Edgardo Mortara Affair

American Jewry's Response to the Edgardo Mortara Case

The abduction of Edgardo Mortara by the Bologna Inquisition became a rallying call for the American Jewish community, then still in its infancy. Eighteen years previous the administration of Van Buren had intercede in support of the Jewish community during the Damascus blood libel. However, the Jewish community under Buchanan was unsuccessful in convincing the government to intervene in opposition to the Pope. The failure was made more probable by the fact that of the Jewish community lacked unity, and formal organizations capable of appealing with the administration.

On the evening of June 23, 1858 the police arrived at the residence of Momolo Mortara, a Jewish resident of Bologna, in the Papal States. The local police entered the home holding a list containing the names of Mortara's eight children, with the name of, six- year- old, Edgardo underlined. The police informed Egardo's parents, that he was to be removed from his home on the authority of Pope and the Church for he had been baptized as a Catholic. A night long standoff ensued in which the Mortara family and desperately attempted to have the decree repealed by the regional Inquisitor, Father Feletti. Despite the efforts to prevent the abduction, Edgardo was seized by the police the following evening and taken to the House of the Catechumens in Rome to be educated as a Catholic.

The Mortara's were bewildered by the claim that the young son had been baptize, and was no longer a Jew in the eyes of the Church, and could therefore not remain with his parents. Seemingly a vestige of the dark-ages, the abduction of Jewish children was surprisingly common in nineteenth century Italy. So frequent that in 1851 the Jewish communities of Reggio and Modena wrote a joint petition, which was presented to the Duke of Modena entreating the Duke to act against clandestine baptism, and the anguish caused to the community. Although it was prohibited for Jews to employ Christian servants in the Papal lands, it was common for Jewish household to disregard the decree and hired Christian domestics, who were often implicated in the baptism of Jewish children. As a result suspicions fell on the Mortara's former domestic Anna Morisi, and when confronted, admitted to baptizing Edgardo when he was an infant.

Anna's confession revealed that when Edgardo, then about one year old fell ill, and as his condition worsened the fourteen year old Anna feared the child might die. Anna discussed Edgardo's deteriorating health with the local grocer Cesare Lepori, who recommended that she baptize the child for whom she cared greatly. She baptized Edgardo according to the instructions given by the grocer; Edgardo was soon after was restored to health, Anna forgot of the matter until five years later, when a different child of the Mortara's fell ill and died. Anna revealed her actions to her friend, a neighbor's domestic, named Regina who told Anna she should have baptized the Mortara's child before he died. Soon after, Anna was interrogated by Bologna's inquisitor regarding here baptism of the Jewish child.

Although the abduction of Edgardo was certainly not the first to be perpetrated by the Church, even it recent time, it generated a flurry of protests against the Pope. Although the Jews of the Papal States remained without civil rights, their brothers in the Kingdoms of Sardinia and Piedmont had been emancipated by Victor Emmanuel under the Piedmont Constitution of 1848. These emancipated Jews championed the cause of Momolo Mortara, sending letters to Jews of France, Holland, Prussia and London board of Deputies of British Jews, chaired by Moses Montefiore. By the autumn of 1858, the Mortara affair had expanded from the confines of Jewish concerns, and was written and debated in every important newspaper in Europe. However, the Pope remained obstinate in his insistence that under canon law, once baptized, Edgardo could not return to his Jewish upbringing. The case gained enough publicity to persuade the anti-clerical Louis Napoleon to instruct the French ambassador to Rome to appeal to the Pope for Edgardo's release. However, after November 22, 1858, the French cabinet decided to halt any further attempts to secure Edgardo's release.

Response to the Mortara affair was not limited the Europe's Jews; the case became the second circumstance to arouse the indignation of American Jewry, still in its infancy. When the Mortara affair erupted the Jewish community of antebellum America numbered about 150 000 people, the majority of whom were recent central European immigrants. Similar to Europe, there was a plethora or articles in America's Jewish and secular press decrying the abduction. However, the Jews of the United States lacked cohesion, and centralized organizations similar to France's Consistory of Israelites or England's London board of Deputies of British Jews. Other than the small B'nai Brith lodge, American Jewry's main channel of expression and communication was the three Jewish publications: Isaac Leeser's Occident, Isaac Meyer Wise's Israelite, and Samuel Isaac's Jewish Messenger. All three editors wrote scathing editorials denouncing the actions of the Church, which included candid ridicule of Catholicism and the Pope.

In their editorials, the three Rabbis unleash vitriolic attacks against the Catholic Church. Wise, writing in the Cincinnati Israelite, questions if in fact Edgardo was ever baptized, asserting that the Chruch's decision to abduct the child had nothing to do with canon law, "how much they preach and how little they believe". Wise, never suggests what he believes the Church's motive for seizing the Edgardo is, continues to deride Catholic priests, as being tools of their superiors, the "inquisition, which sacred office in the handmaid of the Pope, who again is the subject of the Jesuits". After attacking the Church, Wise creates a universalist scope for the abduction. "Now, that a whole intelligent world protests loudly against the violation of the inalienable rights of man, and denounces this act as declaration of war on the rights and liberties of humanity". Even in an exclusively Jewish newspaper, Wise chooses to deemphasize Edgardo's Judaism in favor of the universal rights of man.

In their editorials, Isaacs and Leeser do not hold back from attacking the Church, however, in their editorials they adopt a less universalistic approach in favor of more Jewish content. Samuel Isaacs, in the New York Jewish Messenger initiates his attack on the Church by praising the United States for being a land "where no Catholic would dare to kidnap abduct one of our children" Wise goes on the compare the Pope to Pharaoh, and Edgardo to the infant Moses, "The same gracious Being who saved the infant Moses from the murderous hand of Pharaoh, that same Being will also shield the infant Edgar from the ensnaring power of Pio Nono." Leeser, in his Occident brought the current crisis in line with the Church's long standing persecution of the Jewish people.

We dread the ancient enemy of the Jews even if it comes in a mild, persuasive garb. Circumstance may counsel the Church to use different means from the fagot and the gibbet to enforce universal acquiescence; but it has not yielded, and never will yield its right to coerce the conscience.

Concern and interest in the Mortara affair extended beyond the Jewish communities and its publications, becoming a cause célèbre in the secular press; the New York Times alone published twenty articles in a single month on the Mortara affair. These articles, such as Isaac Leeser's, editorial in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, combined the anti-catholic prejudices of the Protestant majority, with Universal rights as denied to Edgardo. Leeser commences his editorial with there are events which "arouse and fix the attention of the friends of freedom and mental progress; these events need not be clashes between empires but could affect an unknown individual as is the case of Edgardo Mortara."

Although lacking the same intensity of derision as in his Jewish newspaper editorial, Leeser, focuses his attention against the Pope. Without any belligerence, Leeser writes of the Pope's claim to be head of Christendom and the Universal Church, "the Church of Rome knows of but one head, one will, which governs and shapes all the vast machinery" of Catholicism. Although Leeser's description contains no explicit attack against the Pope, such a portrayal would serve none other than to ignite Protestant antipathies for Catholicism, and ensure their sympathy for Mortara. Leeser, continues to play the anti-Catholic card, when he asks that perhaps the abduction is not a reflection of Catholicism, but stems from the population's lack of rights. However, he asserts that this in not the case because Catholics in America have remained silent on the issue, in a show of solidarity with the Pope's actions; Leeser dreads what might occur to America "should ever the Catholics obtain the power to legislate religiously and civilly for the people". Leeser attempts to tone down his attack, by emphasizing that being a Hebrew he no more inclined towards Protestantism, than toward Catholicism, however this is merely perfunctory, as his bias has already bee clearly articulated. Leeser concludes his editorial questioning how the baptism of a Jewish infant by an illiterate fourteen year old nurse could logically be a valid baptism, enabling the Pope to confiscate the child; this too would have offended Protestant conception of baptism.

This was not the American Jewish community's first attempt at convincing the United States government to intervene in a Jewish crisis abroad. Eighteen years before the Mortara Case, America's antebellum Jewish community succeeded in eliciting a government response to the Damascus Blood Libel. In February of 1840 members of the Jewish community were imprisoned and confessed under the duress of torture to the ritual murder of a Catholic priest and his servant. The facts of the case were first made known to the Department of State by the American consul in Beirut on the 24^th of March in 1840. The Consul's report treated the confessions extracted under torture as fact stating that the bottle containing the priest's blood had yet to be found and that the house where the ritual murder's contained other human remains demonstrating signs of human sacrifice.

Fortunately, Secretary of State John Forsyth disregarded the Beirut's Consul's biased report and wrote a letter on August 14^th to America's consul at Alexandria, John Gliddon, expressing his sympathies to Damascus' Jewish community. In the letter to the American consul in Egypt, Forsyth, mentions President Van Buren as "expressing surprise and pain, that in this advance age, such unnatural practices should be ascribed to any portion of the religious world, and such barbarous measures be resorted, in order to compel the confession of imputed guilt". "Three days later Secretary of State Forsyth relayed the President's instructions to the American Minister in Turkey to do everything in his power, including his connection to the Sultan, to help rectify the situation.

It was not until after Moses Montefiore and Adolph Cremieux had traveled to Damascus and to diffuse the situation, and week after State Deportment had dispatched the President's instructions to America's Consul in Alexandria, did the Jews of New York hold a public meeting in response to the Damascus Affair. In the letter to Van Buren the Jewish community requested that the President direct the American consul's in the Ottoman lands to help secure "a fair in impartial trial for our brethren at Damascus." The resolution adopted by the meeting of the New York Jewish community elicited an almost immediate response from Secretary of State John Forsyth on behalf President Van Buren. Forsyth included a copy of the letter already dispatched to the American Consul in Alexandria encouraging to make every attempt to assist the Jews of the Ottoman lands "among whose kindred are found some of the most worthy and patriotic of our own citizens". The Jewish community was optimistic that this positive precedent for government's intervention in the Damascus Blood Libel would result in further support for future crisis involving international Jewry.

Despite their small numbers and lack of cohesion, American Jews were already ingrained with the values of separation of church and state, and basic human rights, and they turned to their government in hope that it would speak out against the injustice committed against the Mortara family. However, the lack of unity was reflected by each community, and in cases congregations within in single city, attempt to enlist the government to support their cause. The first attempt to illicit a government response was organized by Isaac Meyer Wise and Max Lilienthal's communities in Cincinnati. A petition was drawn up and signed by the officer of both congregations and was sent to the Secretary of State, Lewis Cass, to be forwarded to the Pope. In the letter written to Cass, the Cincinnati's communal leaders encourage Cass to follow suit with France, England, Sardinia, and Prussia, whose Jews had petitioned the Pope through their respective governments. In his response, Cass essentially rejects the notion of government interference in the Mortara affair: "The official interference of this government, in the case of the child alleged to have been abducted in Bologna, I take it for granted, is not the contemplated either by yourselves or those who you represent." Although there would be numerous attempts by differing Jewish communities to secure government intervention, Cass' initial refusal to intervene would remain consistent.

The next attempt to convince to the President to respond was achieved by Abraham Hart, the President of Congregation Mikve Israel in Philadelphia. The Secretary of State's response to Hart, published in the New York Times, included official government refusal to become involved.

This occurrence too place within the territories of an independent power, and without affecting the rights of any American citizen. It is the settled policy of the United States to abstain from all interference in the internal concerns of the country.

However, despite this unequivocal rejection by the government to interfere in the Mortara affair Jewish communities in Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Albany New York, and San Francisco, organized public meeting is hope of garnering government support. The largest, meeting was held by the New York Jewish community on December 7, in Mozart Hall,. 2500 people, Jews and Protestants, participated. The event consisted of several speeches given by both Jewish and Protestant speakers, who avoided derision of the Catholic Church, focusing on concepts of liberty and personal religious freedoms.

    After several more public meetings and more unsuccessful communiqués between various communities and Secretary of State Cass, President Buchanan issued his only statement on the case, possibly motivated by the New York City protest meeting. In the letter addressed to Benjamin Hart, the head of Board of Representatives of the United Congregations of Israelites of the City of New York, reiterating the government's refusal to intervene in the Mortara affair. In his letter, Buchanan emphasized that the previous letters received and replied to by the Secretary of State represented the official government response to the matter, but chose to reiterate the response for a measure of closure.

I have long been convinced that is neither the right nor the duty of this Government to express amoral censorship over the conduct of other independent Governments and to rebuke them for act with which we many deem arbitrary and unjust toward their own citizens or subjects. We ourselves would no permit and foreign Power thus to interfere with our domestic concerns and enter protests against the legislation or action of our Government toward our own citizens

With the exclusion of a few more protest meetings, Buchanan's letter, with its explicit refusal to intervene with the Pope ended the American Jewish communities' involvement in the Mortara affair. However, the question as to why the government refused to advocate for a person whose civil rights had been infringed upon remains. In contrast, eighteen years previous the American government had interceded in the Damascus affair, even before the Jewish community had requested it do so. One possibility, as to why the government refused to become involved, was the Monroe doctrine. This key tenet of 19^th century American foreign policy asserted that European powers should not impose their ideologies on the United States, and in return America would refrain from interfering in European affairs. Therefore interfering with the Papal State's abduction of Edgardo was not viewed as significant enough reason to violate the doctrine. Another issue was the Irish Catholic vote, which held the balance of power in many cities, was almost exclusively held by Buchanan. He could not risk antagonizing Catholic voters by fighting against the Church in support of Mortara.

Through their inability to convince the American government to responds to the Mortara affair, the American Jewish community learnt a valuable lesson. Through this defeat The American Jewish community recognized the necessity for cohesion and an organized institution for approaching the government, instead of individual synagogues petitioning the administration. As a result the first truly national Jewish organization the Board of Delegates of American Israelite was established to fight for Jewish rights abroad and at home.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited.

 

• Isaac Leeser, Occident, (Phila.), Nov. 1858, 376
  
• Isaac M. Wise, Israelite (Cincinnati), Jan 7, 18459, 21203.
  
• Issac Leeser, "The Mortara Case.-To the American public" Philadelphia Public Leger, November 23, 1858.
  
  • Jewish Enclopedia, 1906 ed., "New York." http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=248&letter=N&search=board%20of%20delegates%20of%20american%20israelites
    
• Kertzer, David. The kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. New York: Knopf, 1997.
  
  • Korn, Bertram Wallace. The American Reaction to the Mortara Case; 1858-1859. Cincinnati: Publications of the American Jewish Archives, 1956.
    
• Loss, Daniel. "Catholics and Jews in the Antebellum American Mind:
  

  A Study of Reactions to the Mortara Case" dis. Swarthmore College, 2003
  

  
   

• Samuel Isaacs, Jewish Messenger, Nov. 19, 1858, 60.
  
  • Schappes, Morris U. A documentary history of the Jews in the United States, 1654-1875. New York: Citadel Press, 1950.
    
  • "The Mortara Case- Letter from the President Refusing to Interfere." New York Times (1857- Current file); Dec. 30, 1858; ProQuest Historical Newspaper The New York Times (1851-2003)
    
  • "The Mortara Case-At the Mozart Hall" New York Times (1857-Current file); Dec. 4, 1858; ProQuest Historical Newspaper The New York Times (185-2003)pg. 4
    
  • "The Mortara Case-Letter from Secretary Cass." New York Times (1857-Current file); Nov. 30, 1858; ProQuest Historical Newspaper The New York Times (1851-2003)