Jews of the Antebellum: A Spectrum of Beliefs on Slavery

How did recently arrived Jewish immigrants to the United States respond to the debates over slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War? Jews from Central Europe joined people from various European countries in the stream of immigration to the United States, seeking new opportunities and freedom from persecution. When these Jewish immigrants arrived in the United States, the country was deeply divided over the issue of slavery. As America divided itself along the Mason-Dixon line, so did the new Jewish communities. My research seeks to learn what factors drove some Jews to support abolitionism, while others were driven to support white supremacist agendas pervasive in the Southern states. The Jewish communities had no single stance on the issue of slavery in the United States, as some advocated for the emancipation of the enslaved black population, while others deeply resonated with Southern lifestyle and economic practice. To gain insight into the mindset of these Antebellum Jews, I look to memoirs from Jewish abolitionists, Jewish slave-owners, and Jews who fell in between on the political spectrum of the time. In addition to memoirs, newspapers of the era were littered with opinions and stories of Jews, alongside short autobiographies and sermons by several rabbis. This research ultimately finds that the greater American Jewish immigrant communities of the Antebellum expressed a wide range of opinions on the issue of slavery in the United States, stemming from their social, economic, and religious backgrounds.