Transcript for the Piece Audio version of The Bomb That Healed

In the 1950s, American Jews were becoming part of mainstream society. But for Jews in Atlanta, two conflicting influences threatened their inclusion into the larger community.

One, according to Eric Goldstein, a professor of history and Jewish studies at Emory University, was the budding civil rights movement.

13.2 WAT01 0134 Jews were often put in a very difficult position because they had achieved this integration but they knew it was very fragile. Where do you stand on this issue in which the South is divided?

The other, was the long shadow of the Leo Frank case. In 1915, Frank, a prominent member of Atlanta?s Jewish community, was tried, convicted, and later lynched for the murder of a young girl. About 3,000 Jews left the state in fear. By the 1950s, there were still Jews in Atlanta who remembered. Again Professor Goldstein:

13.2 WAT01 0322 The Frank case taught them that to be accepted and to get along they couldn?t be too different. If they rocked the boat on an issue as central to Southern society as race, they would be marked as different and also be persecuted.

But when it came to race matters, Jacob Rothschild, rabbi of The Temple, was an activist.
On Sunday morning, October 12, 1958, a bomb exploded at The Temple. The rabbi?s widow, Janice Rothschild Blumberg {JANice Rothschild BLOOMberg], remembers the phone ringing.

9.2 blum 0355?the phone was on my side of the bed, woke us up about 7:15 and he rushed to get dressed and go down?.

While she began calling members of the congregation, Rabbi Rothschild hurried to the synagogue on Peachtree street. The destruction was great but, because it happened early in the morning, no one was injured.

Mayor William B. Hartsfield arrived and his remarks set the tone of Atlanta?s outrage:

harts Atlanta has always been a lighthouse of racial and religious tolerance in the South. ?my friends here you see the end result of bigotry and intolerance. And whether we like it or not, those who practice rabble rousing and demagoguery are the godfathers of the cross burners and the dynamiters.

The next day, the editor of the Atlanta Constitution, Ralph McGill, published an editorial that later helped win him a Pulitzer prize,

?You do not preach and encourage hatred for the Negro and hope to restrict it to that field. It is an old, old story. It is one repeated over and over again in history. When the wolves of hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe.

Within days, 5 men were arrested. All belonged to hate groups. One man was tried, but later acquitted.

According to Professor Goldstein, the bomb had the opposite effect than what the bombers intended.

16 WAT3 0410 Instead of raising any kind of opposition to the Civil Rights movement or to Jews, it just created a ground swell of sympathy..

And that sentiment didn?t escape the rabbi?s wife, Janice Rothschild Blumberg:

The overwhelming support and sympathy and love that the Temple Congregation received .. ?It was like Atlanta putting its arm around us and saying, we?re sorry for what?s happened. We don?t feel that way any more. That?s not Atlanta. This is.

And according to Blumberg, it was the bomb that healed.

I?m Philip Graitcer