Looking Back: Anti-Semitism in Portland In The 60's

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

In the 1960s, the premier venue for Jewish country club dances and formal social events in the Portland area was the Tualatin Country Club located in Tualatin, Oregon, just south of Portland. For country club events, galas, and golf, the community relied on the Tualatin facility, which was originally established by the Jewish-founded Concordia Club in 1912 precisely because Jews were excluded from other elite clubs in Portland. For other youth dances, lectures, and social gatherings closer to the city, the community frequently gathered at the Mittleman Jewish Community Center (MJCC), which was located in the Southwest neighborhood during that era.  . However, historical estimates and demographic studies placed the Jewish population in the Portland metropolitan area at approximately 3,500 during that era. 

In 1960s Portland, antisemitism rarely took the form of violent extremism. Instead, it was largely sociocultural and institutional. Jewish Oregonians frequently faced systemic exclusion from exclusive country clubs, prominent corporate law firms, and certain fraternities and sororities.  

Social Club Exclusions: Elite social organizations like the Multnomah Athletic Club (MAC), the Arlington Club, and the Waverley Country Club maintained informal or formal quotas that barred Jewish membership until the 1970s. Dancing in Portland during the 1960s was defined by a split between the psychedelic rock revolution, early soul and R&B nightlife, and local TV dance crazes. The decade featured massive R&B performances, thriving counterculture ballroom crowds, and neighborhood jazz and dance schools.  The epicenter of the counterculture dance scene was the McMenamins Crystal Ballroom. For R&B and soul dancers, the premier destination was the Cotton Club at 2125 N. Vancouver Ave in North Portland. Known as the only nightclub on the West Coast with "wall-to-wall soul," it brought in major touring musicians and provided a vibrant hub for the local African American music and social scene. 

       Portland State University's Urban campus: Portland State University is a public research university in Portland, Oregon, United States. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the next 20 years and was granted university status in 1969. There is no historical evidence of significant, organized anti-Semitism specifically directed at Portland State College (now Portland State University) in the 1960s. The college was a commuter school that grew rapidly during that decade. The campus culture was largely shaped by broader social movements, free speech, and the Vietnam War, rather than religious or ethnic tensions. While Portland's Jewish community faced historical housing and employment discrimination in the mid-20th century, anti-Semitism at the college itself did not figure prominently in campus affairs during that era.

Professional Barriers: Many Jewish lawyers and professionals were unable to secure jobs at established non-Jewish firms, prompting the creation of their own prominent, successful practices (such as the origins of Tonkon Torp).The most famous Jewish judge in Portland, Oregon during the 1960s was Gus J. Solomon. Appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in 1949, he served as the state's first Jewish federal judge and was its longest-serving federal jurist. Breaking Barriers: During this decade, prominent Jewish leaders—most notably lawyer Moe Tonkon—actively fought to dismantle exclusionary practices by becoming the first Jewish members of Portland’s elite WASP-dominated clubs. Moe was an immigrant.  Moe Tonkon (1905–1984) was a prominent Portland business lawyer, civic leader, and founding partner of the law firm Tonkon Torp LLP. A Bender, Russia native who grew up in Portland, he helped bring the Portland Trail Blazers to the city and served as a major trailblazer against local antisemitism.

Neighborhood Redlining & Shifts: As the historic immigrant Jewish neighborhood of South Portland was largely demolished for urban renewal in the early 1960s, Jewish families moving to the suburbs or other parts of the city occasionally encountered restrictive housing covenants and subtle real estate discrimination. 

In the 1960s, Black Portlanders faced systemic discrimination heavily concentrated in housing, employment, and policing. Redlining and discriminatory real estate practices forced 80% of the city’s 15,000 African Americans into the Albina district. While Black Portlanders fought for civil rights, this concentrated community was continuously fractured by urban renewal projects, including the construction of Interstate 5 and Memorial Coliseum, which bulldozed Black-owned homes and businesses.In the 1960 U.S. Census, the Black (or "Nonwhite") population in Portland was approximately 15,000 to 16,000 residents. Specifically, census tract records indicate the city's Black population stood at 15,637 within Portland's city limits.

Interfaith Cooperation: In 1961, Rabbi Emanuel Rose from the Reform Temple helped found the Oregon Board of Rabbis, fostering early connections and mutual understanding with the Catholic and Muslim communities.

Resource:

https://www.ojmche.org/oral-history-people/rabbi-emanuel-rose/

Land of Israel and How It Grew and How Many Had to Leave

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                     

Moses left Egypt with a mixed multitude of 600,000 Jews of the 12 tribes of Jacob and others who were all slaves.  They headed for Canaan in 1311 BCE, and it took them 40 years to get there, so they entered Canaan in 1271 BCE.    Led by Joshua by then, they were to  establish Israel. Israel would be divided into Israel and Judea in 921 BCE and Babylonia's attack in 597 and 586 BCE would bring about an end to their independence.  Jerusalem would be taken by the Romans in 70 CE.
                                                                     

Chaim Weizmann before becoming Israel's first President and Emir Feisal in Agreement about Israel.
                                                                             

 Moshe Dayan (1915-1981) Haganah member, Palmah, Fought in War of Independence
                                                                           

                                                 David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973)

Jump to May 14, 1948, 3,219 years later,  and Israel was again created with David Ben Gurion as its first Prime Minister and state's main founder after 1,878 years of waiting.  It started at that time with 650,000 Jews.  Jews still lived on the land, but many families formerly exiled started to return once again after almost  painful  2 millennium of being parted from their homeland..

In 1948, there was an exchange of peoples.  Almost 700,000 Jewish immigrants, almost half the total of the 1,400,000 immigrants that would return in the next 24 years,  came as destitute refugees from Muslim countries.  At the creation of Palestine they were kicked out of their adopted countries.  There, they had been treated as dhimmis, a 2nd class citizen.

The number matches that of the Palestinian Arabs, 700,000 people who had come from nearby countries looking for jobs from the Jews who were building Tel Aviv in the late 1800's as well as other places.  A few had been there longer, but not many.  Then there were Bedouins who wandered about the lands, as well and had stayed.  They chose not to stay at the beginning of the War of Independence 1947-1949 and at the insistence of their leadership, had left and became refugees, a problem to this very day, 700,000 refugees who have grown to several million.

By May 1972, Israel's population had grown to 3,164,000, or 5 times what it was at the start in those 24 years.  1,400,000 were immigrants or Olim.  There were 4 waves of immigration with people coming in between the waves:
1. May 1948 to 1951---754,800 Olim entered Israel including:
     a. Refugees from Holocaust in Europe, Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia
     b. Entire Jewish communities from Arab countries:
          (1) 121,000 out of 130,000 of Jews in Iraq
          (2)  44,000 out of 45,000 of Jews of Yemen
         (3) . 30,500 out of 35,000 of Jews of Libya

2. 1955 to 1957---165,000  Jews came from Morocco, Tunisia, Poland and other places
                              A large number came from Romania under a family reunification scheme as many had                                  come in late 1800's.

3. 1961 to 1964---215,056 Jew came mainly from Eastern Europe and North Africa.

4. 1967 and Six Day War to 1972 ---Jews came from North and South America, Western Europe and Soviet Union. Finally about 200,000 immigrants had arrived.

In 24 Years, 1,400,000 Immigrants Had Immigrated to Israel.

1. On October 6, 1973, hoping to win back territory lost to Israel during the third Arab-Israeli war, in 1967, Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a coordinated attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Besides being faced with the problems of integration, both culturally of coming from the Middle East or of Europe, the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim, they were hit with a major war.  
2.                                                                        
   

   
3.                                           Population Density of Israel 2014
4. Immigration to Israel ended several of the ancient Jewish communities in the Middle East.  Jews had lived in Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Libya for over 2,000 years.  In several countries in Eastern Europe, immigration  removed what was left if anything after the Holocaust.  Poland, Hungary and Romania were countries where Jews had been a large minority.  Their immigration left only a small number that chose to remain.  The result was that Israel had over 2 1/2 million Jews and became the 3rd largest Jewish center in the world.  First was the USA who still had 6 million Jews and the Soviet Union with 3 million.  
5. Israel faced the problems of providing housing.  In the first 3 years, Israel was an infant state, and had a poor economy.  Most immigrants had to live in tent camps or ma'barot.  Living conditions were difficult.  They needed jobs.  Many had to live on welfare grants or on subsistence wages for work on public welfare projects.  Oregon had such things going on which is how Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood was built.  By 1972, immigrants were taken directly to new homes or to absorption centers where they studied Hebrew.  Most found gainful work quickly.  

I made aliyah in 1980 and as a teacher, lived in an absorption center for 10 months in Haifa, whereas other people only had to stay for 3 months in their absorption centers.  My husband and I had to take a test at the end of the 10 months in Hebrew.  We took a course for teachers of the USA to teach in Israel and passed, and received out teaching certificates; he for high school and me for jr high.  We found jobs in Safed in the northern Galilee.  

Cultural integration is a basic ongoing problem.  All of us Jews have come from different cultural environments.  Half came from Muslim countries in North Africa and Asia where most had to live in conditions of poverty and basic values were of the Muslim society.  Most came with large families.  These were the Sephardim or actually Mizrachim Jews.  Half were the Ashkenazim or coming from European and American countries.  Their basic values were those of a modern democratic and technological society.  This created a cultural gap and gave Ashkenazim a starting advantage over the Sephardim from Muslim countries.  A lot of effort has been devoted to narrowing this gap.

                                                                        

   Me in front of my apartment, 1981 in Safed with my German shepherd and my red Fiat.

                                                                                  

Housing in 1960:  10.3% of all families lived with 3 or more persons per room and most were from Muslim countries.

1972:  About 5.1% of all families still lived in such conditions.  At least they were out of the tents!  

Most all Israelis live in high rise apartment houses.  Some homes are found in Judea and Samaria more, though high rises are there as well.  

Education: Secondary School Attendance

1956: Asia and Africa  ---13%                       1969-70   44%

   Europe and America---41%                                         77%

2014--- Literacy Rate for Israel is 95%; PA is 85.4%;  Egypt is 51.4%.  

Marriages:  Since 1970, 18.5% of marriages taking place in Israel were of couples of mixed cultural origins.  This is the best means of closing the cultural gaps.  

Urbanization:  In 1948, 28% of the population lived in villages and 72% lived in towns.  

                        By 1972, 17.5% lived in villages and 82.5% lived in towns.  

Moshav Over Kibbutz

1948 to 1971, 448 new villages were established.  97 were kibbutzim and 286 were moshavim (collective and cooperative villages).  Immigrants into agriculture preferred the moshav, a type of village where families own and manage their own farm over the kibbutz where property is owned by the commune.  

Kibbutz population in 1948 was 7.6%.  1972 population was 2.8%.  

New Towns and Development Areas had been planned to prevent an excessive concentration of population in the coastal region between Tel Aviv and Haifa.  A large part of their population are immigrants. 

   1. New Towns:  Eilat, Dimona and Arad In Negev;    Kiryat Gat, Ashkelon and Beit Shemesh in the  center of country;     Karmiel and Kiryat Sh'mona in the Galilee.  

   2. The Development Regions:  Lachish Region which is half-way between Jerusalem and Ashkelon; Ta'anach Region in the southern part of the Jezreel Valley;  B'sor Region in the Negev.  

After 1967's Six Day War

The ancient states of Judea and Samaria (Israel) came into Israel's hands because Israel won the war in defense when Jordan, Egypt and Syria attacked.  Gaza and east Jerusalem also were a part of land gained.  Gaza had been in Egypt's hands, and of course Jordan had taken east Jerusalem before.  Jerusalem is now one city undivided.  Jews had been living in Gaza for centuries, but left at the insistence of Israel in 2005 for the sake of a lasting peace with the Palestinians.  They left businesses for the Arabs who tore them apart and commenced to shoot rockets, mortars and missiles into Israel in earnest starting in 2001, before gaining the land.  By 2006 Hamas, a terrorist organization won the power in Gaza and refused to be peaceful.  They would not recognize Israel as a state which has great meaning.  Their charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews.   They are so intent on this, so Israel has continued to build in Judea and Samaria, the area that the PLO, now Fatah, want to have as their state of Palestine. 

                                                                            

 Since 1.7 million Arabs live in Israel as citizens,  they feel it is only right that Jews can also live in Judea/Samaria, their ancient homeland which is now referred to as "The West Bank."   The world disagrees with obvious international decrees and wants the Palestinians to have both Gaza and Judea/Samaria as their state and are allowing it to be Judenrein--no Jews living there.  Because once Israel moved all Jews out of Gaza, they expect the same deal for Judea/Samaria.  Wherever the Arabs are, they have been destroying artifacts of ancient Jewish history; both on the Temple Mount where the Temple once stood and in other places that are holy sites.  

Today the population of Israel 8.2 million with 75% being Jewish and 20.7% being Arab.  Since last year it has grown by 157,000 people.  

Reference: From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters

facts about Israel, published by the Division of information, ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem, 1973

Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot

The New Standard Jewish Encyhclopedia

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ben_gurion.html

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/weizmann.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel