The Jews in America Trilogy

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  SIR:

  The attack which you were pleased to make on my feelings this afternoon, in saying I prevaricated, thereby insulting me in the grossest manner without any cause on my part, demands that you should make such concessions as the case requires before these gentlemen in whose presence I was insulted—or to have a personal interview tomorrow morning at the Navy Yard, at which time, if you please, I expect a direct answer.

  Uriah delivered the note to Williamson’s cabin in person. The lieutenant flung the note, unread, in Uriah’s face and slammed the door.

  Brandishing his letter, Uriah went ashore that night, according to subsequent testimony, into “taverns and divers places,” reading the letter to anyone who would listen, giving a high-pitched account of the rowboat incident, and, in the process, he “wickedly and maliciously uttered and published false, slanderous, scandalous, and opprobrious words concerning Lt. Williamson, including poltroon, coward, and scoundrel, as well as rogue and rascal.” This was very bad Navy form. Lieutenant Williamson took action the following morning, and court-martial number three was under way. Uriah was charged with “using provoking and reproachful words, treating his superior officer with contempt, and teaching others who chose to learn from his example to make use of falsehood as an easy convenience, with scandalous conduct tending to the destruction of good morals, and attempting to leave the ship without permission from the officer of the deck.” These were much more serious charges than any that had been leveled against him before, and to these was added an even graver one. He was accused of “being addicted to the vice of lying.”

  For his defense, he turned to the only course that seemed open to him. He accused his fellow officers of anti-Semitism. At the end of his trial, he took the stand and said:

  I am of the faith which has never been endured in Christendom ’til the Constitution of the United States raised us to a level with our fellow citizens of every religious denomination. I need not apprise you that I have been designated in the language of idle scorn “the Jew!” Perhaps I have been thus reproached by those who recognize neither the God of Moses nor of Christ. May I not say that I have been marked out to common contempt as a Jew until the slow unmoving finger of scorn has drawn a circle round me that includes all friendships and companions and attachments and all the blandishments of life and leaves me isolated and alone in the very midst of society.…

  To be a Jew as the world now stands is an act of faith that no Christian martyrdom can exceed—for in every corner of the earth but one it consists in this, to be excluded from almost every advantage of society. Although the sufferers of my race have had the trust and confidence of all their Christian Revilers as their commercial agents throughout the world, they have been cut off from some of the most substantial benefits of the social company in Europe. They cannot inherit or devise at law, they could not ’til lately sit as jurors or testify as witnesses. They could not educate their children in their own faith. Children were encouraged to abandon their parents and their God, to rob a father of his estate—a rich Jewess might have been ravished or stolen and the law afforded no remedy—these heart-rending cruel distinctions have been gradually and imperceptibly worn down by the resistless current of time, but they have in no instance been voluntarily obliterated by an act of Christian charity.

  But I beg to make the most solemn appeal to the pure and heavenly spirit of universal toleration that pervades the constitution of the United States in the presence of this court; whether before a court-martial in the American Navy, whoever may be the party arraigned, be he Jew or Gentile, Christian or pagan, shall he not have the justice done him which forms the essential principle of the best maxim of all their code, “Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you.”

  With its references to “the social company in Europe,” and to ravished Jewish maidens, Uriah’s speech must have seemed completely beside the point. Though everything he said was true, and though his remarks reveal much of what he was feeling at the time, certainly none of this sank in with the officers of the court-martial. After all, in early-nineteenth-century America, the concept of anti-Semitism, or even of religious prejudice, was such an exotic one—so removed from what most Americans thought about and talked about and read about—that, to the judges hearing Uriah’s case, a charge of prejudice seemed a non sequitur.

  The court reached a quick and unanimous verdict: guilty. Uriah was sentenced “to be cashiered out of the Naval service of the United States.”

  It was early spring, 1819. He was only twenty-seven years old, and his Navy career appeared ended. He entered a long period of funk, and for many months he disappeared from sight, refusing to go back to Philadelphia, where he would have to face his family, disgraced. For nearly two years he wandered about Europe. At one point, his widow wrote many years later, he lived in Paris, where “he met a lady of title in whom he became very much interested, and they were very much in love with each other. Lieutenant Levy would have married her, only she refused to return with him to America. But as his one ambition in life was to rise in the navy, he returned to his beloved country unmarried.”

  He returned to America because an astonishing thing happened. It took twenty-three months for the court-martial proceedings to reach the President’s desk for review, but when they did, Monroe once more reversed them, noting that: “Although Lieutenant Levy’s conduct merited censure, it is considered that his long suspension from the service has been a sufficient punishment for his offense. The sentence of the court is therefore disapproved, and he is returned to duty.”

  Once again his honor had been satisfied. On the other hand, he found now that wherever he went his reputation as a hothead had preceded him, and that now he was expected to throw tantrums and slap senior officers with gloves. Instead of becoming the conscience of American Jews, the “terrible-tempered Lieutenant Levy” was becoming something of a legendary Navy figure. Uriah found himself good-naturedly teased and goaded about his dueling and multiple courts-martial, and egged into arguments. And so, not surprisingly, it wasn’t long before he erupted again.

  This time his adversary was a lieutenant named William Weaver. In the presence of one of Uriah’s friends, Weaver had called Uriah a “great scoundrel” and a “thoroughgoing rascal.” His friend reported these slurs to Uriah, who was typically enraged and who immediately dashed off one of his indignant letters to Weaver. The letter was not answered. A few days later, however, an article, heavy with suggestive italics, appeared in a Washington newspaper:

  If convicted of charges proved, the leniency of naval courts-martial has become proverbial—so that the sitting of a court-martial generally eventuates in a reprimand. If, however, and what is very common, the guilty officer should be cashiered, as in a recent case, he sets himself to work with political friends of his tribe, and loaded with papers, presents himself at Washington, the strong arm of the executive is palsied. He dare not approve the justly merited sentence; the culprit is retained.

  The allusion was obviously to Uriah. The article was unsigned, but Uriah was able to discover that its author was Weaver.

  Uriah’s first assignment on being reinstated was to the Spark, on duty in the Mediterranean. He boarded the Spark in June, 1821, and remained aboard her until the following March, when the ship docked at Charleston, South Carolina. In those intervening months, it seemed, Uriah had done nothing but vilify the character of Lieutenant Weaver, making, to anyone who would listen, such comments as: “Weaver is a coward, a damned rascal, a scoundrel and no gentleman,” “Weaver is an errant bastard,” and “If I ever run into the damned rascal, I’ll tweak his nose.” These remarks had made their way to Weaver, now stationed at the Charleston Naval Yard. Uriah, upon debarking, was met with a summons to a court-martial, his fourth, charged with “scandalous conduct—using provoking reproachful words—ungentlemanly conduct—forgery and falsification.”

  Forgery, of course, was a new charge. It related to the fact that Uriah had carried around a copy of his
indignant note to Weaver, with its challenging accusations, had shown the note to many people, whereas Weaver now maintained that he had never received the note, and that it was a forgery. The court found Uriah guilty of scandalous conduct, and noted that “he did suffer others to read a note purporting to be a challenge.” The other charges were dropped. The court ordered that Uriah be “publically reprimanded.” But the court also scolded Lieutenant Weaver. “The court,” the judges wrote, “in passing this sentence, cannot, however, forbear expressing their disapprobation of the behavior of the prosecutor toward the prisoner in so far as the circumstances thereof have come before them in evidence.” So Uriah’s court-martial number four ended more or less in a draw. But it began to seem as though sooner or later either he or the United States Navy would have to change its ways.

  In 1823, Uriah was assigned as second lieutenant on the Cyane, which was being transferred from the Mediterranean to the Brazil Squadron. The ship made a slow crossing of the Atlantic, putting in at various West Indies ports before heading for the northern coast of South America. At Rio de Janeiro, the ship anchored for repairs to its mainmast, and Uriah was put in charge of these. Normally, it seemed, such repairs were handled by the executive officer, but the captain had casually commented that Uriah could supervise the repairs as well as anyone. This angered the Cyane’s executive officer, William Spencer, and presently word had reached Uriah that Spencer was “out to bring him to his knees.”

  One afternoon while the repairs were going on, Uriah came aboard carrying a wide slab of Brazilian mahogany with which he intended to build a bookshelf for his cabin. A certain Lieutenant Ellery, a friend of the wounded Spencer, commented in “a sneering tone” that he thought rather little of officers who stole lumber from ships’ stores. Uriah replied that he had bought the wood in town, and had the bill of sale in his pocket. Ellery said that he doubted this, since Uriah was known by everyone to be a liar. In a rage, Uriah challenged Ellery to a duel, to which Ellery answered that he would not fight a duel with a man who was not a gentleman. He would, furthermore, report the challenge to the commanding officer.

  For several days, the affair simmered, and seemed about to die down until it bubbled up again in another burst of pettishness. In the officers’ mess someone said loudly that “some damned fool” had dismissed the steward. “If you meant that for me …” Uriah put in quickly, always the first to detect an insult. “Don’t speak to me, Levy,” said Executive Officer Spencer, “or I’ll gag you.” Instantly Uriah was on his feet, crying, “If you think you’re able, you may try!” And there it was, all over again—shouts of “No gentleman!” “Coward!” “Jew!” In the morning, court-martial number five had been ordered started, with the drearily familiar set of charges against Uriah: “Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, using provoking and reproachful words, offering to waive rank and fight a duel with Lieutenant Frank Ellery, and, in the presence and hearing of many of the officers of the Cyane, inviting William A. Spencer to fight a duel.”

  Once more the findings were against Uriah, with the curiously worded verdict that he was “Guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer, but not of a gentleman.” The sentence was humiliating. He was to be reprimanded “publically on the quarter deck of every vessel of the Navy in commission, and at every Navy Yard in the United States.” Uriah retaliated by bringing a counter-suit against William Spencer—and won, with the result that Spencer was suspended from the Navy for a year for “insulting and unofficer-like and ungentlemanly expressions and gestures against the said Uriah P. Levy.”

  Uriah may have felt himself vindicated. But this action did nothing to endear him in the eyes of his fellow officers. To bring a superior officer to court was something that was not done. At the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Uriah Levy was put “in Coventry”—ostracized and ignored by everyone. Restless and bitter, Uriah applied for a six-month leave of absence. The request was quickly granted and, in granting it, his commanding officer said to Uriah with a little smile, “We would be happy to extend your leave indefinitely.”

  When his words had sunk in, Uriah said, “It’s because I’m a Jew, isn’t it, sir?”

  “Yes, Levy,” the officer said—he did not use “Lieutenant,” or even “Mr.” “It is.”

  He had been asked to leave the club. In his long battle with the Navy Establishment, he seemed to have lost the final round.

  * Uriah Levy’s style of speech, which sounds a little pompous, is, we must remember, the speaker’s recollection—and reconstruction—of it years later, when he could devote himself to his memoirs. He may not have spoken in precisely these words, but doubtless they express his true sentiments at the time.

  * The phrase “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”—abbreviated with the letters “F.U.C.K.” in ships’ logbooks, next to records of punishments—thus contributed a vivid four-letter word to the English language.

  14

  THE NEW JEWS VERSUS THE OLD

  There may have been some in the American Jewish community who approved of Uriah Phillips Levy’s well-publicized squabbles with the Navy, and the focus he had managed to bring to bear on the fact of anti-Semitism in the New World. But most did not approve, and felt that Levy’s behavior had done the Jews more harm than good. As it is with any problem, it had been easier for Jews to pretend that it did not exist. The Jewish community was still small, and news and opinions within it traveled rapidly. Some of Levy’s contemporaries praised him for his insistence on Old Testament justice to the bitter end. To the younger generation, however, he was merely old-fashioned and excessively “stiff-necked.” Uriah Phillips Levy had, among his other accomplishments, helped define the split between “old Jews” and “new Jews.”

  The split was more than generational. The prejudice of the old against the new was also directed at newer immigrants, who were now being looked on as troublemakers. There was nothing new about this particular form of Jewish anti-Semitism. Jews have always resented, and looked askance at, Jewish newcomers. “A few of us,” to the world’s scattered Jewish communities, has always seemed just about enough. In Philadelphia, for example, as early as the 1760’s, the Jewish congregation had swelled to such a size, from eager immigrants, that it was considered in “grave danger.” Jews rolled their eyes and muttered dark thoughts about an “infestation of Jews” from other lands. Mathias Bush was a partner of David Franks in the candle business, and both men were immigrants to Philadelphia. Yet when Franks traveled to London on business in 1769, he received a letter from Bush bemoaning that “These New Jews are a plague,” and beseeching his partner, “Pray prevent what is in your power to hinder any more of that sort to come.” Mr. Bush clearly considered himself an Old Jew. He had come to America exactly twenty-five years earlier. And the scale of his alarm can be judged by noting that, at the time of the “infestation,” there were no more than thirty Jewish families in Philadelphia.

  Quite naturally the newcomers resented the snobbery of the older group—and its prosperity—and so the battle lines were drawn. At one point the squabble in Philadelphia grew to such proportions that families of the refractory new migration held separate services during the high holy days. At the same time, it was charged that the more recent arrivals were not being properly loyal to their faith, and it was certainly true that the newcomers—hungrier, more eager to get on with the business of earning livelihoods for themselves—had less time to spend on piety.

  Older families of Philadelphia looked with disapproval at newer Jewish communities springing up in other cities. New Orleans was getting a particularly bad reputation for religious laxity. Why was it, for example, that New Orleans’ Jews were having to come, hat in hand, begging for funds to build a synagogue, to the Jewish communities of Philadelphia, New York, and Newport? Why weren’t wealthy New Orleans businessmen such as Jacob Hart and Judah Touro—both of whom were sons of great Jewish leaders—willing to contribute money to this cause, and why were they giving instead to Christian philanthropies?

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bsp; The newer immigrants were poor, they needed baths, they worked as foot peddlers, they spoke with accents. They lacked the social status that the Jewish first families had achieved, the breeding, the education, yet they called themselves brethren. They judged a man by the success of his enterprises rather than by his “engagements with God,” as pious people such as Rebecca Gratz would have preferred, yet they called themselves Jews. They were an embarrassment. By the early 1800’s, they were threatening to fling the fabric of Jewish society in America apart, threatening the “tribal” feeling that is at the heart of all feelings of Jewishness.

  But the real trouble was that most of the “new Jews” were Ashkenazic Jews, from central Europe. They could not trace their ancestry back to Spain and Portugal. The Sephardim pointed out that the Ashkenazim used a different ritual, and they did—somewhat. The pronunciation of Hebrew was slightly different. The Sephardim spoke with a Mediterranean inflection, the accent often falling on the last syllable. (The Sephardim say Yom Kippur, for example, not Yom Kippur, as the Ashkenazim do.) Sephardic ritual also included some Spanish prayers, and Sephardic music—bearing traces of ancient Spanish folk music, reminiscent of flamenco—was distinctive. These differences, which may seem very slight, began to loom as all-important in the 1800’s.

  The Ashkenazim spoke “heavy, ugly” languages such as German, and an “abominable garble of German and Hebrew” called Yiddish, instead of “musical, lyrical” Spanish and Portuguese. They even looked different, and it was pointed out that German Jews had large, awkward-looking noses, and lacked the elegant refinement of the highly bred, heart-shaped, olive-skinned Spanish face. But the greatest difference of all, of course, was that the Ashkenazim came from countries where to be a Jew was a disgrace. The Sephardim descended from lands where, for a while at least, to be a Jew had been to be a knight in shining armor, a duke or duchess, the king’s physician—the proudest thing a man could be. From the beginning, the two groups were like oil and water.