REMEMBERING ARKANSAS : Rabbi Sanders had lasting spiritual, social effect on state
Posted on Sunday, August 31, 2008
On this date in 1963, Rabbi Ira E. Sanders retired as leader of Arkansas’ largest Reform Jewish congregation, Temple B’nai Israel in Little Rock. Over a tenure of 37 years, and another 22 as rabbi emeritus, Sanders was a mighty presence on the religious and secular fronts. His pioneering work for social welfare not only brought about a more humane society, he mentored others to carry on the work. He also took a firm stand against racial segregation long before most other white religious leaders found the courage to stand up. Ira Eugene Sanders was born on May 6, 1894, in Rich Hill, Mo., the son of Pauline and Daniel Sanders. His father was a wholesale meatpacker. The family moved to Kansas City, Mo., when Ira was 6, and he attended public schools there. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1918, then entered Hebrew Union College, a leading seminary for followers of the Reform Movement. He later received a graduate degree in sociology from Columbia University.
After ordination in 1919, Sanders served a congregation in Allentown, Pa., and in 1924 he became an associate rabbi at Temple Israel in New York. One spring day in 1926, Rabbi Sanders gave a sermon on “Why the North and the South Should Meet Together.” Among the audience members stirred by the heartfelt message of reconciliation and healing of old Civil War wounds was the “Pulpit Committee” from Temple B’nai Israel of Little Rock. They immediately asked Sanders to accept the leadership of their synagogue.
Sanders arrived at the Little Rock train station on Sept. 1, 1926, and he was not pleased with what he found. Compared to New York, Little Rock seemed provincial and isolated, but he agreed to give it a try.
Little Rock was probably not as unwelcoming to a new Jewish rabbi as one might assume. The city had a long tradition of religious toleration, with Jews holding political and social positions of note. Historian Carolyn Gray LeMaster of Little Rock noted in her encyclopedic history of Judaism in Arkansas, A Corner of the Tapestry (1994 ), that of 36 social and fraternal clubs in Little Rock in 1900, 25 had Jewish members. Sanders’ predecessor at Temple B’nai Israel, Rabbi Emanuel Jack, a World War I veteran, was a Veterans of Foreign Wars commander and chairman of the American Legion’s Americanization Committee. (It is true that some political candidates endorsed by the revived Ku Klux Klan won election in Pulaski County in 1922, but the hooded bigots saw their power wane quickly. )
Sanders threw himself into his new community. He immediately noticed the need for improved social services for the poor. Within a year of arriving, he began the Little Rock School of Social Work, which soon became a part of the University of Arkansas extension program. Within two years, the school had 60 tuition-paying students.
The School of Social Work was the source of a bitter lesson in racial segregation for the newly arrived Sanders. When three black students applied to the school, Sanders accepted them. He overrode the objections of white students.
Sanders managed to keep the School of Social Work going during the Great Depression, and many of his students took jobs with the federal relief programs created during the New Deal. Sanders was the founding president of the Pulaski County Public Welfare Commission, and helped create the Arkansas Human Betterment League, the Urban League of Greater Little Rock and the Lighthouse for the Blind. He served on the board of the Little Rock Public Library for 41 years.
The rabbi also made a splash in the local press when he invited the great defense lawyer and religious skeptic Clarence Darrow to Little Rock for a debate. Sanders came up with the idea as a way to raise money for the new Temple Men’s Club. On Nov. 3, 1930, more than 2, 000 people filled the auditorium at the new Little Rock Senior High School (later to become Central High School ) to hear Sanders debate Darrow on the question “Is man immortal ?” The rabbi made his case without ever mentioning God, Judaism, Christianity or religion in general. He took a scientific approach, which might have surprised the opposition. Sanders stressed that the concept of immortality was universal and that humans possessed the power of moral aspiration and spirituality. The rabbi admitted he did not know the form immortality would take, but that the very complexity of evolution, for example, pointed toward a creator and immortality.
After a scrappy debate, Sanders heaped praise on his opponent, saying “his good deeds will win for him life immortal, and in the Choir Invisible, no illustrious name will be sung more fervently than the name of Clarence Darrow.” During the Little Rock school desegregation crisis of 1957, Sanders joined 14 other religious leaders in calling on the governor and Legislature to comply with the federal court orders for integration. Sanders died April 8, 1985, and was interred at Oakland Jewish Cemetery in Little Rock, the only rabbi buried there. Tom W. Dillard is the founding editor of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture (www. encyclopediaofarkansas. net ), and head of the special collections department at the University of Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville. E-mail him at tdillar@uark. edu
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online