Antisemitism in Maryland

Last updated

The history of Antisemitism in Maryland dates to the establishment of the Province of Maryland. Until 1826, the Constitution of Maryland excluded Jewish people from holding public office. Prior to the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, Jewish people were excluded from living in many white Christian neighborhoods throughout Maryland due to the use of restrictive covenants and quotas. Between the 1930s and 1950s, quota systems were instituted at universities in Maryland to limit the number of Jewish people. During the 2010s and 2020s, Maryland has seen an increase in reported incidents of antisemitic vandalism and violence.

Contents

History

17th century

In 1658, Jacob Lumbrozo, the earliest confirmed Jewish settler in Maryland, was charged with blasphemy under the provisions of the 1649 Maryland Toleration Act for not believing in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The Act stipulated that any person who "shall...Blaspheme God...or deny our Saviour Jesus Christ to be the Son of God or shall deny the holy Trinity...shall be punished with death." Lumbrozo was freed from jail before his trial due to a general amnesty passed by the Maryland General Assembly following Richard Cromwell's succession to Lord Protector of England. [1]

19th century

In 1826, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Jew Bill, which was ""An Act to extend to the sect of people professing the Jewish religion, the same rights and privileges enjoyed by Christians." The act allowed Jewish people to run for public office. The act was promoted by Delegate Thomas Kennedy, a Christian opponent of antisemitic discrimination. Prior to the passage of the act, the Maryland Constitution of 1776 had required that "a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion" for public office holders. The act had previously been voted down several times between 1818 and 1826. [2]

20th century

Residential segregation

During the early to mid 1900s, many white Christian neighborhoods in Baltimore and the suburbs of Baltimore County and Montgomery County used restrictive religious and racial covenants to exclude Jewish people and other non-Christian and/or non-white people from owning homes. Antisemitic covenants and quotas were used to exclude Jews from Baltimore's Roland Park as well as several communities in Montgomery County, including Kensington, Chevy Chase, Potomac, and Bethesda. A typical antisemitic covenant in Kensington's Rock Creek Hills dating to 1946 reads that no property "shall never be used or occupied by...negroes or any person or persons, of negro blood or extraction, or to any person of the Semitic Race, blood or origin, or Jews, Armenians, Hebrews, Persians, and Syrians, except...partial occupancy of the premises by domestic servants." [3] The real estate developer James W. Rouse used antisemitic quotas when building in the affluent and predominantly white Christian neighborhood of Roland Park. In 1951, Rouse enforced a quota of no more than 12% Jewish residents for the Maryland Apartment in north Baltimore until 75% of the apartments were rented. [4] [5] During the 1940s, the Jewish real estate developer Joseph Meyerhoff refused to rent or sell to fellow Jewish people in Roland Park in Baltimore. In 1948, the Baltimore Jewish Council wrote Meyerhoff a formal letter denouncing his complicity in antisemitic real estate practices and requested that he show solidarity with the Jewish community, but Meyerhoff insisted that his career would be ruined if he sold or rented to Jews in non-Jewish neighborhoods. [5]

Because many white Christian neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. used antisemitic covenants to exclude Jewish people, Jewish real estate developers often choose to build neighborhoods in the suburbs of Montgomery County and Prince George's County. White Jewish real estate developers including Sam Eig and Esther Eig, Morris Cafritz, Jack and Abraham S. Kay, Carl M. Freeman, and Albert Small dispensed with antisemitic covenants but continued to use racial covenants to exclude African-Americans and other people of color from white neighborhoods. [6] Sam Eig referred to the whites-only Rock Creek Forest neighborhood as "ideally located and sensibly restricted." Racist and antisemitic covenants were declared unenforceable by a 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer Supreme Court ruling and were banned by the 1968 Fair Housing Act. [7] [8]

W.C. and A.N. Miller, a group of privately owned real estate firms in Bethesda, used restrictive covenants to exclude Jewish people and people of color from parts of Bethesda, Potomac, and Northwest DC. During the Civil Rights Movement, the company came under fire for its use of discriminatory covenants. In 1959, hearings before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, testimony noted bars against ownership by Jews in areas controlled by the Miller Companies including Wesley Heights and Sumner, with Spring Valley cited to be "of particular significance" owing to the prominence of its residents. [9] Members of the public also cited the company's past discrimination in testifying against Washington awarding an urban renewal contract to an affiliated company in 1961. [10] A typical covenant used by W.C. and A.N. Miller reads that "No part of the land hereby conveyed shall ever be used or occupied by, or sold, demised, transferred, or conveyed under, to, or in trust for, leased, or rented, or given to, Negroes or any person or persons of Negro blood or extractions, or to any person of the Semitic race, blood, or origin, which racial description shall be deemed to include Armenians, Jews, Hebrews, Persians, and Syrians, except that this paragraph shall not be held to exclude partial occupancy of the premises by domestic servants of the occupants thereof." [11]

Antisemitic quotas

Beginning in 1938, the University of Maryland School of Medicine instituted antisemitic quotas limiting Jewish applications to 14%. The school also limited the number of local applicants in an attempt to reduce the number of Jewish students, given the large number of Jewish people living in the Maryland suburban communities of Prince George's and Montgomery counties. The anti-Jewish quota system was abandoned in 1950. [12]

Johns Hopkins University President Isaiah Bowman established antisemitic quotas in 1945 that limited admission of Jewish students, at a time when other leading universities were dismantling their Jewish quota systems. Restrictions were also instituted that limited the number of Jewish students who could pursue degrees in math and science. Bowman believed that Jewish people were an alien threat to American culture. [13] The antisemitic quota system at Johns Hopkins was abandoned in the 1950s. [14]

21st century

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists several antisemitic hate groups that operate in Maryland, including The Barnes Review in White Plains, the Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge in Baltimore, and the white nationalist Patriot Front. [15]

In December 2021, dozens of antisemitic fliers were posted in the Forest Estates neighborhood of Forest Glen. The fliers contained a conspiracy theory blaming Jews for the COVID-19 pandemic and promoted an antisemitic website that advocates Holocaust denial and supports Adolf Hitler. [16] [17] [18]

During the early 2020s, the number of reported antisemitic incidents increased sharply in Maryland. In 2022, students in Montgomery County staged walkouts to protest antisemitic incidents in public schools. [19] According to a report published by the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents increased from 55 in 2021 to 109 in 2022. In 2023, Maryland lawmakers introduced several bills aimed at curbing antisemitism in the state. [20] [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forest Glen, Maryland</span> Census-designated place in Maryland, United States

Forest Glen is a census-designated place (CDP) in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Its population was 6,897 as of the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kemp Mill, Maryland</span> Census-designated place in Maryland, United States

Kemp Mill is a census-designated place and an unincorporated census area in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. The population was 13,378 at the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenwich Forest</span>

Greenwich Forest is a residential community in Bethesda, Maryland, between Old Georgetown Road, and Bradley Boulevard.

Antisemitism at universities has been reported and supported since the medieval period and, more recently, resisted and studied. Antisemitism has been manifested in various policies and practices, such as restricting the admission of Jewish students by a Jewish quota, or ostracism, intimidation, or violence against Jewish students, as well as in the hiring, retention and treatment of Jewish faculty and staff. In some instances, universities have been accused of condoning the development of antisemitic cultures on campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of antisemitism in the United States</span>

Different opinions exist among historians regarding the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism contrasted with its European counterpart. In contrast to the horrors of European history, John Higham states that in the United States "no decisive event, no deep crisis, no powerful social movement, no great individual is associated primarily with, or significant chiefly because of anti-Semitism." Accordingly, David A. Gerber concludes that antisemitism "has been a distinctly minor feature of the nation's historical development."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antisemitism in the United States</span> Hatred towards the Jewish people within the US

Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents.

Samuel Eig was an American real estate developer active in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Antisemitism in Canada is the manifestation of hostility, prejudice or discrimination against the Canadian Jewish people or Judaism as a religious, ethnic or racial group. This form of racism has affected Jews since Canada's Jewish community was established in the 18th century.

British Jews have experienced antisemitism - discrimination and persecution as Jews - since a Jewish community was first established in England in 1070. They experienced a series of massacres in the Medieval period, which culminated in their expulsion from England in 1290.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of White Americans in Baltimore</span>

The history of White Americans in Baltimore dates back to the 17th century when the first white European colonists came to what is now Maryland and established the Province of Maryland on what was then Native American land. White Americans in Baltimore are Baltimoreans "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa." Majority white for most of its history, Baltimore no longer had a white majority by the 1970s. As of the 2010 census, white Americans are a minority population of Baltimore at 29.6% of the population. White Americans have played a substantial impact on the culture, dialect, ethnic heritage, history, politics, and music of the city. Since the earliest English settlers arrived on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore's white population has been sustained by substantial immigration from all over Europe, particularly Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Southern Europe, as well as a large out-migration of White Southerners from Appalachia. Numerous white immigrants from Europe and the European diaspora have immigrated to Baltimore from the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, France, Canada, and other countries, particularly during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Smaller numbers of white people have immigrated from Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, North Africa, and other non-European regions. Baltimore also has a prominent population of white Jews of European descent, mostly with roots in Central and Eastern Europe. There is a smaller population of white Middle Easterners and white North Africans, most of whom are Arab, Persian, Israeli, or Turkish. The distribution of White Americans in Central and Southeast Baltimore is sometimes called "The White L", while the distribution of African Americans in East and West Baltimore is called "The Black Butterfly."

Jews have settled in Maryland since the 17th century. As of 2018, Maryland's population was 3.9% Jewish at 201,600 people. The largest Jewish populations in Maryland are in Montgomery County and the Baltimore metropolitan area, particularly Pikesville and northwest Baltimore. As of 2010, Baltimore and Baltimore County was home to a Jewish community of around 100,000 people. The Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. have a Jewish population of around 116,700 as of 2017, with the majority residing in lower Montgomery County. The Rockville/Potomac area is the center of Montgomery County's Jewish population, while sizable communities also exist in the Bethesda/Chevy Chase area and in Silver Spring's Kemp Mill neighborhood. Smaller Jewish communities exist in Gaithersburg, Germantown, White Oak, Olney, and Takoma Park. Columbia, Frederick, Annapolis, Cumberland, and Easton are also home to smaller but significant Jewish populations.

Rock Creek Forest is a mostly residential neighborhood in Silver Spring / Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is bordered by Chevy Chase to the west, Silver Spring to the east, the border with Washington, D.C., to the south. Maryland route 410 runs through the neighborhood. The historically African-American neighborhood of Lyttonsville is to the north, while Rock Creek Park and the neighborhoods of North Portal Estates / Colonial Village / Shepherd Park are to the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Spring</span> Neighborhood

Indian Spring is a mostly residential neighborhood of Silver Spring, Maryland. Located within the Silver Spring CDP, it is sometimes considered a southeastern neighborhood of Four Corners. It is one of the oldest established neighborhoods in Silver Spring.

Racism in Jewish communities is a source of concern for people of color, particularly for Jews of color. Black Jews, Indigenous Jews, and other Jews of color report that they experience racism from white Jews in many countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Kenya, South Africa, and New Zealand. Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews also report experiences with racism by Ashkenazi Jews. The centering of Ashkenazi Jews is sometimes known as Ashkenormativity. In historically white-dominated countries with a legacy of anti-Black racism, such as the United States and South Africa, racism within the Jewish community often manifests itself as anti-Blackness. In Israel, racism among Israeli Jews often manifests itself as discrimination and prejudice against Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, Ethiopian Jews, African immigrants, and Palestinians. Controversially, some critics describe Zionism as racist or settler colonial in nature.

The city of Frederick, Maryland is home to a small but growing Jewish community. With roots dating to the colonial era, Frederick's Jewish community is home to three synagogues, a Hebrew school, and a Jewish community center.

The history of Antisemitism in Virginia dates to the establishment of the Colony of Virginia. Jews living in colonial Virginia had more rights than most Jews elsewhere in the world, but they did not begin to have equal rights with Christians until after the American Revolution. During the Civil War, Virginian Jews were often the subject of antisemitic accusations of profiteering and disloyalty to the Confederacy. In the early 20th century, educational institutions such as the University of Virginia used anti-Jewish quotas to reduce their number of Jewish students. Prior to the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, some neighborhoods in Virginia excluded Jews using restrictive covenants. During the 2010s and 2020s, Virginia has seen an increase in reported incidents of antisemitic vandalism and violence.

The history of Antisemitism in New Jersey dates to the establishment of the Province of New Jersey. Prior to the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, Jewish people were excluded from living in many white Christian neighborhoods throughout New Jersey due to the use of restrictive covenants and quotas. Between the 1920s and 1950s, quota systems were instituted at universities in New Jersey to limit the number of Jewish people, including at Rutgers University and Princeton University. During the 2010s and 2020s, New Jersey has seen an increase in reported incidents of antisemitic vandalism and violence.

The history of Antisemitism in Connecticut dates to the establishment of the Connecticut Colony. Prior to the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, Jewish people were excluded from living in many white Christian neighborhoods throughout Connecticut due to the use of restrictive covenants and quotas. Between the 1920s and 1960s, quota systems were instituted at universities in Connecticut to limit the number of Jewish people, including at Yale University and Wesleyan University. During the 2010s and 2020s, Connecticut has seen an increase in reported incidents of antisemitic vandalism and violence.

The history of Antisemitism in Florida dates to the establishment of Spanish Florida in the 16th century. Jews were prohibited by law from settling in Spanish Florida or practicing their religion. Following the British acquisition of Florida in 1763, Jews were allowed to settle in Florida but still experienced prejudice and discrimination. American Jews became free to move to Florida after 1821, when the United States gained control of the Florida Territory from Spain, where they enjoyed relative freedom due to the US legacy of religious tolerance. Prior to a 1959 ruling from the Supreme Court of Florida, Jewish people were excluded from living in many white Christian neighborhoods throughout the state due to the use of restrictive covenants and quotas. During the 2010s and 2020s, Florida has seen an increase in reported incidents of antisemitic vandalism and violence.

The history of Antisemitism in Washington, D.C. dates to the establishment of the district in the 18th century. Antisemitic covenants in real estate were common in the city during the early to mid 1900s. During the 2010s and 2020s, there has been an increase of reported antisemitic incidents in Washington, D.C.

References

  1. ↑ "Jacob Lumbrozo". Maryland State Archives. Archived from the original on 2023-10-25. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  2. ↑ Bock, James (April 13, 1992). "19th-century advocate of rights for Jews gets his due; Pikesville woman persists to success". Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on 2019-03-06. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  3. ↑ "Racist housing covenants haunt property records across the country. New laws make them easier to remove". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2023-08-28. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  4. ↑ Glotzer, Paige (2020). How the Suburbs Were Segregated: Developers and the Business of Exclusionary Housing, 1890-1960. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN   9780231542494. Archived from the original on 2023-04-26. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  5. 1 2 "New book on segregation and bigotry holds up a harsh mirror to Baltimore". Baltimore Brew. Archived from the original on 2023-04-26. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  6. ↑ "Silver Spring's Jewish history 'long and complicated'". Washington Jewish Week. Archived from the original on 2018-08-25. Retrieved 2018-08-25.
  7. ↑ "5 marks Jewish developers made on Montgomery County". Washington Jewish Week. Archived from the original on 2019-09-02. Retrieved 2019-09-02.
  8. ↑ "Silver Spring's Jewish history 'long and complicated'". Washington Jewish Week. Archived from the original on 2023-04-26. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  9. ↑ Hearings before the United States Commission on Civil Rights: Housing (Statement of Eugene L. Sugarman), United States Government Printing Office, 1959, p. 405, archived from the original on 2023-05-13, retrieved 2023-04-26
  10. ↑ Rotenstein, David (February 21, 2018), "The ghosts of covenants past", History Sidebar blog, archived from the original on 2023-04-26, retrieved 2023-04-26
  11. ↑ Hearings before the United States Commission on Civil Rights: Housing (Statement of Eugene L. Sugarman), United States Government Printing Office, 1959, p. 397, archived from the original on 2023-05-13, retrieved 2023-04-26
  12. ↑ "New book on segregation and bigotry holds up a harsh mirror to Baltimore". Baltimore Brew. Archived from the original on 2023-04-26. Retrieved 2023-04-29.
  13. ↑ Loeffler, James (September 2013). ""The Conscience of America": Human Rights, Jewish Politics, and American Foreign Policy at the United Nations San Francisco Conference, 1945". Journal of American History. 100 (2): 419–420. doi:10.1093/jahist/jat269. Archived from the original on 2017-11-09. Retrieved 2023-04-29.
  14. ↑ "A legacy of anti-Semitism". The Johns Hopkins News-Letter. Archived from the original on 2023-04-29. Retrieved 2023-04-29.
  15. ↑ "IN 2021, 11 HATE GROUPS WERE TRACKED IN MARYLAND". Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on 2023-04-25. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  16. ↑ "Montgomery County police investigate antisemitic fliers". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2023-03-30. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  17. ↑ "Police investigating anti-Semitic flyers distributed in Silver Spring". Bethesda Magazine. Archived from the original on 2022-06-03. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  18. ↑ "County Leaders, Others Condemn Antisemitic Flyers Distributed in Silver Spring". Montgomery County Media. Archived from the original on 2023-04-27. Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  19. ↑ "Montgomery students lament antisemitism surging in their schools". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2023-03-30. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  20. ↑ "As antisemitic incidents double in Md., state lawmakers pitch solutions". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2023-03-24. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  21. ↑ "Maryland had dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents, report shows". CBS Baltimore. Archived from the original on 2023-04-26. Retrieved 2023-04-26.