Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. This week on the show, I talked to
Speaker 1: Jeremy Katz about his new book, The Jewish Community of Atlanta,
Speaker 1: as well as the work that he does at the
Speaker 1: Bremen Museum and how that museum is preserving past present
Speaker 1: and what they hope will be future of the Jewish
Speaker 1: community in Atlanta for everyone. And in our discussion, we
Speaker 1: also talked about our previous episode on the Hebrew Benevolent
Speaker 1: Temple bombing, and we're replaying that as a Saturday Classic today.
Speaker 1: This episode originally came out February Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy B. Wilson, and uh for our listeners. Like I know,
Speaker 1: sometimes when I'm listening to podcasts, I'm just letting them
Speaker 1: flow and I don't always look at what's coming next,
Speaker 1: like when I'm driving around. But if you are a
Speaker 1: person that looks at your podcast selection and you pick
Speaker 1: one or you just see it come up and you
Speaker 1: like to read what's coming up, if you saw the
Speaker 1: title for today's episode, you might be braced for a
Speaker 1: really horrific or upsetting story. I, in fact, was braced
Speaker 1: for such a thing when you told me what you
Speaker 1: were researching this week. Uh. I give you relief because
Speaker 1: the bombing of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation temple in Atlanta
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen fifties was a unique moment in
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement. And while there are some elements
Speaker 1: of the temple's free bombing history and some UH ideologies
Speaker 1: that are troubling and horrific, I will give you a
Speaker 1: spoiler and say that overall, this is really a very
Speaker 1: very hopeful story. Yeah, there is. There is definitely a bombing.
Speaker 1: There is also racism and anti semitism, But the story
Speaker 1: is not the parade of tragedy you may be expecting
Speaker 1: based on title. Correct. So it may if you were
Speaker 1: worried or scared that this is when you just were
Speaker 1: not ready for today. Uh, it is probably not going
Speaker 1: to be as upsetting as you think, although of course
Speaker 1: there is some upsetting rhetoric being discussed on the part
Speaker 1: of people that would bomb a thing. UH. So we're
Speaker 1: going to hop right into it. While Atlanta has had
Speaker 1: a Jewish population since the city was founded, at the
Speaker 1: end of eighteen forty seven, Jews were really a small
Speaker 1: minority of the city's people. In eighteen fifty, fewer than
Speaker 1: thirty Jews were recorded living in Atlanta, less than one
Speaker 1: percent of the city's residents, and by eighteen sixty, the
Speaker 1: year before the United States Civil War began, the Jewish
Speaker 1: population in the city had doubled. Atlanta's Hebrew Benevolent Society
Speaker 1: was also founded. That organization came together with two primary missions,
Speaker 1: assisting the city's impoverished Jewish population and securing a burial ground.
Speaker 1: Two years after the Civil War ended, while Atlanta was
Speaker 1: still rebuilding as a city, the Hebrew Benevolent Society took
Speaker 1: its next step establishing a temple. And this move was
Speaker 1: precipitated by the words of the Rabbi Isaac Liser of Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: who was here presiding over a wedding that was the
Speaker 1: first Jewish marriage ceremony in Atlanta in January of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, and Rabbi Liser told the Southern Cities Jewish
Speaker 1: community that they should establish a permanent place of worship,
Speaker 1: and his words were definitely heard and they were encouraging.
Speaker 1: When the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation was founded in eighteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: it was the first official Jewish institution in Atlanta by
Speaker 1: the late spring of that year, just four months after
Speaker 1: Rabbi Liser's encouragement, they had their charter. Over the next
Speaker 1: eight years, the congregation planned and built a temple in
Speaker 1: downtown Atlanta, which was completed in eighteen seventy five. The
Speaker 1: early years for the temple, which is the name it
Speaker 1: came to be known by that shortened version, We're a
Speaker 1: little bit rocky. There was a series of change overs
Speaker 1: in rabbis as the congregation struggled with its identity and
Speaker 1: the type of worship that it would favor, swaying between
Speaker 1: traditional and reform ideologies. But in three year old Rabbi
Speaker 1: David Marx was hired and he would stay at the
Speaker 1: temple for more than half a century, steering it toward
Speaker 1: classical reform Judaism. When Rabbi Marx retired after World War Two,
Speaker 1: he was replaced with Rabbi Jacob roth's Child in nine six.
Speaker 1: Rothschild built on Marx's work and fostering connections with the
Speaker 1: greater Atlanta community, including with other religious faiths. Rabbi roths
Speaker 1: Child was also a vocal supporter of civil rights and
Speaker 1: social justice, and This was a departure from his predecessor's work,
Speaker 1: who had felt that in order to keep his congregation
Speaker 1: as safe as possible from anti Semitic sentiments in the community,
Speaker 1: it was best to avoid confrontations with the wider community
Speaker 1: on such issues. To be clear, there was a very
Speaker 1: real and understandable reasoning behind Marx's effort is to keep
Speaker 1: peaceful relationships with Atlanta's gentile population. Many of the Temple
Speaker 1: community remembered vividly an event from nineteen thirteen when a
Speaker 1: member of the temple named Leo Frank was lynched by
Speaker 1: a mob after being accused of the murder of a
Speaker 1: young girl. The evidence against him was thin, but by
Speaker 1: virtue of being an outsider, being a Northerner who had
Speaker 1: moved to the South and a Jew, Leo Frank became
Speaker 1: a scape a scapegoat who was easy to vilify. That
Speaker 1: is a way oversimplified version of this story. We have
Speaker 1: an episode about it in the archive. It was a
Speaker 1: huge miscarriage of justice, and much of the Jewish community
Speaker 1: in Atlanta opted to keep a low profile after that
Speaker 1: out of out of self preservation. Yeah, so when we
Speaker 1: say that that Rabbi Marx had not been vocal about
Speaker 1: civil rights. It wasn't necessarily because he didn't care about them,
Speaker 1: but he was very concerned about the anti semit issues
Speaker 1: that were still very much a part of culture at
Speaker 1: the time. But on Yam Kapoor. Almost from the time
Speaker 1: that he became the rabbi at the temple, Rothschild used
Speaker 1: the holiday as an opportunity to speak about segregation and
Speaker 1: to vocally oppose Jim Crow laws. He did so during
Speaker 1: subsequent Yam Kapoor sermons as well. It kind of came
Speaker 1: to be expected as the topic. He included the following
Speaker 1: as he addressed his congregation, how comforting this day might be.
Speaker 1: Here's the perfect opportunity to find ourselves forgiven. God's standard
Speaker 1: is too high for us. His law is too difficult.
Speaker 1: Our sins were just the expected failures of all mortals.
Speaker 1: All we need to do, therefore, is come into His
Speaker 1: presence On each Yam Kapoor, acknowledge our inevitable guilt and
Speaker 1: pray for forgiveness and low we shall be forgiven. We
Speaker 1: are held accountable for our conduct, We are responsible for
Speaker 1: our acts. Won't rationalize your guilt by claiming that morality
Speaker 1: is too difficult for attainment by mere man. Don't pretend
Speaker 1: helplessness because the right way to live is placed out
Speaker 1: of your reach. Don't for a moment think that you
Speaker 1: can blame your sinfulness on the fact that goodness is
Speaker 1: beyond your grasp. Quite the opposite is true. We must
Speaker 1: do more than view with alarm the growing race hatred
Speaker 1: that threatens the South. The problem is ours to solve,
Speaker 1: and the time for the solution is now. We have
Speaker 1: committed no overt sin in our dealings with negroes. I
Speaker 1: feel certain that we have treated them fairly. Certainly, we
Speaker 1: have not used force to frighten them. We have even
Speaker 1: felt a certain sympathy for their predicament. No, our sin
Speaker 1: has been the deeper one, the evil of what we
Speaker 1: didn't do. This was, as you might suspect, not entirely
Speaker 1: welcomed rhetoric. The fear of bigoted anti Semitic sentiment was
Speaker 1: still very real to some of the people that Rothschild
Speaker 1: was speaking to. They had lived through that nineteen incident,
Speaker 1: and they knew how scary the world could be. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to invite conflict or stirrup trouble, and they
Speaker 1: were certainly afraid of stirring up the level of anti
Speaker 1: Semitism that had led to Leo Frank's murder. I would
Speaker 1: say also, this was in the nineteen forties, so there
Speaker 1: was huge reason to be afraid based on events going
Speaker 1: on in Europe yep like there was, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of a reason that people felt the need to
Speaker 1: stay quiet. And then additionally to all that, Rothschild was
Speaker 1: something of an outsider himself. He was from Pittsburgh and
Speaker 1: he came to lead the temple after having served as
Speaker 1: an Army chaplain. So while some of his congregation agreed
Speaker 1: with his ideas but feared retribution for them, others dismissed
Speaker 1: his message as being out of touch with the culture
Speaker 1: of the South and the tentative peace among the differing
Speaker 1: cultures that made up Atlanta. But to Rothschild, the morality
Speaker 1: that he felt was an integral part of his faith
Speaker 1: meant that he had to use his platform to address
Speaker 1: social injustice. So he continued to speak out again and again,
Speaker 1: and he put actions behind his words. He joined interfaith
Speaker 1: organizations and civic groups, including the Southern Regional Council, the
Speaker 1: Georgia Council on Human Relations, as well as the Greater
Speaker 1: Atlantic Council on Human Relations, and under his stewardship, the
Speaker 1: temple hosted an institute for the Christian clergy every February.
Speaker 1: And while he worked hard to foster understanding across varying faiths,
Speaker 1: Rabbi Rothschild also works to bridge the color divide as well,
Speaker 1: asserting that black ministers must be included in these kinds
Speaker 1: of gatherings, and he also invited leaders of the black
Speaker 1: community to speak at the temple. In late nineteen fifty seven,
Speaker 1: so after he had been working at this for about
Speaker 1: a decade. In Atlanta, Rothschild co authored the Atlanta Manifesto,
Speaker 1: which was an anti segregation document that was sign and
Speaker 1: by more than eighty area religious leaders and was directed
Speaker 1: at city authorities. While he worked on the manifesto, Rothschild
Speaker 1: was not one of the signatories because he felt that
Speaker 1: the city's Christian leaders should head the initiative for it
Speaker 1: to have its best chance at a positive reception, and
Speaker 1: that manifesto read in part, we do not believe that
Speaker 1: the South is more to blame for the difficulties which
Speaker 1: we face than our other areas of our nation. The
Speaker 1: presence of the Negro in America is the result of
Speaker 1: the infamous slave traffic, an evil for which the North
Speaker 1: was as much responsible as the South. We are also
Speaker 1: conscious that racial injustice and violence are not confined to
Speaker 1: our section, and that racial problems have by no means
Speaker 1: been solved anywhere in our nation. Two wrongs, however, do
Speaker 1: not make a right. The failures of others are not
Speaker 1: just a justification for our own shortcomings, nor can their
Speaker 1: unjust criticisms excuse us for a failure to do our
Speaker 1: duty in the sight of God are one concern must
Speaker 1: be to know and to do that which is right.
Speaker 1: And all of this vocal opposition to racism on the
Speaker 1: part of the rabbi did not go unnoticed by the
Speaker 1: greater population. But unfortunately the rabbi's efforts to foster understanding
Speaker 1: and compassion led to some very serious consequences, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about that right after we first paused
Speaker 1: for a little sponsor break. While there were people in
Speaker 1: Rabbi Rothschild's congregation who were a little unsettled by his
Speaker 1: constant engagement with social issues, there were plenty of people
Speaker 1: from outside the temple's community who were downright incensed. For example,
Speaker 1: in May of n Rothschild was engaged as a speaker
Speaker 1: at Atlanta's first bapt As church. In the evening of
Speaker 1: his lecture, a man appeared outside the church carrying a
Speaker 1: picket sign specifically against the rabbi, and then he later
Speaker 1: heckled the rabbi during the Q and A segment of
Speaker 1: the evening's presentation. And there was already a weird conflation
Speaker 1: on the part of white supremacist groups when it came
Speaker 1: to the Jewish and Black communities. If you listen to
Speaker 1: our episodes about the Palmer Raids, you may recall how
Speaker 1: Palmer and stirring up a panic, started to lump anarchists
Speaker 1: and communists together as one huge threat pool and then
Speaker 1: eventually cast suspicion on all immigrants. There was a similar
Speaker 1: though different rhetoric playing out in the South of the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. And to be clear, there are Jewish black people, yeah,
Speaker 1: but this was viewing the Jewish community as a whole
Speaker 1: in the Black community as a whole sort of the
Speaker 1: same general threat base, yes uh. And so for example
Speaker 1: of how these things got combined, one flyer that was
Speaker 1: being circulated by the Christian Anti Jewish Party at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the nineteen fifties was titled Jews behind race mixing,
Speaker 1: and this flyer claimed that the Jewish population was working
Speaker 1: against segregation so that the white race would be diluted
Speaker 1: and weakened, warning that quote a race once mongrelized is
Speaker 1: mongrelized forever. So there was no illusion that an outspoken
Speaker 1: rabbi arguing against segregation wasn't going to make people angry.
Speaker 1: But the real moment where it became clear that rossjo
Speaker 1: that Rothschild was really ruffling feathers came and the very
Speaker 1: early morning of October twelfth, when there was an explosion
Speaker 1: at the temple. It was three forty am on a Sunday.
Speaker 1: Rabbi Rothschild was called at seven five am by the
Speaker 1: custodian at the temple, Robert Benton. Benton had been the
Speaker 1: one to discover the damage when he arrived at work
Speaker 1: that morning. And you might think, as you listen to
Speaker 1: this and you think about the timeline, that an explosion
Speaker 1: that large at three in the morning would have woken
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, and it did. But when police patrolled the
Speaker 1: area in response to calls about the noise, they did
Speaker 1: not drive up the temple's driveway and from their perspective.
Speaker 1: They couldn't see the hole in the building from the streets,
Speaker 1: so it looked like everything was fine. I'm imagining that
Speaker 1: they went to investigate this noise and then we're basically like, huh,
Speaker 1: that was weird, right. Fifty sticks of dynamite had been
Speaker 1: detonated at the temple's north entrance, and the blast made
Speaker 1: a huge hole in the building. Fortunately, though there were
Speaker 1: no injuries. There was, however, somewhere between one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: and two hundred thousand dollars worth of damage to the structure,
Speaker 1: depending on what source you are looking at. Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: if you're looking at newspapers from the time, the number
Speaker 1: varies wildly. One of the things that I read suggested
Speaker 1: that two hundred was like the highest estimate, but as they,
Speaker 1: you know, got more and more information about how bad
Speaker 1: the damage was, it it crept downward a little bit
Speaker 1: closer to the one thousand dollar number. Still a very
Speaker 1: large sum in wherever or now. Yeah, I think we're
Speaker 1: so used to modern uh stories of explosions or damages
Speaker 1: being in the billions, that it may not seem initially
Speaker 1: that large an amount to the modern ear but in
Speaker 1: fact it's a lot of money. Uh and this attack
Speaker 1: was claimed by a white supremacist group called the Confederate Underground.
Speaker 1: A man claiming to be the leader of the group
Speaker 1: and calling himself General Gordon, phoned the United Press International
Speaker 1: Office to tell them, quote, we bombed a temple in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: This is the last empty building we will bomb. Negroes
Speaker 1: and Jews are hereby declared aliens. At six fifteen that evening,
Speaker 1: there was another call, this time to the rabbi's home,
Speaker 1: where his wife Denise answered they call. The call said,
Speaker 1: I'm one of them that bombed your church. I'm calling
Speaker 1: to let you know there's a bomb under your house
Speaker 1: and it's lit. You've got five minutes to get out
Speaker 1: and save your life. While Denis and the neighbor got
Speaker 1: themselves and their children out of the house, it turned
Speaker 1: out to have been an empty threat. Yeah. The police
Speaker 1: came and did a full scan of the house and
Speaker 1: found nothing. But how terrifying and horrible. UM and that
Speaker 1: same group, the Confederate Underground, had attacked a synagogue in Charlotte,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, the prior November. The dynamite that they used
Speaker 1: in that attack failed to detonate, and between that failed
Speaker 1: attempt and the explosion at the temple in Atlanta. The
Speaker 1: Confederate Underground had bombed four other temples and Jewish community centers,
Speaker 1: while their second attack in Gastonia, North Carolina, on February nine,
Speaker 1: had also been thwarted by faulty dynamite. Their third and
Speaker 1: fourth bombings, carried out just hours apart on March six, sixteenth,
Speaker 1: at the Orthodox Temple Bethel in Miami, Florida and the
Speaker 1: Jewish Community Center in Nashville, Tennessee, both caused building damage.
Speaker 1: The fifth attack, at the Bethel Synagogue in Birmingham, Alabama,
Speaker 1: on April was unsuccessful, this time to diffuse failure, and
Speaker 1: the following day there was another failed attack at the
Speaker 1: Jewish Community Center in Jacksonville, Florida. I feel like this
Speaker 1: highlights the fact that, like the series of bomb threats
Speaker 1: at Jewish community centers that is ongoing today, has layers
Speaker 1: of being terrifying beyond just the fact that it's a
Speaker 1: bomb threat, right, It's a bomb threat that's part of
Speaker 1: a history of bomb threats and bombings specifically against Jewish
Speaker 1: centers and houses of worship. Because of those attacks and
Speaker 1: a protest demonstration outside the Atlantic Constitution offices in July,
Speaker 1: where protesters carried signs reading free America from Jewish Domination.
Speaker 1: The Temple and all synagogues throughout the South had increased
Speaker 1: their security, but this was not enough to deter terrorists.
Speaker 1: The other thing that happened as a result of the
Speaker 1: previous attacks was actually an improvement in coordination across police
Speaker 1: forces from jurisdictions throughout the South, and so after the
Speaker 1: attack on the Temple, the law enforcement network activated immediately.
Speaker 1: More than seventy five detectives worked in conjunction with agents
Speaker 1: from the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in
Speaker 1: an unprecedented effort to search for suspects in the crime.
Speaker 1: Five days after the bombing, on October seventeenth, ninety five men,
Speaker 1: all associated with the white supremacy groups, the National States
Speaker 1: Rights Party and the Knights of the White Camellia were
Speaker 1: indicted for the blast. Wallace Allen, Robert Bowling, George Bright,
Speaker 1: Luther Corley, and Kenneth Griffin, and they eventually let one
Speaker 1: of the men go, but the first of the five
Speaker 1: men that they tried was George Bright, and his trial
Speaker 1: started on December one, with Judge Derwood te Pie presiding.
Speaker 1: The case against Bright was the strong is the prosecutors believed,
Speaker 1: and the hope was that a conviction in his case
Speaker 1: would make it easier to convict his cohorts. They're kind
Speaker 1: of relying on a domino effect to take place. The
Speaker 1: evidence against Bright included a note found in his home
Speaker 1: that threatens terror against the Jewish population, anti Semitic literature
Speaker 1: found in his home, and testimony from an FBI informant
Speaker 1: who said that he had been in a meeting with
Speaker 1: the other men in May of that year where they
Speaker 1: planned the temple attack. Additionally, the man we mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: who protested a lecture giving given by Rabbi Rothschild and
Speaker 1: then heckled him from the crowd was also George Bright.
Speaker 1: He had also been part of the anti Semitic protest
Speaker 1: outside the newspaper offices. The jury in the case actually
Speaker 1: came to a deadlock. There were nine in favor of
Speaker 1: conviction and three that were opposed, and none were willing
Speaker 1: to budge, so on the tenth day of the legal proceedings,
Speaker 1: Judge Pye declared a mistrial. A second trial soon followed,
Speaker 1: but this time Bright was acquitted. There's actually a whole
Speaker 1: weird side story where his um lawyer was found in
Speaker 1: contempt of court and I think actually ended up doing
Speaker 1: some jail time, but he got his client off. Uh.
Speaker 1: It sounded like a circus. But because of the failure
Speaker 1: to secure a guilty verdict in what they thought was
Speaker 1: clearly their strongest case, prosecutors eventually it took quite some time,
Speaker 1: but they eventually dropped the charges against the other alleged conspirators.
Speaker 1: No other suspects were ever charged for the bombing, so
Speaker 1: there was absolutely never any justice in this case. Well,
Speaker 1: and this is also pretty circumstantial evidence. It is clear
Speaker 1: evidence that he was anti Semitic, but like not a
Speaker 1: conclusive thing directly connecting him to the bombing um So well,
Speaker 1: that's a somber element of this case. It does, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned at the top of the show, have some
Speaker 1: truly hopeful elements to it, and we will talk about
Speaker 1: those after a quick word from one of our sponsors.
Speaker 1: All of that outreach that Rabbi Rosschild had been doing
Speaker 1: in Atlanta's diverse communities, as uncomfortable as it sometimes made people,
Speaker 1: was really repaid in the aftermath of the bombing. People
Speaker 1: from all walks of life rallied around ross Child in
Speaker 1: his congregation. Religious and civic leaders in Atlanta and then
Speaker 1: in the US and then around the globe contemned the attack.
Speaker 1: The help came in both verbal condemnation of the attack
Speaker 1: and in financial support for the temple to rebuild. The
Speaker 1: mayor of Atlanta at the time, William be Heartsfield and
Speaker 1: Amy will recognize if you have ever flown in or
Speaker 1: out of Atlanta, said in an interview right after the attack, quote,
Speaker 1: my friends, here you see the end result of bigotry
Speaker 1: and intolerance, and whether we like it or not, those
Speaker 1: practicing rabble rousing and demagoguery are the godfather of the
Speaker 1: cross burners and the dynamiters. Yeah. There's actually footage of
Speaker 1: of him making that pronouncement on television and in his
Speaker 1: Southern accent. It's quite charming. The editor of the Atlanta Constitution,
Speaker 1: Ralph McGill, another name you'll recognize if you've been in
Speaker 1: the city. We have a street named after him, wrote
Speaker 1: a series of editorials on the bombing, which eventually earned
Speaker 1: him a Pulitzer Prize, in which he said, quote, you
Speaker 1: cannot preach and encourage hate for the Negro and hope
Speaker 1: to restrict it to that field. When the wounds of
Speaker 1: hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe.
Speaker 1: Donations came from rich and poor alike, including one which
Speaker 1: was sent in by Fulton County Prison Chaplain Bill Allison.
Speaker 1: The money, the chaplain explained, had been contributed by the
Speaker 1: prisons black population, who had taken up a collection to donate.
Speaker 1: The chaplain received a letter of thanks from Rathschild which said, quote,
Speaker 1: of all the gifts which we have received, this one
Speaker 1: certainly is one of the most meaningful and heartwarming. The
Speaker 1: social hall at the temple was named Friendship Hall to
Speaker 1: acknowledge the many people from all over Atlanta and the
Speaker 1: world who stood by Rothschild and his congregation and helped
Speaker 1: them rebuild, and the rabbi's first sermon after the bombing,
Speaker 1: he shared this message of hope quote. This despicable act
Speaker 1: has made brighter the flame of courage, and renewed and
Speaker 1: splendor the fires of determination and dedication. It has reached
Speaker 1: the hearts of men everywhere, and roused the conscience of
Speaker 1: people united and righteousness. All of us together shall rear
Speaker 1: from the rubble of devastation a city and a land
Speaker 1: in which all men are truly brothers, and none shall
Speaker 1: make them afraid. The following year, on the anniversary of
Speaker 1: the bombing, the temple had been repaired and red, white,
Speaker 1: and blue stained glass windows filled the space that had
Speaker 1: been the whole caused by the blast, and in a
Speaker 1: statement to the press that was made on that anniversary,
Speaker 1: Rabbi Rosschild said that the windows quote sim belies the
Speaker 1: basic faith of the people. While the bomb attack had
Speaker 1: the surprise consequence of bringing a lot of the Atlanta
Speaker 1: community together, had also highlighted the problems that were still
Speaker 1: so clear across the country. There were very valid questions
Speaker 1: raised about whether there would be such kindness and good
Speaker 1: pr if the same thing had happened at a black church.
Speaker 1: There were already plenty of cases of racist violence on
Speaker 1: the books against African Americans that had not been pursued
Speaker 1: so diligently as the temple bombing, or at all in
Speaker 1: some instances. The bombing in its reaction also caught the
Speaker 1: segregationist movement off guard. While supporters of segregation had long
Speaker 1: seen liberals from the North and the nub A CP
Speaker 1: in the Supreme Court as their enemies in what they
Speaker 1: thought was right, there were also efforts at this point
Speaker 1: to try to disassociate from the militant white supremacist movements
Speaker 1: like the National States Rights Party, the Knights of the
Speaker 1: White Chamelea, and the kkk UH. They wanted not to
Speaker 1: let that mar what they thought was their correct ideology,
Speaker 1: and there were also some claims by white supremacist groups
Speaker 1: that this whole bombing had been staged just to incriminate them.
Speaker 1: There were certainly still many battles to fight in the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement, and racial equality and frankly anti semitism
Speaker 1: still remain issues today, but the bombing at the temple
Speaker 1: is largely seen as a watershed moment that moved the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement forward. When Rabbi Rothschild's wife, Janice Rothschild Blumberg,
Speaker 1: wrote about the incident later in her life, she tiled
Speaker 1: her writing the Bomb That Healed, and in that writing,
Speaker 1: which appeared in American Jewish History magazine, Janice also astutely
Speaker 1: acknowledged the racial divide that offered the temple a bit
Speaker 1: of privilege. In the wake of this bombing. She wrote,
Speaker 1: quote to churchgoing at Lantin's desecration of a house of
Speaker 1: God was an abomination that it was Jewish, made no
Speaker 1: difference that its members were white. Probably did. And I
Speaker 1: also want to say that, uh, that particular piece of
Speaker 1: writing is spectacular, and I encourage people to go read it.
Speaker 1: It's available on j Store, because she really captures what
Speaker 1: it was like to be in the midst of that
Speaker 1: sort of weird shock wave, and what it was like
Speaker 1: from receiving that call in the morning, how they were
Speaker 1: dealing with it, what her emotions were doing, what the
Speaker 1: community was doing. It's a really really good snapshot of
Speaker 1: that moment in history. Well, and you and I, neither
Speaker 1: of us is Jewish. We have not spent our lives
Speaker 1: confronting anti semitism or racism. Frankly, so having perspectives from
Speaker 1: people who are coming from that side of it is
Speaker 1: super important. Rabbi Rothschild continued for his entire life to
Speaker 1: be an outspoken advocate for equality, even more so after
Speaker 1: the bombing them before he gave the eulogy for his
Speaker 1: friend Martin Luther King, Jr. At an interfaith memorial in
Speaker 1: Atlanta after the civil rights leader was assassinated. He died
Speaker 1: of a heart attack on the last day of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, but the temple remains. It's changed and been
Speaker 1: renovated several times to accommodate it's it's ever growing, uh community,
Speaker 1: and it is still an active place of worship. It
Speaker 1: is also on the National Park Service National Register of
Speaker 1: Historic Places to Visit. I mean, it's a part of
Speaker 1: Atlanta that we see all the time. People drive by it.
Speaker 1: It is shown in the movie Driving Miss Daisy. It is.
Speaker 1: It's a gorgeous, gorgeous structure and really lovely. So uh.
Speaker 1: That is the story of the temple bombing, and it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that I feel foolish. I did not,
Speaker 1: even though I live here in Atlanta and I have
Speaker 1: seen little snippets about it, I never really knew that
Speaker 1: much about it. Yeah, And you and I had a
Speaker 1: brief conversation before we started recording about having even been
Speaker 1: there's a Jewish History museum in Atlanta, and having having
Speaker 1: even been there, and I think gone through their exhibition
Speaker 1: on his Jewish History in Atlanta through objects, it rang
Speaker 1: a bell. But I knew so little about it at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a pity. I mean, I know, within the
Speaker 1: Jewish community it is still a very big deal and
Speaker 1: something that they speak about a lot, but I had
Speaker 1: no knowledge of that fact prior to digging into this research.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since
Speaker 1: this episode is out of the archive, if you heard
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