Jewish Georgia — a Century in the Making

Last Tuesday, the people of Georgia made history as they elected the first Black Senator and first Jewish Senator in the state’s history. And at age 33, Jon Ossoff will take his place in the hallowed chambers of the U.S. Senate as its youngest member.

This is an incredible sea change from a state with a dark past, where one hundred and five years ago, Leo Frank, a 31-year-old Jewish pencil factory manager, was lynched because of his Jewish faith with broad public approval. Frank had been wrongfullyconvicted of murdering Mary Phagan, and his trial was marked by sensational press coverage in numerous newspapers, including in the north.

The New York Sun opined that Jewish loyalty to Frank caused a backlash among broader society. “The supposed solidarity of the Jews for Frank, even if he was guilty, caused a Gentile solidarity against him.” Several prominent figures fanning the flames, including Tom Watson, the editor of the Jeffersonian, questioned the wisdom of Jews sullying their “good name” of “the whole race.” Historian Albert Lindemann sums up the perception of Frank as “a representative of Yankee capitalism in a southern city, with row upon row of southern women, often the daughters and wives of ruined farmers, ‘at his mercy’ — a rich, punctilious, northern Jew lording it over vulnerable and impoverished working women.”

On August 17, 1915, a mob in Marietta, Georgia, kidnapped Frank from prison and lynched him outside Phagan’s house. The next morning, a group gathered to tear pieces off his clothing as souvenirs. A vote took place to determine if Frank’s body should be cut into pieces or returned to his family.

Frank had been sentenced to death for the murder, and the Supreme Court exhausted his appeals. But before he was abducted by the mob, the governor of Georgia commuted his death sentence to life in prison because the evidence against Frank was thin at best, and there were other suspects who could have committed the crime whom the authorities ignored.

In the aftermath of the lynching, the Cobb County grand jury failed to identify or indict any of those who participated. It was later revealed that the mob represented the elite of society, calling themselves the “Knights of Mary Phagan.” This group included the tradespeople who assisted with Frank’s abduction, as well as a former governor of Georgia, former mayor of Marietta and the future president of the Georgia senate.

About 3,000 Jews, roughly half the state’s Jewish population at the time, fled the state after the event. Coverage in the New York Times revealed that the majority of Cobb County believed Frank received his “just desserts.” The consensus was that the Governor’s sentence commutation subverted the law, and the lynch mob merely carried out justice for Mary Phagan.

In part because of the Frank trial, the Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913, seeking “To fight the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Ahead of its time in many ways, the ADL reflected an early concept of broad social justice for all and being a part of a movement beyond one’s tribal fears and interests. The intention behind the mission was that if society looks out for all of its citizens, it will be safer for Jews, too.

The lynching of Frank in 1915 reinforced to many Jews in the South that they were perceived not that differently from their African American counterparts. While they could “pass” as white, at the end of the day, they, like Black Americans, were not welcome, and the elite of society was willing to kill them to ensure they knew their place. The Jews at the time viewed the incident as an American version of the Dreyfus Affair, where a French Jewish army officer was wrongfully convicted for treason in the 1890s. That scandal became the catalyst for Theodore Herzl’s reinvigoration of the Zionist movement.

Since Frank’s death, the world has obviously changed in ways that Jews from 1915 could not have imagined. The United States fought two world wars, both of which opened America’s eyes to the devastating consequences of racism and hatred abroad. The civil rights movement further changed attitudes, as Blacks and Jews worked together on freedom rides, sit-ins and voted to move the nation towards a more inclusive future. Progress was slow, as the recently deceased Congressman from Georgia John Lewis attested to, but as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Since Frank’s lynching in 1915, Georgia has changed in ways that Jews from then could not have imagined.

Over the years, the ADL and others sought a posthumous pardon for Leo Frank. And in 1982, a witness to the events almost 70 years prior created an impetus to open the case. The request for a pardon was denied, but in 1986, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a pardon, though it failed to “address the question of guilt or innocence.” The state did, however, recognize its culpability in failing to protect Frank from lynching.

In 2018, with the Georgia Department of Transportation and Congressman Lewis’ support, an Anti-Lynching Memorial at the Georgia Department of Transportation was designated the Leo Frank Memorial Site. The text of the memorial reads, “In respectful memory of the thousands across America, denied justice by lynching, victims of hatred, prejudice and ignorance between 1880-1946, ~570 Georgians were lynched.”

It seemed Georgia was changing, learning and evolving. It was a public statement that the state was willing to own its past and recognize its sometimes dark history. Then, in 2017, President Trump appointed Congressman Tom Price secretary of Health and Human Services, leaving a vacancy in Georgia’s sixth congressional district.

John Ossoff, an Atlanta native, who worked for Congressman Hank Johnson and later was an executive at a London based documentary film company, stepped into the fray. Ossoff has acknowledged that his Jewish values inform his politics, stating that his Jewish upbringing “instilled in me a conviction to fight for the marginalized, the persecuted and the dispossessed.” He is strong supporter of Israel and opposes BDS.

With youthful charm, and receiving endorsements from Lewis and Senator Bernie Sanders, Ossoff quickly became the most viable Democrat in the race. Despite the huge war chests on both sides (Ossoff raised over $8 million in the primary and $23 million overall), Ossoff came up a few points short, and Handel won the seat. (Congresswoman Handel lost her seat to a Democrat in 2018).

In 2020, Ossoff then decided to challenge freshman Senator David Perdue. On election night 2020, Perdue received just 49.73% of the vote, which pushed the candidates into a runoff (a Jim Crow relic requiring a majority as opposed to a plurality) that occurred on Tuesday, January 5. On Wednesday, as Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol building, Ossoff was declared the winner. Raphael Warnock, a black preacher, also won a Senate seat.

Two races closely watched by the entire nation, and Georgians elected an African American and a Jew. The longtime allies once again proved victorious and seek to move social justice issues forward. With Jon Ossoff’s win and Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote, the election triggered another first — the first Jewish Senate Majority Leader, Charles Schumer of New York.

The election of Ossoff brings us full circle in many ways. Two Jewish men, Frank and Ossoff, both in their early 30’s and living in the Atlanta suburbs but leading such different lives a century apart. One hundred years shows us the promise and the hope that America has provided to its Jewish citizens and the citizens of Georgia.

The change and evolution that this country has gone through is immense. America has plenty of problems, but we are a work in progress, continually striving to attain our more perfect union. Let’s take a moment to celebrate Ossoff’s victory. Let us celebrate how far we have come.

Eric Kingsley is the former Board Chair of the ADL, Pacific Southwest Region and current Chairman of the Board of Valley Beth Shalom Synagogue.