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Rabbi
Cohen
by Archie
P. McDonald |
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About
twenty years ago I attended the premier of a film titled “West of
Hester Street.” This was a documentary partially financed by an agency
known then as the Texas Committee for the Humanities.
Hester Street served as a gathering place of Jewish immigrants in
New York City in the decade before and after 1900, and their accumulating
numbers produced a rise in xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Hence, a
plan to locate the continued tide of Jewish immigrants “west of Hester
Street.”
The focus, then, was on Rabbi Henry Cohen, who provide a place for
thousands of Jewish immigrants now routed through the port of Galveston.
Cohen was born in England in 1863 and educated in its schools. He
was ordained a rabbi in 1884 and accepted his first assignment in
Jamaica. In 1885 he moved to Woodville, Mississippi, to serve the
Jewish community there, then moved on to Galveston in 1888 to become
rabbi of Temple B’nai Israel.
Cohen became a prominent citizen of Galveston and was instrumental
in helping the community respond to the destruction of the hurricane
which destroyed a great deal of the island’s buildings and took the
lives of more than 6,000 of its citizens in 1900. Cohen also served
in the American forces in France during WWI and helped with the struggle
to make rabbis eligible for appointment as military chaplains. He
also served in appointed state offices and on many boards, but Cohen’s
work with immigrants is the focus here.
In Galveston, Cohen founded the Jewish Immigrant Information Bureau
to help relieve the pressure of anti-Semitism on Hester Street. As
the flow of Jewish immigrants began to flow through Galveston, Cohen
recruited sponsors, usually other Jews, not just in Texas but also
throughout the Great Plains of the United States. Many a community
enjoyed significant economic development due to the industry and hard
work of these new citizens.
And there is this anecdote in Ronald Axelrod’s article on Rabbi Cohen
that appeared in the East Texas Historical Journal. A Russian immigrant
arrived in Galveston without appropriate admission papers. The man
was immediately retained for deportation, until Rabbi Cohen traveled
to Washington to petition President William Howard Taft to overrule
the regulations. When Taft replied that it was unfair for him to change
the rules for one of Cohen’s Jews, the Rabbi told the president that
the immigrant was not Jewish but an Orthodox Christian. Cohen had
traveled all that way in behalf of someone in need, whether of his
faith or not.
Rabbi Cohen died in 1952.
© Archie P. McDonald
All
Things Historical
>
May 8, 2005 column
A syndicated column in over 40 East Texas newspapers
(This column is provided as a public service by the East Texas Historical
Association. Archie P. McDonald is director of the Association and
author of more than 20 books on Texas.) |
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