#OTDJH: June 30th, 1927
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Henry Ford, the tycoon car manufacturer releases a signed letter “apologizing” for several dozen antisemitic articles published in his highly read newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. Some of these pieces, all of which ran between the years 1920 and 1925 were reissued in pamphlets with the title,“The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem.”
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The Dearborn Independent, a weekly publication created in 1901 was taken over by Ford in 1919 and continued under his watch until 1927. Ford began strategically infusing antisemitism into the paper in May of 1920 and although he didn’t author any of these pieces, he verbalized his anti-Jewish opinion to his secretary Ernest Liebold and Dearborn editor William J. Cameron.
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The Independent drew extensively on “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” with the first mention appearing on July 10, 1920 and served as the papers’ seventh segment in its series on the “International Jew.”
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Ford’s letter of apology was prompted by Aaron Sapiro who charged the industrialist with libel. Sapiro, an attorney based in California, was personally mentioned in one of the articles that was run in the “Independent.” Sapiro, who sued Ford as a result, was not the only one to do so. However, his case was the only one that went to trial. While the case ended in a mistrial, Ford became engulfed in negative publicity and decided to issue an apology simply to please people and end subsequent legal matters.
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What’s truly astonishing is that Louis Marshall, New York lawyer and president of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) wrote Ford’s “apology”. What’s more is that Ford didn’t even sign the letter himself. He had one of his assistants sign his name. Ford could not have further removed himself from responsibility. Leave it to an antisemite to have a Jew write his letter apologizing for antisemitism and have someone else sign it on his behalf.
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Fortunately, Ford’s Dearborn Independent never recovered and the newspaper ceased publication in December of 1927.
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#judaism#jewish#history#ford#antisemitism#dearbornindependent#detroit#historyfans#historynerds#factsonfacts
Image Source:
Text Source:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/henryford-antisemitism/
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