The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906: Antisemitism and the Battle Over Christianity in the Public Schools, with Scott D. Seligman
Please register to receive the Zoom link for this free online program, as Scott D. Seligman presents his newest book, The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906: Antisemitism and the Battle Over Christianity in the Public Schools.
Today’s battle over Christianity in American public schools has deep roots. In the nineteenth century it was an intramural struggle between Protestants and later-arriving Catholics. But at Christmastime in 1905, when the Presbyterian principal of a Brooklyn elementary school urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus Christ, Jews entered the fray in a big way. It was just the trigger Jewish activist Albert Lucas had been waiting for. Fresh from battling Christian settlement houses brazen about their intent to convert Jewish children, Lucas accused the public schools of illegal proselytizing and demanded limits on religious content in the schools.
After the Board of Education let the principal off with a slap on the wrist in 1906 and declined to clarify the rules governing religion in schools, the New York Jewish community staged a boycott of the school Christmas pageants, prompting widespread student absences. The protest prompted policy changes, but the board’s concessions – to exclude sectarian hymns and religious compositions – generated an enormous antisemitic public backlash. Jews were accused of waging war on Christmas and of being less than true Americans, and warned not to push the issue, lest it arouse more prejudice against them. The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906 describes how this moment shaped the Jewish community’s long-term efforts to challenge Christian influence in public life and traces the Christmas celebration dispute to the present day.
Scott D. Seligman is a national award-winning writer of narrative non-fiction and biography with an interest in the history of hyphenated Americans. He specializes in bringing little-known but crucial moments in history to life with drama and meaning. A former corporate executive who holds an undergraduate degree in American history from Princeton and a master’s degree from Harvard, he has written three books on American Jewish history, including The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902, which won gold medals in history in the Independent Publisher Book Awards and Reader Views Literary Awards and was a finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Book Awards. He lives in Washington, DC. His website is at www.seligmanonline.com.