Why Were The Radical Republicans Radical?

[Laurie Verge]

I remember years ago being surprised at the fairly large Jewish population of the South during the 19th century. I had skimmed through a book entitled The Jewish Confederates by Robert Rosen that came out about ten years ago. I just googled it and here is some of what it and reviewers say:

''Many folks,'' says Rosen, 53, ''are reluctant to admit that a people known for liberal views, and for annually celebrating their own freedom from slavery in Egypt during the Passover holiday, supported the Confederacy, which defended human bondage. It's not something many Jews want to hear.''

Not only did thousands of Southern Jews fight in the Confederate army, but hundreds were slave owners, including an ancestor of the Regensteins. This is a paradox that many Jews -- long known for ardent support of the civil rights movement -- find hard to swallow.

''To mother, it's horrifying,'' says Regenstein, whose father, Louis Regenstein, was a prominent lawyer who did free legal consulting for predominantly black Clark Atlanta University for years. ''My ancestors have been in this country, in the South, since before the American Revolution. We were part of the culture, the country, so naturally, my ancestors fought for their country, and we're very proud of that.''

Rosen, who is Jewish, reports in his meticulously documented 378-page book that up to 3,000 Jews donned Confederate gray. The proportion was much higher than in the North, where maybe 8,000 out of 200,000 Jews took up arms, says Mark Greenberg, chief historian for the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss.

Contrary to popular belief, ''Jews had found themselves very much at home in the South, much more so than elsewhere,'' says the University of Georgia's Emory Thomas, a historian and author of many Civil War books. ''They were accepted members of the community, and therefore they cast their loyalties with this new Confederacy, bought bonds and did everything patriotic Southerners would do.''

Many were so patriotic, he adds, that ''there was a lively discussion in the Richmond papers pointing out that the Jewish population of the city had supplied more Confederate soldiers than the population as a whole, in terms of percentage.''

Few Jews know that Judah Benjamin, a famous Louisiana lawyer, not only served in the U.S. Senate, but also was Jefferson Davis' attorney general, secretary of war and secretary of state.

''As the years have gone on, having Confederate ancestors has become very politically incorrect,'' Rosen adds. ''Academics who write the history, after all, are especially vulnerable to [political correctness] on college campuses, and they especially want to avoid the association with slavery.'' Audiences have been, on occasion, angry.

''Many modern Jews reject the idea that Jews could ever have supported a cause or government which supported slavery,'' Rosen says. ''That's not logical, considering how long Jews have been in the South. But it's how a lot of folks feel.''