3. Adam Badeau, Grant in Peace (Hartford, Conn.: Scranton & Co., 1887), 299; New York Times (June 19, 1877; August 25, 1899); Beth S. Wenger, The Jewish Americans: Three Centuries of Jewish Voices in America (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 86.
4. Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 40; Coney Island and the Jews (New York: G. W. Carleton, 1879); Michael Seltzer, ed., Kike! A Documentary History of Anti-Semitism in America (New York: Meridian, 1972), 56.
5. Hilton Obenzinger, American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999); Mark Twain [Samuel Clemens], Innocents Abroad (Charlottesville: Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, 1996), 560, 606, available at http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/modeng/modeng0.browse.html (accessed June 30, 2010); Brian Yothers, The Romance of the Holy Land in American Travel Writing, 1890–1876 (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2007); Michael Oren, Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007), 228–45.
6. PUSG 28, p. 349; 29, p. 231.
7. PUSG 28, p. 350; Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant, ed. John Y. Simon (New York: Putnam, 1975), 235; J. F. Packard, Grant’s Tour Around the World (Cincinnati: Forshee & McMakin, 1880), 317; John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant (New York: American News Company, 1879), 340.
8. PUSG 28, p. 349; Lester I. Vogel, To See a Promised Land: America and the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), 148–52; on Floyd, see Reed M. Holmes, The Forerunners (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing, 1981), 171, 247, 252–54, 258–60, and Reed M. Holmes, Dreamers of Zion: Joseph Smith and George J. Adams (Portland, Ore.: Sussex Academic Press, 2003), esp. 152.
9. New York Herald (March 18, 1878), as reprinted in PUSG 28, p. 349; Simcha Fishbane, “The Founding of the Kollel America Tifereth Yerushalayim,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 64 (June 1974): 120–21. Earlier, in 1877, Russian Jews in Jerusalem had written to President Rutherford B. Hayes for help and protection; see Dov Genachowski, “Russian Immigrants in Jerusalem Write to the President of the United States [in the 19th Century],” in Mincha le-Menachem: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Rabbi Menachem Hacohen, ed. Hana Amit, Aviad Hacohen, and Haim Beer (Tel Aviv: Kibbutz Hameuchad, 2007), 301–6 [in Hebrew].
10. Wolf, Presidents I Have Known, 94–95.
11. James D. McCabe, A Tour Around the World by General Grant (Philadelphia: National Publishing Company, 1879), 21; Badeau, Grant in Peace, 318; Smith, Grant, 617.
12. Stephen Birmingham, Our Crowd (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 296n; New York Times (April 29, 1892), 9; Smith, Grant, 619.
13. Jonathan D. Sarna, American Judaism: A History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004), 152; Jewish Messenger (July 31, 1885), 4; PUSG 30, p. 75; New York Times (February 2, 1882), 8; Proceedings of Meetings Held February 1st, 1882, at New York and London, to Express Sympathy with the Oppressed Jews in Russia (New York: Hebrew Orphans Asylum Press, 1882), 3.
14. New York Times (February 2, 1882), 8; Proceedings of Meetings Held February 1st, 1882, at New York and London, to Express Sympathy with the Oppressed Jews in Russia, esp. 3, 26 [this published text changed Newman’s statement to “will give significance and potency to our utterances”]; Jewish Encyclopedia 9:279; Jonathan D. Sarna and Adam Mendelsohn, eds., Jews and the Civil War: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 2010), 407.
15. PUSG 31, pp. 343–44; Jewish Record (August 7, 1885), 3; Janice Rothschild Blumberg, “Browne and Grant,” unpublished manuscript in author’s possession.
16. PUSG 31, pp. 392, 414; Badeau, Grant at Peace, 591.
17. [Philadelphia] Jewish Record (July 24, 1885), 4.
18. Jewish Record (July 31, 1885); American Israelite (July 31, 1885). On Chumaceiro, see Henry S. Morais, Jews of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: The Levytype Company, 1894), 106.
19. Jewish Record (August 14, 21, 1885); Hamagid 29 (August 20, 1885):288, as trans-lated in Jewish Record (September 18, 1885), 8; Jewish Messenger (July 31, 1885), 4. On Montefiore, see Abigail Green, Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), and Moshe Davis, Sir Moses Montefiore: American Jewry’s Ideal (Jerusalem: American Jewish Archives in Israel, 1985).
20. Green, Moses Montefiore, esp. 321, 422; Isaac M. Wise, “A Record of Judaism for A. M. 5646,” American Jews Annual 5647 (Cincinnati: Bloch, 1886), 61.
21. American Israelite (July 31, 1885); Jewish Record (August 14, 1885), 5, 8.
22. I am indebted to Janice Rothschild Blumberg, Browne’s great-granddaughter, for much of what follows concerning Browne. In addition to her unpublished writings, which she has generously shared with me, see her “Rabbi Alphabet Browne: The Atlanta Years,” Southern Jewish History 5 (2003):1–42; “Sophie Weil Browne: From Rabbi’s Wife to Clubwoman,” Southern Jewish History 9 (2006): 1–33; and “Voices for Justice: Rabbi Jacob M. Rothschild in Atlanta (1946–1973) and Edward B. M. Browne in New York (1881–1889),” online at http://spinner.cofc.edu/~jwst/pages/Blumberg,%20Janice%20-%20VOICES%20FOR%20JUSTICE%20++.pdf?referrer=webcluster& (accessed July 5, 2010).
23. PUSG 22, p. 397.
24. PUSG 26, p. 280; Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, 279n70.
25. The widely reprinted article appeared, among other places, in the [Washington] Sunday Herald (July 26, 1885); [St. Paul] Sunday Globe (July 26, 1885); [Sacramento] Day Record Union (July 27, 1885); and [Fort Worth] Texas Gazette (July 27, 1885).
26. Korn, American Jewry and the Civil War, 279; Frederick D. Grant to Isaac Markens (December 8, 1907) in Isaac Markens, Abraham Lincoln and the Jews (New York: printed for the author, 1909), 16; Omaha Bee (July 27, 1885), 4; American Israelite (August 7, 1885), 4.
27. New York Sun (August 5, 1885); Jewish Messenger (July 31, 1885), 4; (August 7, 1885), 2.
28. John M. Thayer in Omaha Bee (August 6, 1885); on Thayer, see PUSG 21, p. 102; Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant, 107.
29. New York Times (August 3, 1885); Jewish Record (August 14, 1885); American Israelite (August 14, 1885).
30. New York Times (August 5, 6, 1885); Blumberg, “Voices for Justice,” 7–8 (which quotes both the telegram and the Daily Graphic [August 8, 1885]).
31. New York Times (August 9, 1913); Grant We Are Here Again: Thirty-Fifth Memorial Services for General Grant (August 15, 1920), New York Public Library (a copy was graciously provided to me by Roberta Saltzman).
32. Joan Waugh, U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2009), 284; New York Times (April 25, 1897); Uriel Rappaport, “Hadrian, Publius Aelius,” EJ 8:193–94.
33. [Pittsburgh] Jewish Criterion (April 30, 1897); Jewish Messenger (April 30, 1897); New York Times (April 25, 1897).
34. Waugh, U. S. Grant, 303–8; Nicholas Leman, Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), 190–209. For a helpful chart of historical rankings of the presidents (1948–2010), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States.
35. Rufus Learsi [Israel Goldberg], The Jews in America: A History (New York: Ktav, 1972; orig. ed. 1954), 109; Frederick Cople Jaher, A Scapegoat in the New Wilderness: The Origins and Rise of Anti-Semitism in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 198–99; Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America, 32; Bertram W. Korn, “Grant, Ulysses Simpson,” EJ 8:34.
36. Sean Wilentz, “The Return of Ulysses S. Grant,” The New Republic (Janu-ary 25, 2010); Sean Wilentz, “Who’s Buried in the History Books,” New York Times (March 13, 2010); http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Anyone who writes about Ulysses S. Grant owes a primary debt of gratitude to the late John Y. Simon, who edited all thirty-one volumes of the invaluable work The Papers o
f Ulysses S. Grant, and also directed the Ulys-ses S. Grant Association, and published an important article on General Orders No. 11. While I did not know Professor Simon personally, I am the beneficiary of his prodigious scholarship. His successor, John F. Marszalek, has overseen the creation of an online digital collection of the Grant Papers as part of the Ulysses S. Grant Digital Collection at Mississippi State University. Having made substantial use of that collection, I am particularly grateful to the Ulysses S. Grant Association for establishing it.
The availability of online digital collections made it possible for me to write the bulk of this volume during a sabbatical in Jerusalem, where I served as Senior Scholar at the Mandel Leadership Institute. Annette Hochstein, Eli Gottlieb, Daniel Marom, Abigail Dauber-Sterne, and the entire staff of the institute made my year both enjoyable and productive. I hope that this book explains to my Mandel colleagues in Israel why the subject of Ulysses S. Grant and the Jews so fascinated me.
Prior to leaving for Jerusalem, I embarked upon highly productive research trips to the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati and to the American Jewish Historical Society in New York. Gary P. Zola, Kevin Proffitt, and the entire staff of the Marcus Center greatly assisted my research, taking hours away from their own duties to advance my work. Later, the superb staff also answered several research questions that I directed to them from afar and scanned rare documents for me to examine up close. I am enormously grateful for their longtime friendship.
Evan Kingsley, then director of the American Jewish Historical Society, along with his staff, also put themselves out on my behalf. I have been associated with the society since my undergraduate days and have learned an enormous amount under its tutelage. While the Center for Jewish History in New York, where the society is now located, represents a most impressive achievement, I still miss not having the archive nearby on the Brandeis campus.
This project gave me the opportunity to visit, for the first time, the Philip Lax Archive in Washington, which holds the archival records of B’nai B’rith. Daniel S. Mariaschin, executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International, and archivist Cheryl Kempler displayed great interest in my work and helped me uncover significant material that I might not otherwise have located.
Closer to home, the staff of the Brandeis University library, especially its interlibrary loan department, worked hard on my behalf. Brandeis has been deeply supportive of my scholarship for two full decades. I am glad to take this opportunity to thank the administration, as well as my colleagues and staff members in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, and the History Department. In addition, I thank Dr. Bernard G. and Rhoda G. Sarnat, who established the Bernard G. and Rhoda G. Sarnat Center for the Study of Anti-Jewishness, which I direct, and Lawrence E. and Nancy S. Glick, who made the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Chair in American Jewish history possible in the first place.
Friends and colleagues from around the world helped me with the research on this book. James Ramage generously shared with me his entire file on General Orders No. 11. Arnold Kaplan sent me rare documents from his own private collection, including a cartoon that is published here with his permission. Israel Bartal, Janice Blumberg, David Dalin, Ellen Eisenberg, David Hackett Fischer, David Geffen, Menachem Genack, David Gleicher, Shira M. Kohn, Joshua Perelman, and William Toll answered questions, offered suggestions, and in some cases alerted me to sources that I had not previously uncovered. Together, they have strengthened this book immeasurably.
Through the years, talented Brandeis University students have served as research assistants or have otherwise had occasion to comment on my chapters-in-progress. I particularly thank Shimrit Hait, Gideon Klionsky, Mina Muraoka, Amaryah Orenstein, Rachel Salston, and my students in NEJS 162b, who spent a full month studying General Orders No. 11 and never complained.
Generous friends read and commented on earlier versions of these chapters. Deborah Block, T. Forcht Dagi, David Dalin, Carolyn Hessel, Shalom Lamm, Eran Shalev, Ellen Smith, and my brother, David E. Y. Sarna, all made invaluable suggestions that improved my writing and my thinking. Since I was by no means able to heed all of their sensible suggestions, the responsibility for errors and omissions remains mine alone.
My wife, Ruth Langer, did not read the manuscript of this book. She has been writing a much more ambitious tome that covers an almost-two-thousand-year span of Jewish history. But if Ruth and I have not exchanged chapters, we have regularly exchanged ideas. Our almost daily walks, and the many satisfactions that come from a quarter century of marriage, have enriched not only this book but every aspect of my life.
Our children, Aaron and Leah, have likewise enriched every aspect of my life. While they, too, did not read this book in manuscript, they have endured hearing about it on many of their visits home. They know how much pride I take in all of their achievements.
Last but not least, I thank my editor and childhood neighbor, Jonathan Rosen. His boundless enthusiasm for this project, along with his insightful suggestions and careful reading, improved each of my chapters in turn. I am proud that he made a place for this volume in his distinguished Nextbook series, and am grateful that it could be published to coincide with the anniversary of that day in 1862 “when General Grant expelled the Jews.”
INDEX
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
Adams, George J.
Adas Israel Synagogue, 5.1, 5.2
dedication of, 5.1, bm1.1
Adler, Liebman, 3.1, 3.2
Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, 5.1, 6.1, bm1.1
American Society for the Suppression of the Jews
Annapolis Naval Academy
Arizona Territory, 4.1, 4.2, bm1.1
Army of the Tennessee, 5.1, bm1.1
Associated Press (AP), 1.1, 2.1, 5.1
Badeau, Adam, 3.1, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3
Battle Cry of Freedom (McPherson), 2.1, nts.1
Beauboucher, Victor, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, bm1.1
Belmont, August, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 5.1
Bendell, Herman, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, bm1.1
Benjamin, Judah P., 2.1, 2.2, 5.1, bm1.1
Bessarabian frontier, expulsion of Jews from, 5.1, bm1.1
Bible, 3.1, 5.1, 6.1, 6.2
enemies of Jews in, 2.1, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 6.1
Grant’s presidential campaign and
Black Friday, 6.1, bm1.1
Blacks, itr.1, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 6.1
appointed to public office, 4.1, bm1.1
defended at expense of Jews, 2.1, 4.1
and election of 1868, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, 4.1
in Grant’s legacy
parallels between Jews and, itr.1, itr.2, 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1, 6.1
voting rights of, 3.1, 4.1, 4.2
see also slaves, slavery
Blair, Francis P.
B’nai B’rith, 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, bm1.1, bm1.2
on expulsion of Jews from Bessarabian frontier
General Orders No. 11 and, 1.1, 1.2, 3.1
Grant’s presidential campaigns and, 3.1, 5.1
Board of Delegates of American Israelites, 1.1, 1.2, 3.1, 5.1, bm1.1, nts.1, nts.2
Board of Indian Commissioners, 4.1, 4.2
Brandeis, Louis Dembitz, 3.1, bm1.1
Brayman, Mason, 1.1, 1.2
Brown, B. Gratz, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1
Browne, Edward Benjamin Morris “Alphabet”, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3
General Orders No. 11 and, 6.1, 6.2
Grant’s funeral and, 6.1, bm1.1
Buchanan, James, 5.1, 5.2
Buchner, Adolphe, 5.1, 5.2
Bush, Isidor
Butler, Benjamin F., 2.1, 2.2, nts.1
Cadwallader, Sylvanus
Catholics, Catholic Church, 1.1, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 6.1, 6.2
church-state separation and, 5.1, 5.2
Mortara affair and, 3.1, 5.1, bm1.1
Christians, Christianity, itr.1, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1,
2.2, 2.3, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, bm1.1, bm1.2
in attempts to remake U.S. into Christian nation, itr.1, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, bm1.1
church-state separation and
Indian policy and, 4.1, 4.2, bm1.1, nts.1
military chaplaincy law and, 3.1, bm1.1
Sneersohn and
Chumaceiro, Joseph Hayim Mendes
church-state separation, 5.1, bm1.1
Civil War, itr.1, itr.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2
anti-Jewish prejudice in, 2.1, nts.1
casualties in, 2.1, 6.1
collective punishments in
and election of 1868, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.1
end of, 3.1, bm1.1
and expulsion of Jews from Department of the Tennessee, 2.1, 3.1
General Orders No. 11 and, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 6.1
and Jews as a class, 1.1, 2.1
Jews serving in, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, nts.1
Paducah occupation in, 1.1, 1.2, bm1.1
prisoners in, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 3.1
smuggling and trade in, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.1, nts.1
start of, 1.1, bm1.1
suspension of habeas corpus in, 2.1, 2.2
Colfax, Schuyler, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
Colyer, Vincent
Commerce and Labor Department, U.S., 4.1, bm1.1
Coney Island, N.Y.
Confederates, Confederate States of America, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, bm1.1, nts.1
Civil War anti-Jewish prejudice and, 2.1, 2.2, nts.1
Civil War trade and, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
and election of 1868, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
Holly Springs raid of, 1.1, 1.2, bm1.1
Jews distrusted by
Congress, U.S., 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3
in attempts to remake U.S. into Christian nation
Bendell’s Indian affairs appointment in, 4.1, bm1.1
When General Grant Expelled the Jews Page 20