Texan Jews have had a unique impact as important shapers of cultural landscapes and communities. Their influence is complicated to sum up, as its history and retelling become entangled by anti Semitism, politics, and Anglo culture. These entanglements have deep roots in the peculiarity of the Jews’ presence in and unique interactions with Anglo society in Texas. To better understand the nature and magnitude of Jewish influence in Texas, it is imperative to examine how Jews interacted with white, Anglo-Protestant culture and how Jewish culture fit into the society as a whole. By examining individual anecdotes across social issues and among institutions, the representation of the Texan Jew is fully contextualized. This offers greater insight into the Jewish people’s contributions to the state of Texas and handles their history in a manner that avoids Anglicization to respect and preserve the legacy of Jewish Texans’ identity.
When Abraham C. Laba visited Velasco, Texas, in 1831, he encountered only two other Jews, Jacob Henry and Jacob Lyons, engaged in mercantile business. Only until Jacob Henry’s death and the subsequent gifting of his estate to build a hospital in the town, would Velasco establish itself as a point of Jewish trade in a Texas of Anglo majority.i One of the earliest proclamations to encourage American Jews to come to Texas appeared alongside an article addressing the history of anti-Semitism in the Asmonean, the first New York Jewish newspaper. It read: “Thousands of acres of land can be bought, within settled portions of the state, for the small sum of from 25 cents to $1 an acre… where man can make his living to his liking, and [be] more independent than the Autocrat of Russia, or the Emperor of Austria”.ii The proclamation was penned and paid for by a pioneering merchant named Lewis A. Levi, a Houstonian and Jew. As a surveyor and land dealer in Texas, Levi was a clear break from European Jews who were historically not allowed to own lands in Europe. Levi himself had bought land from and neighbored Sam Houston, received a headright certificate (a license to sell government land) and governmental commission to distribute 640 acres of land, owned a successful business in the heart of downtown Houston, and contributed to causes such as fundraising to aid victims of Yellow Fever in New Orleans.iii In short, he epitomized the opportunity America and Texas could offer the Jewish people.iv Levi used his understanding of Jewish history and the American dream to motivate an influx of Jews to migrate to Texas, where they enjoyed greater freedom and had greater access to land.
Despite all of Levi’s achievements and his impact on the Jewish community in Texas, most of his biographical data is recorded in a mundane report entitled Foreigners in the Principal Towns of Ante-Bellum Texas, published in a 1962 edition of Southwestern Historical Quarterly.v Ironically, this reputation as “foreign” haunts the Jewish presence in Anglo society—regardless of how deeply Jews assimilated—and personifies the complex coexistence of Jewish culture in an Anglo-dominated society. Anglo society kept the Jews on the periphery, and even recorded histories keep them at a distance. Regardless of Jewish Texans being identical to their Anglo counterparts in background, education, or achievement in politics, the reservation of Anglos towards Jews lingers, preventing full welcoming of Jews into Anglo society. Since the earliest Jewish Texan settlers, Jews have never been fully embraced by or welcomed into mainstream Anglo culture. Despite this, Jews thrived because of their freedom in Texas, having escaped oppression in Europe to achieve—in some cases— extravagant success and create great impact.
In Houston, Texas, Mitchell L. Westheimer is one such case. In 1865, he purchased a cotton plantation and worked throughout the 1870s to complete a five-mile trail from his front doorstep to downtown. In 1895, he gifted part of his trail to the city.vi By the time of his death, he was fluent in seven languages, worked at the bank and post office, built the city’s first streetcars, and founded and fully funded the city’s first public school.vii He owned a flour mill and the Houston Livery Stable on Market Square in Houston, and funded the immigration of five of his nephews to Texas from Germany.viii He then put the nephews to work, further expanding his business ventures. Additionally, ten of his twelve nieces would eventually relocate from Germany to Houston.ix
Another case of success is that of Morris Lasker. In 1884, he arrived in Virginia from Prussia in his mid-teens and gradually migrated to Texas over the next three years. He survived on the generosity and business of slaves and plantation owners alike.x Despite narrowly avoiding being lynched for voting against secession in Weatherford, Texas, he later enlisted in the Confederate Army. He served under the command of Col. George W. Baylor and Col. John S. “Rip” Ford. After the war, Lasker returned to peddling, this time with a horse and wagon. It is recorded that he amassed $1,500 in gold within a few months of the war’s close.xi, xii By 1872, he settled in Galveston. He became the president of two banks and a real estate company, founded Texas Star Flour and Corn Mill, and was one the first open advocates of the eight hour work day.xiii He served on the Texas Senate via special election in 1895 to fill a vacant seat formerly held by Miles Crowley.xiv Transforming from a frightened fleeing teenage political refugee into a successful Galvestonian business titan and statesman, Lasker’s story addresses the full range of success and mobility offered by Texas to Jews.
However, male Jews were not alone in their success. Females could find success in Texas as well. An example of this can be found in Fannie Fechenbach Sanger, originally from Wurttemberg, Germany. Moving to Dallas in 1876, she became a city renowned patron of art following her marriage to Alexander Sanger in 1879. She dealt in European art and rarities, and she built up an extensive collection herself.xv She also participated in many women’s organizations and societies and is best known for her involvement with the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Association, the King’s Daughters, the Dallas Woman’s Home, and the Allegro Club.xvi Following her death in November of 1898, “a mile-long procession”xvii trailed her body from her Dallas residence to graveside. Hundreds of people attended her funeral.xviii Despite her service being held in a traditional Jewish cemetery, it is notable that the attendees were diverse in “races, economic classes, and denominations”.xix She moved her community, and her funeral shows the size of the impact of her work.
Successful, philanthropic and financially-integrated Jewish settlers secured a Jewish place in the Anglo societies of Texas. However, it is impossible to discuss Jewish success in Texas without also addressing the increasing persecution that occurred during the early 20th century. Success was possible, but it was not the sole outcome of early Jewish settlers. While some did prosper, many Jewish people settling and residing in Texas were regularly persecuted and abused by racially motivated groups and individuals alike. By the eve of World War II, restrictive immigration guidelines, higher education and medical school restrictions, and neighborhood business owners’ “gentlemen’s agreements” barred Jews from many businesses, organizations, and neighborhoods and geographic areas.xx One Ku Klux Klan record of instruction from the period reads:
The Jew patronizes only the Jew unless it is impossible to do so. Therefore, we Klansmen… must… by the same methods, protect ourselves… With this practice faithfully adhered to, it will not be long before the Jew will be forced out of business by our practice of his own business methods, for when the time comes when Klansmen trade only with Klansmen then the days of the Jews’ success in business will be numbered and the Invisible Empire can drive them from the shores of our own Americaxxi
This exemplifies the perpetuation of the trope of the Jew as the exploitive foreigner is revealed. Subscribers to this stereotype genuinely believed in a Jewish conspiracy that would betray American culture to foreign powers. As a result, they organized their own AngloAmerican conspiracy in reaction. AngloAmericans mounted resistance efforts to this perceived conspiracy.
This movement took the form of segregating Jews from the mainstreamed Anglo-American society and culture in Texas. Popular press and societal convention began to accept the defaming and derogatory narrative of Jews as inferior un-American foreigners more than in previous eras. In 1920s Houston, a weekly newspaper edited by journalist Billie Mayfield began using racially-charged language to regularly attack local Jews as economic parasites.xxii Expressing the sentiment of the times in Mayfield’s own words, “there are lots of good Jews in Houston and all over Texas; you find them with tombstones over their heads”.xxiii Anti-Semitism was a growing trend across the state. In 1923, another Dallas paper’s editor warned a Jewish tailor by name not to organize against the Klan, or else his business would suffer.xxiv The exact threat suggested that “Protestant Klothiers” might prefer Protestant scissors to Jewish ones, should the latter not comply with Klan demands.xxv Threats such as this one reveal the boldness of threats that the Jewish people faced.
Stereotypes abounded, many centered on religious claims. Robert C. Ingersoll (popular American lawyer, a Civil War veteran, and politician) described and addressed his experience and the stereotypes of Jews witness as blatantly racist:
When I was a child I was taught that the Jews were exceedingly hard-hearted and cruel people, and that they were so destitute of the finer feelings that they had a little while before that time crucified the only perfect man who had appeared upon the earth; that this perfect man was also a perfect God, and that the Jews had really stained their hands with the blood of the Infinitexxvi
Regarding communications within the Ku Klux Klan, sections of text from the Klan news pamphlet, The Searchlight, reveal deeply anti-Semitic language being used by Chaplains within the organization. For example, one Chaplain “Ridley” wrote, “In all my twenty-five years traveling about over this continent I have never met a disloyal American who failed to be either foreign-born or a Semite”.xxvii He also claimed Jewish conspiracy with Russian backing and support: “[T]he Jew is interested in over-throwing Christian Russia. But remember, he does not intend to stop at Russia. Through his Third Internationale of Moscow he is working to overthrow all the Gentile Governments of the world”.xxviii Paranoia of this kind that seemed to have been at the heart of the Klan’s persecution of Jews. In an increasingly hostile international environment following the First World War, the trope of Jew as foreigner agitated race relations.
The Klan’s radical anti-Semitic ideology incited boycotts and economic pressure. Klan certification stickers were placed on windows of Anglo stores in Corsicana Texas, and Klan supporters boycotted stores without the sticker. Many Jews resorted to paying all employees’ Klan fees, paying bribes, or putting employees belonging to Klan on their letterheads to escape the economic death sentence by boycott.xxix The Klan in turn extorted these payments and forced their way into leadership positions in Jewish owned businesses through this process.
Jewish people faced persecution from the Ku Klux Klan in the form of cross burnings, destruction of personal property, and even being tarred and feathered; however, they were not at risk of being lynched nor did they receive the same level of hate from the Klan as did black Texans. There is only one recorded Jewish lynching domestically, and it was far away from Texas in Marietta, Georgia.xxx This is not to say that the Klan afforded Jews any special treatment, but rather they were more focused on blacks historically.
Klan membership in Dallas stood at approximately 13,000 between 1921 and 1925, meaning that Dallas boasted the highest density of Klansman per capita during this time.xxxi The resulting effects on the Jewish experience were proportionate. It is clearly documented that as the Klan grew, relations with Jews declined. Ouida Nalle, a Texas Jew, described that: “The hooded night riders so terrorized the Jews in some parts of the state that… they all gathered together and sat up all night fearing a pogrom”.xxxii Dallas was a powder keg of racially charged tension, and Jewish existence in the city was likely difficult and stressed.
Many Jews were not extremely successful or integrated with the local business community; it was these Jews who often fell victim to the mob tactics of the Klan. In March 1922, twenty-two year old Manual Nussbaum was tarred and feathered by the Klan for “despoiling a Gentile girl”.xxxiii The same month, hooded Klansmen kidnapped, beat, and drove Philip Rothblum out of Dallas for allegedly being seen conspiring with a black man.xxxiv In contrast to the treatment of blacks by the Klan, Jews were less persecuted. They were not treated as equals, but they were too assimilated into local towns and cultures to be completely subjected to the full wrath of the Klan without societal repercussion.
Despite their anti-Jewish doctrine, Klansmen were known to make efforts to recruit Jews as they were often ignorant of Jews’ status when they were only known professionally. Edward Tithe, a Jewish merchant from Dallas, was invited to join the Klan and serve in a leadership position of “Kleagle”.xxxv Upon learning he was Jewish, the Klan’s reaction was rather anti-climactic, merely stating that it was too bad, as he would have excellently fit the position.xxxvi There is the case of Alex Sanger, a Jewish state fair official who was the director of the fair from 1886 until 1925. Because of this role, he was present and seated on the podium platform overseeing the Fair’s Klan Day in 1923.xxxvii The event was advertised and billed as the “initiation of the largest class in the history of Klandom” and bragged ten thousand new candidates initiated by the end of the night.xxxviii In addition to events, phone calling initiatives increased the recruitment of Jews into the Klan, as was the case with the Beaumont Jew, Hyman Perlstein.xxxix
More recently, A.R. “Babe” Schwartz, a Texas House of Representative member elected in 1955 detailed that, “During the segregation battles, we all got cards in the mail making us honorary members of the Ku Klux Klan… I got up in the House and renounced the membership because one could not be an honorary member of a dishonorable organization… but the best news came the next day advising me that I couldn’t be a member anyhow, because I was ineligible as a Jew”.xl Including his first term, he would go on to serve three terms in the State House of Representatives and six terms in the State Senate. He became a stern defender of desegregation, environmentalism, and successfully sought regulation and reform of nuclear waste disposal.xli The point being, he did not lose or jeopardize his seat in his openness as a Jew or for this direct assault on the Klan in the public forum.
This strange association and contact of Jews by the Klan was the result of Jews in Texas surviving for so long by congregating together while also making deliberate moves toward community involvement. From the first settlements of the 19th century, Jews banded together to improve their livelihoods. They also had made a concerted effort to become fully immersed in local Anglo society and culture. In the town of San Angelo Texas, as early as 1880 (and again in 1885),xlii, xliii local newspapers noted merchants closing during Jewish High Holy days, marking a clear display of Jewish influence and openness in the community. By 1927, a formal two-story synagogue was built, and in 1929, the dedication of the building was attended by San Angelo’s mayor and several Christian ministers. The proceedings were broadcasted live via the radio to the surrounding area.xliv For context, three years later (1930), there were only eighty Jews living in the town of roughly twenty-five thousand in population, yet they were most certainly given significant recognition by the Anglo authorities.xlv This shows extreme investment in the minority Jewish community by the majority Anglo community, and it implies intentional Jewish efforts to make connections with those most different from themselves in San Angelo (i.e. Protestant Christians).
Efforts connect Anglos and Jews appear in the founding of San Angelo. Marcus Koenigheim, a Jewish businessman out of San Antonio, acquired the land in 1878 as a repayment of a loan. He allowed Baptists and Methodists to settle it, selling his land indiscriminately, and he even gave portions of the land freely without charge to be used as Christian church grounds and for schools.xlvi This is not an isolated incident. Jews have consistently made an effort to positively interact with traditionally Anglo powers and sectors of society. As a result, it was not uncommon for Jews to run for public office. It seems that it was much more common for Jews to fully embrace and adopt American-Texan democracy and elections than Mexican rule.
This appears as early as the Texas revolution through Adolphus Sterne, a German Jew and immigrant to the filibuster town of Nachodoges. An East Texas merchant, he is considered a major and critical financial backer of the Texas Revolution. After fighting in and being captured during the Fredonia Rebellion, he was released from a death sentence by fellow Freemasons after swearing to never take up arms against the Mexican government again. He proudly adhered to that vow, all while sending funds to Sam Houston.xlvii He served in the Constitutional Congress of 1833 and command a company at the Battle of the Neches. He became the Nacogdoches postmaster, and served as Nacogdoches deputy clerk, an Associate Justice in Nacogdoches, a member of the State Board of Health, and an Overseer of Streets for the county. Lastly, he became the representative of Nacogdoches to the Texas House of Representatives. In this capacity, he went on to be successfully re-elected before finally serving as a representative to the Texas Senate.xlviii
The first record of a Jew running for statewide non-legislative office in Texas was the 1926 race for attorney general. Charles Louis Brachfield, a Jew of Henderson Texas, ran a close race and lost by a mere 3,600 votes; this was a relatively impressive showing considering the state was experiencing the height of the Klan’s influence at the time.xlix Brachfield had previously held the position of county judge from 1897 until 1902, served in the Texas Senate for the following eight years, and also was appointed as a District Court judge from 1918-1928. It is important to recognize that a Jew at this point in history could be considered seriously as a candidate and could be afforded opportunities to amass a serious resume in political roles. It is likely that his loss can be attributed to his strict prohibition stance rather than his status as a Jew.l While his Jewish status restricted access to non-legislative positions before 1926, it seems surprising that there were no issues during his 1926 run, given the statewide Anglo-centric climate.
Community and political activism was not limited to politicians like Brachfield or the previous example of the 1895 special election of State Senator Morris Lasker though. Many semi-political and charitable organizations also sprung up with Jewish sponsorship, often indiscriminate in faith or race of those receiving assistance.li It was a general rule according to one report by the American Israelite that in Waco, “there [was] not a Christian church in the city or county which Jews did not help support financially”.lii In Waco in 1913, a local chapter of the Council of Jewish Women emerged; it was founded by Carrie Sanger Godshaw. The Waco chapter founded a night school geared specifically toward new arrivals and immigrants. Its objective was to teach English and enable its students for success. The group also founded a penny lunch initiative benefiting a local school as well as clothing relief efforts. Godshaw was a progressive, a suffragist, and politically active in Waco’s community where she served as the founder of the local chapter of the League of Women Voters and as the director of Planned Parenthood.liii, liv This demonstrates the significant Jewish involvement in community improvement.
An example of indiscriminate support can be found in the general efforts of the Jewish National Women’s Council across the state. The first Texas chapter of the organization was founded in Beaumont in 1901. During this meeting, the group established a library containing three hundred titles in the vestry of Beaumont’s Temple Emanuel as part of an effort to begin collection for the establishment of a public library.lv The organization’s long-term support of Texas libraries, schools, and educational enterprises remains well-documented. Another example of this effort occurred on June 1, 1936, when the San Antonio chapter donated two thousand books to the San Antonio public library system.lvi The organization also sought to address controversial issues head on and frequently advocated for suffrage and against prostitution and slavery.lvii The organization made important cultural and political contributions to the discourse and direction of the state as a result. Jews participated in a largely Anglo dominated social sphere to leave their mark.
A modern example of intentional Jewish outreach can be found in today’s Dallas Jewish Community Foundation; it does not exclude students of any faith from application to the scholarships they offer, nor are the scholarships distributed with any consideration of faith. Their website, as of November 25, 2017, allows any “full time student attending school from the Fall of 2018 until the Spring of 2019” who is also an “American Citizen” and has resided in “Collin County, Dallas County, or Denton County” (i.e. the city of Dallas) for at least a year to be eligible to receive their scholarship offerings.lviii Once again, Texan Jews showed their community involvement. As in the previous historical examples, no expectations are attached to these efforts, and they represent genuine attempts to remain good neighbors to their surrounding communities.
Texan Jews and Texan Anglo culture have a peculiar relationship. It is inaccurate to say that Jews assimilated completely, that Jews resisted assimilation, that they went un-persecuted, or that they received the worst treatment. There seems to have always been some sort of uneasiness that shrouds the Jews from full recognition by Anglo society, but this also offers a veil of occasional protection and defense. Jews have been known to be incredibly successful within the state, though they have also been the target of discrimination and hate. Despite this, they have successfully integrated and cooperated with AngloAmerican society. Through fostering this relationship and making efforts to actively involve themselves in their local communities, it seems they have, in most cases, earned enough respect from the majority community to garner a seat (even if often grudgingly) at the political and economic table. They have shaped Texas dramatically and are continuing to do so as a result. Perhaps, the April 11, 1890 headline from the newspaper, The Day, was correct: it seemed Jews have a peculiar role in Texas.
Bibliography
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Cohen, Henry, David Lefkowitz, and Ephraim Frisch. One Hundred Years of Jewry in Texas. Dallas: Jewish Advisory Committee, 1936.
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“College Scholarships.” Dallas Jewish Community Foundation. Accessed September 29, 2017. http://www.djcf.org/collegescholarships.
Dallas Morning News. (Dallas, TX), Nov. 2, 1898.
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Dallas Morning News. (Dallas, TX), Nov. 7, 1898.
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Houston Chronicle. (Houston, TX), June 22, 1886.
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Mccomb, David. Houston, a History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981.
Mcdonald, Archie. Hurrah for Texas: The Diary of Adolphus Sterne. Waco, TX: Texian Press, 1969.
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Weiner, H.A. Jewish Stars in Texas: Rabbis and Their Work. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2006.
Winegarten, Ruthe, Cathy Schechter, and Jimmy Kessler. Deep in the heart: the lives and legends of Texas Jews: a photographic history. Austin: Eakin Press, 1990.
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Endnotes
i Henry Cohen, “Settlement of The Jews In Texas,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, no. 2 (1894): 139-56.
ii Ruthe Winegarten, Cathy Schechter and Jimmy Kessler, Deep in the heart: the lives and legends of Texas Jews: a photographic history (Austin: Eakin Press, 1990), 7.
iii Natalie Ornish, Pioneer Jewish Texans (Dallas: Texas Heritage, 1989).
iv Maristella Botticini, and Zvi Eckstein, “Jewish Occupational Selection: Education, Restrictions, or Minorities?” The Journal of Economic History, no. 65 (2005).
v Ralph A. Wooster, “Foreigners in the Principal Towns of Ante-Bellum Texas,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, no. 66 (1962).
vi Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 34.
vii Ibid.
viii Ibid.
ix Ibid.
x Ibid., 36.
xi Richardson, Thomas Clarence, East Texas: Its History and Its Makers (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1940).
xii Ornish, Pioneer Jewish Texans, 98.
xiii Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 36.
xiv John Gunther. Taken at the Flood: The Story of Albert D. Lasker (New York: Harper, 1960), 19.
xv Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 51.
xvi Ibid.
xvii Dallas Morning News, (Dallas, TX), Nov. 2, 5, 7, 1898.
xviii Elizabeth Brooks, Prominent Women of Texas (Akron: Werner Company, 1896), 188.
xix Dallas Morning News, (Dallas, TX), Nov. 2, 5, 7, 1898.
xx Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 134.
xxi Ezra A. Cook, 1841-1911 Ku Klux Klan Secrets Exposed: Attitude Toward Jews, Catholics, Foreigners, And Masons: Fraudulent Methods Used, Atrocities Committed In Name of Order (Chicago: Ezra A. Cook, 1922), 45.
xxii Bryan Edward Stone, The Chosen Folks: Jews on the frontiers of Texas (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2011), 127.
xxiii Ibid.
xxiv Ibid., 129.
xxv Ibid.
xxvi The Waco Day, (Waco, TX), April 11, 1890.
xxvii Cook, 1841-1911 Ku Klux Klan Secrets Exposed, 43-44.
xxviii Ibid.
xxix Stone, The Chosen Folks, 129.
xxx Bernstein, Matthew, Screening a Lynching: The Leo Frank Case on Film and Television (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 2-15.
xxxi Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 136.
xxxii Ouida Nalle, The Fergusons of Texas (San Antonio, TX: Naylor, 1946), 163.
xxxiii Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 136.
xxxiv Ibid.
xxxv Ibid., 134.
xxxvi Ibid.
xxxvii Ornish, Pioneer Jewish Texans, 151.
xxxviii Ku Klux Klan, Meet Your Friends— Ku Klux Klan Day, 1923, University of North Texas Star of the Republic Museum, Washington, TX.
xxxix Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 136.
xl Houston Chronicle, (Houston, TX), June 22, 1886.
xli Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 178.
xlii The San Angelo Standard, (San Angelo, TX), Sept. 12, 1885.
xliii Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 126.
xliv Henry Cohen, David Lefkowitz and Ephraim Frisch, One Hundred Years of Jewry in Texas. Dallas: Jewish Advisory Committee (1936).
xlv Yearbook 52 (Lubbock, TX: West Texas Historical Association, 1976).
xlvi Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 33.
xlvii Archie P. McDonald, Hurrah for Texas: The Diary of Adolphus Sterne (Waco: Texian Press, 1969).
xlviii Archie P. McDonald, Adolphus Sterne: Mover and Shaker (Nacogdoches, TX: Jaycees, 1976).
xlix Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 137.
l Ornish, Pioneer Jewish Texans, 265.
li Gunther, Taken at the Flood, 19.
lii Winegarten, Deep in the heart, 124.
liii Ibid., 114.
liv Dayton Kelley, The Handbook of Waco and McLennan County (Waco: Texian, 1972).
lv Winegarten, Deep in the heart:, 114.
lvi Ibid., 137.
lvii Ibid., 114.
lviii “College Scholarships”, Dallas Jewish Community Foundation, accessed September 29, 2017. http://www.djcf.org/collegescholarships.