(AMERICAN-JUDAICA).
(Anti-Semitic parody). Harry Hananel Marks. Down With the Jews! Meeting of the Society ...

(AMERICAN-JUDAICA).
(Anti-Semitic parody). Harry Hananel Marks. Down With the Jews! Meeting of the Society For Suppressing the Jewish Race. A Terrible Plot Against the Chosen People.


With two cartoon illustrations relating to the Manhattan Beach Hotel.
pp. 4. Noted on first page:"Exhibit B." Gutter taped and laid to larger sheet. 4to. cf. Singerman 2867.
New York: Wm. B. Smyth 1879
This is a a bitingly clever satire purporting to be the minutes a meeting for the “American Society for the Suppression of the Jews” at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, presided over by Henry Hilton and Austin Corbin. Hilton and Corbin were well known at the time, Hilton because he had refused lodging at his hotel to Jewish financier Joseph Seligman, and Corbin, president of the Long Island Railroad, who was trying to develop a resort at Coney Island that would be free of Jews. The pamphlet discusses Jewish attainments in every arena of American life, the sort of thing which is benign - but nefarious to bigots. Similarly, Jewish moderation in crime and vice are mentioned, an impression the Jews have likely purchased through bribery(!). The language is so over the top that in the pre-Nazi era most would have recognized it as parody (“we appeal to all Christian peoples to aid us in restoring the Ghetto, the Inquisition and their agencies for the extermination of the Jews”). Includes resolutions such as “We will no longer encourage the Jews by reading their Bible. We repudiate the Old Testament in toto, we refuse any longer to to accept the Ten Commandments given by the Jew Moses, and we pledge ourselves not to attend any Church where the name of the Jew Jesus Christ is mentioned.” At the end: “The meeting adjourned with three cheers for Haman and Hilton, Torquemada and Corbin, the Inquisition and the Manhattan Beach Hotel.” Prior to the 1870’s antisemitism in America was scarcely noticeable. As Jewish emigration increased, antisemitism became less of a passing, occasional phenomenon, and incidents like the so-called Hilton-Seligman Affair became more common. Some Jews, such as Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, thought litigation was the solution. British-born journalist Harry Marks (1855-1916) thought the best response was the might of the witty pen, and thus the present pamphlet.
This is a a bitingly clever satire purporting to be the minutes a meeting for the “American Society for the Suppression of the Jews” at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga, presided over by Henry Hilton and Austin Corbin. Hilton and Corbin were well known at the time, Hilton because he had refused lodging at his hotel to Jewish financier Joseph Seligman, and Corbin, president of the Long Island Railroad, who was trying to develop a resort at Coney Island that would be free of Jews. The pamphlet discusses Jewish attainments in every arena of American life, the sort of thing which is benign - but nefarious to bigots. Similarly, Jewish moderation in crime and vice are mentioned, an impression the Jews have likely purchased through bribery(!). The language is so over the top that in the pre-Nazi era most would have recognized it as parody (“we appeal to all Christian peoples to aid us in restoring the Ghetto, the Inquisition and their agencies for the extermination of the Jews”). Includes resolutions such as “We will no longer encourage the Jews by reading their Bible. We repudiate the Old Testament in toto, we refuse any longer to to accept the Ten Commandments given by the Jew Moses, and we pledge ourselves not to attend any Church where the name of the Jew Jesus Christ is mentioned.” At the end: “The meeting adjourned with three cheers for Haman and Hilton, Torquemada and Corbin, the Inquisition and the Manhattan Beach Hotel.” Prior to the 1870’s antisemitism in America was scarcely noticeable. As Jewish emigration increased, antisemitism became less of a passing, occasional phenomenon, and incidents like the so-called Hilton-Seligman Affair became more common. Some Jews, such as Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, thought litigation was the solution. British-born journalist Harry Marks (1855-1916) thought the best response was the might of the witty pen, and thus the present pamphlet.