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What I learned about antisemitism from a remarkable new archive about Jewish Civil War soldiers
(JTA) — Max Glass, a recent immigrant from Hungary, had an unhappy Civil War.
Tricked out of his enlistment bonus when he joined the Eighth Connecticut Infantry — recent arrivals were soft touches for scam artists — Glass was then “abused for reason [sic] that I never understand” by men in his regiment. “It may have been,” he speculated,
becaus I did not make them my companions in drinking, or as I am a Jew. If I went in the street or any wher I was called Jew. Christh Killer & such names. I also had stones, dirt thrown at me.
He complained to his commanding officer, begging to be transferred, because “no man that had feeling could stand such treatment,” but to no avail. Finally, Glass fled his regiment, hoping to receive better treatment if he enlisted in the Navy. Instead he was tried as a deserter and sentenced to hard labor.
Glass was not the only Jewish soldier to be cruelly mistreated when serving in the Union Army. But as the new Shapell Roster of Jewish Service in the Civil War demonstrates, his experience was far from typical.
I explored the Shapell Roster while working on my new book, on the experience of Jewish soldiers in the Union army. What I learned from the vast collection of documents and data was that indifference, benign curiosity and comradeship appear to have been much more common than conflict for the majority of Jewish soldiers in the Union army.
For every Max Glass there was a Louis Gratz. Born in Posen, Prussia, Gratz scraped by as a peddler before the war. Enlisting in April 1861 — just days after the war started — he took to military life. By August he had become an officer. As he proudly wrote to his family,
I have now become a respected man in a respected position, one filled by very few Jews. I have been sent by my general to enlist new recruits so I am today in Scranton, a city in Pennsylvania only twenty miles from Carbondale, where I had peddled before. Before this no one paid any attention to me here; now I move in the best and richest circles and am treated with utmost consideration by Jews and Christians.
In contrast to Max Glass, his letters whisper not a word about prejudice. As my new book on the experience of Jewish soldiers in the Union army demonstrates, Gratz’s experience was not unusual.
Max Glass ultimately escaped his sorry start in the army through the intercession of General Benjamin Butler. After reading Glass’ tale of woe, the general pardoned the hapless Hungarian. In doing so, Butler seemingly followed Abraham Lincoln’s lead when confronted by antisemitism within the Union army. The president, after all, had quickly countermanded Ulysses S. Grant’s General Orders Number 11 expelling Jews from the districts under his command, the “most notorious anti-Jewish official order in American history,”
But alas this story does not have a redemptive ending. Beyond the rank and file, Jews felt the sting of prejudice. The damage done in wartime left a legacy of antisemitism that continues to this day.
For even as General Butler was pardoning Max Glass, he was locked in a heated public exchange that reveals how wartime warped attitudes towards Jews. The imbroglio began when Butler took special note of the fact that a small group of smugglers, recently detained by the Union army, were Jewish. When challenged, the combative general refused to apologize. Instead, he countered that deceit and disloyalty were among the defining characteristics of Jews, and that avarice was a particularly Jewish avocation. According to his logic, Jews could never become loyal Americans because they preferred profit to patriotism.
An 1877 cartoon from the satirical newspaper Puck illustrates the antisemitic practices of the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, New York. The cartoon compares the corrupt gentile clients favored by the hotel, center, with respectable (albeit stereotypical) Jewish figures, including Jesus. (Library of Congress)
Butler’s corrosive claims reflected a steady drip of acid on the home-front that began in 1861. In the first year of the war, Jews felt the sting of prejudice as the “shoddy” scandals captured the public imagination. Military contractors were publicly accused of fleecing the army by supplying substandard uniforms and gear, even as soldiers shivered in the field for want of decent clothing.
In seeking to explain the profiteering and corruption that attended the rush to war, the press summoned the specter of the venal and disloyal Jew. Cartoonists delighted in identifying Jews as the archetypal cunning contractors, who not only refused to enlist but also actively undermined the war effort. Jews were also imagined as the speculators who profited at the expense of the common good and as smugglers who traded with the enemy. Butler, in other words, was drawing on calumnies that became common currency during wartime.
The contractor, smuggler, speculator and shirker, however, were more than just figures of scorn. Jews and other “shoddy aristocrats” came to be seen as the creators and beneficiaries of the new economic and social order produced by the war. This “shoddy aristocracy” — whose morals and manners marked them as undesirable, whose profits were ill gained, and whose power derived from money alone — was imagined to lord it over a new and unjust social heap summoned into being by the chaos and disruption of war.
Even as the heated rhetoric of the war years receded after 1865, these ideas remained primed for action. They were returned to service in the Gilded Age.
It was no coincidence that the episode traditionally identified as initiating modern antisemitism in America — the exclusion of Joseph Seligman by Henry Hilton from the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs on May 31, 1877 — had at its center a man who had made a fortune as a contractor and banker during the Civil War. Seligman, a friend of President Grant, was viewed as an exemplar of the new capitalism that was remaking America.
Henry Hilton slandered Seligman as “shoddy—false—squeezing—unmanly,” a social climber who “has to push himself upon the polite.” Hilton drew upon themes familiar from wartime antisemitism: the Jew as speculator who trafficked in credit and debt; the Jew as obsequious ingratiator who attached himself to the powerful; the Jew as profiteer who advanced by improper means; the Jew as vulgarian who flaunted his (and her) obscene wealth and did not know his (or her) place; and the Jew as overlord whose money allowed him (or her) to displace others. In short, the “Seligman Jew” was the “shoddy aristocrat” by another name.
In an age of inequality and excess, the antisemite imagined the Jew as embodying all that was wrong with American capitalism. And during an age of mass immigration from Romania and the Russian Empire, they soon added another theme familiar from General Butler’s wartime diatribe: The Jew could not be trusted to become fully American.
Sadly, even as Louis Gratz, Max Glass and many other Jewish soldiers became American by serving in the Union army, the Civil War produced a range of pernicious ideas about Jews that have proven remarkably durable. We have escaped the everyday torments that afflicted Max Glass, but are still haunted in the present by the fantasies of Benjamin Butler and Henry Hilton.
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The post What I learned about antisemitism from a remarkable new archive about Jewish Civil War soldiers appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Lawmakers seek 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship to protect prayer goers from protests
(JTA) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a federal legislation Thursday in the House and Senate aimed at protecting houses of worship from disruptive demonstrations, following a series of protests outside of synagogues this year.
The Right to Worship Act was introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, alongside Reps. Brad Knott, a North Carolina Republican, and Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat. It would establish a 100-foot “buffer zone” around houses of worship during religious services — mirroring similar legislation recently enacted in New York.
“The First Amendment guarantees every American the right to freely exercise their faith, and Congress has a duty to ensure that guarantee is met,” Cruz said in a statement Thursday.
The legislation would also establish civil penalties for offenders and provide pathways for individuals, including state attorneys, to seek court orders and damages in federal court. While the legislation would target protesters who knowingly disrupt scheduled religious services, houses of worship would not be required to make their schedules public.
The bill’s sponsors say the measure is aimed at conduct rather than the content of protesters’ speech.
“No one should have to push through a hostile crowd or shout over a bullhorn in an attempt to pray,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which helped lawmakers draft the legislation.
It’s the latest attempt at passing federal legislation aimed at insulating houses of worship from protest, following Suozzi’s “SACRED Act” legislation, a similar bill he introduced in April but which has not progressed in the House.
Those efforts have now been joined by Slotkin, who is Jewish, and Cruz, who has often taken aim at antisemitism within the Republican coalition over the past year.
“Exercising your right to worship should not require you to exhibit particular courage as you enter your synagogue, church, mosque, temple, mandir, or gurdwara,” Suozzi said in a statement.
The New York City Council passed a local buffer zone bill in March following a series of pro-Palestinian protests outside of synagogues that hosted Israeli real estate expos. While Jewish groups and leaders heavily advocated for the measure, it also faced opposition from civil rights leaders who said it would have a chilling effect on First Amendment protections.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Lawmakers seek 100-foot buffer zone around houses of worship to protect prayer goers from protests appeared first on The Forward.
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Over 95% of Canadian Jewish university students report exposure to antisemitism
(JTA) — Nearly all Jewish students surveyed on Canadian university campuses said they have experienced or witnessed antisemitism, according to a new government-commissioned report.
The survey from the Department of Canadian Heritage found that 95.7% of Jewish students said they were exposed to antisemitism, with 70% saying their university did not take antisemitism seriously and 22% reporting physical violence against Jews.
“Antisemitism on Canadian campuses is neither isolated nor episodic,” said Jack Jedwab, the report’s main author, at a press conference in Ottawa on Wednesday. “It can reasonably be described as systemic.”
The surveyed students anonymously detailed rhetoric, discriminatory treatment, vandalism, intimidation and physical attacks from their classmates as well as professors and administrators. Some 45% said they experienced Holocaust denial or distortion often or sometimes, and 65% said they encountered it “at least rarely.”
One respondent said they had witnessed a friend who wears a kippah being chased out of a school building by a group of students who shouted, “There is a Jew … let’s get him.”
Another student described a professor writing that “we need to kill all Zionists, that she had worked with them and saw how evil they were.” Students also said they were pressured by peers and professors to give their opinions on Israel because they were openly Jewish.
Some 36% of respondents complained about course content or classroom discussions that “they experienced as antisemitic or biased,” while 34% said “a professor introduced Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism when unrelated to the course subject.”
The survey, out Wednesday as part of a report titled Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences, included about 900 Jewish students from schools across Canada. It was originally conducted for the government’s special envoy on antisemitism, a role that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s administration dissolved alongside an Islamophobia envoy earlier this year.
Carney replaced those offices with a new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality, and Inclusion, which he announced in June after saying that the country was “failing Jewish Canadians.” The new council was introduced as a push to unify the government’s approach toward combating systemic prejudice, but some Jewish groups decried the elimination of distinct envoys.
Pressure has mounted on Carney’s administration to stem the tide of antisemitic attacks in Canada since 2023, including gunfire at Jewish schools and synagogues and attacks on Jewish businesses and community centers.
On the same day the report was released, an Oklahoma-based organization called Jewish Tulsa made news for urging President Donald Trump’s administration to offer refugee status to Jewish Canadians.
“With the urgency around the challenges and the inaction we see in Canada, an asylum pathway makes sense,” Joe Roberts, who leads the conservative think tank, told The Canadian Press. He said that his family moved from Ontario to Tulsa after witnessing antisemitic graffiti in his neighborhood.
Martha Piper, former president of the University of British Columbia, said the campus antisemitism report revealed “a shocking presence of campus antisemitism throughout this country along with a troubling institutional failure to respond.”
“The results suggest a university culture that is not welcoming to Jewish students and systemically tries to exclude and vilify them,” said Piper.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Over 95% of Canadian Jewish university students report exposure to antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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British Conservatives face backlash for nominating a former neo-Nazi for local office
(JTA) — LONDON — Britain’s Conservative Party has defended its decision to endorse a former neo-Nazi activist as a candidate in next year’s local elections despite his imprisonment for crimes including racially aggravated harassment of Jewish former Labour MP Luciana Berger.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the candidate, Joshua Bonehill-Paine, had demonstrated rehabilitation through his work in countering extremism. Berger, who was prominent in the last decade for her many battles against antisemitism on the right and in her own party, said in a statement that Badendoch “got this very, very wrong.”
“This case still haunts me,” Berger, who is now a peer in the House of Lords, posted on X on Tuesday afternoon. “I feel a bit sick reading well known commentators debate his selection today and say that ‘these are precisely the people we need in public office’.”
Bonehill-Paine, 33, was imprisoned for more than two years after being convicted of multiple crimes. Bonehill-Paine had called himself “a proud antisemite” while planning a 2015 rally that aimed to undo the “Jewification of Great Britain.”
Bonehill-Paine will run for the Crewkerne South seat on Somerset Council in southwest England in May 2027, less than a decade after his release from prison in 2018. His incarceration came after he was prosecuted for sharing what a judge described as “vile” antisemitic material ahead of a planned neo-Nazi demonstration, as well as for racially aggravated harassment after publishing a series of antisemitic blog posts targeting Berger.
Among other slurs, he referred to Berger as an “evil money-grabber,” depicted her as a rodent and said the number of Jewish Labour MPs was “a problem.”
According to the Guardian, Bonehill-Paine said the Conservative Party and his local branch were aware of his past before selecting him. He told the Guardian that since his release from prison he has spoken publicly against antisemitism and extremism and has completed government-backed radicalization and counter-extremism programs.
The Conservative Campaign Headquarters responded to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency request for comment by relaying Badendoch’s remarks to reporters in Surrey on Tuesday morning.
“I think people can look at me and know that I’m not a person who would be recruiting neo-Nazis,” said Badenoch, who was raised in Nigeria and who has become an outspoken critic of rising antisemitism in Britain. “Josh is someone who actually has been certified by the Home Office to train police officers on antisemitism and on countering extremism.”
She acknowledged Bonehill-Paine’s conviction but said he has “shown contrition for his crimes, has been rehabilitated and is spending every day working to solve the very problem which he knew he had caused previously.”
She added that he is “actively working to help communities, especially Jewish communities and this is what I want to see.”
The backlash from Jewish organizations has been swift . Board of Deputies of British Jews Vice President Karen Newman stated, “It beggars belief that any party would select as a candidate a multiply convicted felon and the founder of a far-right group called National British Resistance.”
She also noted that the board had contacted the Conservative Party “to set out our concerns and call on them to rescind his selection and review their vetting processes.”
The Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council put out a separate joint statement saying they had declined the Conservative Party’s invitation to meet with Bonehill-Paine, stating that his “crimes targeting Luciana Berger and others mean that he still faces ongoing legal restrictions.”
They added, “Whilst we do believe in the possibility of rehabilitation, this should not in this case entail selection as a candidate for a major political party, and the impact of this decision on the victims ought to be a central consideration.”
Both organizations said they had agreed to meet with members of the party “to discuss their decision-making processes and to urge them to rescind this decision.”
The Jewish Labour Movement called the decision “truly appalling,” saying that Bonehill-Paine’s record, and particularly his attacks on Berger, should have disqualified him from elected office. “This is a former Neo-Nazi who was sent to prison for racially abusing a Jewish politician,” the group said.
Berger represented Liverpool Wavertree from 2010 until 2019 and entered the House of Lords last year. During her tenure she received constant antisemitic abuse, both online and in person, and was the target of several criminal incidents involving extremist harassment.
Bonehill-Paine did not respond to JTA’s requests for comment.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post British Conservatives face backlash for nominating a former neo-Nazi for local office appeared first on The Forward.
