A Convenient Hatred: The History of Antisemitism (42 page)

Joseph Tenenbaum, a Jew who grew up in Poland, disagreed:

“Why does not America grant the Jews minority rights?” was the common question raised by most of the peace envoys. The answer was: Because America, the great melting pot, does not preach nationalism. There is no such thing as group rights in America, because fundamentally there is no such thing as national group domination.
¹⁸

Such arguments convinced Louis Marshall. He insisted:

[W]e must be careful not to permit ourselves to judge what is most desirable for the people who live in Eastern Europe by the standards which prevail on Fifth Avenue [in New York City] or in the States of Maine or Ohio, where a different horizon from that which prevails in Poland, Galicia, Ukraine, or Lithuania bounds one’s vision.
¹⁹

That argument led to the Minorities Treaty, which granted civil, religious, and political rights to all citizens of a state. The word
citizen
now applied to anyone who was born or “habitually” lived in that state. The treaty also guaranteed every minority group the right to freely use its own language in trade, in court, and in primary schools in places where that group had a sizeable population. In addition, taxes and other public funds were to be used to support not only the schools, religious institutions, and charities of the majority but also those of minorities. To receive international recognition, a new state had to sign the Minorities Treaty and include the rights it guaranteed in its national constitution. The new League of Nations would be responsible for enforcing those treaties.

Most newly independent states objected to the treaty, arguing that it infringed on their right to govern without outside interference. On May
31, 1919, delegations from Poland, Romania, Hungary, Serbia, and Greece protested the treaty at the peace conference. Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey also voiced objections. The Allies stood firm, however, and one new nation after another signed a version of the treaty. In the end, though, they did not enforce it for long—and the League of Nations lacked the power to force them to do so.

The only new nation that did not protest the Minorities Treaty was Czechoslovakia. Although many Czechs resented the document, their president, Thomas Masaryk, vigorously defended it. When asked why, he replied, “How can the suppressed nations deny the Jews that which they demand for themselves?”

Although the Allies established new states in eastern and central Europe, they did not even consider doing the same in other parts of the world. Much of Asia and Africa remained under European rule. The British and the French divided up the old Ottoman Empire, ignoring the promises they had made to Arab nationalists and Zionists during the war. The British now controlled Palestine and Iraq, and the French ruled Syria and Lebanon. The Zionists did make one important gain: the text of the Balfour Declaration was included in the mandate that the League of Nations gave to Britain in Palestine, over Arab objections. The league defined a mandate as a territory held in trust by a European nation until that nation gave the territory its independence.

The new Soviet Union was one of the few nations that did not attend the peace conference. It had made peace with Germany before the war’s end. Moreover, Russia’s former allies now regarded it as an outlaw state. Many people feared that the Bolsheviks were exporting Communism. Some allies actively supported the White Russians in their efforts to stop Communism. In the end, however, the White Russians were defeated. By 1920, the civil war was largely over, and the Communists had won.

As White Russians fled the Soviet Union, they brought the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
with them. To many of them and to a growing number of people in other countries, the
Protocols
seemed to explain the losses and anxieties of the modern world.

In 1920, Eyre & Spottiswood, a respected British publisher, produced the first English edition of the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
. Many people in Britain were intrigued by the document. The editors of the
Times
of London asked:

Despite the exposé published by the
Times
of London,
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
was a publishing sensation in the 1920s and 1930s. The book could be found in countries around the world, including Japan, Mexico, and Syria.

What are these “Protocols”? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans, and gloated over their exposition? Are they a forgery? If so, whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in parts fulfilled, in parts far gone in the way of fulfillment?
²⁰

In August 1921, the
Times
answered those questions by exposing the
Protocols
as a fraud. The newspaper showed how the original author of the document had copied fictional works to create the
Protocols
. One of those works was an 1868 novel by Hermann Goedsche, a German antisemite. The novel contains a chapter describing a secret meeting of the “Elders of Zion” at midnight in the oldest Jewish cemetery in Prague. In this chapter, as the men gather to plot the enslavement of non-Jews, two Christians hidden among the tombstones eavesdrop. One of them summarizes how “the Jews” intend to undermine Christian nations.

To concentrate in their hands all the capital of the nations of all lands; to secure possession of all the land, railroads, mines, houses; to be at the head of all organizations, to occupy the highest governmental posts, to paralyze commerce and industry everywhere, to seize the press, to direct legislation, public opinion and national movements—and all for the purpose of subjugating all nations on earth to their power!
²¹

As a result of the exposé by the
Times
, Eyre & Spottiswood stopped publishing the
Protocols
, and many newspapers no longer gave it publicity. But neither action hurt its popularity. A group known only as the Britons now published its own edition. The preface claimed that the
Times
exposé proved nothing:

Of course, Jews say the Protocols are a forgery. But the Great War was no forgery; the fate of Russia is no forgery; and these were predicted by the Learned Elders as long ago as 1901. The Great War was no German war—it was a Jew war. It was plotted by Jews, and was waged by Jewry on the Stock Exchanges of the world. The generals and admirals were all controlled by Jewry.
²²

By 1922, translations of the
Protocols
had also appeared in Germany, France, and Poland. The Polish edition appeared at a time when many Poles, including leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, believed
the nation was about to be attacked by the Red Army. Two cardinals, two archbishops, and three bishops—all influenced by the
Protocols
—sent out a “cry for help” that was read in churches around the world. It said, in part:

The real object of Bolshevism is world-conquest. The race which has the leadership of Bolshevism in its hands, has already in the past subjugated the whole world by means of gold and the banks, and now, driven by the everlasting imperialistic greed which flows in its veins is already aiming at the final subjugation of the nations under the yoke of its rule.
²³

The first sentence is true; the Bolsheviks were plotting “world conquest,” but their leaders were not Jews. Jews did not control Russia’s Communist government or the world’s banks.

Translations also appeared in Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain, and a number of South American countries. White Russian exiles in Siberia carried the document to Japan, where it was published in 1924. The patriarch of Jerusalem (the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Palestine) urged his followers to buy the Arabic translation in 1925. And almost everywhere, the false statements contained in the book had seeped into the general culture; exposés of the forgery made little difference. After all, who could deny the wars, the revolutions, and the economic disasters that had taken place in the early 1900s? All had supposedly been prophesied in the
Protocols
.

In the United States, the strongest supporter of the
Protocols
was none other than Henry Ford, the manufacturer of the first affordable automobile. In 1919, he began publishing a weekly newspaper called the
Dearborn Independent
. He gave away copies of the paper to customers and sold subscriptions through his car dealerships.

In 1920, a Russian émigré gave Ford a copy of the
Protocols
. Like many others, Ford never doubted its authenticity. He immediately serialized the
Protocols
in his newspaper and printed articles that supported its claims. Those articles promised to reveal “The Scope of Jewish Dictatorship in the United States,” “Jewish Degradation of American Baseball,” and “The International Jew—The World’s Foremost Problem.” In 1922, he turned those articles into a book that sold more than a half-million copies.

American Jews tried repeatedly to show Ford that the book was a forgery. When he ignored them, many expressed their disapproval by refusing to buy Ford cars. So did some non-Jews. But few American Jewish leaders supported the boycott. Most thought they had a better chance of persuading Ford to reconsider his views in private meetings. When he refused to see them, they created a public-relations campaign to educate Americans about Jews and Judaism.

That campaign had the support of a number of prominent Catholic and Protestant leaders, who expressed their confidence in the “patriotism and good citizenship” of “our Jewish brethren.” In addition, 119 prominent Americans, including President Woodrow Wilson and former president William Howard Taft, signed a letter in January, 1921 condemning antisemitism. “We believe it should not be left to men and women of the Jewish faith to fight this evil,” the letter said, “but that it is in a very special sense the duty of citizens who are not Jews by ancestry or faith.”
²⁴

None of these efforts seemed to affect the popularity of the
Protocols
or Ford’s newspaper. Every week, he received money and letters of appreciation from fans for his “exposé” of Jewish conspiracy. Then, in 1924, the
Dearborn Independent
ran a series of articles attacking Aaron Sapiro, a Chicago attorney for the National Council of the Farmers’ Cooperative Marketing Association. Ford accused Sapiro of being part of a “conspiracy of Jewish bankers who seek to control the food market of the world.” (According to the
Protocols
, Jews wanted control of the world’s food supply as a step toward global domination.) Against the advice of family and friends, Sapiro hired a lawyer, who filed a one-million-dollar defamation lawsuit against Ford. (Libel and slander are two forms of defamation. Libel is published defamation, and slander is spoken.) Ford hired a team of lawyers and an army of detectives to defend himself.

Political cartoonists made fun of the tactics Henry Ford used to fight the million-dollar defamation lawsuit that Aaron Sapiro filed against him.

The proceedings ended in a mistrial after a reporter interviewed a juror before the case was decided. As the second trial unfolded, it became increasingly clear that Ford was going to lose the lawsuit, because he had no proof of his charges against Sapiro. At that point, he contacted Louis Marshall and U.S. congressman Nathan Perlman. He told them that he had been wrong to attack Sapiro and other Jews and wanted to make amends. The two men suggested a public apology and an end to Ford’s antisemitic campaign. Ford agreed.

Although some people praised Ford’s change of heart, others were unconvinced. There were five antisemitic organizations in the United States before 1932. Between 1932 and 1940, there were over 120 groups. Many of them relied on the articles and books Ford had published in the 1920s to support their attacks on the Jews.