[lbo-talk] Re: poor, white and pissed

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Tue Mar 1 12:23:28 PST 2005


On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, Doug Henwood wrote:


> I don't have Fraser's book here, but it's full of quotes from Jacksonians,
> populists, and WASP elitists like Henry Adams that are so anti-Semitic
> they'd make your toes curl.

First point: this clearly doesn't distinguish the elite from the populist. So it doesn't provide a differentia for the point at issue.

Second point: I'm not denying there were anti-semitism in this country in the 19th century. That would be silly. There was no country in the world in which there wasn't; there still isn't. What I'm saying is that what was notable in this country is that there was less here than anywhere else. And I don't mean in small ways, I mean in huge ways. There have never been any anti-Jewish pograms here. There have never been any legal ghettos here. Jews have always had the franchise. And perhaps most surprisingly of all, Jews fought in the Army. Jews in 19C Europe not only weren't allowed in the army, they wouldn't want to go, because it wasn't their country. But here they joined up like everyone else in the proportions as they were found in the population. They served on both sides in the civil war, up to the level of generals and the cabinet. And this has been true literally from the very beginning. When the first Jews landed in Peter Styvesant's Manhattan in the 17th century, almost the first thing they did was to fight to belong to the night watch so as to be regarded as full citizens.

The most ironic thing of all is that when the first real nativist movement started in this country, in the mid-19th century, it wasn't directed at Jews. It was directed at Catholics. And there were Jews on its organizing committee. Which is somewhat ironically a sign of just how much they felt a part of the whole. And this was during a period when the Jewish population of the country had expanded 80 fold. The absence of organized anti-semitism under such conditions -- when you have politically organized nativism; when Jewish immigration is exploding; and when anti-semitism is erupting across Europe (and when the dominant discourse is unbelievably racist vis a vis blacks and Indians) -- is nothing short of amazing. It's the difference that stands out, not the similarity.

So sure, if you dig, you can find toe-curling quotes. But if you find just as many among the opponents of populism as you do among the populists, and just as many among the establishment as among the anti-establishment, then the quotes don't explain much about populism's origins. And if the country as a whole is notable for its lack of anti-semitism, it explains even less. Especially since the main quota barriers to Jews were in the *cities:* the universities, the professions, clubs, certain neighborhoods. Opening a dry goods store on main street in the West or South, by contrast, faced no barriers at all.

Michael



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