Antisemitism at the University of Minnesota
Minnesota Jews and Antisemitism from 1920-1948
Jews arrived in the Twin Cities and other regions of Minnesota as a result of immigration from German lands and Eastern Europe from the mid-nineteenth century to the closing of Eastern European immigration in the 1920s. By 1910, the Twin Cities Jewish population had doubled to 13,000 people, reaching a peak of 44,000 people in 1939.
The “tribal twenties” in America were marked by racism, antisemitism, and anti-Catholicism. The Depression era of the 1930s further magnified discrimination. During that difficult decade, virulent antisemitism was advanced by the Ku Klux Klan, beginning in the 1920s, and a variety of other popular fascist organizations with a strong following in Minnesota. The most recent analysis of the KKK is found in Linda Gordon. The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition, (New York: Norton Publisher, 2017).
In the 1930s, with the nation in the midst of the Depression, extremist movements flourished, particularly in the Midwest and Minnesota. The United States was awash in organizations whose platforms rested on anti-communism and antisemitism, and reflected the growing successes of Nazism and fascism in Europe. Scholars understand the 1930s as a period of unprecedented antisemitism in the nation’s history. On the eve of the United States entering WWII and throughout its duration, the attacks only increased. Demagogic leaders blamed Jews for economic failures, for undue influence over political leaders (especially Franklin Delano Roosevelt), for capitalism, for the Bolshevik triumph in Russia, and for the failures of the New Deal. Many claimed that the nation was under the control of a handful of Jewish men, a list that often included Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and Henry Morgenthau (1891-1967), Secretary of the Treasury to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, among others. Leonard Dinnerstein, Anti-Semitism in America, (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 ) 109. Michael Gerald Rapp. An Historic Overview of Antisemitism in Minnesota, 1920-1960 with Particular Emphasis on Minneapolis and St. Paul, (PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota) 1977) 59-83.
Tens of thousands of Americans found theories of Jewish conspiracies, power, and manipulation entirely convincing. They joined organizations, listened to radio broadcasts attacking Jews, and distributed leaflets “proving” these conspiracies. Many churches were led by men who preached these ideas from their pulpits on Sundays.
In Minnesota, Republicans, leaders of big business, churches, and right-wing organizations created disturbing alliances. Among the most prominent fascist, pro-Nazi groups were the German American Bund, the Silver Shirts (Silver Legion), and the Christian Nation. Three smaller organizations were headquartered in Minnesota in the mid-1930s, some only briefly. They were the Christian Vigilantes of Minneapolis, the Pro-Christian American Society and the White Shirts in Virginia, Minnesota. Each combined an anti-Farmer-Labor, anti-union perspective with Christianity and antisemitism.
The Silver Shirts organization was founded by William Dudley Pelley (1890-1965). His organization grew and contracted throughout the 1930s, with a solid base of supporters in 1936 in Minneapolis. The Silver Shirts welcomed any person over 18 who was not Jewish or African American. Members were required to read, in addition to Pelley’s writing, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated tract that originated in Russia and became one of the most important weapons of antisemitism in the 20th Century. It posited the existence of a Jewish world-wide conspiracy aimed to control the world, and originated ideas of secret cabals and Jewish plans to enact world domination. It continues to resonate in the 21st Century with white supremacists and antisemites all over the world. The fullest discussion of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion may be found in Steven J. Zipperstein, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History, (New York: Liverwright Publishing, 2018). John Higham discussed how the Protocols came to the United States and the role it played in anti-radical nativism in the 1920s. John Higham. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism 1860-1925, (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1983) Loc 3502-2504. Accessed July 22, 2019. Henry Ford had the Protocols translated and published in the Dearborn Independent, his newspaper. He then published the serialized translation as a book. He claimed that Jews weakened the nation through jazz, communism, banking and unionism, among other accusations. See Neil Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate, (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2001).
The American Vigilant Intelligence Federation was another antisemitic and pro-Nazi organization that distributed newspapers and pro-Nazi and anti-New Deal propaganda, which was secretly funded by Nazi Germany. Not only did its founder, Harry A. Jung, have an active following in the Midwest, but Ray Chase avidly pursued a relationship with him that involved trading “information,” that was used to attack their shared enemies.
Ray Chase offers to exchange information with Harry A. Jung, leader of a variety of pro-Nazi and antisemitic organizations in the 1930s in their campaigns against the New Deal, organized labor, Jews, and left-wing activists.
Ray Chase sought out relationships with leaders of pro-Nazi, antisemitic, and extremist groups that had a strong foothold in Minnesota and the Midwest.
This letter to Harry A. Jung (?-1954) is an example of the ideas and political methods of Chase.
Jung founded the American Vigilant Intelligence Federation, which was an antisemitic, anti-New Deal lobbying group during the 1930s. Scholarly sources refer to Harry A. Jung as a man obsessed with “Jewish conspiracies,” and their desire to take over the world. The group distributed millions of copies of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” He was a founder of “Patriotic Societies” that came into existence during WWI when extensive espionage was sanctioned by the United States government against those deemed unpatriotic during WWI. Jung continued his attack on leftists and Jews.
Jung also published The American Gentile, which was backed by Nazi money, and focused on Jung’s conspiracy theories about Jews. This same publishing house also distributed anti-Roosevelt propaganda during the election campaign of 1936.
This letter focuses on the Dies Committee. Chase offers Jung “evidence which will be of interest and value to you” in exchange for information that challenged the Dies Congressional Committee that investigated “un-American activities.”
The house Committee on Un-American Activities, known as the Dies Commission in this period, was created by Martin Dies, a Texas congressperson in 1938. Its purpose was to investigate disloyal activities of communists and fascists who were private citizens or public employees. In fact, it focused exclusively on Communists. In a Republican-led House of Representatives Dies was able to create this committee with a Republican majority. Its purpose was to demonstrate that the Franklin D. Roosevelt White House was infiltrated by communists. It was, among other things, an assault on the New Deal and its social programs.
Harry Jung was an “investigator” for the committee, meaning that he sent them information, just as he sent information to the FBI. Like Chase, he was in the “information” business, often creating false accusations against activists, and labeling those with whom he disagreed communists in order to end their employment. There was considerable public opposition to the committee because of its methods of “naming names” and offering little opportunity for people to defend themselves.
This letter reveals the connections among anticommunists and anti-labor activists during the New Deal. It underlines Chase’s quid pro quo approach to his work and politics and his constant association with notorious antisemites.
Sources for this description include:
Regin Schmidt. Red Scare: FBI and the Origins of Anticommunism in the United States 1919-1943, p. 35; “The American Vigilant Intelligence Federation.” Historical Dictionary of the Great Depression, 1929-1940. James Stuart Olson Ed; John L. Spivak. “Nazi Spies and American “Patriots.” Souciant. http://souciant.com/2017/01/nazi-spies-and-american-patriots. Posted January 31, 2017.
The followers of this nativist, antisemitic, fascist organization were first exposed in the Minneapolis Journal in a five-part series by Arnold Eric Sevareid in September of 1936, which he wrote shortly after graduating from the University of Minnesota. Pelley’s battle cry was “Down with the Reds and out with the Jews.” William Millikan, A Union Against Unions: The Minneapolis Citizens Alliance and Its Fight Against Organized Labor, 1903-1947, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001), 336-337. Sarah Atwood, “’This List Not Complete’: Minnesota’s Jewish Resistance to the Silver Legion of America, 1936–1940. Minnesota History. 66, no 8 (Winter 2019): 145-150; Joe Allen. “It Can’t Happen Here: Confronting the Fascist Threat in America in the 1930s.” Issue 385: Features, International Socialist Review. September-October 2012. Accessed July 19, 2019. https://isreview.org/issue/85/it-cant-happen-here. Eric Sevareid. Not So Wild a Dream, (Columbia: University of Missouri Press,1974; originally 1946) 69-71. Sevareid’s articles from the Minneapolis Journal: “New Silver Shirt Clan With Incredible Credo,” Sept. 11, 1936; “Silvershirts Meet Secretly Here But Come Out Openly in Pacific Coast Drive,” Sept. 12, 1936; “Silvershirts Hoard Food In Readiness for Siege Foretold by Pyramids,” Sept. 13, 1936; “Silver Shirts Here Elevate Maurice Rose To Status Of International Banker,” Sept. 14, 1936; “Silver Shirts Say Quarters Are Bought by Morgenthau in Russia at 5 Cents Each”, Sept. 15, 1936; “Silvershirts’ Dire Prophecy Falls Flat; World Goes On With A Chuckle Over Plot,” Sept. 16, 1936.
If these groups were only marginally successful in the Twin Cities, that was not the case for the followers of Father Charles Coughlin (1891-1979). He established a parish in Detroit in the 1920s and began radio broadcasts in 1926. He had moved to fusing politics with religious services by the late 1920s and had a large following by the stock market crash in 1929. Father Coughlin began as an anti-communist crusader in 1930, first as a supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal and then as its ardent critic beginning in 1935. His audience reached the tens of millions. His broadcasts grew increasingly antisemitic with the rise of National Socialism and fascism in Europe. He supported violence against Jews in Germany and elsewhere because of “Jewish persecution of Christians,” and Communist theft of Christian resources, all blamed on Jews. Coughlin grew more isolationist, and insisted that the United States’ entry into WWII after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 was the work of Jews. Ultimately, he was denied use of the United States mail or the airwaves because he was deemed a threat to the nation. His Archbishop demanded he give up all political activity or face defrocking. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/father-charles-coughlin, accessed July 22, 2019. Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin and the Great Depression, (New York: Vintage Books 1983); Leonard Dinnerstein, Anti-Semitism in America, (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 105-149.
Father Coughlin called on his followers to create small cells of like-minded people, and encourage members to recruit other such groups. Ultimately, he believed he would mobilize these people to rise up together and follow him. His call to organize cells was successful in Minneapolis, where these groups were known as the Christian Front. They flourished from 1939 to early 1941. In October of 1939 they held a rally attended by nearly 3,000 Minnesotans. Like William Pelley and Henry Ford, Coughlin also embraced the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and published it in 1938 in his publication Social Justice, even after Ford had disavowed it. Steven J. Keillor, Hjalmar Petersen of Minnesota: The Politics of Provincial Independence, (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987) 153, 154, 163, fn 146 p 298. There were many other organizations in the Twin Cities, including additional churches, committed to isolationism and antisemitism. This is discussed in Michael Gerald Rapp. An Historic Overview of Antisemitism in Minnesota, 1920-1960 with Particular Emphasis on Minneapolis and St. Paul, (PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota 1977).
In this deeply unsettling period, the majority of Jews in Minneapolis and St. Paul worked in blue collar jobs. There were, however, Jewish professionals—doctors and lawyers—and they were excluded from law firms and from practicing medicine in hospitals. Their exclusion led to opening law firms where Jews could practice, and to building Mount Sinai Hospital in 1951, a non-sectarian, private hospital. Jews faced widespread discrimination in employment. Laura Weber. “Gentiles Preferred: Minneapolis Jews and Employment.” Minnesota History. 51, no.5 (Spring 1991):167-182.
Historically, deep bonds of association were a part of Jewish life, and intensified in the face of virulent antisemitism. Synagogues, educational institutions, philanthropic and social organizations, as well as Zionist groups were all part of Jewish life in the Twin Cities and in other areas of the state throughout the interwar period and beyond it. Minnesota Jews were very active in political life in this period, often associated with Farmer-Labor and ultimately the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, as well as the Republican Party. One of the most important organizations that developed in this period was the Anti-Defamation Council, which would become the Jewish Community Relations Council. Its leadership carefully monitored all the activities of the many hate groups of the 1930s and made public their attacks on Jews as attacks on America. Hyman Berman and Linda Mack Schloff. Jews in Minnesota, (St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002),12-52; Sarah Atwood, “’This List Not Complete’: Minnesota’s Jewish Resistance to the Silver Legion of America, 1936–1940. Minnesota History. 66, no 8 (Winter 2019):143; Michael Gerald Rapp. An Historic Overview of Antisemitism in Minnesota, 1920-1960 with Particular Emphasis on Minneapolis and St. Paul. PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota 1977.
Jews, particularly in Minneapolis, were shut out of civic life and social organizations. Discrimination in employment and housing was legal and accepted. Jews in the Twin Cities were restricted from buying homes and property in many parts of the cities, and few northern Minnesota resorts welcomed them.
As discrimination was outlawed beginning in the 1940s, opportunities for Jews increased and antisemitism slowly—but never entirely—disappeared, until its resurgence as a result of the rise of white and Christian nationalism and neo-Nazism in the first decades of the 21st century.
Jewish Students at the University of Minnesota
Jewish students had been attending the University for many decades by the 1930s. They came from the Twin Cities, from the smaller towns and cities of Minnesota, and also from out of state. Because of pervasive antisemitism, Jews were viewed as different from other white students for many reasons. They were not Christian; many of them were urban, and many supported left-wing causes, particularly in the 1930s. Many Jews from the northeast were active in the labor movement, in the fight for racial integration, and human rights. They were the objects of antisemitic stereotypes that portrayed Jews as misers, unscrupulous in business, and immoral.
Jewish students were treated by University of Minnesota administrators and many of their peers as “different,” “inferior,” or even “dangerous.” Nevertheless, Jewish students were admitted to most of the University’s colleges, including its professional schools, although there were rigid quotas to keep their numbers to a minimum, and medical internships were sometimes made “proportional” to the number of Jews in the state. The nation’s quota system that began in the late 1910s dramatically limited the number of Jewish students who could attend private colleges and many professional schools. For a discussion of quotas in higher education against Jewish students see Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (New York: Harper,2006); Dan A. Oren, Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); James Axtell, The Making of Princeton University: From Woodrow Wilson to the Present, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); Roger L. Geiger, The History of American Higher Education: Learning and Culture from the Founding to WWII, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016); Harold Weschler, The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in America,(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1977).
The undergraduate world of the University of Minnesota was built on social fraternities, sororities, and many interest groups that were rigidly separated by religion, race, and gender. The Minnesota Daily, honor societies, some clubs, and political organizations did include Jews, but virtually no African Americans. In this world of parallel organizations, minority students often found a sense of security and community by establishing their own separate groups, not the least because they were barred from all others. The Menorah Society, founded for faculty and students in 1903, and then Hillel, founded in 1923, were both national movements to enable Jewish students to connect with one another.
The University of Minnesota had Jewish and African American social fraternities and sororities because both groups were barred from entering what was known as the Greek letter system. Jews also created their own pre-professional organizations for the same reason. The University had chapters of a Jewish engineering fraternity, Sigma Alpha Sigma; dentistry, Alpha Omega; medicine, Phi Delta Epsilon; and pharmacy, Alpha Beta Phi.
Hillel House was the one site on campus for Jewish students from in and out of state to gather.
Students at Hillel House in1946. Members of the Jewish communities of the Twin Cities contributed to purchasing this house to have a place for Jewish students from both in and out of state to gather. Previously, Jewish students and faculty had been part of the University of Minnesota Menorah Society, which was founded at Harvard University in 1906, and was part of University life in the 1910s forward.
1/2This parallel structure reflected the larger society in which Jews and African Americans created their own philanthropic, religious, professional, and social organizations because their membership was barred by organizations in the majority culture. But separation also limited opportunities and access to all of University life. At the University, Jews were treated like “white” students in many parts of campus life. But they were categorized as “different” for others.
When students, parents, or members of the Jewish community complained about their exclusion to administrators, their concerns were blamed on employers, householders who ran boarding houses, or students’ intolerance. Jewish students, like African American students, were called to task for having the wrong expectations. Because many of them embraced the same prejudices toward Jews, University administrators rarely took a stand or used their leverage to change policies related to Jewish or African American students until well into the 1950s, and most often decades after that.
The Case of Coffman Union: Unwanted Jewish Students
One of the most disturbing expressions of campus antisemitism in this era is visible in a correspondence between the directors of the University of Minnesota’s Student Union and Cornell University’s Union. In the year 2000, the letters were discovered in Coffman Union, hidden within a folder marked “X” in a long-forgotten file cabinet. G. R. Higgins, director of the newly built University of Minnesota Student Union (which would subsequently named for Lotus Coffman) wrote in 1941 to Cornell University’s student union director Foster Coffin to complain about the “Jewish use of the building.” He remarked about Jewish students that “their person is diluted with a tremendous amount of non-Jewish students.” Jews were rendered as alien and repulsive, only tolerable if they were outnumbered by non-Jewish students. They were racialized by reference to blood (diluted). The director could not find them “committing a specific sin,” but felt burdened by their mere presence. This exchange took place in 1941 when the Nazi ideology focused on racial genocide against Jews was firmly in place. The language of the letter is disturbingly close to that used by the Nazis. This case and others are discussed in Riv-Ellen Prell, “Antisemitism without Quotas at the University of Minnesota in the 1930s and 1940s: Anticommunist Politics, the Surveillance of Jewish Students, and American Antisemitism,” American Jewish History. 105, nos. 1/2 (January/April 2021): 157-188.
This folder was found in Coffman Union sixty years after it was used. It includes an antisemitic letter exchange between heads of student unions from Cornell University and the University of Minnesota.
This folder was found in Coffman Union sixty years after it was used. It included an antisemitic letter exchange between heads of Cornell University and the University of Minnesota’ student unions. It also included a report of statistics tracking enrollments of Jewish and African American students, as well as limitations on the lives of African American students from the Midwest. It was created by the heads of student unions. The document was labeled “confidential.”
This letter is from an antisemitic correspondence between the Director of Cornell University’s Willard Straight Hall student union, and the Director of the Minnesota Union (subsequently called Coffman Union).
This letter is from a correspondence between Foster W. Coffin, Director of Cornell University’s Willard Straight Hall student union, and G.R. Higgins, Director of the Minnesota Union (subsequently called Coffman Union). Coffin wrote to Higgins about the “problem”of “Jewish girls and boys using the student union.” Higgins’ reply thanks Coffin for his “cry from the wilderness.” He responds, using racist and antisemitic language, that Jewish student presence is “diluted” by the presence of non Jewish students. This remarkable choice of words in 1941 echoes the language of the Final Solution in Nazi Germany and segregation in the South.
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2/2The Case of Jewish Students and Housing: “Too Many Jews”
From the 1920s to the 1950s, boarding houses offered rooms and meals to students throughout Minneapolis neighborhoods. Until well into the 1950s, “householders” who ran these homes had the right to reject Jewish, African American, and also foreign students. The University, only under pressure from student members of the NAACP in the 1950, stopped giving householders “preference cards,” which allowed them to refuse boarders on the basis of race, religion, nationality, or ability.
As late as 1950, the University of Minnesota approved boarding houses for student residences right to restrict student renters by race, religion, and foreign birth.
Boarding houses had to be approved by the University of Minnesota for students to reside there. Householders who ran boarding houses were allowed to submit to the University of Minnesota preference cards indicating types of students who they would not accept. Jews and “Negroes” were the first two categories. By the 1940s, they also included foreigners and Asians. This document summarizes the boarding house preference cards by neighborhood and groups excluded. The University Senate collected this information and finally called on the University to reject the practice in 1954, in part due to the activism of the Student NAACP on campus.
The Calmenson Sisters Could Not Find Housing
In 1923, Miriam and Jeanette Calmenson, the daughters of Phil Calmenson, of Montevideo, were excluded from a boarding house near campus because, they were told, they were “of Jewish descent.” Mr. Calmenson felt the need to turn to his local School Superintendent, Mr. J. J. Bohlander, for help in addressing the problem. He appeared to believe he could not be effective if he contacted the University himself.
Boarding houses were given “rankings” by the University of Minnesota, and Mrs. A.B. Christopherson who ran the one where the Calmensons were roomers worried about her standing. The presence of “too many Jewish girls,” she explained, lowered the ranking, imperilled her ability to succeed financially, and thus justified why they should be excluded. The Director of the Housing Bureau, Mary Staples, claimed she never said “Jews downgraded a house.” She met with Miss Calmenson and the woman who ran the house but “it did not succeed in clearing it up.”
Superintendent Bohlander wrote to the University Registrar to inquire about the Calmenson sisters being asked to leave a boarding house because they were Jewish.
Superintendent J.J. Bohlander wrote on behalf of the Calmenson family to the registrar Mr. West asking why the Calmensons were told that having Jews in a boarding house where they resided lowered its ranking at the University of Minnesota. His inquiry followed the two sisters being asked not to return the following year. Superintendent Bohlander’s letter not only recounted the events that happened, it underlined his belief that the University of Minnesota would treat all people fairly. It also provides evidence that the University ranked its boarding houses on the basis of the religion of its residents with a lower ranking created by housing young Jewish women.
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Jeanette and Miriam Calmenson were both members of the Scroll and Key Jewish Literary Society in 1923. They were asked not to return to their boarding house by Mrs. Christopherson, who ran the boarding house, because they were Jewish.
This photograph of Jeanette and Miriam Calmenson appeared in the Gopher Yearbook page devoted to the Scroll and Key Literary Society, 1923. This literary society was for Jewish girls, which was one more example of the social segregation of Jews and non-Jews on the campus. The Calmenson sisters were asked to leave their boarding house because “too many Jewish girls,” they were told, lowered the university’s ranking of boarding houses. This was an early example of antisemitism in student housing. Just like African American students who were not allowed rooms in dormitories, Jewish students were also “blamed” for their own exclusion. If other students did not want to be near Jewish or African American students, then the administration built a policy on keeping white, Christian students “comfortable.”
The Case of Jewish Students Being Invited to “Consider” Leaving the Dental Hygiene Program “For Your Own Good”
Jews had limited work opportunities in Minnesota because employers had the right by law to exclude applicants on the basis of race, religion, or gender. There is no record that the University made any effort to challenge racism and antisemitism, to urge, in this case, dentists to hire Jewish hygienists. Instead, administrators simply warned students to consider giving up their studies. That was the case with three young women who were contacted in the fall of 1939 by Ione Jackson, head of the Dental Hygiene Program in the Dental School, and asked to consider leaving the program to which they had been admitted and had already paid tuition. She invited Renee Rappoport, Rose Olesky, and Rosa Lee Feinberg to consider withdrawing after a month in classes on the basis that no dentist would hire a Jewish hygienist.
Renee Rappoport gave a statement at a deposition to Samuel Scheiner about what transpired. Scheiner was Executive Director of the newly formed Minnesota Jewish Council (later renamed Jewish Community Relations Council), which emerged in 1937 and changed again in 1938 to combat increasingly aggressive antisemitism in Minnesota. The organization viewed Miss Jackson’s “helpful” suggestion as part of a pattern of discrimination against Jews. Samuel L. Scheiner was a Jewish attorney who headed the first independent, statewide Jewish community relations agency in the United States to organize against antisemitism in Minnesota from 1938 until his retirement in 1974. He was a graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School. In 1938, Jewish leaders in the Twin Cities and Duluth formed the Anti-Defamation Council of Minnesota in response to a rise in public antisemitism, which had been increasing throughout the United States since the 1920s. The 1938 Minnesota Governor’s election tipped the balance, however, when Farmer-Labor candidate Elmer Benson, who had Jewish staff members, was specifically attacked for his Jewish connections. Once formed, the organization investigated the pro-fascist, antisemitic climate in the state. For more information on Scheiner, see the People section of the website.
In fact, much of the deposition focused on what happened after Rappoport’s discussion with Miss Jackson. She was castigated for speaking with others in her community. She was advised to “keep it to herself” when she explained that she sought the counsel of many people in her community. She was assured by the Dental School dean that she did not need to leave, after he received a call expressing concern about a Jewish young woman being told to consider leaving a program to which she had just been admitted.
However, when Rappoport spoke to her oral anatomy professor, who inquired why she was leaving, he told her, “I am sure you are doing the right thing,” when he learned she was Jewish.
In this detailed document, Renee Rappoport noted that Ione Jackson, who headed Dental Hygiene, emphasized the fact that there was nothing she could do about the fact that Jewish women would not be employed.
The newly formed Jewish Community Relations Council began taking antisemitism head on in 1937. Sam Scheiner, an attorney and its director, took a deposition from Renee Rappoport, a student enrolled in the Dental Hygiene program after she was told by Ione Jackson, who headed the program, to consider leaving her studies. She informed her that she would never find employment as a Jew. The only way she could have her money refunded was by stating that she could not succeed at her studies, and not that Jews could not find employment. The deposition documents the in great detail.
When Jewish Minnesotans called to express concern the Dental school administrators were furious because they were trying to be “helpful.” Leaders in the Jewish community met to talk about discrimination in employment following the incident.
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3/3These events were deeply disturbing to the newly formed Council, which came into existence in response to the overt antisemitism embraced by the Silver Shirts and other fascist and right-wing groups that were popular in Minnesota. In addition, the 1938 Governor’s race that is detailed in the essay “Political Surveillance of the University” was viewed by the Jewish community and many Farmer-Labor followers as unapologetically antisemitic. The Council was sufficiently disturbed that Scheiner called a special meeting on November 2, 1939 to discuss the matter. Along with Mr. Scheiner, nine leaders of the Jewish community were present, including several physicians on the University’s faculty, business people, and academics. They assigned a group of their members to meet with the families of the girls who were invited to consider leaving the program, and formed another committee to meet with Dean of the Dental School William F. Lasby and Miss Ione Jackson. Among those who attended were: Arthur Brin, a businessman active in community affairs; Dr. Moses Barron, a clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, where he received a medical degree in 1911, and would become in 1951 Mount Sinai Hospital’s first Chief of Medicine; and Dr. Leo Rigler, who received an MD from the University of Minnesota and became the first chief of radiology at the University of Minnesota in 1933 and held the position until 1957. Minutes of Special Meeting JCRC Box 16, Folder, General Discrimination 1939, Minnesota Historical Society.
“It was suggested that this committee attempt to straighten out Miss Jackson in her cold-blooded and blunt attack on matters of this kind. The group felt that these talks should be had with the prospective students prior to their spending a month in the school, for they lose part of their tuition and it is very undesirable as far as the students are concerned.” Minutes of Special Meeting JCRC Box 16, Folder, General Discrimination 1939, Minnesota Historical Society.
Arthur Brin stated that another committee “ought to call on President Guy Stanton Ford.” He was invited to appoint the members of that committee. Brin noted that this encounter with Ione Jackson was “only one of many incidents throughout the entire University.” Minutes of Special Meeting JCRC Box 16, Folder, General Discrimination 1939, Minnesota Historical Society.
On November 3, 1939, The American Jewish World featured an editorial entitled “The Duty of the University.” Rabbi David Aronson referred to a three-day institute held at the University that raised the question of whether educational institutions “owe any implied duty to assist those they have trained” who cannot find employment. Rabbi Aronson wrote in his editorial what the Institute did not choose to explore. He raised the question of the University’s responsibility to address and not ignore “the question of discrimination practiced by many employers…because of their religious affiliation or antecedents…the educational institutions are decidedly remiss in their duties if they make no concerted effort to reduce such discrimination in the minds of those who contact the university in regard to employing its graduates.” He wrote,
“If the Dental School, for example, would not only teach its students the mechanics of dentistry but would imbue them with the true scientific spirit, the dentists employing a dental hygienist would look for the person who was best trained in the profession without the irrelevant references to the applicant’s religious affiliation.” “The Duty of the University,” American Jewish World, November 3, 1939. The same issue also featured an article about the young women leaving the program. “4 Dental Hygiene Students Quit U, Bare Job Prejudice.” https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/item/p16022coll529:68328.
The editorial also raised these issues about the law school.
The dental hygiene case underlines the complexity of life for Jews in Minnesota in general and the University of Minnesota in particular in the 1930s, during a highpoint of antisemitism in the state and the nation. Why were leaders of the Jewish community concerned by what the University did when the problem appeared to be outside of the institution? Distinguished Jewish faculty members of the School of Medicine and Jewish business leaders who attended the November meeting wanted the University to stand up against antisemitism in employment, just as African Americans called on the University to stand against racism. They wanted Jews to have employment opportunities.
Their deep concerns about the University’s actions in 1939 also need to be set in a global context. As they were fighting home-front antisemitism, Minnesota Jews, like Jews throughout the United States, were closely following Hitler’s rise to power and the vulnerability of European Jews. Antisemitism was a constant for Jews at this point in history.
Neither the administration of the University nor of the School of Dentistry wanted to be perceived as prejudiced against Jews. Indeed, Dean and Assistant to the President Malcolm Willey informed President Guy Stanton Ford that he had heard rumors that three students were “objects of anti-Jewish discrimination.” Willey further noted that a “downtown lawyer” had been consulted, and members of the staff (Rigler, Barron, Marget and Cooper) have some knowledge of the situation.” His follow-up memo stated: “It is my understanding that the groups first concerned in protesting now understand the helpful and wholly unprejudiced attitude of Miss Jackson and are satisfied.” The concerns of the Minnesota Jewish families and leaders who were involved in this case were not “satisfied.” The University was concerned about being perceived as antisemitic, not about whether it was. Willey chose to misread a Jewish communal response that was in no way grateful to Jackson, the School of Dentistry, or the University of Minnesota.
These sources suggest that the “choices” given to Jewish women students—to stay or to leave dental hygiene—really were not choices at all. Although told that she was given a choice to stay or to leave, Renee Rappoport, like the other students, left because she felt that she had no real choice. These students were admitted to a program at the University of Minnesota, as they were to discover, that led to no employment.
What did the University do to fight antisemitism and racism in the preparation of lawyers, doctors, and dentists? If asked, the University blamed the professionals for their attitudes. Similarly, if asked, the professionals blamed their clients and patients for their inability to hire Jews or African Americans. Yet again, no one appeared to be held accountable for the fact that Jewish women would not be hired. Nevertheless the School of Dentistry continued to admit Jewish women. Upon learning that they were Jewish, administrators then counseled them to “choose” whether or not they wanted to continue their studies, knowing they would not receive a position. The constant shifting of blame for the exclusion of Jewish students dominated life at the University of Minnesota, as surely as the gratitude of Jewish Minnesotans that their children could study there, even if professional schools continued to enforce quotas against Jews. Minutes of Special Meeting JCRC Box 16, Folder, General Discrimination 1939, Minnesota Historical Society. Issues of employment and discrimination for Jews in Minneapolis and St. Paul are discussed in Laura Weber. “Gentiles Preferred: Minneapolis Jews and Employment.” Minnesota History.51,no.5 (Spring 1991): 167-182.
Nazism Arrives at the University of Minnesota with the Third Reich’s Ambassador Hans Luther
In the fall of 1935, the University of Minnesota welcomed the Nazi Ambassador to the United States, Hans Luther. Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in the 1930 election in the midst of economic depression. A politically chaotic time followed, with competition for the chancellorship, which Hitler assumed in 1932, and the dissolution of the Reichstag, the democratically elected national assembly. The Nazi platform was based on unifying a German nation that was racially pure. Jews were its enemies. http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/TIMELINE/nazirise.HTM
Just a few months prior to Ambassador Luther’s November visit, the Congress of the United States had declared that the nation would remain “neutral” in any war. Long-standing allies England and France were endangered by fascist nations, which included Germany, Italy, and Spain. American neutrality meant that fascism would grow unhindered. Few Americans, following WWI, wanted to engage in war again. Many Americans supported Adolf Hitler and Nazi policies of racial hierarchy and anti-communism.
Hans Luther was appointed Ambassador to Washington in 1933. In all of his public statements and speeches he insisted that there was no religious discrimination in Nazi Germany, no persecution of dissidents, and “internal matters” in Germany should be of no concern to others.
Hans Luther Visits the Midwest
The University of Minnesota genially hosted Ambassador Luther on November 19, 1935 as part of his tour of midwestern cities and universities intended to counter a national campaign to boycott the Berlin Olympics scheduled for the summer of 1936. Many Americans questioned if the United States’ participation in the Olympics would appear to approve of Nazi policies, particularly around race and religion and the Third Reich’s treatment of political dissidents. Luther went to the midwest because of the strong German heritage of its citizens. He expected sympathetic treatment on campus and in community organizations. His first stop in Madison, Wisconsin proved that he had misjudged the popularity of Nazism.
In September, 1935, just months before Hans Luther’s campus visit, the newly constituted Nazi Reichstag passed the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped all German Jews of their citizenship and outlawed marriage and sexual relationships between Jews and Christians in order to create a “racially pure” Germany.
By the time Luther made his midwest tour, Germany had also:
- Directed a purge of Jewish students from universities and cultural organizations
- Fired Jews from newspapers and civil service positions
- Called on Germans to boycott Jewish shops
- Denied Jews health insurance
- Undertook a massive book burning of volumes authored by Jewish and other intellectuals deemed as alien to German purity
For more information about the Holocaust, the War Against the Jews, see “The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students,” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20010322-historyofholocaust.pdf).
Who Welcomed Hans Luther and Who Protested?
The University of Minnesota provided one of the most amiable venues Hans Luther encountered. He was the guest of the Twin Cities’ Civic and Commerce Club, though some of its members objected to his visit, and the German Language Clubs that were popular in the Twin Cities. The University’s German Department hosted the Ambassador for a tea in Shevlin Hall.
Hans Luther was greeted with a mass protest against him and Germany at the University of Wisconsin. That was not the case just a few days later at the University of Minnesota, Rather, fifty students went to the University’s Shevlin Hall with the intention of asking him questions about Nazi policies. Luther refused to answer questions from the press or from the students. Dean of Women Anne Blitz held students at bay, refusing to let them join the event, and called campus police to eject a student who would not leave.
The Minnesota Daily provided a detailed account of what occurred at Shevlin Hall, where a German Department tea for Nazi Hans Luther occurred and students protested the event.
The Minnesota Daily reported that Hans Luther, the “stout, bald ambassador” from Nazi Germany, barely responded to the call for an Olympic boycott and the student demonstrations against his visit to the University of Minnesota. Many students were forced to leave Shevlin Hall, where the German Department hosted him at a tea. The article labeled the demonstrators as “hecklers” rather than protestors and clearly condemned their behavior. Dean of Women Anne Blitz was concerned that a student protester was not properly dressed for a tea and threatened to call police, who were present inside Shevlin. She stopped student protesters from asking Luther questions. A concurrent meeting organized by the University YMCA, YWCA, and Menorah Society drafted a joint statement protesting Germany’s racial discrimination against minority athletes.
Protesters Greeted Luther Off Campus
Seventy Catholic and Jewish organizations were joined by labor and political groups who organized demonstrations wherever Hans Luther spoke.
Hans Luther’s visit to Minnesota in 1935 quickly became a political lightning rod. The arrival of the Nazi ambassador in Minneapolis prompted students and community leaders to protest events planned at the University of Minnesota and another local organization, notably his address to the Civic and Commerce Association. Members of the press drilled Luther on the tenets of Nazi ideology and their offense to American values. University groups made public resolutions to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics in protest of German discrimination. The American Jewish World, the local Jewish community newspaper, reported extensively on Luther’s visit to the Twin Cities in the November 22, 1935 issue.
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Rabbi David Aronson of Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis wrote an editorial challenging Luther’s oft-repeated statement that Nazi persecutions of Jews should be treated as an internal German matter.
Rabbi David Aronson of Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis, wrote this editorial in the American Jewish World in response to a 1935 statement made by President Roosevelt on the subject of international affairs. Even in cases of religious discrimination, Roosevelt declined to “interfere in the domestic concerns of foreign governments,” but Rabbi Aronson argued that engagement with the persecutional policies and propaganda of other nations was unavoidable. The antisemitism of Nazi Germany was, in effect, a declaration of war against millions of United States citizens, and the presence of Hitler’s representatives like Hans Luther in American communities made the issue an unambiguously domestic affair.
The Berlin Olympic Boycott
Many students saw a strong connection between Nazi policies and the need for the United States to boycott the 1936 Olympics, which was an international movement with strong support initially in the United States. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007087
The University YMCA hosted a gathering of thirty students representing fifteen campus religious and political organizations and fraternities. They approved a petition calling for a boycott and intended to put it to a student vote. The boycott group prepared a letter to all students to invite them to vote for or against the petition to boycott the Berlin Olympics. Their mail was refused by the University’s postmaster. When they stated that they would send first class mail, Mr. Poucher informed them it would not matter. Dean of Student Affairs Edward E. Nicholson supported the decision, explaining that the Board of Regents had a policy that mail that lacked “general student interest” would be rejected. Nicholson urged this policy on the Board of Regents as part of his campaign to limit student rights, and to reject any political matter that he deemed propaganda. In his role as Dean of Student Affairs, he was bothered as much by students from Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish organizations creating a democratic vote by students on the urgent question of responding to Nazism as he was about “communism.”
The November 29, 1935 American Jewish World offered the most complete account of activists’ efforts to distribute information about the boycott vote through the University mail system.
In 1935, University of Minnesota students continued their effort to call for the United States to boycott the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The initiative to raise awareness in the University community met administrative resistance from Postmaster J.C. Poucher and Dean of Student Affairs Edward Nicholson, who pointed to new regulations (advocated by Nicholson and Coffman) set by the Board of Regents that denied student groups the right to disseminate “propaganda” through the post office and campus mail. However, Protestant clergy leaders and educators joined these students in their charge, arguing that to boycott the games would send a message to the Nazi regime that their treatment of ‘non-Aryans’ was “repugnant to the conscience of the world.”After the letters were refused, the Peace Action Committee passed another resolution that “censured those of the University who are responsible for the abrogation of student rights.”
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The University of Minnesota was a complicated environment for Jewish students. It afforded them opportunities for higher education, which were far more limited in private colleges, particularly in the Ivy League schools. They were, however, constantly conscious of their Jewishness in matters of housing, social and professional organizations, and social interactions.
In this period of virulent antisemitism in Minnesota, the United States, and Europe, their sense of belonging and opportunity grew far more precarious. In particular, Jewish students involved in left-wing activism were especially targeted on and off the campus for their ideas and their Jewishness.
