By Jerry Klinger
SALINA, KANSAS — The ity of Salina, (Kansas) Historic Commission, the Smoky Hill Museum and the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation dedicated a new historic marker on August 30, 2018 dedicated to abolitionist August Bondi, a proud Jew.
The citation on the marker read:
AUGUST BONDI
1833-1907
Jewish-American Abolitionist, Salina Resident
August Bondi was born July 21, 1831, in Vienna, Austria. The Bondis, Jewish European refugees, fled the Austrian Empire after the failed revolutions of 1848 and settled in St. Louis, Missouri. August Bondi moved to Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Kansas in 1855 with his business partner, Jacob Benjamin and began homesteading. As Free-Soilers who hated slavery, their farm was attacked and burned by “Border Ruffians” (pro-slavers). A neighboring farmer rushed to their aid with his sons. His name was John Brown.Bondi joined with Brown and fought alongside of him at the Battle of Black Jack in 1856, defeating the pro-slave forces and helping enable Kansas to be admitted to the Union as a Free State January 29, 1861. Bondi enlisted in the Fifth Kansas Cavalry and served until he was seriously wounded three years later. Bondi settled in Salina, Kansas in 1866 becoming Postmaster and later a County Judge. A believer in the brotherhood of all men, he rose to be a 32nd degree Mason.”
Bondi grew up in a world inundated with an American infection, an infection born of revolution and a dream – Freedom; Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly, Press and more. The American infection, in America, was an evolving, growing experiment, tragically mired with a flaw – slavery. American slavery was unknown in Europe but then so were American basic Freedoms.
Americans had been struggling with their Freedoms for 70 years when Europe exploded with the call for Revolution in 1848. The European Revolutions failed. Though defeated, the American infection could not be eradicated. It festered, it grew.
For the vanquished of the 1848 revolutions, like the Bondis, the only salvation was America. Bondi had been weaned on the writings of Jefferson, Washington and other Founding Fathers. He believed, as he crossed the ocean to America, that all men were free if they were the possessors of their own labor. Free men have the right to shape their own destinies.
In Galveston, he encountered American slavery and was disgusted. The American infection was a fundamental part of him. Judaism was a fundamental part of him and so was another universalism, Masonry. Bondi’s father had been a Mason. His father taught him Torah and the Masonic belief in the Commonality of all God’s creations. Christians and Jews, Black and White people were God’s creations. No man owned another. Slavery was fundamentally repugnant to Bondi.
Kansas was a popular sovereignty experiment in the 1850’s. When the call went out for settlers, Bondi jumped at the possibility of making Kansas a Free State. He paid a price for converting his home into an Underground Railroad Station. Pro-Slavers attacked, burning him out and eagerly looked to kill him. His neighbor, the Radical Abolitionist John Brown and his sons, came to Bondi’s rescue. Bondi joined them for months, fighting in two battles to make Kansas a Free State.
When the Civil War broke out, Bondi had a wife and a small child. His wife said go and enlist. He did not need much encouragement. For three years he served in the Kansas Calvary until he was seriously wounded.
After the War, Bondi settled in the frontier community of Salina, Kansas. He put his roots down and raised his family as proud Jews. He linked himself to Masonry rising to be a 32nd degree Knight Commander of the Court of Honor. Bondi became the postmaster and later a Judge in Salina.
Bondi died in 1907. He could have been buried in the Jewish cemetery in Leavenworth, Kansas. He and his family chose to be buried in Salina amongst his friends, Jews and Christians together, to await the coming of the Messiah, as one people, Americans.
Over 1,000 Austro-Hungarian Jews, who fled to America after the failed 1848 Revolution, almost to a man, enlisted with the Union Armies to fight slavery.
The Bondi marker is located outside Salina’s Smoky Hill Museum. The Museum is the former Post Office. The City of Salina agreed to let JASHP include its logo on the marker – a Star of David. Many JASHP projects done in “liberal states” cannot have a Star of David. It is not PC.
In Salina, Kansas, in Redneck Flyover Country, the Star of David, and August Bondi, was the P.C. thing to do.
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Klinger is president of the Jewish American Society for the Historic Preservation (JASHP)