The year was 1919 and the 18th Amendment had just been ratified by a majority of American states. The sale of alcohol would soon be illegal throughout the United States. Prohibition was imminent. The average American was unfazed as the majority of territory had been under state or local prohibition for some time. Drinkers and city folk could stalk up on wine before the law took full effect, but Prohibition was meant to last forever, and their basements were only so big. There was, however, a part of American society that could not go without a drink. They relied on alcohol as an inalienable right, that is, their First Amendment right to practice religion freely. What would this Eighteenth Amendment prohibition on booze mean for the First Amendment rights of the Catholic and Jewish populations who relied on sacramental wine in their worship?
Congress was aware of the religious problem with total Prohibition. They had no intention to outlaw alcohol entirely so they built in exemptions for industrial, medicinal, and religious uses of spirits. Inevitably all of these exemptions diverted alcohol towards illegal consumption. Bootleggers legally owned industrial distilleries, doctors wrote prescriptions to patients whose only ailment was thirst, and wine-drinking religions saw their flocks increase. Each of these methods of under-the-table tippling brings its own intrigue, but that of the religious exemption is the most surprising.
Congress legislated that “wine for sacramental purposes may be manufactured, purchased, sold, bartered, transported, imported, exported, delivered, furnished and possessed, but only as herein provided.” The Volstead Act further specified, “the head of any conference or diocese or other ecclesiastical jurisdiction may designate any rabbi, minister, or priest to supervise the manufacture of wine to be used for the purposes and rites in this section mentioned.” It was clear that religious authorities who had a legitimate claim to the sacredness of their wine were permitted to continue drinking it religiously, but it was up to the States to decide what qualified as a designated religious official.
The real story began when the nation realized how noninstitutionalized the role of the rabbi was in the Jewish faith. Catholic priests had to be ordained within an ancient and bureaucratic religion, so very few were able to take advantage of the exemption. The role of the rabbi has always been more vague, and it was up to state clerks to vet paperwork authorizing religious officials to purchase and distribute wine. Rabbis worked in private, and wine was consumed during prayer within households on Fridays and Saturdays. Moreover, there was no official body that dictated who could be a rabbi in America.
State authorities began doling out permits to rabbis so that they could distribute wine to their shuls. Interestingly, besides the Volstead Act, only two states, Washington and South Carolina, mentioned rabbis or the Jewish faith in their laws, a fact that raised anti-Semitic alarm and muddled the legal process for rabbis. Nevertheless, the restrictions around this process were lax. Some states required only 10 signatures testifying that the applicant was a rabbi. Allegedly, some states would grant a permit to anyone who appeared in the dress of a stereotypical rabbi.
The permits that rabbis received for distribution allowed them to distribute 10 gallons of wine per year to each family in their congregation. In order to determine the quantity, rabbis had to present lists of people within their synagogue. These lists, like the credentials of fake rabbis, were falsified. Some reports even suggest that applicants could buy a list of names off of the state workers for 10 cents per name. These newly minted rabbis would then turn around and sell the permit to a saloonkeeper for $200 to $500 dollars. The racket was extensive, well-known, and highly lucrative.
Evidence of fake rabbis was everywhere. A real San Francisco rabbi stated, ”for the first time in the history of the Jewish religion, there are black, yellow and even red members of the Jewish faith.” Los Angeles saw one of its Jewish congregations grow from 180 families to 1000 in 1920 alone. The real Jewish community took note. The American Hebrew wrote on the rapid growth of Judaism and bemoaned how the bootlegger dirtied their reputation. The Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Prohibition said, “Anybody can become a rabbi… and the bootlegger has taken advantage of it.”
Eventually, the extent of rabbi falsification had gone too far. Both the government and the Jewish community wanted to put an end to the bootlegging. The case of a bootlegging rabbi in Baltimore in 1925 demonstrates this point. A government agent arrested a rabbi and confiscated $10,000 worth of wine. Meanwhile, the Jewish community of Baltimore came out against the arrested man saying he was not a rabbi at all. By 1926, a grand jury led an investigation into 600 rabbis in New York City. The accusation was that they had inflated the number of families in their congregation. All of this scrutiny culminated in a Senate led investigation which concluded that there were thousands of fictitious rabbis trafficking hundreds of thousands of gallons of wine.
The age of the bootlegging rabbi would come to an end rather quickly. Americans were far too blatant in their circumvention and abuse of the religious exemptions to Prohibition. The American Israelite wrote, “A dozen Jews or even non-Jews can get together and call themselves a Jewish congregation. They can proceed to elect one of themselves or anyone else, male or female, Jew or non-Jew, as their “Rabbi” and there is absolutely no authoritative, central Jewish body that can dictate to the pseudo-congregation what qualifications its rabbi must possess, or even interfere in any way with its management.” By 1922, rabbis were only allowed to store alcohol in their own houses, effectively ending the practice of rabbi-run saloons. Approval regulations became tighter, and organized crime took an increasing aggressive path towards conquering the booze market.
There was a great contradiction in the religious exemption that Congress built into the Volstead Act. The law proposed to restrict the consumption of alcohol, but only for those who did not believe they had to drink. Immediately after the law came into effect, America found its religion. For some, drinking was more fundamental than titular religious identity. The casual subscription to Judaism in name alone also exposed widespread anti-Semitism. For these reasons, it was best that both the government and Jewish community acted quickly to put an end to the fake rabbis and their abuse of sacred wine.
The American Israelite (1874-2000), Cincinnati, Ohio, January 5th 1922.
“NEW RULES GOVERN SACRAMENTAL WINE” New York Times (1857-1922), New York, N.Y. October 15th 1922.
Asbury, Herbert. The Great Illusion: an Informal History of Prohibition. Dover Publications, Inc., 2018.
Davis, Marni. Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition. New York University Press, 2014.
DeHaven Newsom, Michael. “Some Kind of Religious Freedom: National Prohibition and the Volstead Act’ s Exemption for the Religious Use of Wine.” Brooklyn Law Review, vol. 7, no. 3, 2005, pp. 739–888., https://doi.org/ https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/blr/vol70/iss3/3.
Hines, words: Nick. “How Jewish Bootleggers Saved the Day During Prohibition.” VinePair, 7 May 2021, https://vinepair.com/articles/jewish-prohibition-bootlegging/.
Kassens, Alice. “The Clever Fake Rabbis Who Made Millions off of Prohibition.” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 28 Aug. 2019, https://www.jta.org/2019/08/27/opinion/the-clever-fake-rabbis-who-made-millions-off-of-prohibition/amp.
Mirsky, Maya, and Maya Mirsky Maya Mirsky is a J. Staff Writer based in Oakland. “100 Years Ago, Prohibition Put Booze and Jews in the News.” J., 24 Dec. 2019, https://www.jweekly.com/2019/12/24/100-years-ago-prohibition-put-booze-and-jews-in-the-news/.
Siesfeld, Leah Siesfeld and Heidi. “The History of Jewish Bootleggers: The Nosher.” My Jewish Learning, 20 June 2021, https://www.myjewishlearning.com/the-nosher/the-history-of-jewish-bootleggers/amp/.
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