It Couldn't Happen Here: Three American Anti-Semitic Episodes
NEJS 162b
Jonathan D. Sarna
Lown 213B (Hornstein Office)
X62977
Fall 2014
It Couldn't Happen Here: Three American Anti-Semitic Episodes
REQUIREMENTS
1. Reading
2. Come prepared to discuss reading in class (20% of grade!)
3. Two short (3-5 page) papers; first due October 6th; second due November 3rd (40% of grade).
4. One long (10-20pp.) research paper: topic must be approved by November 10th and the paper is due on December 10th by 1 PM (40% of grade).
Attention:
If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately.
BOOK LIST:
Baldwin, Neil, Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate
Dinnerstein, Leonard, Antisemitism in America
-----, The Leo Frank Case
Oney, Steve, And the Dead Shall Rise (For those who want more on Frank Case)
Sarna, Jonathan When General Grant Expelled the Jews (for those who want more on U.S.Grant)
Articles are all on Latte
SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS:
Wednesday, September 3: INTRODUCTION
Monday September 8: ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA
Required Reading:
Dinnerstein, Leonard, Antisemitism in America, Prologue, Chapters 1-2.
Gerber, David, “Introduction,” in Gerber, David ed., Anti-Semitism in American History, pp. 3-56.
Wednesday, September 10: WHAT IS ANTISEMITISM?
Required Reading:
Davis, David Brion, “Some Themes of Counter-Subversion: An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature,” in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47:2 (September, 1960), 205-224.
Halpern, Ben, “What is Antisemitism?” in Modern Judaism 1:3 (1981), 251-262.
Volkov, Shulamit, “Antisemitism as a Cultural Code: Reflections on the History and Historiography of Antisemitism in Imperial Germany,” in Yearbook of the Leo Baeck Institute 23 (1978), 25-45.
Michael Walzer, “Imaginary Jews,” A Review of David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (2013), in New York Review of Books, March 20, 2104, online at
Monday, September 15: “THAT OBNOXIOUS ORDER”—GENERAL ORDERS NO. 11
Required Reading:
Jonathan D. Sarna “General Grant’s Infamous Order” (New York Times, December 19, 2012)
Ash, Stephen V. “Civil War Exodus: The Jews and Grant’s General Order No 11,” Historian 44 (August 1982), 505-523.
The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant (http://digital.library.msstate.edu/collections/usgrant/index.html)
Volume 3: 226
Volume 6: 283, 288, 293-295
Volume 7: 50-54
Volume 19: 17-21
Simon, John, “That Obnoxious Order,” in Civil War Times Illustrated 23:6 (1984), 12-17.
Wednesday, September 17: “AMERICAN JUDEOPHOBIA”
Required Reading:
Bunker, Garry, and John Appel, “‘Shoddy’ Anti-Semitism and the Civil War,” in American Jewish History 82:1 (1994), 43-71.
“Letter from Private Max Glass to Major General Benjamin F. Butler, Norfolk Jail, Virginia, April 12, 1864,” in Morris Schappes, A Documentary History of the Jews in the United States, pp. 493-495.
Suggested Reading:
Rockaway, Robert, and Arnon Gutfeld, “Demonic Images of the Jew in the 19th Century United States,” in American Jewish History 89:4 (2002), 355-381.
Monday, September 22: “ARE THE ISRAELITES SLAVES?”—REVOKING GRANT’S ORDER
Required Reading:
“Letter to President Abraham Lincoln, from Jews in Paducah, Ky., December 29, 1862,” in Schappes, Morris, A Documentary History of the Jews in the United States, 1654-1875, pp. 472-473.
“Newspaper Report of a Delegation to President Lincoln, by Reverend Isaac Mayer Wise, Washington D.C., January 8, 1963,” in Schappes, pp. 473-476.
“Domestic Intelligence,”
Leeser, Isaac, “On Persecution,” and subsequent documents from The Occident
Resignation of Captain Philip Trounstine, 5th Ohio Cavalry, in protest against "General Orders #11"
Wednesday, September 24: “TRADERS OR TRAITORS?” JEWS, COTTON, AND GRANT’S ORDER [Erev RH]
Required Reading:
Ash, Stephen, “Civil War Exodus: The Jews and Grant’s General Order No. 11,” in Historian 44 (August, 1982), 505-523 [esp re cotton trade]
Marcus, Jacob, Memoirs of American Jews
Volume II: Isidor Straus, A Young Confederate Businessman, pp. 301-319
Volume III: Heyman Herzberg, Civil War Adventures of a Georgia Merchant, pp. 115-132.
Parks, Joseph H., “A Confederate Trade Center Under Federal Occupation: Memphis, 1862 to 1865,” in The Journal of Southern History 7 (August, 1941), 289-314.
Surdam, David G., “Traders or Traitors: Northern Cotton Trading During the Civil War,” in Business and Economic History 28:2 (1999), 301-312.
Suggested Reading:
Lebergott, Stanley, “Through the Blockade: The Profitability and Extent of Cotton Smuggling, 1861-1865,” in The Journal of Economic History 41:4 (December, 1981), 867-888.
Monday, September 29: AFTERMATH: GRANT, THE JEWS, AND THE ELECTION OF 1868
Required Reading:
Sarna, Jonathan D. When Grant Expelled the Jews, 50-79.
Wolf, Simon, The Presidents I Have Known From 1860 to 1918, pp. 63-98.
Wednesday October 1: “THE EMERGENCE OF AN ANTISEMITIC SOCIETY”
Required Reading:
Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, chapters 3-4.
Goldstein, Eric L., “The Unstable Other: Locating the Jew in Progressive-Era American Racial Discourse,” American Jewish History 89:4 (2001), 383-409.
Handlin, Oscar, “American Views of the Jew at the Opening of the Twentieth Century,” in Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 40 (September 1950 – June, 1951), 323-345.
Suggested Reading:
Hertzberg, Stephen, “The Jewish Community of Atlanta from the End of the Civil War to the End of the Frank Case,” in American Jewish Historical Quarterly 62:3 (1973), 250-287.
Monday, October 6: “VIGILANTE JUSTICE:” THE LYNCHING OF LEO FRANK
First Paper Due!
Required Reading:
Dinnerstein, Leonard, The Leo Frank Case, Chapters 8-9, “A Georgian’s View” (Appendix D, pp. 172-177)
Oney, Steve, And the Dead Shall Rise, Chapters 19-24, Epilogue (pp.513-649)
Wednesday, October 8 [Erev Sukkot]: THE MURDER OF MARY PHAGAN
Required Reading:
Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, Chapter 1, “Freeman’s Tale” (Appendix C, pp. 169-171).
Selected primary documents
Monday, October 13: BRANDEIS THURSDAY – NO CLASS – POSSIBLE MAKE-UP DAY?
Wednesday, October 15: “AN AMERICAN DREYFUS”: THE FRANK TRIAL
Required Reading:
Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, Chapters 2-5.
Charles Reznikoff (ed.), Louis Marshall Champion of Liberty, 295-321.
Suggested Reading:
Bronski, Michael, “Return of the Repressed.”
Alexander, Henry A., “Some Facts About the Murder Notes in the Phagan Case.”
Monday, October 20: VISIT TO ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Wednesday October 22: “RISE PEOPLE OF GEORGIA:” TOM WATSON VS. LEO FRANK
Required Reading:
Dinnerstein, The Leo Frank Case, Chapters 6-7
Free Synagogue Pulpit, “The Case of Leo Frank—A Last Appeal.” (Latte)
Goldfarb, Stephen J., “The Slaton Memorandum: A Governor Looks Back At His Decision to Commute the Death Sentence of Leo Frank,” in American Jewish History 88:3 (September 2000), 325-339.
“The Leo Frank Clemency File,”
Watson, Tom, “The Celebrated Case of The State of Georgia vs. Leo Frank.” (Latte)
Monday, October 27: “IS THE JEW A WHITE MAN?”—JEWISH RACIAL STATUS IN THE WAKE OF THE FRANK CASE – WRAP UP
Required Reading:
Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, Chapters 5-6.
Levy, Eugene, “Is the Jew a White Man?”: Press Reaction to the Leo Frank Case, 1913-1915” in Phylon 35:2 (1974), 212-222.
Wednesday, October 29: “THE INTERNATIONAL JEW”
Required Reading:
Smith, Gerald K., “Introduction to The International Jew,”
The International Jew, Chapters 1-8,
Monday, November 3: “THE INTERNATIONAL JEW” II
Second Paper Due!
The International Jew, Chapters 9-16
Wednesday, November 5: “THE MASS PRODUCTION OF HATE”—HENRY FORD’S DEARBORN INDEPENDENT
Required Reading:
Lewis, David L., “Henry Ford’s Anti-Semitism and its Repercussions,” Michigan Jewish History 24 (1984), 3-10.
Ribuffo, Leo P., “Henry Ford and The International Jew,” in American Jewish History 69 (June 1980), 437-477.
Singerman, Robert, “The American Career of The Protocols of Elders of Zion,” American Jewish History 71 (September 1981), 48-78
Suggested Reading:
Foust, James C., “Mass-Produced Reform,” American Journalism 14: 3-4 (Summer-Fall, 1997), 411-424
Lewis, David L., The Public Image of Henry Ford, pp. 1-132.
Monday, November 10: “MCGUFFEYLAND”—HENRY FORD’S ANTISEMITISM
Topic of Final Paper Must Be Approved By Today!
Required Reading:
Baldwin, Neil, Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate, Chapters 1-8
Try to find discussions of Jews in McGuffey Readers
Wednesday November 12: “A LIBEL AGAINST AN ENTIRE RACE”—JEWISH REACTIONS TO FORD
Required Reading:
Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews, Chapters 9-10.
“The Paper Hat: A Play for Purim in Two Acts and an Entr’act.” (Latte)
Charles Reznikoff, Louis Marshall: Champion of Liberty, 329-333, 335-336, 337-338, 357-364, 366-367
Monday, November 17: “I AM NOT A JEW HATER”—FORD V. AARON SAPIRO
Required Reading:
Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews, Chapters 13-17.
Sapiro, Aaron L., “A Retrospective View of the Aaron Sapiro-Henry Ford Case,” Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 15:1 (1982), 79-84.
Charles Reznikoff, Louis Marshall: Champion of Liberty, 371-389.
Woeste, Victoria Saker, “Insecure Equality: Louis Marshall, Henry Ford, and the Problem of Defamatory Antisemitism, 1920–1929,” The Journal of American History 91:3 (December, 2004), 877-905
Rifkind, Robert S. “Confronting Antisemitism in America: Louis Marshall and Henry Ford,” American Jewish History 94 (March-June 2008), 71-90.
Wednesday, November 19: THE HIGH-TIDE OF ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA
Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, Chapter 7.
Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews, Chapters 18-20, Afterword.
Wednesday November 24: Text study of Antisemitic documents [pre-Thanksgiving]
Monday, November 24: “AT HOME IN AMERICA”: THE DECLINE OF ANTISEMITISM
Required Reading:
Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, Chapters 8, 11, “Summary and Conclusion,” (pp. 245-250).
Wednesday, November 26 – Thanksgiving Recess
Monday, Wednesday, December 1-3 – Is America Different? TYING CASES TOGETHER--THEORIES OF ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA
Required Reading:
Halpern, Ben, “America is Different,” in Sklare, Marshall, ed., American Jews: A Reader, 25-45.
Final Paper Due Friday December 10th by 1 PM
Required Papers and the Basis for Grades:
1. Write a 3-5 page paper analyzing some aspect of the relationship between U.S. Grant and the Jews. Your paper should pose and answer a question. It must utilize and cite primary sources. You are strongly encouraged (but not required) to cite additional primary sources beyond those read for class. Be sure to footnote all of your assertions. See online US Grant Papers ((http://digital.library.msstate.edu/collections/usgrant/index.html)) and online Official Record of the War of the Rebellion (See http://digital.library.cornell.edu/m/moawar/waro.html0) for help. This paper is due on October 6th. It is worth 20% of your final grade.
2. [choice A] Write a 3-5 page paper in which you closely analyze one or more primary sources connected with the Leo Frank case. Help your reader to understand the significance of the primary source and how it helps us to make sense of some aspect of the case. Be sure to footnote all of your assertions.
[choice B] Write a 3-5 page paper in which you analyze one of the plays or films of the Leo Frank Case. Compare the fictional interpretation of the material to that of Dinnerstein and Oney. See for a synopsis of Parade, and the text of the lyrics. See Matthew Bernstein, Screening a Lynching: The Leo Frank Case on Film and Television for a discussion of other portrayals.
Be sure to footnote all of your assertions.
This paper is due on November 3rd. It is worth 20% of your final grade.
3. For the final paper, you need to produce a piece of research (10-20 pp.)dealing in some way with American antisemitism. Your paper must make use of primary sources (in addition to whatever secondary sources you wish to use), and it must be original -- not just a retelling of what has appeared before. Your paper may deal with the three episodes discussed in class or it may consider other episodes, comparative perspectives, local incidents, or anything else that illuminates the subject. Be sure to footnote all of your assertions. Your topic needs to be approved not later than November 10h. The paper is due on December 10th by 1 PM, and will determine 40% of your final grade.
In addition, twenty percent of the final grade will be based on class participation.
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