This anthology of scholarly essays offers insights into an era and answers some haunting questions about the attitudes of Jews to slavery both in the North and South. After all, the release from slavery and forced labor is celebrated in the Passover rite. But there is more to this book then the issue of slavery. The book's sections introduce the early history of Jews in the slave trade; the wariness of evangelical abolitionists; soldiers on both sides (there were a couple all-Jewish units); the quandary of divided families (which affected everyone); the role of women on the homefront; anti-Semitism, which led to the restriction of Northern chaplains to Christians and General Grant's Order No. 11, both of which overturned by Lincoln himself; and the changes that occurred after the war.
It is difficult for a modern America-born liberal-minded person to enter the shoes of recently arrived immigrants and minorities who faced prejudice. Keeping a low profile and adapting to the customs of the land was and is a means of survival and tolerance. In the 1860s, immigrant Jews were chiefly from Germany; their attitudes differed from those other Jews from central Europe who experienced pogroms and especially the liberal but failed 1848 revolutions. Thus, a developed sympathy for Southern positions and way of life among those Jews living below the Mason-Dixon line brought them into the Confederate army and political administration, while those in the North accepted the concept of a united America above all. Abolition played little role. Indeed, the literal Bible was cited to justify slavery by influential Northern rabbis. Some Jews were abolitionists, however, and Polish-born Ernestine Rose was a vigorous opponent of slavery and equally outspoken proponent of women's rights.
Among the wealth of information was the newspaper anti-Semitic propaganda based on "shoddy", first in reference to craftsmanship of clothing and armaments and later personified as Mr. Shoddy. I thought, as I read, of all the anti-Islamic cartoons that followed the attack on New York's twin towers. Indeed, the book offers parallels of all the belied minorities, including our own Native Americans and Japanese-Americans during WWII, who entered the military and served with distinction. This book is an important sociological text, and I learned much.
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