texas came in the 1870S, study are a varied lot, selected mainly for their impact beyond their con with the completion of railroad lines. Texas was often a place of second gregations. All of them were foreign-born (although five grew up in the settlement for these entrepreneurs. Many were merchants from Germany United States), an indication that they were amenable to change. Nine of (meaning Alsace and Prussia) who had previously lived in the Midwest or the rabbis were raised within a framework ofOrthodox Judaism-the de the Deep South. A second wave of Jewish immigrants began arriving in the nomination that stresses rituals and traditions-yet none remained as ob 18805, driven from Eastern Europe by pogroms-Russian government servant into adulthood or old age. Ten of these rabbis led congregations XVI PREFACE Preface xvii rabbi. His 1873 m igration to Hempstead, a rail depot fifty miles beyond Houston, illustrates why Jews initially came to Texas and how they prolif Amarillo OKLAHO MA erated and culturally assimilated. The rabbi's great-grandson, politician NEW ARK, ,MEXIGO Robert Schwarz Strauss, became chairman of the National Democratic Party and United States ambassador to Russia. Rabbi Samuel Rosinger, a younger, more adaptable religious figure than Schwarz, was jobless in 1910 when he answered a want ad from a Beau Spur• ~askell mont synagogue seeking a "mixer." The ad demonstrated the congrega Stamford• tion's need of an "ethnic broker," a diplomat who could "bridge the gap between different cultures," an ambassador to the gentiles equipped to Waco T E X A S • take a seat at the communal table in a city where Jews were a prominent minority and everyone was awash in oiP Au stin o As rabbis "mixed" they took the lead in communal projects and gained Lockhart. secular notice. Tyler's Maurice Faber served on the University of Texas Board of Regents, making front-page news in 1916 when he tangled with •San Antonio the governor over academic freedom. Galveston's Henry Cohen, who spearheaded state prison reform, lobbied and befriended mayors, gover nors, and presidents. Cohen's name has become synonymous with West of Hester Street (Mondell Productions, 1983), the docu-drama that reenacts " MEXICO the arrival of Jews through Galveston. Gulf Fort Worth's Rabbi G. George Fox provides some counterpoint to of fNl MILES Mexico ' . Cohen. While bold and humanitarian, Fox had a less than positive attitude n 0 1or, 200 toward the refugee movement that Cohen championed; Fox had Jewish prostitutes deported, while Cohen delivered funeral rites over a harlot's The eleven cities profiled in this book are designated by six-pointed Jewish stars. grave; Fox minimized the influence of the Ku Kl ux Klan, while Cohen Austin, the Texas state capital, has a five-pointed star.

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