The Chief Rabbi's Funeral
The Untold Story of America's Largest Antisemitic Riot
by Scott D. Seligman
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Pub Date Dec 01 2024 | Archive Date Nov 30 2024
University of Nebraska Press | Potomac Books
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Description
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 that 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.
Advance Praise
"Seligman's retelling of this largely forgotten incident of anti-Jewish violence could hardly be more timely. . . . A valuable history of violent assault finds newfound relevance."—Kirkus Reviews
“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
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781640126183 |
| PRICE | $34.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 248 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 862825
Focused on the events of July 30, 1902 in New York City, Scott Seligman's latest book, The Chief Rabbi's Funeral: The Untold Story of America's Largest Antisemitic Riot picks up only a few months after the events of his 2020 book, The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City.
This narrative history looks at the career of Jacob Joseph, the first and only chief rabbi of New York City, from his arrival in 1888 to his death and the communities posthumous embrace of him. As part of his widely attended funerary ceremony, his casket was taken around New York City to several different places of worship. As the procession made its way through the city, it passed the R. Hose & Co. printing press factory, where workers above pelted the mourners with trash, tools, metal bits used for the presses and fired hoses of scalding water. When the police arrived, having only been at the front and back of the procession, instead of seeking to resolve the situation, they instead quickly drew their clubs and cleared the street.
The outrage fueled an investigation into police conduct and shows the growing power of Jews as their own voting block and economic power. The antisemitism wasn't new, but now Jews had enough power to do something about it, leading to changes in the running of the police.
In both the introduction and conclusion, Seligman links this historic event to the present US where cases of harassment and antisemitic assaults have reached a record high.
While the majority of the book is informative and traces the event from the unification and arrival of Rabbi Joseph through the litigation and justice of the riot, for me the introduction relied far too much on the effort of creating a hook, it depicts people going through their normal days with the foreshadowed little did they know...
Recommended reading for US Historians, readers or researchers of minorities in America or antisemitism.
