I found Christine Blasey Ford completely believable. I thought Brett Kavanaugh furious, partisan, dishonest and disrespectful — exactly the wrong temperament for a Supreme Court justice. I don’t think further corroboration from the FBI is needed. From his first time in Congress, when he declared that no president had searched harder or longer for a candidate than Trump did for him, to his denial of drinking, knowledge of “boofing” and “the devil’s triangle,” he perjured himself. It’s important that we write at least the following Senators, urging them to vote “no”: Sen. Collins of Maine, Sen. Flake of Arizona, Sen. Manchin of West Virginia, and Sen. Murkowski of Alaska. I plan to write them all again and hope many others will as well. It’s better to act than to stew over injustice.

The best way to contact these senators is to Google their name and then go to “contact” on their websites. Doing this, I never learned their individual email addresses, but know that my message got through. Telephone their offices if you can — again, their phone numbers are on their websites. And if you know people in their home states, urge them to write or phone as well.

For me, it began during the presidential campaign when Trump mocked and imitated a disabled reporter. I thought, “How could anyone vote for him after this?” It continued during the debates, when he stalked Hillary, tromping around the stage and looming over her. Although she was a weak candidate, I was shocked when he won and depressed that so many Americans voted for him. Yet again, I deplored that the Electoral College gave the election to someone who had lost the popular vote.

Crazy Town continued during one of his early cabinet meetings, when everyone in the room, led by Mike Pence, groveled and tried to outdo each other in sycophantic praise for Trump. I had never witnessed anything like it. Despite this, seemingly endless firings and replacements followed over the next two years, with one hireling after another running afoul of an irrational power freak. As George Packer wrote in the September 24th New Yorker, “A coarse and feckless viciousness is the operating procedure of his White House, and the poison spreads to everyone. Only snakes and sycophants survive.”

My dismay has increased as it has become clear that the Republican Party, in both the House and the Senate, has followed this corrupt lead, betraying its long-held values. A balanced budget? Let the deficit sky-rocket as we give more tax breaks to the wealthiest among us. Suspicion of Russia? Let it disappear as the president meets privately with Putin and praises him to the point that many of us consider treasonous. And now, the Supreme Court. The hypocritical claim of “Let the people decide” used in an unprecedented blocking of Pres. Obama’s right to appoint a justice, has now been trashed. Attempting to rush Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation through before the November elections, the scant Republican majority in the Senate allowed less than 10% of his papers released, dismissed any objections to his evasive answers, and now seems not to have done its basic homework. Three and perhaps four women have come forward claiming he sexually harassed them. All have asked for FBI investigations of their charges, something they would be extremely unlikely to do if they were just trying to “smear” him, as he claims.

Do I believe them? You bet I do. I worked as a rape crisis counselor at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village for fourteen years. In all that time, we had only one false claimant — a con-woman who went from city to city and was easily caught. We even had a pamphlet titled “I Never Told Anyone,” since this was so common. Look at the harassment Christine Blasey Ford, the first accuser, has experienced: death threats to her and her family, hacking of her email, etc., etc. It remains far more difficult for women to come forward with charges than for men to deny them.

And now the eleven Republican men on the Judiciary Committee are pondering whether to question her themselves or to hire a female attorney to present a better picture. She of course is not allowed to have her attorney present, nor to bring in corroborating witnesses. The echoes of the Senate’s base treatment of Anita Hill many years ago are deafening. And the context for all this is Trump’s own boasts about “pussy grabbing,” his infidelities, and his own sexual harassment of women. If you elect a clown, expect a circus.

I sent the following letter to every Republican senator and to those Democrats in red states.

Dear Senator

     I entreat you not to race through the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.  Judge Kavanaugh has an extensive record of opinions on vitally important issues, very few of which are being made available to the Senate.  The National Archives, a highly respected bi-partisan government agency, has denounced this process as both unprecedented and unrepresentative of its mission.

     Rushing through his confirmation so that it precedes the November elections also violates what seemed to be a Republican principle.  "Let the people decide," was your party's proclamation in the again unprecedented move to prevent a vote on Pres. Obama's supreme court nominee for almost a year.  To deny that saying now, when it might work against you, is both unseemly and unpatriotic.

     I say this as an American who cherishes many of our nation's traditional values.  I know I am not a constituent of yours, but on this issue, you are acting as a national and not a state representative.  In addition, I believe in a two-party system.  I fear that if the Republican Party again betrays fundamental traditions and principles of the United States, it will undermine its own values and eventually cease to exist.

                                                   Sincerely,

                                                   Bonnie S. Anderson                                                                                                                             Professor Emerita of History                                                                                                               City University of New York

     Attributed to the humorist Will Rogers in 1935, this saying is unfortunately still true today.  I must get emails from at least ten different Democratic groups each day: TrainDemocrats, Democratic Attorney Generals, Democratic Governors, Democrats for the Senate, the House, against gerrymandering, the Democratic Leadership Council, and Obama for America in addition to my two Democratic Senators, Gillibrand and Schumer, as well as pro-Democratic organizations I belong to, like MoveOn, the ACLU, and Emily's List.  Plus the Democratic candidates I support, like Beto O'Rourke, Jacky Rosen, and Danny O'Connell, as well.  The tone of these messages has become increasingly hectoring: "Does Bonnie Support Donald Trump?," or "We Are Counting On YOU To Fill Out This Survey!"  Every survey ends with an appeal for more funds and the more you give, the more you are asked to give.  

     Give me a break!  It's gotten so bad that I've begun to unsubscribe from these sites.  I would feel much better if these Democratic groups unified, worked together instead of separately, and convinced me they were an organized party.  The messages I'm most comfortable with are the ones that promote voter registration, urge voters to get out and vote, and to vote for whichever Democrat is running, not just their "perfect" candidate.  I know there's a split in the party between those who want to appeal to the center and those who favor more left-wing causes, but why do we have to choose?  A broad, successful political party can and should represent both factions.  That's the only way Democrats will succeed, not just this November, but in the future as well.

     In addition, as someone in her 70s, I don't want anymore leaders of my age.  It's time for a new generation to take over.  So, no, I don't support Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, or Joe Biden, no matter how much I like them or agree with them.  This goes for Nancy Pelosi as well.  Age diminishes energy in everyone and it's time for a change.  As the Republican Party has ceded its values and soul to Donald Trump, it's easy to call for a new Republican model.  But think it's high time for a new Democratic paradigm as well.  May it come soon!

The Constitution of the United States very carefully delineated what constitutes treason, as all the founding fathers were acting as traitors to Great Britain.   Treason "against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. "  I, and many others, believe that Donald Trump's press conference with Vladimir Putin on July 16, gave "aid and comfort" to Russia, especially when the president declared that he believed the assurances of the Russian leader over his own intelligence services.

      The Constitution is even more careful about a conviction for treason -- it requires "the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."  Neither seems likely to happen, although I found Rachel Maddow's reportage last night on the Russian spy, Marina Butina, intriguing.  Maddow asserted that the prosecution's papers included the charge that Butina had successfully influenced Trump not to appoint Mitt Romney as Secretary of State, but to choose a figure more acceptable to Putin.  Rex Tillerson, the ultimate choice, had been given a medal by Putin.  (It was Tillerson who later called Trump "a moron.")

     Even in the darkest days of our republic, charges like this are virtually unheard of -- the only exception is just before the Civil War, when some previous presidents were accused of siding with the Confederacy.  We are indeed living in interesting times, which a Chinese proverb considers a curse.  It will indeed be interesting to see what happens.

     In 1856 and again in 1857, the Supreme Court heard arguments about an enslaved man brought by his owner to a free state.  He claimed his freedom, but the court ruled that African-Americans could never be citizens and therefore had no right to the protection of law.  Dred Scott was deemed a "piece of property" and returned to his supposed owner in the South.

     A few years later, the Civil War overturned this dreadful ruling.  I think it's important to keep historical passages like this in mind, as we enter an era when the court may rule against important civil rights gain of the last half century.  Justices can also change their opinions when they are on the court.  Hugo Black, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and an opponent of equal rights for blacks in his early years, evolved into a staunch defender of civil liberties, even though he did justify the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II.  Chief Justice John Roberts recently cited this case, saying that it was nothing like the third Muslim ban, which his court recently upheld.  I, and many others, think it was, since it blocks large groups based on race, religion, or nationality.  But situations and justices can change.

     In addition, the Supreme Court does not necessarily have the final word.  Years ago, I argued with an Englishman who declared that we "had government by court."  The people are the basis of our government.  If Congress passes a law against a Supreme Court decision, the law prevails unless the Court can and does declare it unconstitutional.  It's important to remember this in difficult times.

     And if we think our times are difficult, let's remember earlier eras.  Ernestine Rose continued to fight against slavery before and after the Dred Scott decision.  She succeeded in that fight, but did not live long enough to see women get the right to vote.  In this regard, I highly recommend a wonderful anthology which appeared last year: We The Resilient: Wisdom for Americans from Women Born Before Suffrage.  The editors Sarah Bunin Benor and Tom Fields-Meyer interviewed 78 women from all races, ethnicities and classes about their lives, first before the 2016 election, and then after.  They all recommended persisting in your ideals.  They had lived through the Great Depression, the second world war, McCarthyism, etc. and they maintained that important struggles can be won if we don't give up.  They advise courage, hope, humor, keeping on, and knowing that conditions will change.  They provide inspiration for today to continue working for our beliefs.

     It wasn't until a few weeks after I posted my "Me Too" blog that I realized I had left out the most important and shocking sexual harassment I had experienced: a man exposing his erect penis to me in the lobby of our building when I was ten.  I had walked home from school as usual and thought nothing of there being a white man in his mid-thirties in the small lobby behind the glass front door -- people often waited there to be buzzed up to apartments.  He turned around, showed his penis to me and said, "Do you want to play with it?"  To my chagrin, I said, "No thanks" -- I was mortified that I said "thanks."  I rushed into the building, rode the elevator to our fifth floor apartment, and told my mother what had happened.  She called the police, who came right away.  When I described the man as in his mid-thirties, my mother said, "Oh, children never know how old people are," and I felt completely undermined.  He was not caught.

     For years afterwards, I used to walk past the building's door to make sure no one was there before I went in.  This childhood experience was one reason the exhibitionists I experienced in graduate school had such an impact on me.  But it wasn't until I talked with other women that I realized that this experience "counted."  I think I had just assumed that since I wasn't a grown-up, it didn't matter.  I had had another sexual encounter when I was even younger, probably seven or eight.  I was walking home on Lexington Avenue and a man started walking with me and talking.  He asked me if I knew about what I heard as "my cult."  I didn't know the word "cunt" yet, but that must have been what he said.  I walked away and didn't think too much about it.

     When I talked with my sister and friends about these experiences, after I published my first blog, I realized that they were not only part of my experience of sexual harassment, but perhaps the most important part.  I also realized that virtually every woman I knew shared these experiences.  "It was the way the world was," a number of them said and that was true.

      I hope these situations are changing.  My dear friend and writing partner, Judith Zinsser, gave me a birthday card with a cake with candles on the front labelled "Feminist Birthday Cake."  When you open the card, it reads : They're not candles, they're the patriarchy going up in flames."  May it become true.

When I first heard about the #me too movement, I thought, "Not me."  I had never been raped nor sexually molested.  When I thought about the subject in more depth, however, I realized I had experienced extremely hostile work environments and also two sexual attacks.  But I had rationalized them and explained them away.  If a card-carrying feminist like myself could do that, then I think it needs explaining to others.

In graduate school in New York, I suffered from a number of men exposing their erect penises to me -- on the subways and especially, in libraries.  There was an "exhibitionist," the euphemistic term for this, in the Columbia Library stacks, a dark and scary location all by itself.  Columbia's solution was to give every female researcher a whistle, so that we could blow it if he arrived.  It's hard enough to do research without that handicap.  When I told a dinner party of hetero couples about this, the men all laughed and said that they would love it if a woman exposed herself to them.  I and the other women declared it was not about sex, but about power.  They didn't get it.  This would have been in the late '60s.  I hope that times have changed....

During that era, my then husband and I had dinner with another couple at their house.  When we went to leave, the husband helped me on with my coat and then put his hands on my breasts.  We left and I told my husband.  We decided to never see them again.  But that's all we did.

A number of years later, in the 1980s, I had just moved in with a man.  An old boy friend came to see me.  As soon as he entered, he lunged at me, grabbed me and thrust his tongue in my mouth.  I angrily pushed him away and he said, "You know you wanted it."  I made him leave and told him I didn't want him in my life.  

Finally, in the early 1990s, I became a member of the Graduate Faculty of the City University of New York, whose offices were on 5th Avenue and 34th Street.  When I joined, a female colleague told me to never get on an elevator with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the eminent biographer of FDR.  Schlesinger was known for grabbing women's asses.  I never did and as far as I know, he was never challenged much less stopped.

When I think about these experiences in contrast to Ernestine Rose's life, I'm struck by how much progress we have made.  She hesitated to speak about either prostitution or divorce, although she eventually did about both, for fear of being accused of "free love," a blanket charge of dissipation aimed only at women.  I hope that the Me Too movement, which has now gone world-wide, will continue to empower women and bring down male perpetrators, including our current president.

Mari Jo Buhle, the eminent professor of American Studies at Brown (now retired), gave The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter a rave!  Among other comments, she wrote Rose's "identities come together seamlessly in this highly engaging biography by Bonnie S. Anderson, a scholar rightfully renowned for her stellar work on the international woman's movement and feminism."  She ends by saying that "Anderson sagely concludes that Rose's concerns for racial equality, feminism, and free thought, enriched by an international perspective, gain new importance during an era of resurging religious fundamentalism."  To read it, follow this link

There's a neat fifty-minute interview with me about The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter now up on the New Books Network -- a great podcast where authors speak about their books.  Here's the  link

The New York Times recently published a section called "Overlooked," writing obituaries about women whom they never covered despite their importance.  I just submitted my suggestion for Ernestine Rose.  However, the Times has received over 2000 new suggestions and seems to want to write the obituaries themselves.  Therefore, I'm posting my obituary of her here.

This "Queen of the Platform in the 1850s became forgotten in the early twentieth century.

by Bonnie S. Anderson

     An outstanding orator for women's rights, free thought, and anti-slavery, Ernestine Rose was far more famous in the mid-nineteenth century than her co-workers, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.  Lecturing in 23 of the existing 31 states, at a time when women rarely spoke publicly, she earned her reputation despite major handicaps: she remained the only immigrant as well as the only atheist in the early women's movement.

     Born in Poland in 1810, she was the sole child of Rabbi Potowsky, who educated her as a "surrogate son" at home.  When she interrogated the Bible, he told her "little girls must not ask questions," even though little boys were supposed to do so.  She later told a reporter that this "made her an advocate of religious freedom and women's right" at an early age.

     When she was 15, her mother died, leaving her a substantial inheritance.  Her father betrothed her to a man she did not want to marry, writing a contract that if she did not go through with the wedding, her fiance would receive her money.  When her betrothed refused to release her from the engagement, she took an unprecedented action for a young girl, traveling alone by sleigh to plead her case before a district court.  Ernestyna Potowska succeeded.  She remained immensely proud of this triumph, invoking it in later years to demonstrate what women could achieve.  The court awarded her the money and when she returned home, she discovered her father had remarried a girl her own age.  Realizing that she could not live happily with her new step-mother, she left her family, Poland, and Judaism forever.

     She went first to Berlin, then the center of liberal Judaism.  There, she read "not dead books (like the Bible) but living ones."  She also invented a perfumed paper which could be burned to bring pleasant odors to homes.  After two years in Berlin, she traveled to Paris, arriving in time for the Revolution of 1830, which replaced a conservative monarch with a liberal one.  Deploring all monarchies, she moved on to London, the largest and most industrialized city in the Western world.

     There, she "found friends as liberty-loving as herself" in the circle surrounding Robert Owen.  An immensely successful factory owner turned radical, Owen became her substitute father and new educator.  Owen endorsed socialism, free thought, labor unions, and equal marriage.  His movement attracted women and allowed them to write and speak in public.  There, Potowska began her career as an orator.  She also met and married her adored and adoring husband, the silversmith William Rose.  In 1836, the new couple traveled to the United States, settling in New York City for the next 33 years.

     In New York, Ernestine Rose began her political work, debating socialist principles in the active Owenite community there and also carrying a petition for Married Women's Property Rights around lower Manhattan.  In this era, everything a married woman owned belonged to her husband.  Rose received only one signature a month but continued on.  This work introduced her to other women's rights activists and she also began lecturing for free thought and against slavery.  She bore two children who died young.  By the late 1840s, she spent the bulk of her time traveling and lecturing.  This supported both by William and by the couple's decision to save money by not hiring a servant.

     Rose came to the fore of the women's movement in 1851 at the second National Women's Rights Convention, held in Worcester, Mass.  She had not attended the Seneca Falls, N.Y. gathering in 1848 which was both small and local.  Present at the First National in 1850, she attracted notice because of her oratory.  Delegated to present the main speech in 1851, she gave "an address which has never been surpassed," a co-worker wrote in an early history of women's rights.  Even though she was the only "foreigner" among this group of native-born Americans, Ernestine Rose became an acknowledged leader of the movement.  Lecturing to audiences of thousands, she spoke for racial equality as well as women's rights.  "Black and white, male and female, all deserve human rights," she frequently proclaimed.  "They who sat with her in bygone days on the platform will remember her matchless powers as a speaker," Susan B. Anthony later declared, "and how sage we all felt when she had the floor."

     Although Ernestine Rose attempted to unite her three causes of women's rights, free thought, and anti-slavery, she met with little success in this attempt.  Women's rights workers were devoutly Christian, often beginning meetings with prayers and hymns.  There, she muted her atheism and avoided religious discussions.  Freethinkers, for their part, tended to disparage abolitionism.  They believed the Bible to be the chief justification for slavery and thought combating religion the most important battle to be waged.  The anti-slavery movement had divided over women's rights, with the largest and most successful faction opposing them.  Abolitionists also relied heavily on Christian teachings.

     The Civil War divided the women's movement between those who thought the vote for black men should take precedence and those, like Rose, who wanted the vote for all.  During the war, her health began to fail.  In 1869, she and William emigrated back to England, returning to the United States for just one visit.  In Britain, Ernestine Rose again became a powerful speaker for a few years, embraced by the freethought and feminist communities.  However, her health continued to decline and she gave her last public speech in 1878.  Her English friends sustained her through the great tragedy of her life: William's death from a heart attack in 1882.  Ernestine lived another 10 years, maintaining her values as she became confined to a wheel chair.  "For over fifty years, I have endeavored to promote the rights of humanity without distinction of sex, sect, party, country, or color," she wrote an American couple when she was 77.  Two years later, in 1889, an English journalist wrote that "Mrs. Rose has a fine face and head, and although aged and suffering, retains the utmost interest in the Freethought cause."

     That favorite cause brought its own difficulties.  In this era, Christians tried to convert sick and dying atheists.  Rose received hostile letters from those who assumed that suffering would lead her to Christianity.  She arranged for the daughter of her good friend, the atheist Charles Bradlaugh, to be with her when she lay ill to prevent "religious persons who might make her unsay the convictions of her whole life when her brain was weakened by illness."  She died, undisturbed, in 1892.

     By the 1920s, however, she had been forgotten.  "I doubt whether one American Jew in ten thousand has ever heard of her," the Forward wrote then.  As a Jew, an atheist, a woman, and a foreigner who left the United States, Ernestine Rose did not fit into the narrative of U.S. history in the first half of the twentieth century.  The Boston Investigator, an atheist newspaper that often wrote about her, predicted in 1871 that she would be appreciated "in about a hundred years."  They were correct.  In the 1970s, women's history, African-American history, and Jewish Studies restored her importance.  She deserves to be remembered.

      Every undemocratic element in the original Constitution of the United States has been repealed or amended except the Electoral College.  Erected as a bulwark against popular choice -- to keep the relatively few men allowed to vote from selecting an inappropriate candidate -- the founding fathers created a system which gave "electors" the power to choose a president.  Selected by state legislatures, who picked their own officials, these "electors" determined the entire state's vote for president.  This system gives a state to a single candidate instead of allotting the popular vote on a numerical basis.  The result has been presidents who have lost the popular vote, but won because of the Electoral College.  In recent years, this has resulted in two Republican presidents: George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016.

     We tend to forget about this until a presidential election year rolls around, which is why it has lasted while slavery has been abolished, women have received the franchise, and other anti-democratic devices have gone by the boards.  It is long past time to abolish it.

     Ernestine Rose would certainly have been in favor of this.  In the middle of the nineteenth century, she believed that everybody, "black and while, man and women," should have the vote.  "The ballot is the focus of all other rights, she often declared, "it is the pivot upon which all hang."

     To this end, I posted a petition to abolish the electoral college on my Facebook home page.  I hope you will sign it, share it, and pass it on.  The time is now!

I'll be speaking on Ernestine Rose and selling copies of my books at the Great Neck Public Library this Sunday, January 21 at 2 p.m.  The library is located at 159 Bayview Avenue and will be open from 1 p.m.  The talk is in the Community Room, to the left of the front door.  Hope to see you there!

Each year the Jewish Book Council publishes an annual journal, called Paper Brigade named after the Jews who saved important documents during the Holocaust.  They reprinted an article of mine first published in their Prosen People column called "How Jewish Was Ernestine Rose" in their 2018 edition.  You can find my contribution here.

My piece, "Coping With The Election," is now up on the New School's Public Seminar site. You can read it  here  Once you are there, go to Bonnie S. Anderson, December 17, 2017.  

First, CHOICE, the publication of the American Library Association, gave The Rabbi's Atheist's Daughter a "Highly Recommended" review and said it's appropriate "for all academic levels/libraries."  This is a journal librarians read, so hopefully it will boost sales.

Second, the Jewish Book Council is republishing my piece, "How Jewish Was Ernestine Rose" in its 2018 journal Paper Brigade.  You can read the original in my January 25th blog post.  The new Paper Brigade should come out early next year.

On Thursday, October 19, I'll be speaking at Brooklyn College, in the Woody Tanger Auditorium in the Library from 2:15 to 3:30.  On Wednesday, October 25, I'll be speaking at Rutgers University, in Van Dyck Hall, Room 301, from 4:30 to 6.  Both events are free and open to the public.  I'll have some copies of my book for sale.  Come and enjoy!

     Although she was one of the most famous women in the United States in the 1850s, Ernestine Rose had been almost completely forgotten by the turn of the twentieth century.  History is written by the victors and between Rose's death in 1892 and the 1970s, American history focused on white men and their achievements.  She and many others were written out of history.  But her life and ideals are still vitally important now.

     First, Rose worked ardently for "free thought," as atheism was called by its supporters.  (Opponents stigmatized them as "infidels.")  She was not just an atheist, but an "out" atheist who lectured frequently on this subject.  Rose considered all religions to be "superstition," thought that churches were the chief agent of women's oppression, and criticized the Bible, among other reasons, for supporting slavery.  Although 54% of Americans said they would vote for an atheist for president in a 2012 Gallup Poll, I really doubt that a candidate who proclaimed atheism would get far today.  Even agnosticism is suspect, paradoxically at a time when many religious Christians and Jews backed a candidate who violated most of their beliefs' basic precepts.

     Rose was also an out feminist, although in her day the term was a "woman's right woman."  Despite the fact that "feminist" has recently become more acceptable, with Beyonce and others using the word, it's still suspect.  Far too many people say "I'm not a feminist, but...." and then go on to support basic feminist principles, like equal pay for equal work.  In Rose's time, women could not vote and would not receive the vote for almost thirty more years.  In our day, many white women voted for a candidate who bragged of "grabbing women by the pussy," as well as committing serial adultery, and generally treating women as inferior beings who had "blood coming out of their whatever."

     Rose was also an immigrant to this country.  Always seen as a "foreigner" who accent was continually mentioned if not derided, she was considered Polish although she lived in New York City for 33 years.  The recent rise of anti-immigrant sentiment here attests to the importance of recognizing the claims of those whose labors here have built this nation.  I've written more about this subject in my previous blog, "Ernestine Rose and DACA."

     Finally, Rose strenuously opposed slavery, at a time when abolitionism was supported by only a small minority of white Americans.  The current opposition to "Black Lives Matter," exemplified by groups calling themselves "White Lives Matter" or "Blue Lives Matter," the outrageous delays by police forces over their unjustified shootings of black men and boys, and the continued prejudice which has removed white children from many public schools, not only in the south but also here in New York City, testifies to the need for continued work against racism here.

     So Ernestine Rose's value and ideals are, unfortunately, still amazingly pertinent today.  Her life has much to teach us and can be found in my new biography, The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter, available at a discount from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.  Please consider assigning it in your high school, college, or graduate school classes.

     In 1887, near the end of her long life, Ernestine Rose declared that "For over fifty years, I have endeavored to promote the rights of humanity without distinction of sex, sect, party, country, or color."  She herself experienced discrimination not only because she was female, but also because of her "country" -- she had been born in Poland.  Although she lived in the United States for 33 years and was integral to the U.S. women's movement, she remained its only non-native born member and was always called a "foreigner."  Even worse, during the 1850s, the anti-immigrant American Party arose.  It demanded limits on their entry, a 21-year residence period before citizenship could be applied for, and the restriction of all political offices to the native born.  The party's members said they "knew nothing" about it, giving rise to its nickname of the Know Nothing Party.  A number of Rose's fellow participants in the women's movement voiced their agreement with its views in her presence.

     As a historian, I'm leery of making comparisons between different eras, but the Know Nothings' tenets are amazingly parallel to those of Donald Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions.  In his recent speech rescinding DACA, which gave persons brought here as children the right to stay for two years if they had not committed a crime, Sessions harked back to the distant past.  He did not invoke the Know Nothings, but rather the severely restrictive 1924 Immigration Act.  Designed by a congressional eugenicist, this bill sought to keep the United States "Anglo-Saxon" by outlawing the entry of most Jews, Italians and other southern Europeans, as well as all Asians.  In 2015, then Senator Sessions, disparaging the prediction that in a few years "we'll have the highest percentage of Americans non-native born since the founding of the republic," praised this act since it "slowed immigration" and "created the really solid middle class of America."  (Thanks to Rachel Maddow for this information.)  Sessions also argued falsely this year that DACA was "unconstitutional," that it would take jobs from "hundreds of thousands of Americans," and that it would work against "national security" and "public safety."

     After she left Poland, Ernestine Rose lived in Germany, France, and England before coming here.  In London, she met Robert Owen, the industrial-turned-radical, whose expansive view of human rights became her own.  "We have been told that Robert Owen was a dreamer," she asserted at a celebration of his life, "and what glorious dreams he dreamt!....It is said that he did not succeed.  But where he did not succeed in the past, he will in the future.  He shook the foundation of the old system, and left it to time to do the rest."

     I believe that time is on the side of those of us who oppose the racism and prejudice exemplified by Trump and Sessions, but our Dreamers, as DACA recipients are called, cannot wait since they will be deported in six months.  New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, has already brought a lawsuit arguing that since almost 80% of the Dreamers are of Mexican origin, its rescinding is based on the anti-Mexican discrimination Trump expressed so often during his campaign.  The rest of us must continue, as Rose so often urged, to "agitate, agitate" for the causes we believe in, starting with the protection of these involuntary young immigrants.

For personal reasons I haven't been able to write for a number of months, but will be doing so shortly.  Since schools and colleges are beginning now, I hope you will order The Rabbi's Atheist Daughter for your courses.  It's perfect for History, Judaic Studies, Politics, and Women's Studies classes -- appropriate for advanced high school students and of course, colleges and graduate schools.  Plus, it's severely discounted, both at Oxford UP and on Amazon.

In addition, I'll be speaking a number of times this fall: at Brooklyn College on Thursday, October 19 from 2:15 to 3:30 and at Rutgers University on Wednesday, October 25.  More info to come.