Description

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On July 30, 1902, tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of New York’s Lower East Side to bid farewell to the city’s chief rabbi, the eminent Talmudist Jacob Joseph. All went well until the procession crossed Sheriff Street, where the six-story R. Hoe and Company printing press factory towered over the intersection. Without warning, scraps of steel, iron bolts, and scalding water rained down and injured hundreds of mourners, courtesy of antisemitic factory workers. The police compounded the attack when they arrived on the scene: under orders from the inspector in charge, who made no effort to distinguish aggressors from victims, officers began beating up Jews, injuring dozens.

To the Yiddish-language daily Forverts (Forward), the bloody attack on Jews was not unlike those many Russian Jews remembered bitterly from the old country. But this was America, not Russia, and the Jewish community wasn’t going to stand for such treatment. Fed up with being persecuted, New York’s Jews, whose numbers and political influence had been growing, set a pattern for the future by deftly pursuing justice for the victims. They forced trials and disciplinary hearings, accelerated retirements and transfers within the corrupt police department, and engineered the resignation of the police commissioner. Scott D. Seligman’s The Chief Rabbi’s Funeral is the first book-length account of this event and its aftermath.
 

About the Author

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Scott D. Seligman is a writer and historian. He is the author of numerous books, including The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City (Potomac Books, 2020), the award-winning The Third Degree: The Triple Murder That Shook Washington and Changed American Criminal Justice (Potomac Books, 2018), and The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo.

Praise For…

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“A well-researched, well-written, and all-too-timely account of the antisemitic riot that marred the 1902 funeral of New York’s chief rabbi, Jacob Joseph. Prejudice, police brutality, and widespread corruption lay at the root of the riot, Scott Seligman shows. His analysis of how Jews held government accountable for punishing the rioters and penalizing the police who abetted them carries instructive lessons for our time.”—Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University

“A fascinating and sad account of a low moment in the history of American Jews. To his credit, the author recognizes complexity on many levels. . . . Most significantly, Scott Seligman describes the new efforts of the Jewish community to stand up for itself, a harbinger of advocacy work on behalf of the community that remains so vital to this day.”—Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League

“Until now, no one has detailed this outbreak with such detail as Scott Seligman in his lively discussion of the story of victims, perpetrators, observers, police, and city officials. Individuals who previously were but names noted in a newspaper or police blotter come alive.”—Jeffrey S. Gurock, Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies of Yeshiva University

“In this well-written book, based on a treasure trove of sources thus far overlooked, Scott Seligman revisits the events that took place at Chief Rabbi Jacob Joseph’s funeral, uncovers numerous aspects, insights, and unknown details, and provides an intimate, sensitive, and flowing narrative of this event. . . . [A] warmly recommended read for whoever is interested in the mass immigration era, the Jewish immigrant community in New York, and the history of Jewish Orthodoxy in the United States.”—Kimmy Caplan, professor of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at Bar-Ilan University