Dan J. Puckett, In the Shadow of Hitler: Alabama’s Jews, the Second World War, and the Holocaust, University of Alabama Press, ©2014, ISBN9780817381073, 233 pages plus notes, bibliography and index.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – If there were guidelines for being Alabama Jews prior to World War II they were to “blend in” with the overall white population and to refrain from calling too much attention to their “otherness” from their Christian neighbors.
For Jews whose families migrated to Alabama in the mid 19th century from Germany, that meant worshiping in classical Reform temples, which may have seemed to outside observers to be almost Protestant in form. There were no kippot on the men’s heads; the service was conducted mostly in English; and in many cases, there was organ music. The men, women and children who attended these congregations were proud American Southerners, whose religion happened to be Judaism. A detail really.
However, there were Jews who came to Alabama from Eastern Europe in a later migration, and they favored more traditional ways. They wrapped tefillin in the morning, wore their tallitim on Shabbat morning, and covered their heads for every Jewish service and sometimes out of temple as well. Their services were filled with Hebrew.
There was tension between the two groups, not in the form of open conflict, but rather in the form of social segregation. The German Jews often were leaders in the cities’ politics, charitable causes, and industry. Although their homes were big, their Jewish guest lists were small, confined to people in their own circle.
If there was a word that could cause ill-feelings between the two broad classes of Jews, that word was “Zionism.” The idea that Jews ever could want to live in a country other than America was an anathema to those who wanted nothing more than to blend in. Instead of supporting the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), they would put their faith into the American Council for Judaism, which considered America to be the new Promised Land, offering everything a Jew could ever want.
Then came Hitler.
In the years leading up to the Holocaust, the restrictive laws reducing European Jews to second class citizens persuaded both classes of Alabama Jews that increased immigration to Palestine ought to be supported. Those who wanted to fit in Alabama society thought of Palestine simply as a place of temporary refuge from the madness that had overtaken Europe, not as a nation state for the Jews, as urged by the Zionists. However, when the mass murders of the Holocaust became known, the differences between the two groups narrowed.
Of interest was the attitude of Christian Alabamans toward the Holocaust and subsequently towards Israel. By and large, they opposed Nazism and supported the establishment of the State of Israel, sometimes more fervently than their Jewish neighbors. The Christians already fit into Alabama society; they therefore could be outspoken in their support of global Jewish aspirations, without worrying that anyone would think the less of them.
Author Puckett found tremendous irony in the fact that white Southerners recognized and denounced German laws that reduced European Jews to second class citizens, while failing to see the parallel between those kinds of laws and their own system of segregation intended to keep African-Americans in a subservient position. It made no difference if the Southerner were Christians or Jews, they turned blind eyes to the immorality of racial segregation.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com
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