ENGLISH CORNER, CON LINDA JIMÉNEZ – This week’s trivia question: Why did the Mayor of New York agree to appoint an independent citizens’ committee to investigate the riot?
Scott D. Seligman is a national award-winning author of narrative non-fiction with a special interest in the history and biography of hyphenated Americans. He holds an undergraduate degree in American history from Princeton University and a master’s degree from Harvard University. He is also a genealogist, retired corporate executive and specialist in China, where he lived for eight years. Scott has published articles in numerous magazines and journals and has also created several websites on historical and genealogical topics.
He is the author of twelve books, including The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots that Shook New York City, which won gold medals in the 2021 Independent Publisher Book Awards and the 2020-21 Reader Views Literary Awards. We spoke with him about that book in 2021, and you can listen to that program here.
This week we are speaking with him about his latest book, The Chief Rabbi’s Funeral: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Antisemitic Riot, which took place in 1902. This book tells three related stories: that of the life of New York City’s first and only chief rabbi; that of the single largest antisemitic incident the United States has ever seen, measured in terms of numbers attacked and injured; and that of how the Jewish community used its political influence to pursue justice for the victims, setting a pattern for the future.
The book includes a very useful list of characters, chronology, glossary, end notes, index, and further reading information. It is serious history written in a very amenable, easy-to-read style, and I recommend it for anyone who is interested in learning more about Jewish life in New York at the turn of the 20th century.
