In the shadow of Hitler : Alabama's Jews, the Second World War, and the Holocaust

A regional study on the impact of antisemitism in the 1930s-50s, and of the Holocaust, on the Jews of Alabama. The struggle against antisemitism and for integration of Jews in the "Deep South" was intertwined with the fight for civil rights for the black population. An upsurge of anti-Jewish feelings amongst the state's white population followed the Scottsboro case of 1931 and the Tuscaloosa case of 1933 - trials in which the defendants were blacks and the defense attorneys were Jews. However, despite evident similarities between Nazi racial antisemitism and the Jim Crow system in the South, Jewish spokesmen avoided criticizing the latter, at least before the Nazi wartime murder of Jews began. The Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933 and the task of aiding European Jews and supporting their admission to the U.S. caused Alabama's Jews to overcome their internal divisions (between Central and Eastern European Jews, and between Reform and Orthodox Jews) and to unite their efforts. Dwells on antisemitism in Alabama during the war, including vicious anti-Jewish agitation by the Catholic priest Arthur Terminiello, and of the preacher Trevor P. Mordecai from the Anglo-Saxon Federation of America, as well as on the Goldman vs. Hicks case of 1941, which had an antisemitic character. In postwar America, World War II was remembered as a "good war"; the Holocaust was not part of its memorialization. The Holocaust remained on the fringes of both Jewish and non-Jewish consciousness in Alabama until the late 1960s. Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-312) and index. xiv, 326 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.