Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Legal Battle against Hate Speech

Abstract

Almost all Americans, we can safely assume, recognize the name Henry Ford and are familiar with the man's legendary role in the history of the automobile. A certain number of people are also familiar with the notorious anti-Semitic tract The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903). And Louis Marshall, the founder and first director of the American Jewish Committee, is probably familiar to leaders of the Jewish community. At best, perhaps a few specialists on the history of anti-Semitism in the United States recognize the name Aaron Sapiro. Victoria Saker Woeste's Henry Ford's War on Jews and the Battle against Hate Speech brings these three people and the one publication together in an illuminating history of Sapiro's libel suit against Ford. Ford's newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, published a series of anti-Semitic articles dealing with Jewish exploitation of farmers' organizations. The articles aimed a particularly bitter attack at Sapiro, who was committed to the idea of farm cooperatives. The newspaper accused him of being part of a conspiracy to control the world's food market. Sapiro responded with the libel suit. Looming over the case and giving it greater significance was Ford's earlier publication of ninety articles in a series on “The International Jew,” based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.