A01=Scott D. Seligman
American history
American Jews
antisemitism
Author_Scott D. Seligman
Brooklyn history
Category=JNL
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=QRAM2
Category=QRJ
Category=QRM
Category=WQH
Christian history
Christmas protest
church-state history
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnic history
first amendment
freedom of speech
History
history of Christmas
history of minorities
history of religion
Jewish history
Jewish immigration
Jewish-American history
Judaism
legal history
New York
New York history
New York immigration
New York Jewish community
New York Jewish history
politics of religion
public school history
religion in schools
religious agenda
religious history
role of religion in public education
separation of church and state
urban history
Product details
- ISBN 9781640126541
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Nov 2025
- Publisher: Potomac Books Inc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Today’s battles over Christianity in U.S. public schools have deep roots. In the nineteenth century it was an intramural struggle between Protestants and later-arriving Catholics. But at Christmastime in 1905, when Frank Harding, the Presbyterian principal of a Brooklyn elementary school, urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus, the Jewish community entered the fray in a big way. It was just the trigger Orthodox Jewish activist Albert Lucas had been waiting for. Fresh from battling Christian settlement houses intent on converting Jewish children, Lucas accused the public schools of illegal proselytizing and called for Harding’s ouster.
After the Board of Education let Harding off in 1906 with a slap on the wrist and declined to clarify the rules governing religion in schools, New York’s Jews staged a boycott of school Christmas pageants in protest. The board’s concession to exclude sectarian hymns and religious compositions generated enormous antisemitic public backlash. Jews were accused of waging war on Christmas and of being less than true Americans.
The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906 traces the Christmas celebration dispute to the present day and describes how Jewish organizations of the twenty-first century, persuaded that politics are unlikely ever to permit a victory, seem to have reconciled themselves to the status quo and moved on to other, more winnable issues.
After the Board of Education let Harding off in 1906 with a slap on the wrist and declined to clarify the rules governing religion in schools, New York’s Jews staged a boycott of school Christmas pageants in protest. The board’s concession to exclude sectarian hymns and religious compositions generated enormous antisemitic public backlash. Jews were accused of waging war on Christmas and of being less than true Americans.
The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906 traces the Christmas celebration dispute to the present day and describes how Jewish organizations of the twenty-first century, persuaded that politics are unlikely ever to permit a victory, seem to have reconciled themselves to the status quo and moved on to other, more winnable issues.
Scott D. Seligman is a writer and historian. He is the national award–winning author of numerous books, including The Chief Rabbi’s Funeral: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Antisemitic Riot (Potomac Books, 2024) and The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots That Shook New York City (Potomac Books, 2020).
