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The Jewish Heroes of the Tulsa Massacre

(The Librarians) Phil Goldfarb - The Tulsa Race Massacre of May 31-June 1, 1921, was one of the most horrendous incidents of racial violence in U.S. history. While relatively few whites exhibited empathy and compassion to the persecuted African American community of Tulsa - largely due to the influence of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and others - many Jewish families made efforts to help African American families by taking them into their homes or businesses, feeding and clothing them, as well as hiding them during and after the atrocity. Many of the Jews in the city were recent immigrants from Eastern Europe who remembered firsthand suffering through violent pogroms and anti-Semitic policies in the Russian Empire and elsewhere. Sam Zarrow and his wife Rose owned a grocery store and hid some black friends in their large pickle vats at the store, while Rose concealed some of the little kids under her skirt. On the day of the Massacre, Abe Solomon Viner went to all of the homes on his block, collected all of the maids from their quarters, and assembled them in his living room. He then sat by the front door with a shotgun in case anyone broke into the house.
2021-06-10 00:00:00
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