Jews and Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper Museum exhibit.

“The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.”

                                                                              Attributed to Jack the Ripper

I had heard bits and pieces growing up about the infamously fabled killer, Jack the Ripper.

Ghoulish murders and murder mysteries were never of particular interest to me especially when they involved horrific mutilations of the victims. The subject matter was just plain unpleasant to contemplate.

Yet, always in the back of my mind, like many Jews who know how tenuous Jewish existence can be even in the most tolerant of environments, antisemitism can flare out of nowhere and strike. The first thought to cross my mind when something terrible happens is, I hope the perpetrator was not a Jew.

Jack the Ripper murdered at least five women, the “canonical victims,” slashing their throats, disemboweling, and stealing organs with swift, precise, surgical coldness.  The unsolved murders occurred in Whitechapel/Spitalfields area of East London, 1888-1891.  The “canonical five” were the victims most researchers agree were murdered by Jack the Ripper.  During the period, an additional nine victims, possibly more, were thought linked to the Ripper. 

The East End of London, an area near the docks, was an area of extreme poverty, misery intermixed with British human detritus and densely packed with desperate Jewish refugees from Russia and Eastern Europe.

Contemporary British police investigations identified seven suspects. Two were Jews, John Pizer and Aaron Kosminski. In time, “Ripperologists”, popular culture’s name for Jack the Ripper sleuths and hucksters, identified 28 possible suspects. From the basest people to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, second in line to the British throne, were fingered as Jack the Ripper.  Even Louis Carrol, the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, got a shout out as Jack the Ripper.

Who was Jack the Ripper, who were his victims, the why and where, the reasons for what he did has stayed intriguing for over 130 years. Books, movies, articles, web sites, Madame Tussauds, a museum in Whitechapel, continue to churn out materials on the Ripper.

I thought Jack the Ripper was a minor alcove of interest to the esoterically curious, until just recently.  Jack the Ripper being Jewish was not something I had much considered. Others have, and seriously so.

A Jewish Jack the Ripper has brought out the worst antisemitic social media internet hate. Google refuses to take the bile down as a “Violation of Community Standards.”

The sleeping anxiety, let him not be Jewish, came back.

The U.S. is not exempt for the irrational bite of antisemitism. The massive surge of antisemitic incidents in 2021 is a fact. It is accompanied by mostly liberal media outlets trying to delegitimize, to villainize Israel, the “Jewish State.”   

The most heinous of invented lies, the blood libel, that Jews used the blood of Christian children in their religious rituals, occurred in Messina, N.Y., 1928, two days before Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. Four-year-old Barbara Griffiths went missing. A rumor began. The Jews had taken her.  The chief of police, who had grown up with Jews and was close to Jews all his life, accepted the possibility of the blood libel as legitimate.  He began a serious investigation into the Jews. 

The investigation ended only when the little Barbara was found alive and well. She had wandered off and fallen asleep in the woods.

In the past few months, story after story has come out, including the Jewish Press, such as the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz. Modern DNA analysis has finally determined who Jack the Ripper was they said.  A piece of physical evidence, a blood-stained victim’s apron was analyzed.  It was found on a Jewish street, not far from the Spitalfields “Great” Synagogue of Whitechapel and a Jewish Socialist Workers Club. Above the evidence, on the wall, was scrawled an oblique condemnation;

“The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.”

The controversial DNA analysis pointed the finger to Aaron Kominsky. 

The murder of the women in Whitechapel brought out the seething nativist British tensions against the immigrant Jews. Jews were attacked in the streets.  Jews fought back.

The brutality of the murders, the mutilation of the sliced open bodies, the harvesting of uteruses, kidneys, raised cries of Jewish blood rituals. 

Ironically, the blood ritual accusation was first invented by the English. William of Norwich was a little boy in 1144. He vanished a few days before Passover. The boy’s brutally murdered body was found.  The Jews were accused.  The local sheriff, John de Chesney, refused to prosecute the Jews because there was no evidence. He took the Jews into his castle to protect them from the mobs. King Stephen initially refused to prosecute the Jews too.

The damage was done. The infection of the blood libel entered the mainstream of the English world. The blood libel led to massacres of Jews in York and London. King Edward the First banished all Jews from England, July 18, 1290.   

It would be almost 400 years before Jews could return to England.

The blood libel lie spread throughout Europe. It refused to die. Popes decried the libel as a horrific falsehood. They too, could not stem the hate.   

William was eventually Canonized.  His burial site in the Norwich Cathedral remained a pilgrimage shrine until just after the Holocaust.

Being aware of the extreme rise of antisemitism in the U.K., I wanted to understand how the Jack the Ripper Museum in Whitechapel presented Aaron Komisky. I was traveling for various projects to the U.K.  It was a minor detour for my airport driver.

The museum is housed in a small, narrow, non-descript Victorian building.  I almost did not realize I was there when the driver pulled up to let me out.

A black woman, speaking in crisp Jamaican accented English, took my admission fare.  She directed me up a narrow flight of stairs.

I asked her about how they interpreted the Jewish character of recently accused Jack the Ripper, Aaron Kominsky. 

“Oh, we don’t identify anyone’s ethnicity or religion,” she said, pointing me to the narrow, dark wood staircase.  “Be sure and go to all five floors.”

Touring the building and the modest exhibits, I learned more from my attendee educator at the entrance as I was leaving.  I stopped to ask her another question.

“Did the Jews live amongst the Christians?” I asked. 

She answered, “the Jews tended to live close by each other but were mixed in with the Christian community.  The murders were mainly in the Jewish areas.  The feelings against the Jews were very bad and dangerous. The Police Commissioner protected the Jews.” 

Her last comment struck me.  It was not what I had expected, “the Police Commissioner protected the Jews.” Being seriously froggy headed from jet lag and needing to get to an appointment, I left cataloging her words for later.

The tensions against the Jews of Whitechapel for the murders of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, and Elizabeth Stride were explosive when the bloody apron was found under the scrawl pointing to the Jews on Goulston Street. Catherine Eddowes was victim number 4.

Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren arrived at the scene. He made a crucial decision. He had the writing pointing to the Jews erased. He wrote to the Home Office:

 …it was just getting light, the public would be in the streets in a few minutes, in a neighbourhood very much crowded by Jewish vendors and Christian Purchasers from all parts of London…The writing was on the jamb of the open archway or doorway visible to anybody in the street and could not be covered up without danger of the covering been torn off at once. A discussion took place whether the writing could be left covered up or otherwise…for an hour until it could be photographed; but after taking into consideration the excited state of the population in London…the strong feeling which had been excited against the Jews, and the fact that in a short time there would be a large concourse of the people in the streets, and having before me a report that if it was left there the house was likely to be wrecked (in which from my own observation I entirely concurred) I considered it desirable to obliterate the writing at once…I do not hesitate to say that if the writing had been left there would have been an onslaught upon the Jews, property would have been wrecked, and lives would probably have been lost…”

The short thirty-minute detour to the Jack the Ripper Museum and the dark side taught me something good.

Could the murderer have been a Jew? Perhaps.  What was importantly learned was that to prevent evil from growing to envelop the innocent, good people must be willing to step forward and make hard, controversial decisions such as Sir Charles Warren had.

Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

www.JASHP.org

Operation Mincemeat and the Holocaust

British Identity Card – Major William Martin

The words together will offend someone, perhaps more than just one someone. 

The Holocaust was a horror that converted millions of Jews into mincemeat.

Operation Mincemeat was an impossibly successful British military operation that saved at least a million Jews from being exterminated.

April 24, in Hackney, London, a black polished historical interpretive marker, was dedicated. The marker is sited, near to the ground, an unexpected location, on a retaining pilon adjacent to the late 19th century Hackney mortuary.  The events that occurred at the mortuary changed the course of World War II. 

Two unlikely secret intelligence operatives, Ewen Montagu, a British Jew, and Charles Cholmondely, a British aristocrat, were tasked with putting a false Operation together that would be swallowed hook, line and sinker by the Nazis. 

1943 the North African campaign had ended successfully with the German/Italian complete defeat.  The Germans knew the next probable target for the British and American forces would be an attack on Sicily, the gateway to Italy and Europe.

Historically, invasion after invasion of Italy began first with Sicily.  The Germans were excellent soldiers and knew their history.

In anticipation, the Nazis directed heavy defenses to Sicily to fend off and even destroy the coming Allied attack. 

Montagu and Cholmondely had to convince the Nazis to do just the opposite. They had to convince the Nazis that the real target of the Allies was not Sicily but Greece? They had to convince the Nazis to concentrate their military power in Greece. 

A vercockte, meshugenah plan was developed by the two intelligence officers. They obtained a corpse. Oddly, during wartime obtaining a corpse that had not been blown to bits was much harder than they had thought.  They found the body of a vagrant who had committed suicide by ingesting rat poison, that would do nicely.    

Over a few months, they transformed the corpse, kept on “ice” at the mortuary, into Major William Martin.  They developed a complete storyline and tidbits of personalized memorabilia like a love letter with a picture from an invented fiancé to be placed on the body in a British Military uniform.  Handcuffed to his wrist was a valise with top-secret false documents, signed for real by the appropriate Generals in command, indicating the Allies’ real invasion target was Greece. 

The body was taken by submarine and released off the coast of Spain where it was washed shoreward. Martin was presumably drowned after his plane had been shot down. The body was to be discovered by the pro-Nazi Spanish. The Spanish obligingly turned over the valise with the secret documents to the Nazis. The secret documents landed on Hitler’s desk. 

The Fuhrer made a command decision, convinced of the authenticity of the secret information, and ordered the bulk of German forces on Sicily to be moved to Greece.  Goebbels, Hitler’s minister of propaganda, strongly advised Hitler against the decision. 

After all, it takes a liar to know a liar.

Hitler knew better and overrode the concerns.  He swallowed the bait hook line and sinker. 

The Allied invasion of Sicily proceeded with extraordinary success.  What could have been a horrific bloodbath, turned into an incredible success.  It was estimated that the crazy operation put together by the Jew and the Aristocrat saved 10s of thousands of Allied casualties. 

The Germans and their Italian allies were defeated on Sicily very rapidly. 

There was another effect from Operation Mincemeat.  Hitler stubbornly refused to believe that Greece was not the true target of the Allies. 

July 1943, the greatest tank battle of World War II raged near Kursk. 280 Miles Southwest of Moscow.  The Germans were losing. 

They called for their armor reinforcements being held in Greece.  Hitler refused to release the desperately needed units.  He remained convinced the Allies were going to invade Greece and that the invasion of Sicily was a ruse.

The German tidal wave was broken at Kursk.  From there on the Russians pushed the Nazis back. 

If Operation Mincemeat had not been successful, it is very likely the Germans would not have been defeated in Sicily and at Kursk.  The war and the killing machines of the Nazi Holocaust would have had another year to continue the murder of the last remnants of Jews in Europe. 

My mother was liberated by the British from Bergen Belsen.  My father was liberated by the Americans from Buchenwald.  Both near death in 1945, survived because the war ended before the Germans could have finished the job. 

Martin Sugarman is the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation’s U.K. representative.  Martin explained this small, seemingly insignificant historical event that occurred centered on a corpse and mortuary in Hackney, had no marker in all the U.K. telling the story. The question of funding and supporting the project was never a debate for JASHP.

April 24, before a crowd of military personnel, including the American Embassy Military Attaché, Col. Mike Cullinane, dignitaries, the Mayor and Speaker of Hackney Michael Desmond, the National Chairman, Daniel Fox of AJEX (the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women – U.K.) religious leaders, historians, political and community leaders, the marker was dedicated. 

Nine days earlier, April 15, Warner Brothers had released a major motion picture based on the true events of Operation Mincemeat, in the U.K.  The movie will be released for Netflix and to North American theaters May 11. 

The text of the marker:

“In April 1943 Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu CBE KC RNVR, a British Jew, and Flight Lieutenant Charles Cholmondely MBE, a British aristocrat, planned Operation Mincemeat to misdirect German forces’ attention from the Allied invasion of Sicily. They brought the donated body of a man to the Hackney Mortuary where it stayed on ice for 3 months. Cholmondely and Montagu transformed the corpse into a fictitious officer – Major William Martin. The body was taken to Scotland, and then to a point off of southern Spain, where it was placed in the water carrying letters from senior Allied officers suggesting the Allies would invade Greece, not Sicily. When the body was found, the letters were shared with Nazi intelligence, misdirecting German forces, saving thousands of British and American soldiers’ lives during the invasion of Sicily.

“Set a watch before my mouth: and over the door of my lips” Psalms 141:3

Erected byHackney Council, Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Martin Sugarman (AJEX)”.

Cancel Abraham Lincoln

JASHP’s Choice

Though elected by a very distinct, minority of the American people, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16^th President of the United States March 4, 1861. The population of the country was just north of 31,000,000.  The country consisted of 33 individual States forged into a common, increasingly tenuous union since the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789. 

Deep fissures threatened to irreparably tear the Union apart. Economics, slavery, politics, societal and moral concerns faced Lincoln as he took office. The horror of fratricidal civil war was threatened. It was not what the country wanted. It was not what he wanted.  

Unable to navigate a compromise, the cannon shells began bursting over Union controlled Ft. Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina’s harbor. Lincoln called for a National Army to crush the rebellion.  Preserve the Union by force and blood became his decision.

Seven Southern States had seceded by the time Sumter was shelled. Lincoln’s call for a violent solution to end the secession pushed four more States to leave the Union.  They joined together as the newly constituted Southern Confederacy.

Four years of carnage, destruction, hate ensued; over 500,000 Americans were slaughtered on both sides of the conflict. The soil across America, fertilized with the blood of so many, flowered an America, an America different from what anyone could have imagined in 1861.  

Freedom had not been born fully developed in 1789. After 1865, a new course was set. The shortfalls of the Constitution were amended. A process to establish a newer and better union of States for all the people through the amended Constitution had been constituted.

The New Union would not be smooth, it would not be guaranteed. Left turns still emerged and in time were corrected or put on the road to correction.  The imperfect process worked.

Before Lincoln, except for a tiny minority of noisy radical abolitionists, ending Slavery, in any form, did not concern the overwhelming majority of the country. Ending slavery was not a reason that Americans wished to sacrifice their brothers, husbands, and sons for.

After Lincoln, it was.

Lincoln’s pragmatic views of Slavery evolved over the four years of War.  He steered the ship of Union, not always perfectly, sometimes with mistakes, evolving towards a better freer future for all Americans.  He paid for his vision with his life, an assassin’s bullet to his head his reward.

Every year, Jews read and reread the Torah to remember, to relearn, to learn anew.  

For decades the activist, originally well-intentioned, American educational system has denigrated, minimized history.  History was then not for their today’s social vision.  The ancient Greek Delphic maxim written above the Temple’s entrance – “Man, know they-self,” was long forgotten. The associated message, know from where you came, was pushed to dusty library back shelves.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, framed understanding of history through an old Jewish Saying.

“In remembrance lies the roots of redemption;

in forgetfulness, the roots of destruction.”

Today, 155 years on, memory has been noisily canceled by the half-educated “Woke” mobs of new haters eagerly rushing to cancel, destroy and remove Abraham Lincoln. Their education is little more than feel-good five-minute politically motivated soundbites from half understood Audio/Visual learning.  American mass media, educators from grade schools to universities, textbook publishers, political leaders, many intimidated and fearful, refuse to push back the nihilists’. For business, including the education business, to get along, go along.

2020-2021 was the “Year of Outrage and Flame”, sparked by the George Floyd death. 

January 2021, the San Francisco school board voted to remove Abraham Lincoln’s name from a high school.  Lincoln was labeled a racist. He was a bad example for children.   

Across the national liberal spectrum, Lincoln, some said, did not care if Black Lives Mattered.  Others pointed to his hanging of Sioux native Americans during Minnesota’s 1862’s Sioux uprising. Still others condemned Lincoln arbitrarily transferring Native American hunting grounds to Railroad companies building the transcontinental rail system during the Civil War and stomping on Native American rights without supposed reason.

Demeaning Lincoln for political reasons was not new.  In 2005 Sen. Barack Obama said, “I cannot swallow the whole view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.”

Four years later, in 2009, cynically, Obama chose to be sworn in as the first Black American President using Lincoln’s personal bible. 

The year of Outrage and Flame saw statues to Lincoln, from California to Spokane, Boise, Idaho, Sioux City, to New York to Vermont, to Boston, vandalized, commonly smeared with blood-red paint and or human feces. Lincoln’s statue was pulled down in Portland. Lincoln’s statue was burned in Chicago. In Washington, D.C., the 1922 sculpture of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator with a kneeling former slave at his knee raised Woke insensitivity fury.  The sculpture had been paid for by the wages of freed slaves.

CNN was accused of click-baiting Lincoln by inferring Lincoln would not care about “Black Lives Matter.” 

The list goes on and on.  Grade school students learn more about Sojourner Truth than Abraham Lincoln.  But then in Israel, less than 50% of Israel’s young know who Theodor Herzl was or why he was significant.

The context of the time, what was possible, and when, is lost on the Woke.   

Lincoln, for all his warts and imperfections, did what he could in the world he lived in.  He led a course correction for a better America that no one else did or probably could have. 

Lincoln was a man of his time. He pragmatically evolved with a new vision for tomorrow.

JASHP has chosen to honor President Lincoln with a paver leading to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill. 

Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation

http://www.JASHP.org

Post Script:

JASHP’s General Order #11 Marker

The worst Government-sponsored anti-Semitic incident in American history was instigated by General, later President, Ulysses S. Grant.  Lincoln learned about it three days after he had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Jan. 1, 1863, freeing the Slaves in the rebellious South. 

Without hesitation, he ordered Grant’s order countermanded. 

Marker recalls Grant’s Infamous Order No. 11

Jews, the Environment and Oceanography; a simple Paver

The Florida Coast Oceanographic Center is located on picturesque Hutchinson Island between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian River.  It is the home of the Florida Oceanographic Society, whose mission is to “inspire environmental stewardship of Florida’s coastal ecosystems through education, research, and advocacy.”   

The environment of tomorrow is the responsibility, the obligation, of today for tomorrow.

The Society recently built the Coastal Center on a 57-acre property with a 750,000 gallon “outdoor” aquarium of marine life. It has extensive facilities focused on education, especially children’s education.

A controlled “water tank petting zoo”, children are invited to feed the fish, even let the manta rays “eat” from their hands, lush walking trails, a butterfly garden, water life themed sculptures, and gazebos for adults to hear docent talks demystifying the watery world about them are all welcomingly accessible.

Sixty thousand people a year, and growing, visit the Center.   

Ticket prices alone are not sufficient to operate and develop the new Center.  Fundraising is a necessity.  One element to fundraise is selling walkway bricks or pavers. They are carved with dedications, Harry Loves Sally, Porpoises are your Palls.

Recently the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) donated a paver.

The text is simple, our Society’s name. It is prominently placed in the walkway of the Butterfly Garden.

JASHP’s motto is “shaping the future by remembering the past.”  JASHP encourages dialogue and interactive recognition of the commonality of the American Experience.

What is more in common for all Americans than the commonality of our shared environment?

The paver’s purpose is more than sharing a few supportive dollars with a deserving environmental society.  It is also a Jewish necessity against the rising tide of American antisemitism that denies Jewish historical legitimacy, presence, and commonality.

The dedicatory text, with the word Jewish, is seemingly out of place. Jews are culturally depicted as historically originating desert nomads with no link to the sea.  The word Jewish silently extends, impresses, a normalcy of inclusion in the Center’s purpose and the broader role of Jewish concerns for the environment.

The paver is another element, another notch, in the fight against Jews being seen, as Yad Vashem put it, the “Other”, who are not included within the fabric of the whole, the American people.

Perhaps, a curious visitor will Web Surf, Jews, and Oceanography? They will discover Walter Munk, a Jewish Oceanographer who helped revolutionize Oceanography. Surfers will discover Jessica Meir, an American NASA astronaut, marine biologist, and physiologist.  Hava Hornung’s name will pop up.  Hava was Israel’s first female oceanographer. She was instrumental in establishing Israel’s first oceanographic research center in Israel. 

Surfers will also uncover a dark side of American life.  Roger Revelle, a building on San Diego’s State University campus is named for him. He was a famed Oceanographer and marine biologist.  He was not Jewish, but when he was recruiting the best minds to teach in San Diego, he fought the rabid antisemitism that existed in California, and San Diego in particular, that denied housing to anyone who was Jewish.

Surfers will discover Florida’s Tikkun Hayam, (Repair the Sea).  Tikkun Hayam is a Jewish organization whose mission “is to share the spiritual wonders of the sea from a Jewish perspective and raise awareness of and encourage action to address the many threats facing the Marine environment.”

There is more and more about Jews and the Seas awaiting to be appreciated.

The simple JASHP paver, with the word Jewish, seemingly out of place, is very much in place.

JASHP has placed going on two score bricks and pavers nationally.  More are in fabrication and will be shared as they are sited. 

Jerry Klinger is the president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

www.JASHP.org

“The Last Rosenwald”

The Eleanor Roosevelt School

The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation is privileged to be part of a remarkable community-led effort to restore the Eleanor Roosevelt (Rosenwald) school in Warm Springs, Georgia.

We shape the future by remembering the past.

The choice for a better tomorrow is ours. 

Voncher and Debron Walker are native Atlanta siblings & entrepreneurs who purchased The Eleanor Roosevelt School with plans to restore and preserve the property. Since their purchase, they’ve uncovered the powerful impact this along with the other Rosenwald Schools had on Black Americans. Their vision and commitment to preserving this National Treasure have since evolved & grown beyond their initial plans.

Frieda Salvendy – The Outdoor Museum

Malvern, England

An important Holocaust memory was completed, interpreted, this week, not just for today but for a hundred years or more of tomorrows.

A permanent interpretive headstone was placed for an Austrian Jewish woman, a refugee, who died and was buried far from her homeland in an obscure English churchyard cemetery under a Star of David.  Her only marker before was a simple footstone with her name.

JASHP had arranged for a historical interpretive marker to be placed on the Malvern old age home where Frieda Salvendy died.  The interpretive marker on the entrance wall will endure, perhaps for a few decades before time and change will have it removed.  Frieda’s story will recede into the gray mist. 

Frieda’s story is more than she was a groundbreaking Austrian Expression artist who fought the dominance of the male-centered art world.  Her accomplishments as an artist and a Woman’s Rights fighter were significant. 

But her story needed more context.  It needed more understanding.  

Frieda fled the land of her birth because she was a Jew. She was forced to escape the clutching death that the Nazis brought to all Jews in their grasp. It was a time of Jewish disaster when 6,000,000 Jews were murdered by German Nazis and their ardent anti-Semitic supporters across Europe, the Holocaust.

Today, less than 40% of people have heard of the Holocaust or know what it was.  What will the numbers of memory be in 100 years? 

Cemeteries endure for centuries, especially when associated with ongoing Church communities. 

Frieda Salvendy was buried in the Malvern, Church Cemetery even though she was a Jew.  Surprisingly, it is more common than many assume.  Without a Jewish identifier, a Star on a tombstone or the word Jewish, few know, and no-one will know, the interred was Jewish. 

Placing a tombstone with a Star and or the word Jewish will be a curiosity of memory to future cultural visitors coming across the gravesite in the Christian cemetery.  They will stop and wonder who this person was and understand the why she is here.

This week, JASHP completed, with the cooperation of the Church community, a new interpretive headstone for Frieda Salvendy sited above her resting place.  It is more than a tombstone.  It is a story of memory, of education, of understanding of tragedy and shelter.  Frieda, fortunately for her and unfortunately for too many others, found safety and shelter in the U.K. during the Holocaust.

One hundred years, 200 years from now, a visitor will read who Frieda was. Perhaps they will ask what was the Holocaust?  Her memory, a tiny story in the enormous tragedy of the darkness, will be remembered.

Cemeteries are not just places of mourning.  For many who visit, they are also outdoor Museums, cultural windows to the past that have shaped who and what we are today. 

Text of Frieda’s Stone

Star of David

Remembering

Austrian Expressionist Artist

Frieda Salvendy

Who escaped the Nazi Holocaust in 1938

And lived many years in Malvern

Until she died in 1965

Hebrew –

Be Strong and of Good Courage

Joshua 1:9

Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation

Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.

www.JASHP.org

Victims Memorial Vandalized in Marietta

A memorial to lynching victims, adjacent to the Leo Frank memorial in Marietta, has been desecrated.

By Dave Shecter

A memorial to lynching victims, adjacent to the Leo Frank memorial in Marietta, has been toppled.

The engraved black granite slab was forcibly removed from the pedestal to which it was attached by steel pins and left lying on the ground. The damage was discovered Thursday morning, Feb. 10, by a visitor to the site on Roswell Road, near Interstate 75. Photographs shared with the AJT show no visible clue as to how the monument was dislodged. No other vandalism or defacement was apparent at the site. The Anti-Defamation League contacted law enforcement.

The new Georgia lynching memorial sits a few feet from the plaque memorializing Leo Frank’s lynching in August 1915.

Jordan Strong, a Waleska, Ga., resident, told the AJT that he was moved to visit the site after his 13-year-old son came home from school Wednesday with questions about what his class had learned about the Leo Frank case. As he walked from his car, “I was on the phone with my wife. I said, you’ve got to be freaking kidding me. Somebody has managed to tip this thing over,” Strong said.

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The lynching memorial landed face up, allowing Strong to read the inscription:
In respectful memory of the thousands across America, denied justice by lynching: Victims of hatred, prejudice and ignorance.
Between 1880-1946, ~570 Georgians were lynched.
ADL
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation
Rabbi Steven Lebow, Temple Kol Emeth

The memorial to lynching victims was installed in December 2018, three months after the rededication of the Leo Frank memorial. The Frank marker had been removed four years earlier by the Georgia Department of Transportation because of road construction. It consists of a metal plaque on a pole anchored in a grassy area carved out by GDOT.

Leo Frank Memorial sits adjacent to the new Georgia Lynching memorial.

Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent, was lynched on Aug. 17, 1915, in a long since built over woods along what now is Frey’s Gins Road. Frank was convicted in 1913 of murder in the death of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, who worked at the Atlanta pencil factory where he was the manager. Cobb County residents, angered by Gov. John Slaton’s commutation of the death sentence, kidnapped Frank from the state prison in Milledgeville and drove him to woods where he was hanged.
Frank’s is the only known lynching of a Jew in the United States.

When the lynching memorial was installed, an ADL statement said: “This memorial is the first to recognize all victims of lynching in Georgia. That makes it very significant. The placement of the memorial at the Leo Frank historical marker is very appropriate. ADL’s founders recognized through our mission that you cannot just fight hate against Jews but must speak out no matter who is targeted by hateful acts. While Leo Frank is the one Jewish lynching victim we are aware of, there were thousands of African Americans and others lynched, not just in Georgia, but across the country.”

By some estimates, as many as 95 percent of those lynched in Georgia were African Americans. The memorial uses the “~” figure because the documented number of lynchings may be incomplete.

The benefactor for the lynching memorial, as for the Leo Frank plaque, was Jerry Klinger, a 74-year-old retired financial services executive from Rockville, Md., and founder of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation. JASHP has placed historic markers at more than 110 locations in the United States alone and others in a half dozen countries.

The lynching memorial — 36 inches tall, 14 inches wide at its base and six inches in depth — was crafted to Klinger’s specifications by the Roberts-Shields Memorial Company in Marietta.

The damage can and will be fixed, Klinger said, but the incident presents a learning opportunity to teach about “the bigotry and hatred” that makes such memorials necessary. “I really see these guys as cowards. They’re being very blatant about what they’re doing,” Klinger said.

Strong and his wife, Elizabeth, are the parents of three boys and a daughter, ranging in age from 15 to 8 years old. They are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sometimes referred to as Mormons.

“We want our kids to be educated that you should stand up for anyone, regardless of who they are, regardless of their religion or race,” Strong said. “We want them to also understand that there are people out there who are opposed to anything other than what they think is okay.”

https://www.atlantajewishtimes.com/victims-memorial-vandalized-in-marietta/

John Lewis, Leo Frank, and the National Anti-Lynching Memorial

Jul 20, 2020, 10:45 PM

The only National Anti-Lynching Memorial in the country was made possible by John Lewis. All Americans mourn his recent passing.

August 17 is the anniversary of the lynching of Atlanta, Georgia Jewish businessman, husband, and President of B’nai Brith, Leo Frank. Frank was convicted of the rape and murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan.

Convicted, by at best circumstantial evidence, fueled in an atmosphere inflamed by rabid antisemitism, Frank was sentenced to death.

Frank was kidnapped from prison and taken to Marietta, Ga. by a group named the Knights of Mary Phagan. Many of them were founding members of the Ku Klux Klan.

The morning of August 17, hundreds gathered to watch Frank swing. Before he died, Frank asked that his wedding ring be given to his widow. It was. Pictures were taken and sold like baseball cards.  Strips of his clothing were cut and marketed as souvenirs.

Leo’s lynching horrified the Jews of Georgia. The Klan’s dual goals were accomplished, lynching Leo, and terrorizing the Jews.

Few Jews know Leo’s story today.  It is uncomfortable.

The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, working with the Georgia Historical Society, funded a GHS historical roadside marker interpreting and preserving the lynching site.

Interstate 75 development needed the land. The tree Leo swung upon was cut down. The land became an off-ramp for the new highway. The marker was removed.

Under Georgia law, the marker had to be re-sited when redevelopment was completed, near to the original historical location as possible. Aug. 2018, after four years in storage, the marker was rededicated on a small piece of land, the Georgia Department of named the Leo Frank Memorial.

The significance of Leo’s story is much more than an innocent Jew was hung.  Leo’s story went to the issue of lynching in America.

Lynching is misunderstood as hanging.  It is not.

The Bishop representing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the rededication of the Leo Frank marker and I spoke about what is lynching. I asked him, rhetorically, about the infamous 1946 Moore’s Ford Lynching in Georgia. Four young African Americans were shot to death. Their bodies were hung from a nearby bridge.

I asked, “if a person is shot to death, is it the same as lynching?”

The Bishop did not answer. The answer was self-evident.

As with Leo Frank, the Moore’s Ford victims of racism were “lynched” as acts of terror.

Lynching is societal terrorism for social, political and economic purposes.  Lynching could take many forms, not necessarily hanging.

According to Tuskegee University there are over 6000 documented “lynching” victims in the United States.  Approximately 2/3 of that number are Black Americans.  The rest are Brown, Yellow and White.

By definition, Native Americans, or Red lynching, were “lynched” in the millions.  Their numbers are not counted.

The single largest lynching in the country took place in New Orleans, 1891. Eleven Whites, Sicilians, were lynched on one day.

How many people have been “lynched” in the U.S. can never be 100% known.  The number(s) has become politicized.

Where was the memorial to the victims of lynching? There was none.

The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation conceived and agreed to fund the first-ever national anti-lynching memorial in the U.S. We proposed it be sited adjacent to the newly rededicated Leo Frank Memorial in Marietta.  All lynching sites are horrible and should be remembered.  But the Leo Frank lynching site was a unique opportunity to speak about the national horror of domestic terrorism.

Enlisting the help of the ADL and Rabbi Steven Lebow of Marietta Congregation Kol Emeth, letters of support were obtained from key Georgians.  The Georgia Department of Transportation was applied to for siting permission, for a size appropriate to the Leo Frank site, National Anti-Lynching Memorial.  GDOT controlled the land.

To our dismay, GDOT turned down the request because of size. Then they turned down the downsized memorial because of design.  I wanted to include an image of the Leo Frank lynching.  Finally, we were flatly turned down.

The memorial looked like it would fail.  There was one more person I reached out to for help.  I contacted Congressman John Lewis for a letter of support and reconsideration to GDOT.

It took a few days.  Congressman Lewis’ staff got back to me.

With Congressman Lewis’ letter in hand, the legal staff of the ADL and I asked GDOT for reconsideration.  GDOT reviewed the request and reconsidered.

The National Anti-Lynching Memorial was approved for siting at the Leo Frank Memorial site.

The black granite stone, reinforced with internal steel pins, was placed.  The text of the anti-lynching memorial is simple and direct.

“In respectful memory of the thousands across America, denied justice by lynching, victims of hatred, prejudice and ignorance.

Between 1880-1946

~ 570 Georgians were lynched.”

Congressman Lewis wrote:

Dear Commissioner McMurry,

I respectfully write to urge the Georgia Department of Transportation to reconsider its decision to deny the placement of the Anti-Lynching Memorial at the Leo frank Memorial site.

On August 17, 1915, a mob – imbued with racism and antisemitism – attached and killed Mr. Frank.  His lynching was a horrific denial of justice and a stain on our region and State’s history.  It is difficult to explain how significant and impactful it will be to have such a tribute at the newly named Leo Frank Memorial.

Our nation is steadily moving forward in an attempt to erase the pain caused by hate and the injustices based on racism and fear.  In 2005, the United States Senate unanimously adopted a resolution to apologize for dark legacy of lynching on our nation’s history.  Earlier this year, Members of Congress proposed bipartisan legislation to provide justice for past victims and to clarify and codify the enforcement standards should lynching occur in our future.

For Metro Atlanta and the State of Georgia, the proposed Anti-Lynching Memorial is an important step towards healing for our community and honoring the work and sacrifice of countless generations to end racial and civil injustice in our great country.  It is my understanding that there is minimal cost to taxpayers for the proposed Anti-Lynching memorial since the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, the Anti-Defamation League, Georgia Jewish civic groups, and many individuals designed and funded this public tribute.

“I hope that the Georgia Department of Transportation will allow this memorial to call the new Leo Frank Memorial home.  It will represent Georgia Department of Transportation’s appreciation of the Leo Frank Memorial and its significance to our unified efforts to achieve a Beloved Community.”

Sincerely,

John Lewis

Member of Congress.

The evil of bigotry, hatred, and ignorance remains.  The efforts to bring about change continues.  Congressman John Lewis made a difference.

A ‘love letter’ from the Dark Side – Neo-Nazis and Holocaust Denial

Nov 3, 2019, 11:56 AM

“Jerry Klinger is a despicable peddler of hate. He is one of those Jews who has made it his life’s mission to tell grizzly fairy tales of the Holocaust Hoax and dehumanizing tales of Germans.”

Most of the “Love Letters” from the Dark Side I have received are centered on my efforts to preserve the memory of the tragic Leo Frank lynching in Georgia, August 17, 1915.  Frank had been lynched by an enraged White Mob in Marietta, Georgia after his death sentence had been overridden by Georgia Governor Frank Slaton.  Slaton was extremely uncomfortable with the trial, the evidence and the anti-Semitically charged environment that convicted Frank on circumstantial evidence, at best, of the assault and murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan. Leo Frank had been the President of the Atlanta Chapter of B’nai B’rith in 1912.

The recently organized Knights of Mary Phagan took justice into their own hands.  Frank was kidnapped from the State prison in Milledgeville, brought to Marietta and lynched.

As head of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP), when I learned the spot of the Frank lynching horror, the very tree he was hung from, was to be converted into an offramp for the new highway, action was needed. History and memory would be lost.  There already was a cottage industry of anti-Semites asserting the absolute guilt of Leo Frank, the Jew.

Under Georgia law, if a Georgia Historical Society roadside marker was in place at a historic site and the site was to be redeveloped, the marker had to be “appropriately” replaced after redevelopment.  In other words, JASHP funded a Georgia Historical marker at the lynching site telling the story, preserving the memory.

The site was redeveloped and last year the marker was, in a significant ceremony, replaced near the lynching site. The State of Georgia designated the site as the “Leo Frank Memorial.”

JASHP funded and placed at the same location the first national anti-lynching Memorial in the United States. It recognized over 570 Georgians who were victims of lynch law.  Nationally, documentation exists for over 5,500 men and women, of whom 2/3 were Black Americans, between 1870 -1940 were lynching victims. Lynching is a form of societal terrorism.

Early October of this year, I was approached, as President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, to look into the Paul Eilert burial in Ft. Douglas, Utah outside of Salt Lake City.  A Jewish university professor was incensed by the blatant symbology of hatred that was permitted in a U.S. Military Cemetery.

I wrote a story about what I had learned, “The Swastika in a U.S. Military Cemetery.”

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Paul Eilert, the man buried at the site, died in Salt Lake City from Cancer in 1944.  He was a German POW.  His gravestone is the most unusual of all German POW burials in the U.S. His is comparatively large, prominent, and the only one to have the Knight’s Cross (Iron Cross) carved into the stone as a point of great honor.  The Swastika is clearly evident on his stone in the middle of the Knight’s Cross.

Research, which is still ongoing, indicates that Paul Eilert is a mystery.  There is no record of a Paul Eilert ever having been awarded the Knight’s Cross.  Research, so far, has failed to turn up any reason for his award or even if the name Paul Eilert was, in fact, his real name.  The story of Paul Eilert is a mystery.

Demanding memory is the third rail to anti-Semites, Neo-Nazis, and Holocaust Deniers.  Broaching the subject of the Swastika in the cemetery was enough to bring them up from their Dark Places.

Few Jews have heard about Leo Frank, and even fewer Jews are interested in the meaning of his memory.  Jews speak often about Holocaust memory, but fewer and fewer young Jews go to Yom HaShoah programs.  Some Jews are even outraged when their children are taught about the Holocaust in Hebrew school. The Rabbis have refused to create even a single Halachically mandated Holocaust prayer.

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November 7, The Buchenwald Scientific Review Commission along with the Buchenwald Concentration Camp Memorial leadership in Germany will be voting on JASHP’s proposed American Liberators’ Memorial.  JASHP is funding the Memorial.

April 2020 is the 75^th anniversary of the Camp’s liberation by American forces, the 3^rd army under General Patton.  There has never been a memorial honoring the American liberators.  The proposal has touched the third rail in Buchenwald.

American Ambassador Richard Grenell, a Trump appointee, is strongly supporting the Memorial effort.  The Veterans of Foreign Wars, (U.S.) and others are strongly supporting the Memorial effort.  No major Jewish organization has signed on to the Memorial effort. The Communists have come out attacking JASHP and the Memorial effort.

What seemed obvious and right, and was brought forward by a Jewish organization, can not even be guessed at as to the outcome of the vote.

When hatred exists, Jews must not be silent. Too many Jews are.

Memorial for Leo Frank and all victims of lynching.

July 27, 2018

Leo Frank plaque unveiling participants included Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes, State Senator Groner, Jerry Klinger and Todd Groce of the Georgia Historical Society

MARIETTA, Georgia — It was reported by a member of the lynching party; Leo Frank met his death with unexpected composure. A Georgia court had found him guilty of the murder of 13-year old Mary Phagan. She was an employee at the National Pencil Factory Frank managed in Atlanta.

Frank was a prominent member of the Jewish community, a past president of Atlanta’s B’nai B’rith. The evidence against him was flimsy, mainly circumstantial. The Police investigation was seriously flawed. The principal witness against Frank was John Conley, a man with a very strong incentive to accuse Frank of the murder. It diverted attention from himself.

On many levels, Frank’s trial was a first. It was the first time that a Georgia jury accepted the testimony of a Black man condemning a White man. The trial atmosphere, the thousands waiting outside of the courthouse and especially the Georgia press, sweated anti-Semitism from every pore.

The Judge sentenced Frank to death.

Appeals for reconsideration to the Judge failed. An appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States failed. The last possible appeal was to the Governor of Georgia, John Slaton.

On his last days in office Slaton personally reviewed everything about the Frank trial. He scoured every word of the trial transcript. Slaton visited the crime scene. He sensed something was wrong…he knew justice had gone terribly wrong.

His last few hours in office, Slaton commuted Frank’s death sentence to life imprisonment. Slaton ordered Frank removed far from Atlanta to the relative safety of Georgia’s Milledgeville prison.

Slaton’s political career was over. The thousands of armed Georgians gathered about his home screaming for his blood said so. The militia was called out, machine guns were set up for his safety. Slaton and his wife left Georgia on a very, very extended cruise.

In Marietta, Georgia, where Phagan was from and where she was buried, the leading citizens of Marietta organized themselves into the Knights of Mary Phagan. They stood about the grave of “Little Mary” and swore vengeance.

On April 16, Twenty-five of Marietta’s finest citizens easily snatched Leo Frank from prison. They drove him to Marietta where a rope, a tree and thousands of spectators awaited. They had had too much law and too little justice.

Leo asked his executioners to give his wife, Lucille, his wedding band. The chair was kicked out. The Jew lurched downward, his neck snapping.

Historic photo of Leo Frank’s lynching

All day, gawkers came to see Frank’s lifeless body hanging. Pictures were taken of many smiling faces. Ghoulish bigots looked under the long shirt Leo’s body was clothed in. They wished to see if the stories about the monstrous size of Jewish privates was true.

Pieces of Leo, his fingers, his toes, his manhood were not cut off for souvenirs as frequently happened to Black victims of lynching.

The body was returned to a Jewish morgue in Atlanta. Lucille Frank was given Leo’s wedding band. Leo was buried in New York, in Queens.

Three months later, Thanksgiving 1915, William Joseph Simmons invited the Knights of Mary Phagan to join him atop Atlanta’s Stone Mountain for a Cross Burning punctuated with Bible readings. The Ku Klux Klan was reborn that night. Over the next decade, the Klan grew to over six million members across America.

American Jews everywhere were horrified. The message of lynching was more than successful. Terror, fueled by anti-Semitic hatred in America, was real. Leo Frank had been lynched in an American pogrom.

Between 1860 and 1930 there were over 4,700 documented lynchings in America. More than 3,000 were American Blacks, nearly 1,500 were Whites, Hispanics, Chinese, and unknown numbers of Native Americans. The Mexican government protested on behalf of Mexicans. The Chinese Government protested. The Italian government protested the lynching of Italian immigrants.

Like for American Blacks and Native Americans, no government protested the lynching of the Jew. There was no State of Israel. American Jews could only trust in the American government though again that trust was shaken violently. Just 25 years after Leo Frank’s lynching, the American government did little to save Jewish lives as the Holocaust exterminated European Jewry.

Decades passed. Memory faded. The tree where Leo’s body hung still stood at Frey’s Gin and Roswell Road in Marietta. Mary Phagan’s gravesite became a shrine with continual offerings of little stuffed animals, flowers, and coins. Though infamous, the only lynching of an American Jew was relegated to a few moments in the Georgia public school curriculum and virtually nothing in Jewish education nationally.

Unknown to the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) at the time, the quiet courage of a local Marietta rabbi, Steven Lebow, refused to let the site of Leo’s tragedy recede into the misty shadows of forgetfulness. With the permission of the modern-day owner of the property, an Evangelical Christian, where a small office building had been constructed, Lebow placed two small commemorative plaques on the 80th and 90th anniversary of Leo’s execution. Otherwise, there was nothing.

In 2004,  JASHP contacted the Mayor of Marietta about a historical marker at the Frank lynch site. The mayor thanked JASHP for the contact and responded. Marietta had two markers already, one for Mary Phagan and one at the lynching site. He declined further involvement.

The mayor was right and wrong. There was a marker near the grave of Mary Phagan. The marker at the lynching site was placed by Rabbi Lebow.

In my capacity as founding president of JASHP, I learned that the lynching site was being considered for redevelopment as an off-ramp for I-75. The redevelopment would permanently obliterate the site. However, if a Georgia Historical Society marker was at the site first, by law, after redevelopment, the marker must be replaced as near as possible to the original historical location. In other words, the presence of a GHS marker meant the Leo Frank site could be saved.

Memory is a terrible thing to lose.

I reached out to Rabbi Lebow who warmly received the offer of partnership in the effort. The Georgia Historical Society recognized the high significance of a Leo Frank marker at the lynching site. JASHP agreed to pay for it. The Anti-Defamation League joined as a key partner.

Marietta would not give us marker siting permission. Using political connections, the Georgia Department of Transportation gave us permission to locate the GHS marker within their right of way.

It took three years and unexpected, unusual hoops to be jumped through.  In 2007, the first ever State historical roadside marker to remember the Leo Frank lynching was dedicated.  And… as anticipated, 2013, the Georgia Department of Transportation  removed the marker for the I-75 development.

A few months ago, GDOT contacted JASHP. The marker re-siting was to be completed by summer. GDOT presented a beautiful, respectful re-siting plan. It included a significant walkway, landscaping and prominence. It was a mini “parklette.” GDOT named the site the “Leo Frank Memorial.”

JASHP, the ADL and Rabbi Lebow began to plan for the rededication of the Leo Frank Memorial. A week before our planning meeting began, June 29, 2018, something happened in the United States Senate. The Senate’s three Black Senators, Cory Booker D-N.J., Kamala Harris, D-Cal. and Tim Scott R-S.C. introduced legislation criminalizing lynching as a National Crime. Incredibly it had never been done before.

In consideration of the anti-lynching legislative leadership, JASHP proposed to the rededication committee, transforming the meaning of the Leo Frank Memorial. JASHP proposed adding a new memorial element, a JASHP designed and funded, black granite interpretive memorial for all victims of lynching nationally.

The text was simple.

“In respectful memory of the thousands across America, denied justice by lynching, Victims of hatred, prejudice and ignorance.”
An image of Leo Frank hanging at the site was included with his name underneath.

The committee recommended adopting the Memorial.

Because the new Memorial element was to be sited at the Leo Frank Memorial on GDOT land, we applied to GDOT for permission.
GDOT said no. There was no explanation. It was not a response we expected.

JASHP wrote to the director of GDOT, Meg Pirkle… why???

“The rejection is a doubling of the National tragedy that occurred there” JASHP explained. The Leo Frank site is of major Statewide and National Significance. Our effort is associated with the placement of a Georgia Historical Society marker.

A week later, GDOT responded. The Anti-Lynching Memorial at the Leo Frank site was rejected because of regulations. GDOT policy did not prohibit the Memorial, it prohibited symbols and images. There was no exception policy nor was one going to be created.

After extended discussion, a newly designed Anti-Lynching memorial is being presented to GDOT. We are told it will comply with the policy.

The disquieting, historical image of Leo Frank hanging has been removed. Seven powerful words are added in its place. The Memorial will be done in dramatic Georgia Black granite, polished face with engraved white lettering.

In respectful memory of the thousands across America denied justice by lynching; Victims of hatred, prejudice, and ignorance. Between 1880-1930, ~570 Georgians were lynched. ADL, Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Rabbi Steven Lebow, Temple Kol Emeth

Seven new words of text transforms the Leo Frank Memorial. The Memorial will become very personal to all Georgians. Universally, it will become the first American memorial to all victims of lynching, without regard to race, creed or sexual orientation, anywhere in the country.

As letters of support come in, one letter from one long time, fighter for human and civil rights is noted. It is a letter of support from Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta.

Ultimately, lynching victims were denied justice, though “convicted” by “legal” and “Popular Justice” Courts. Maybe Georgia should do something much bigger?  Perhaps those victims should be pardoned posthumously?

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Jerry Klinger is president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.  http://www.JASHP.org