I CLOSE-UP
In Chicago,
Bernie and Roz
Ebstein fought
all the right
fights and
marched in all
the right
demonstrations.
In the end, they
joined their
friends who had
fled blacks
moving into
their
neighborhood. A
book excerpt.
The Last White Liberals
N
ationally, in the late 1960s,
Jews remained loyal to the
New Deal dreams of the Demo-
cratic Party. In the 1968 presi-
dential election, they gave 81
percent of their vote to Hubert Humphrey.
But the Jewish vote represented more an
affirmation of what had been than what
was about to be. In local elections that
raised the troublesome issues of crime,
race, and "law and order," the Jewish vote
was being siphoned off by more conser-
vative candidates. In the 1969 race for
mayor of New York City, Lindsay squeaked
into office with only 42 percent of the vote,
with Jews among the major defectors. In
Los Angeles, the contrast was even more
striking. In 1968, Jews backed Humphrey
over Nixon by 86 percent to 13 percent. A
year later, they voted for Tom Bradley, a
black ex-policeman, over conservative Sam
Yorty, but only narrowly, by 51 percent to
49 percent. By 1972, conservative can-
didates, especially conservative Demo-
crats, would be openly vying to pry Jews
away from liberalism, relying on growing
24
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1988
distaste with the excesses of the 1960s and
concern over crime and lawlessness.
They might succeed. But if they did, it
was going to be without the help of Ber-
nie and Roz Ebstein.
The Ebsteins had the kind of back-
ground that persuaded people that Jews
were allergic to injustice. Bernie had been
a child in Germany, nine years old, when
the Nazis, in an anti-Semitic orgy, smashed
the windows of Jewish-owned stores and
desecrated synagogues during Kristall-
nacht. Two days later, Bernie's father just
missed being taken away by the Gestapo.
His family fled to America. They settled
in a small town in southern Illinois where,
in Bernie's mind, the daily teachings of the
wonders of America democracy clashed
with the reality that it was dangerous for
a black to be caught in town after sunset.
In the 1950s, Bernie joined the American
Jewish Congress, the most liberal of the
established Jewish groups and one that
put civil rights high on its agenda. He
helped set up its chapter on the South Side
of Chicago and enjoyed occasional forays
into community activism and Chicago
reform politics. A lean, almost ascetic-
looking man, Bernie burned with a passion
for civil rights that surprised most people
who thought of him as a mild-mannered
engineer with a love for classical music.
Roz Ebstein was her husband's physical
and emotional opposite. Large, talkative,
and outgoing, she had grown up on Chi-
cago's Jewish West Side. When she was
11, her mother had taken her to a
demonstration protesting the treatment of
Jews in Europe. By the time she was 15,
she was going to protests on her own,
demonstrating in front of the British Em-
bassy for the creation of the state of Israel.
Growing up, Roz had been a Labor Zionist,
believing in the creation of a socialist Israel
that would treat workers with dignity and
respect. On domestic politics, she was a
staunch Democrat. She first met Bernie
when both were at the University of
Chicago; the two wore their affiliation with
the University of Chicago as a badge of re-
spect and intellectual rigor. For Roz,
fighting for civil rights for blacks was a