Leo Frank and the state of antisemitism then and now

The “Tonys,” the awards for the Best of Broadway, were really interesting this year. Their diversity, their power and their depth showed a rather new attitude on Broadway towards the acceptance of reality.

Most interesting to me was the winner of best Musical. The Tony was awarded to the revival of a show from 1998. It tells, with strong musical accompaniment, the story of Leo Frank, a young Jewish factory manager in Atlanta who was accused of raping and killing a 13-year-old factory worker, Mary Phagan, at the pencil factory he managed. Let’s start with that fact. Mary Phagan was 13 years old, working in a factory. Times change.

On a Saturday morning in 1913 Mary Phagan came to the factory to get her paycheck. Thirteen years old. The next morning she was discovered in the basement of the factory, raped and strangled to death.

A number of men who were working at the factory that day were arrested, including Leo Frank. While there were rumors at the factory that two other men were seen following her into the basement, only one was arrested with Frank. He was released. Frank was indicted. Newspapers of the day played it up. Leo Frank, a Jew accused of a brutal rape and murder.

The rape and murder of young Mary Phagan and the arrest of Leo Frank gained national attention. Some National Jewish Organizations came to his defense.

He was transferred to a jail in Atlanta for “his own protection.” A mob stormed the jail, abducted him, took him to Marietta, Georgia, Mary Phagan’s hometown, and lynched him on a tree in a city park.

There were cries of “hang the Jew” and the stain of antisemitism was on the whole event. Lynching and antisemitism were not uncommon in the South at the time. The story had a unique quality in the press coverage, the drama of the crowd storming the jail and the lynching. After a time of course, the publicity died, the first World War started and peoples’ attention turned elsewhere.

Antisemitism in the Jim Crow south was rampant at the time. The lynching of young Leo Frank was much more of an item in the North than where it occurred. Various northern newspapers, including the New York Times took up the case and ran a series of editorials with evidence of Frank’s innocence.

It backfired. Southern newspapers, specifically the Atlanta Journal Constitution condemned Frank and supported his hanging. While it was an impactful event of antisemitism, it really took its place among other violent acts of prejudice at the time. While the Leo Frank case was always in stories of antisemitism in the South, its overall history was debated in both North and South newspapers.

Alfred Ochs, publisher of the Times, kept the subject alive in the North. Papers like the Jeffersonian, a popular tabloid in the South at the time, kept the subject alive in the South.

They published “articles” blasting Ochs with stories that said “when are the Northern Jews going to let up on their insane attempt to bulldoze the State of Georgia?”

The situation caused a rebirth of virulent antisemitism in the South. While the Anti-Defamation League led the fight against it — gaining most of its national strength from this situation, it’s still with us.

My experience here in New Orleans has shown a decided “hands off” this subject. This has spilled over to not being allowed to make speeches defending the State of Israel at Service Clubs or any other venue outside of Jewish Life.

I have told before of a cab ride where my son Tom asked the driver what country he was from and got the answer “Palestine” — only to have it repeated shortly thereafter in another cab ride. That means an active Arab movement here in NOLA where “the good times roll.”

The local Jewish Federation ignores this danger in this community. Antisemitism takes many forms. Degrading the State of Israel is only one. But it is a huge one.

Yet, I have found no way to get the true story of the Jewish State to the general community here. It seems to me — and this is my opinion — that this Jewish Community reeks of the bygone time in American Jewish life when we just did not discuss our lives, our fears, our heritage in public. A time I call the “Sha Still” generation.

It was a time where Jews were reluctant to be seen as Jews. We had our daughters’ noses bobbed so they wouldn’t look “so Jewish.” We changed our names from Cohen to Kane, from Abrams to Adams. We literally hid our Jewish Identity.

What changed all that? The State of Israel and the resulting Jewish pride. It was missing in the time of Leo Frank. Let us not lose it again.