By Jerry Klinger
BOYNTON BEACH, Florida — Hurley, Wisconsin, is over 2,000 miles from San Diego. It is a small town today in the Gogebic Iron Ore Range of northwest Wisconsin. At the turn of the 20th century, Hurley was a booming mining and timber town filled with bawdy houses, saloons, churches, and a synagogue. Jews lived in Hurley, significantly impacting the positive growth of the community, Iron County, and upper Wisconsin.
Leon Lewis was born in Hurley to German Jewish immigrants Casper and Rachel Lewis on September 5, 1888. He earned a law degree and settled in Los Angeles. Lewis went on to become the first national secretary of the Anti-Defamation League, the national director of B’nai B’rith, the founder and first executive director of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Relations Committee, and a key figure in the spy operations that infiltrated American Nazi organizations in the 1930s and early 1940s. The Nazis referred to Lewis as “the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles.”
The “most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles” defeated the Nazi effort to violently take over Southern California and significantly weaken all of America. A historical interpretive marker honoring and recognizing Lewis was offered to the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum and the ADL. At first, they were positive, now only ghosting.
Lewis is a little-known major Jewish story in the seemingly ongoing eternal fight against bigotry, hatred, ignorance, and racism. If Los Angeles did not want the gift, Hurley did. A marker project is being fabricated for dedication next spring.
The San Diego Challenge is not about Lewis. Lewis will be a different story to tell later.
The San Diego Opportunity and Challenge is about something Hurley did that San Diego has never done and perhaps should do.
The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) is associated with the Worldwide Daffodil Project.
The Daffodil Project aspires to build a worldwide Living Holocaust Memorial by planting 1.5 million Daffodils in memory of the children who perished in the Holocaust and in support for children suffering in humanitarian crises in the world today.
JASHP funds Daffodil Gardens. We approached Hurley with the idea of a gifted Daffodil Garden with a dedication marker and stone that would reflect upon a central, universal truth.
Children are the innocent victims of adult hatred, ignorance, and bigotry.
Jews no longer live in Hurley. What was important to the community was to recognize the horror that singled out Jews for genocide because of hatred, ignorance, and bigotry. Hurley is a small town in flyover country. They work very hard to raise their children, to shape their future, to respect, to honor, and to accept the “other” as Americans together.
Last week, Hurley completed a 1,000-bulb planting project in front of their historic Iron County History Museum. A permanent marker and stone was sited amidst the planting area. It will be awash in spring with Yellow Daffodils about the time the Leon Lewis marker will be sited nearby.
The Opportunity and the Challenge for San Diego is; does San Diego want to have a Daffodil Garden? JASHP is willing to fund one for San Diego. We will pay for the bulbs, the stone, and the marker. The condition of the gift is that the garden must be sited in a significant, publicly accessible location, such as a park. We want the message to be viewed by as many people as possible. Our common future is the Challenge.
San Diego is considerably south of Wisconsin. The planting season could extend into December for a spring bloom of life. A possible bulb planting of 1,000-10,000 bulbs would be a good start.
For more information, please contact the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, www.JASHP.org, at Jashp1@msn.com or telephone 240-353-9528.
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Jerry Klinger is president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation