This weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma, President Trump held his first campaign rally since the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the country. The campaign said that there were more than a million ticket requests; however, the 19,000 seat arena was only a third full. The Jewish community of Tulsa traces its history to the beginning of the 20th century, with many Jews settling there and opening retail stores. In 1908, Russian immigrants Max and Harry Madansky opened a clothing store in Tulsa that eventually added additional locations in Bartlesville, Muskogee, and Oklahoma City. In 1921, they took out a full page newspaper ad announcing the change of the store name from Madansky Brothers to May Brothers, explaining that the name change was “the final step to prove ourselves wholly American in every sense of the word. We have eliminated those parts of the name Madansky that are of foreign origin. We wish to forever renounce the name that reminds us of our foreign birth.” In the early-1940’s, B’nai Emunah, a synagogue that was a hybrid of Orthodox and Conservative practice, built a new building, only to learn that many women protested and refused to sit upstairs in the women’s balcony. How did the synagogue resolve that dispute?

Golden Driller, Tulsa USA by The Erica Chang is licensed under CC BY 3.0

A. They designated one side of the downstairs room for mixed seating and the other side for men only, with a large curtain down the middle aisle.

B. They designated the front half of the sanctuary for men and the rear rows for mixed seating, with a large curtain dividing the front and back sections.

C. The synagogue leadership refused to allow the women to sit downstairs, at which point roughly a third of the membership resigned and started a new synagogue which had mixed seating.

D. They designated half of the balcony for mixed seating, maintaining the downstairs seating for men only.

E. The President of B’nai Emunah made a speech where he called out the protestors. “Our incredible success in rebuilding B’nai Emunah stands in stark contrast to the extremism and destruction and violence of the radical mixed seaters. We just saw it outside. We just saw it outside, you saw these thugs that came along. These people, call them protesters, isn’t it beautiful, it’s so beautiful. No, they’re so wonderful. They call them the Tulsa Mixed Seaters. But they can’t do that. The lion may lie down with the lamb, but the men shall not sit down with the women. Not in my synagogue. MEGA! MEGA! Make Emunah Great Again!”

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