Antisemitism in america between wwi ww ii. Welcome everyone its good to see everybody and we are going to start todays topic in antisemitism in america between wwi ww ii. In the last time that we discussed antisemitism, we focused on the years between the civil war and the end of the 19th century which you will remember was it. The historians called emergence of a full fledged antisemitism society so just for a second to refresh your memory, one of the events in the emergence of that exclusion of jewsm hotels ine publicccomdationt. Andeing excluded from the grand union hotel and in saratogas and in 1877, and remember that we also look at the slides like this one where we see in this image which is from a magazine and its caption is the dream of the jews realize and you will see that we talked about how the signf john smith, and this was bac in 1920, was being taken downnd its a little hard to see at the top but is saidhat is being replaced and if you look at carefully around the other agesn the slide, you will see what is the name of the newspaper and this is from new york and is now called the jewish harold and we also discussed how these kinds of images showed us that the christian anti jewish motif that was a probably in American Society continues to play out in American Life and here in 1896, you can see the jews and you know they are jews in their faces are stereotypical and the features and they are thisime crucifying, not jesus but uncle sam. This background is essential for us to understand this class because we need to know that in order to understand what happened during the high tide of american antisemitism. One man perhaps more than any other figure in the market history played a role in disseminating antisemitism in the years between wwi ww ii and his name i mentioned most of you have heard of him, was henry ford. But the before he turned to henry fords role we need to spend a few minutes on leo frank. The trial of leo frank for the murder of mary was one of the great trials at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in which antisemitism played a prominent ro. Let me tell you little bit about trauma happen, on confederate memorial day, 1913, 13 arld mary went to the facry where she worked to pick u her pay om the factory superintendent leo frank. And leo frank was born in texas but he was raised in brooklyn and that made him a northerner in this would be significant in understanding what happens in this trial. He went to college at cornell and he moved south to become part owner and manager of the National Pencil factory, a business that his uncle owned and there he also marries lucille, the daughter of the wealthy and established family around 3 00 a. M. , on sunday april 27th, 1913, the night watchman at the factory had gone down to the basement to use the toilet that was only the toilets for africanamericans in the jim crow south. And he found mary phagans mute debate and mutilated body and suspicions initially fell on newt but almost immediately then it turned to leo frank. Leo frank then and forever afterwards retained his innocence but newspapers began inflaming the public over the murder. The trial was an absolute circus, executors used was out for blood any acc leo frank of sexual wisti the factory girls andneo frank was convicted, his convi was based on the testimony of an africanamerican exconvict, named jim connolly hood given multiple affidavits in the case with conflicting evidence we must understand that in the south, only a jew could be convicted based on the testimony of an africanamerican man. After the trial, georgia newspaperman said it is the jury the case had brought in a verdict of not guilty, the defendants wouldve been lynched, sentenced to hanging. Anti judaism figured out prominently the trauma actually found a letter that leo franks mother wrote to the washington post. In it, im going to quit her words, insult noon human nose and the slander directed not only at her son during the trial but also at the religion. She like in the case and this is so important for us to understand, why this perspective, she likens the case to another fairly recent International Antisemitism crisis to drive this affairs i dont know how many of you studied his other classes. In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus who we see here, a jewish captain in the french army was wrongfully convicted of giving military secrets to the germans. He was sentenced to not onlyli s sent t devils island, not enough of the coast of south america where he was in solitary climate and actually changed beds at night. Meanwhile, evidence began surfacing that the espionage was still going on and so the inference the began to argue and the arguments spilled over so much that the french writer published on the front page of a major newspaper, a letter accusing the government and the army of having conspired Alfred Dreyfus and which is true because the manufactured evidence against him in the name in the military officers, and he said they had diverted the troops to preserve the honor of the army and other military and that the government and he called for justice for alford dreyfus and those letters spark a trial because its that evidence that he said was false then he could be sued. It ultimately led into exonerating Alfred Dreyfus and reinstating him in the army and we see here, his courtmartial. And leo franks mother alluded to this in her letter. She was writing of this rig trial that had sentenced her son to hang and she cried out for an american to expose the lie that had convicted her son. Another International Trial also in 1911, russian empire, a a jew named he was a russian labor was charged with ritual murder and some of you studied the ritual murder accusation before. It is made able the said that the jews murder christian children to use the blood through religious in the first surface and the 12th century in england, and is spread to the continent and here is another example of that ritual murder accusation it. A bailiff refused to confess and instead he spent two years in jail that was ultimately a privilege by a jury of russian peasants for a crime that he had not committed. We need to understand that American Jews looking at this trial and hearing that these cases meant a new moment, they were not isolated incident and in instances they were linking them together and seeing a frightening pattern. The jewish leaders in the u. S. , leo frank conviction proves that antisemitism threatens all jews. After the trial ended in while leo franks lawyers while appealing the conviction, the africanamericans lawyer on us testimony that leo frank was convicted, his lawyer became increasingly convinced that his clients connolly had been lying and that leo frank was innocent and so now, the debates began raging in georgia about whether or not the governor should commute leo frank sentence from death to life in prison meant. And doubting having doubts about leo franks conviction, on june 21st, 1915, on the eve of when leo frank wouldve been executed, because all of his appeals have been exhausted, the governor of georgia, john clayton commuted leo frank sentenced to life in prison and i want you to look at these words. Because this is what he said, 2000 years ago, another governor washed his hands and turned to jew over to a mob. For 2000 years, the governors name has been a curse. If today another jew were lying in his gra because i have failed t do my duty, i would find his blood in my hands and would consider myself an assassin through cowardice notice and do you know who he was referring to which trial. Jesus, Pontius Pilate and the governor of jerusalem and the child jesus the led to his crucifixion. This is an incredible incredible statement and we say the sentence, the two months after john slayton commuted the sentence, a mob of 25 leading citizens in georgia including by the way the source of the general who is supposed to protect the law, without firing a shot went to the prison where leo frank was being held and pulled him out and lynched him and i decided actually i decided not to show you a photo of the lynching, because there are photos that show men and boys staring at the camera with glee and watching leo franks body swinging from the tree behind them and their many different photos that were taken and since they were soulless postcards, feeling online, you can easily find them. What was the response to the trial and the lynching, in 1913, when leo frank was first accused, is actually talked about, founded in the 1840s, the covenants, they created an Organization Called the antideagu and you know from theeligion under ng h Legacy Organizations in class, you know the Antidefamation League still exist today and it fights antisemitism but also fights all forms of hatred and bigotry. But another response was that they estimate that half of the 10000 jews living in georgia fled the state after leo frank trial and lynching and i think you can understand why. It had become dangerous to be identified as a jew in georgia and by the way, as for the man, but lynched leo frank, the called the knights of the mary phagan, the little girl who was murdered and they would evolve into the second clue clocks clan and in the 1920s, they would target only africanamericans but also the catholics and the jews. So there are important underlining issues, i said that leo frank was seen as an outsider, he was a northerner so the public response to the trial really shows that under this tension between the changes going underway in south that southerners thought the northerners had bought especially the evils associated with industrialization and urbanization it. Which were alluring for southerners to the cities where there were harsh conditions in the factories, where the children it like mary phagan, four for 10 cents an hour, ten hours a day. And they were reading these urban evils on the slums and crime and certainly these conditions also influenced the verdict in the case. But i want to bring it up closer to the modern because calls for justice to leo frank would continue to ring out over the years. In 1982, 82 yearold who had been an office boy at the pencil factory came forward with an affidavit and testing to new evidence in the case that would exonerate leo frank. Now he had seen and hed seen jim connolly carrying the body of a girl and about the time that mary phagan was murdered and connolly threatened him saying that if you ever mention this, i will kill you. He was just a teenager, did about 13 years old and he went and told his mother and she told him not to tell anyone. Although some questions of the truth of his affidavit, george reported the pardons issued a pardon for leo frank, based on this new evidence but on the fact that the state of georgia had failed to guarantee leo franks Constitutional Rights and ensuring his safety in prison. So people still debate whether leo frank was innocent or guilty on still to this day on the one hundreds anniversary of this case, back in 2013, media was all over the story and once again and at violet, a rabbi fell the Service Marking the event. Not only did the jews come with the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of those who had lynched leo frank came to the service. So questions about the leo frank affair, questions about the trial. Did you mention it, no one else in the south unable to be convicted based on the testimony of an enactment of africanamerican man, because that makes jews above or below to the africanamericans in the south on the social pyramid. Thats a great question because we need to talk about jews and racial and the incredible book, the price of likeness, shows how the jews in south but also the jews in general in this particular time, not seen as white and not seen as africanamerican, nonblack but they are seen ritually as others and that is why was making a point. First of all this is a narrow board africanamerican men were lynched and would be continued to be lynched into the 1960s and these men were lynched by the leading citizens of the towns in the getaway with the white man literally got away with murder. They could do that because as whites they were able to take advantage of the racial difference and of course the case the blows that open, was the murder of anna and how his mother so brilliantly by keeping that coffin open and showing it with these two men had done, that she blew open the Civil Rights Movement and of course whats amazing, another case where the two men who murdered him, they were found innocent by a jury of their peers within a few months later told her story to a magazine it and they confessed that actually done it. In the jews that is in between state in the south, really nice. From texas and then went to new york in the georgia. With the situation been different if he had never gone to new york just from texas to georgia and we sing like a southern jew. And therefore not an northern or an outsider not really different because he went to college, maybe, if he would have stayed in the south, this is also about the legacy of the tension between the north and the south after the civil war. It was part of the same process so antisemitism is part of the store but its not the only part of the story and it vena phobia we will do this in a minute, it was really rising around americans. How about if i move on to the next example. As leo franks case okay i didnt tell you this, but as leo franks case was appealed making headlines around the world, two men subsequently known for their antisemitism called for a new trial for leo frank, one was the inventor and the other was henry ford so henry ford is responsible for publishing in the United States and then also around the world, the most intellectual anti somatic track in all of history. How many of you have heard of this protocol. We will talk about them in a little bit, the protocols first appeared in a russian newspaper in 19 oh three, and they are clearly a fabrication it actually based on a novel that was written, a political satire about the holy in the third from france and actually translation of a french tech but the messagf of the protocol is straightforward and absolutely terrifying. They tgeted the rise of liralism had pried provided the jews with the tools to cement the revolutions to destroying the worlds oer and historic power like the nobility of the church and at the jews were about to take control of the wld. Here you canee a tiny tiny quote from this protocol number one, in all parts of the world, the word entered world liberty and quality and referring to the french revolution brought whole legions into our ranks. The procols are being spoken by the elders of theewish community and these words would ruin the prosperity of the glory sent the wld for gentile has run the prosperitys ever everywhere and destroying peace and quiet and solidarity, undermining all the foundations of their states and if you would read in these more deeply, you would see that the protocols are century old anti jewish stereotypes and charges about the jews controlling money and controlling exercising power behind the scenes and they controlled the media, and they control that the governments around the world. And now that the jews are succeeding in their aims, soon those are going to take over the world and control it for all times. Since our focus today is on the war, im not going to talk about how the protocols circulate around the world today, i will just show you one example. In march of this year, not even a half a year ago or so, the u. S. Capitol Police Officer was suspended after copy of the protocols was found near his work place so the question is why are they so popular, they are so popular because if you read them, you are not reading an account of a plot to destroy the world. Your hearing the first person testimony of the leaders of them so youre like dropping right in on the plot to control the world so it is evidence of the plot. So our first question is how they come to american and get disseminated into america, White Russians in the revolution it convinced there was a judeo conspiracy to overthrow and took this with him and then publish them wherever they went. They got published and translated and reprinted in london and paris and warsaw and in tokyo, the German Version is assured you and the other side, was printed 32 times before hitler came to power and they were brought to the u. S. , by a White Russian immigrant so the question is then how does henry ford get involved with his. In his book, henry ford and the jews, baldwin thinks antisemitism was influenced and remember we talked about the mcguffey rde the other day and we talked about tir christian lesso and so henry fords antisemitism was really first tditional anti judam ming out of christianity. But during world war i his antisemitism became increasingly manifested and henry ford blamed the jews what was then called the great war, it would not be called world war i until we had world war ii so henry ford it was at one point ran for president , was man of the year ine magazine was the most famous american of his generation. Henry ford, in 1919, het and bought a newspaper independence, it was a weekly. And then when he saw what was hemorrhaging money he told us that his horse to find and able to attack, go after it and stick with it. So the result was the ser the International Jew, the worlds problems, was on e next 91 issues of tan for newspaper. You have to understand that henry ford had enormous influence and reach an first of all, there was ford motor dealerships around the country, and a shipped stacks of newspapers to the dealership, he would into a dealership in about a car and you drove out of the car and you drove out with a copy of the newspaper independence the series of the national jew and the circulation of the paper, which was only 72000, in 1919 when he bought that, five years later was 700,000, one of the largest newspapers in the United States but the added tour wanted to make sure that their messages got to the nations leaders. So they sent it to hundred Bank President s, 1100 rotary Club President s, 4200 womens clubs, 757 College President s, and all members of congress. News of henry fords antisemitism also reached over and this is an amazing article only come