(To Be Continued Tomorrow)
itself out in five years, but the animosity toward the Jews, which the Klan spread, lived after it. The Klan lost its membership when the Coolidge prosperity era and the stock exchange bull boom swept in. As wages rise the market value of hatred seems to depreciate.
THE MASSENA INCIDENT
The Jews of America were particularly startled during 1926 by the incident at Massena, N. Y., where a State trooper had interrogated an aged Jew to ascertain whether the Jews employed Christian blood during the Feast of Passover, a myth of ancient European vintage. The Christian child whose disappearance provoked the inquiry had already been found safe. Such a relic of medieval superstition was naturally a shock and it was found necessary to explain that ever since the Patriarch Abraham, Jews had stoog against human sacrifice, and that no animal blood had been shed in the synagogue services since the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. Jews had never before been confronted with an actual case of belief in this libel of the “blood ritual” on the part of a responsible public servant in this country.
The most significant development of the 1920’s, however, was the extent to which Jews were subjected to restrictions of one kind or another. This discrimination was particularly marked in the field of employment, where Jews found it increasingly difficult to secure positions with non-Jewish firms. Social discrimination also evidenced itself more blatantly as Jews were refused admittance to many hotels, resorts and clubs. Nor was anti-Jewish prejudice confined to these realms: Jewish students in the colleges and universities found the path to membership in fraternities and college societies definitely blocked. A virtual numerus clausus was established by some institutions of higher learning, notably medical schools, to keep down the mounting number of Jewish students. And Jews with graduate school degrees were shunted away from educational and other professions.
(To Be Continued Tomorrow)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
