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A century before Trump targeted Somalis, Jews faced the politics of blame
(JTA) — As President Donald Trump ramped up his rhetoric against Somali immigrants in Minnesota and ordered a surge in immigration enforcement because Somalis took part in a social-service fraud scheme, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey pushed back.
“’When a fraud takes place, when a crime takes place, you investigate it, you prosecute it, you charge it. You arrest the person that did the fraud or the crime, you put him in jail as an individual,” Frey told NPR. “You get held accountable as an individual. That’s how this works in America.
“You do not, however, hold an entire community accountable for the crimes of one.”
Frey’s remarks were echoed by other state and national figures. “We do not blame the lawlessness of an individual on a whole community,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, who herself immigrated from Somalia to the United States as a child.
Frey, who is Jewish, didn’t mention his own background in standing up for Somalis, a community of whom Trump has said, “And they contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country. I’ll be honest with you.”
But had Frey turned to Jewish history, he may well have cited another instance in which a powerful political figure blamed an immigrant community for the crimes of a few, and an ethnic group was targeted by nativists who pinned the country’s ills on immigrants.
Frey might have reached back to 1908, when New York City Police Commissioner Theodore A. Bingham leveled what at the time was the most explicit, highest profile accusation of Jewish criminality made by a major American official since Gen. Ulysses Grant expelled all Jews from his military district to combat allegations of cotton smuggling and corruption.
That year, in an article in the North American Review, Bingham claimed Jews accounted for half of New York’s crimes, especially picking pockets, fencing stolen goods, arson and operating gambling and vice operations.
“It is not astonishing that with a million Hebrews, mostly Russian, in the city (one quarter of its population), perhaps half of the criminals should be of that race when we consider the ignorance of the language, more particularly among men not physically fit for hard labor,” Bingham wrote with the stilted prose of a bureaucrat and the dubious authority of the then popular pseudoscience of eugenics.
Bingham buttressed his accusation with statistics: “Forty per cent of the boys at the House of Refuge and twenty per cent of those arraigned in the Children’s Court” are Jews, he claimed. “The percentage of Hebrew children in the truant schools is also higher than that of any other.”
Jewish leaders saw Bingham’s accusations as all the more dangerous because they were based on a shred of truth: “They knew, for one thing, that there was a crime problem on the East Side, not so lurid as Bingham had painted, but serious enough,” wrote Irving Howe in his history of the period, “World of Our Fathers.”
Like Somali-Americans in Minnesota, the Jews of the era were on the cusp — with one foot in the poverty of the tenements and the other in the growing prosperity of a rising working and business-owning class. But the Eastern European Jewish newcomers also had an important lever: the German Jews who had arrived earlier and established positions of power in finance and politics.
Jacob Schiff, the powerful banker and philanthropist, became one of the most forceful critics of Bingham’s article, publicly denouncing it as reckless and un-American. Joseph Seligman, founder of the investment bank J. & W. Seligman & Co., similarly condemned Bingham, insisting that crime was a function of poverty and dislocation, not religion or ethnicity, and pointing out the danger of a police commissioner racializing crime. Both men brought their own statistics and experts to show Bingham had exaggerated Jewish involvement.
The grassroots response was just as strong, with letters to the Yiddish and general newspapers, mass protests and heated sermons.
“Mr. Bingham has been indulging in mere generalities and he should be forced to give facts, including the names, residences, in fact the exact figures of any one week or month, to prove his statements, or else he will be asked to make a public retraction and apologize to the race he has injured,” fumed Rabbi Joseph A. Silverman of New York City’s Temple Emanu-El.
Bingham was, and he did. “By mid-September,” Howe writes, “under severe pressure, Bingham retracted his charges ‘frankly and without reservation.’” He subsequently lost the support of Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. and was forced to resign in July 1909.
Bingham wasn’t the only figure to hold the entire Jewish community responsible for the crimes committed by its members. Eleven years earlier, police commissioner Frank Moss argued in his book “The American Metropolis” that “criminal instincts… are so often found naturally in the Russian and Polish Jews.” Between 1907 and 1909, McClure’s Magazine published articles by the muckraking journalist George Kibbe Turner claiming extensive Jewish involvement in the “white slave trade” — what today we would call human trafficking. While courts found little evidence of a wide-spead Jewish conspiracy to traffic women, “McClure’s used the white slavery investigation and grand jury to stoke anti-immigration and anti-Semitic fears throughout the city,” historian Mia Brett wrote in a paper for the Gotham Center at CUNY.
The Jewish elite counted Bingham’s retraction as a victory, but the incident left many with the impression that the Jewish community needed a better mechanism for organizing around the fight against antisemitism. In New York, that meant the formation of the Kehillah, an ambitious experiment to create a unified Jewish communal organization. The Kehillah included educational and political committees, as well as a “Bureau of Social Morals” — a sort of self-policing body meant to help law enforcement root out crime among Jews. When it sank in that the bureau was only reinforcing an impression that the Kehillah had been formed to dispel, the bureau was scrapped.
The Kehillah lasted until 1922, when it disbanded over — spoiler alert — ideological disagreements among its constituent groups. But it created a precedent for centralized communal organizations to come, including UJA-Federation of New York.
In Minnesota too there are signs that the president’s attacks are strengthening the Somali community by sparking solidarity and organizing.“I think it’s giving us a chance for many Americans to learn about the Somali community, and not only that, but also to see the resilience,” Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, told CNN. “Also, it’s giving Somali Americans a chance to own their American identity and fight for it.”
When the Bingham incident is remembered, it is often to illustrate how officials trade on xenophobic fears over facts — and why such scapegoating, once unleashed, can do profound damage to both the targeted community and the civic fabric.
“We know that when a few people commit crimes, it does not implicate an entire community and to say so is racist, is xenophobic and just wrong,” Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker of Mount Zion Temple in St Paul told Fox 9 in Minneapolis last month.Meanwhile, the current police chief in Minneapolis, Brian O’Hara, has taken the very un-Bingham-like position that the “real problem” of social service fraud in the state doesn’t justify the “largely political” reaction of the federal government, especially immigration authorities.
“I had not known any Somali Americans until I moved to Minnesota,” O’Hara said Monday on “The Daily” podcast. “The Somali Americans that I have met here, including many of whom are police officers in this city, have been incredibly welcoming of me. From a personal perspective, [the immigration crackdown on Somalis] was just bizarre because I’m also aware that the overwhelming majority of people from that community are American citizens.”
The post A century before Trump targeted Somalis, Jews faced the politics of blame appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Safe After Being Rushed from White House Correspondents Dinner, Shooter in Custody
U.S. President Donald Trump is escorted out as a shooter opens fire during the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 25, 2026, in this screen capture from video. REUTERS/Bo Erickson
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner by Secret Service agents on Saturday night after a man armed with a shotgun tried to breach security, officials said.
A man armed with a shotgun fired at a Secret Service agent, an FBI official told Reuters. The agent was hit in an area covered by protective gear and not harmed, the official said.
All federal officials, including Trump, were safe. About an hour after Trump was rushed from the event, he posted on Truth Social that a “shooter had been apprehended.”
“Quite an evening in D.C. Secret Service and Law Enforcement did a fantastic job,” Trump added.
Shortly afterwards, he posted, “The First Lady, plus the Vice President, and all Cabinet members, are in perfect condition.” He said he would be holding a White House press conference on Saturday night.
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said the service was investigating a shooting near the main screening area at the entrance to the event.
After the sound of shots, dinner attendees immediately stopped talking and people started screaming “Get down, get down!”
Hundreds of guests dove under the tables as Secret Service officers in combat gear ran into the dining room. Trump and the first lady had bent down behind the dais before being hustled out by Secret Service officers.
Many of the 2,600 attendees took cover while waiters fled to the front of the dining hall.
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Trump Cancels Envoys’ Pakistan Trip, in Blow to Hopes for Iran War Breakthrough
US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he honors reigning Major League Soccer (MLS) champion Inter Miami CF players and team officials with an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 5, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump canceled a trip by two US envoys to Iran war mediator Pakistan on Saturday, dealing a new setback to peace prospects after Iran’s foreign minister departed Islamabad after speaking only to Pakistani officials.
While peace talks failed to materialize Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his troops to “forcefully” attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, his office said, further testing a three-week ceasefire.
Trump told reporters in Florida that he decided to call off the planned visit by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner because the talks in Islamabad involved too much travel and expense, and Iran’s latest peace offer was not good enough for him.
Before boarding Air Force One on Saturday for a return flight to Washington, Trump said Iran had improved an offer to resolve the conflict after he canceled the visit, “but not enough.”
In a social media post, Trump also wrote there was “tremendous infighting and confusion” within Iran’s leadership.
“Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!” he posted on Truth Social.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi earlier left the Pakistani capital without any sign of a breakthrough in talks with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other senior officials.
Araqchi later described his visit to Pakistan as “very fruitful,” adding in a social media post that he had “shared Iran’s position concerning (a) workable framework to permanently end the war on Iran. Have yet to see if the U.S. is truly serious about diplomacy”.
Iranian media reported that Araqchi had flown to Oman’s capital Muscat, saying he will meet with senior officials to “discuss and exchange views on bilateral relations and regional developments”.
Sharif wrote in a post on X that he spoke with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian about the regional security situation and told him that Pakistan was committed to serving “as an honest and sincere facilitator — working tirelessly to advance durable peace and lasting stability.”
Tehran has ruled out a new round of direct talks with the United States and an Iranian diplomatic source said his country would not accept Washington’s “maximalist demands.”
IRAN AND US AT AN IMPASSE
Washington and Tehran are at an impasse as Iran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, while the US blocks Iran’s oil exports.
The conflict, in which a ceasefire is in force, began with US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28. Iran has since carried out strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, and the war has pushed up energy prices to multi-year highs, stoking inflation and darkening global growth prospects.
Araqchi “explained our country’s principled positions regarding the latest developments related to the ceasefire and the complete end of the imposed war against Iran,” said a statement on the minister’s official Telegram account.
Asked about Tehran’s reservations over US positions in the talks, an Iranian diplomatic source in Islamabad told Reuters: “Principally, Iranian side will not accept maximalist demands.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said the US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would come over the weekend, while Vice President JD Vance was ready to travel to Pakistan as well.
Vance led a first round of unsuccessful talks with Iran in Islamabad earlier this month.
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Hezbollah Says Ceasefire ‘Meaningless’ as Fighting Continues in South
Israeli military vehicles and soldiers in a village in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army operates in it as seen from the Israeli side of the border, April 23, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said a US-mediated ceasefire in the war with Israel was meaningless a day after it was extended for three weeks, as Lebanese authorities reported two people killed by an Israeli strike and Hezbollah downed an Israeli drone.
US President Donald Trump announced the three-week extension on Thursday after hosting Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors at the White House. The ceasefire agreement between the governments of Lebanon and Israel had been due to expire on Sunday.
While the ceasefire has led to a significant reduction in hostilities, Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have continued to trade blows in southern Lebanon, where Israel has kept soldiers in a self-declared “buffer zone.”
Responding to the extension, Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Fayyad said “it is essential to point out that the ceasefire is meaningless in light of Israel’s insistence on hostile acts, including assassinations, shelling, and gunfire” and its demolition of villages and towns in the south.
“Every Israeli attack… gives the resistance the right to a proportionate response,” he added.
Hezbollah is not a party to the ceasefire agreement, and has strongly objected to Lebanon’s face-to-face contacts with Israel.
BUFFER ZONE
The April 16 agreement does not require Israeli troops to withdraw from the belt of southern Lebanon seized during the war. The zone extends 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles) into Lebanon.
Israel says the buffer zone aims to protect northern Israel from attacks by Hezbollah, which fired hundreds of rockets at Israel during the war.
Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel reignited on March 2, when the group opened fire in support of Iran in the regional war. The ceasefire in Lebanon emerged separately from Washington’s efforts to resolve its conflict with Tehran, though Iran had called for Lebanon to be included in any broader truce.
Nearly 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since March 2, the Lebanese health ministry says.
ISRAELI MILITARY WARNS RESIDENTS TO LEAVE TOWN
Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike killed two people in the southern village of Touline on Friday.
Hezbollah shot down an Israeli drone, the group and the Israeli military said. Hezbollah identified it as a Hermes 450 and said it had downed it with a surface-to-air missile.
An Israeli drone was heard circling above Beirut throughout the day on Friday, Reuters reporters said.
The Israeli military warned residents of the southern town of Deir Aames to leave their homes immediately, saying it planned to act against “Hezbollah activities” there.
Deir Aames is located north of the area occupied by Israeli forces, and it was the first time Israel had issued such a warning since the ceasefire came into force on April 16. Posted on social media, the Israeli warning gave no details of the activities it said Hezbollah was conducting in the town.
The Israeli military also said it had intercepted a drone prior to its crossing into Israeli territory, and that sirens were sounded in line with protocol.
WAR-WEARY RESIDENTS SEEK END TO FIGHTING
The continued fighting has angered war-weary Lebanese, who say they want to see a genuine ceasefire put a full halt to violence.
“What’s this? Is this called a ceasefire? Or is this mocking (people’s) intelligence?” said Naem Saleh, a 73-year-old owner of a newsstand in Beirut.
Residents of northern Israel had mostly returned to daily life, but expressed pessimism about the longevity of the ceasefire with Lebanon.
“I believe that the ceasefire is so fragile, and unfortunately it won’t stand long, in my opinion,” said Eliad Eini, a resident of Nahariya, which lies just 10 km (6 miles) from the border with Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Israeli strikes killed at least five people in the south, including a journalist.
Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter, in his opening remarks at Thursday’s talks, said “Lebanon should acknowledge the temporary presence of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and the right of Israel to defend itself from a hostile force that is firing on the population.”
Lebanon’s Ambassador to the United States Nada Moawad, in a written statement sent to Reuters, called for the ceasefire to be fully respected and said it would allow the necessary conditions for meaningful negotiations.
Lebanon has said it aims to secure the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from its territory in broader talks with Israel at a later stage.
Trump said on Thursday that he looked forward to hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the near future, and said there was “a great chance” the two countries would reach a peace agreement this year.
Hezbollah attacks killed two civilians in Israel after March 2, while 15 Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon since then, Israel says.