1958
THE ATTEMPTED BOMBING OF TEMPLE BETH-EL
On April 28, 1958, someone placed 54 sticks of dynamite outside a window at Temple Beth-El, one of the city of Birmingham’s oldest synagogues, which was founded in 1907 and opened its sanctuary on Highland Avenue in 1926. The sticks didn’t detonate, but the threat was clear.
Richard Friedman, retired executive director of the Birmingham Jewish Federation, says that even without an explosion, something did happen. “It’s not that nothing happened,” he says. “Something did happen. Someone who wanted to cause destruction and death to a Jewish institution and Jewish people planted a bomb. That happened, and the fact that it was discovered before it exploded doesn’t diminish the first thing that happened, and that someone, some person or persons, did it.”
Margaret Norman, director of Programming and Engagement at Temple Beth-El, says there are varied theories regarding the undetonated explosives. She says some people accept the idea of divine intervention, believing that “it was fate; it was a miracle,” she says. “You know, it’s a house of worship, so that that thinking makes sense.”
One theory is that the bomb was actually never meant to go off. “It was a very large bomb, really just outrageously large in terms of the numbers of sticks of dynamite,” Norman notes. “It would not have just destroyed Temple Beth-El; it would have destroyed really the entire city block.” This theory holds that the perpetrators wanted to frighten Jews, “that it was basically meant as a scare tactic, a way to say to the Jewish community, ‘Stay out of this.’
“There was an association in the minds of many white supremacists at that time between Jews and the civil rights movement, regardless of how active the community actually was,” Norman says. “That theory says it was more of a warning than anything.” The theory is bolstered by the bomb being placed on a Tuesday and not a day and time when the synagogue would have been full of people.
After the attempted bombing, some Jews took a step back from being active in the civil rights movement, and some were careful to be supportive from behind the scenes; others played active, prominent roles in the movement, despite the threats of violence.
Sources
Bending the Arc Project – The Bus Boycott
Solomon Crenshaw Jr. interviewed Richard Friedman on Jan. 1, 2023
The Birmingham Times – Shining Light on a Little Known Birmingham Civil Rights Incident
UAB.edu – Community Shines Light on a Little Known Incident in Civil Rights Era Birmingham
