DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Participant Reviews 'Incident at Massena'

By BORIS SMOLAR

(Editor-in-chief emeritus, JTA)
(Copyright 1978, JTA, Inc.)

Some 50 years ago — on
Sept. 22, 1928 — two days
before Yom Kippur, an inci-
dent took place in the town-
ship of Massena, N.Y., near
the Canadian border, which
left a mark on American
Jewish history.
A four-year-old girl, Bar-
bara Griffith, was sent by
her mother to the nearby
woods to summon her
brier to come home.
she failed to return,
search parties were looking
for her in the woods all eve-
ning and during the entire
night. With the girl still
missing the following
, morning, all kinds of
rumors spread among the
townspeople, including a
rumor that the child might
have been murdered by
Jews for ritual purposes.
When the girl was still
not found by noon the day
after her disappearance —
the day when Jews start
Yom Kippur services with
Kol Nidrei = Corporal H.M.
McCann of the New York
State Police, who was as-
signed to the case, sum-
moiied the rabbi of the small
Jewish community of 19
families to the police sta-
tion. There he interrogated
him on whether Jews made
human blood offerings on
holidays. An angry crowd of
several hundred
townspeople gathered in
front of the station.
In panic over the ugly
mood which the rumor
had created in the town-
ship, leaders of the tiny
community telephoned
the prominent American
iewish leader Louis
. Marshall in New York
who was at that time the
president of the Ameri-
can Jewish Committee,
and asked him for urgent
action.
Marshall, not wanting to
involve the American
Jewish Committee before
the full facts were estab-
lished, and fearing_ at the
same time that a blood libel
might be in the making,
asked me to urgently pro-
ceed to Massena to investi-
gate the situation. I was ar
that time associate editor of
the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency which also served
the general press with
Jewish news through the
Associated Press. Marshall
preferred not to alert the
general press directly prior
to getting the facts.
The book is written
t a background of the
a—osphere of bigotry that
the Ku Klux Klan sought to
create in those years
throughout the country.
The author does not believe
that the blood libel rumor
emanated from an ignorant
aged Polish resident. In this
respect he differs from the
version of the case pre-
sented by the noted Ameri-
can Jewish historian Lee N.
Freedman in his book "Pil-
grims of the New Land." He
attributes the origin of the
rumor to a Greek resident
and links the case to local
Ku Klux Klan men by re-

porting how some of them
were at work in inciting the
population.

malicious allegations is no
service to Jewry. It can be
helpful to anti-Semites who
never even read the "Pro-
tocols."
The central point of the
book seems to be the rhes-
sage that "it happened
here." This finds expression
in the last chapter which is
a kind of a sermon telling
the present generation. of
American Jews — who do

The book is expanded
by material on blood
libels against Jews
throughout history taken
from encyclopedias. The
author also found it
necessary to bring in
lengthily the case of
Henry Ford's public
apology to Louis Mar-
shall in 1927 for his pub-
lishing the notorious
anti-Semitic "Dearborn
Independent" and other
anti-Jewish publications.
The Ford case had noth-
ing to do with the Mas-
sena incident which took
place more than a year
after Ford recanted pub-
licly.

Why the author found it
important especially to
summarize in his book all
the calumnies of the notori-
ous "Protocols of the Elders
of Zion," is difficult to
understand. His "digest" in
about two pages of the

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not know of the Massena
episode — this incident
should be a lesson to them
not to take anti-Semitic
ignorance lightly.
The author emphasizes
what happened in Massena
50 years ago could happen
again in other small towns
in this country where ig-
norant people easily fall
under propaganda of hard-
core anti-Semitic elements.
He takes issue with
sociologists who argue that
the Massena incident can-
not be duplicated in our own
day.

Friday, November 24, 1918 5

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agents.
A team of 35 researchers
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