When General Grant Expelled the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna

Author:Jonathan D. Sarna
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, History
ISBN: 0805243038
Publisher: Schocken
Published: 2012-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

Sneersohn knew how to attract attention to his cause. Rather than dressing in traditional East European Hasidic clothing (which might have been exotic enough), he always appeared in public looking “very imposing and venerable” bedecked in an “Oriental costume” consisting of a “rich robe of silk, a white damask surplice, a fez, and a splendid Persian shawl fastened about his waist.” People paid to see a man like that lecture in English. His addresses attracted Jews and Christians alike.18

Arriving in Washington, Sneersohn lectured twice on Jews in the Holy Land, with “members of the President’s family … and of Congress” in attendance. He also met with the secretary of state to talk about the Jerusalem consulate. Then, on April 20, just weeks after the inauguration, he called upon President Grant in the White House, barging in, according to a widely reprinted account from Washington’s National Intelligencer, “on the informal reception given in his chair by the President to many whom he was favoring with a few words of private conversation.” The president “rose courteously to receive the Rabbi,” and Sneersohn responded with the traditional blessing for rulers: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe who has given of His glory to human beings.” He then carried out his mission, imploring Grant “to turn your attention to the deplorable condition of my brethren in the Orient, that the principles of the Government may be truly embodied in its representatives abroad”—a long-winded way of asking him to replace Beauboucher (who, unbeknownst to him, was ailing and seeking transfer to “a post in Italy, Spain or Germany”). He also asked Grant to “enable my brethren in the Holy Land in the hour of need to seek refuge under the Stars and Stripes.” The president, described as “deeply moved by the Rabbi’s sincere and feeling words,” asked several questions and then, in his characteristically laconic way, announced, “I shall look into this matter with care.” Sneersohn, in response, offered a “fervent prayer” for Grant and his family, and departed. At least so far as the National Intelligencer was concerned, he had succeeded in his mission. “The American Government can not refuse so humble a request,” the newspaper concluded. “[T]he Israelites … shall have in the American consulate at Jerusalem an advocate.”19

Sneersohn, having accomplished his mission and become something of a media sensation, proceeded across the United States, lecturing and attracting notice wherever he went. By the time news of the Romanian atrocities burst into the press, he had reached San Francisco, taking advantage of the then newly completed transcontinental railroad, which, within a decade, would transform that city into the second-largest Jewish community in the United States. His host and companion in San Francisco was Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, scion of a distinguished Sephardic family, a lawyer, journalist, and exceptional orator who had studied under the guidance of Stephen A. Douglas, had served as political editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and (not least important) was a boyhood friend of Simon Wolf.

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