Served as an associate rabbi at United Hebrew Congregation, St. Louis, Missouri for 2 years from (1942-1943) under senior Rabbi Samuel Thurman. Rabbi Wax is listed along with other rabbis who served St. Louis congregations. You can find the full list at SAINT LOUIS RABBIS.
____________________
FROM TEMPLE ISRAEL ARCHIVES:
James A. Wax was installed as assistant to Rabbi Harry W. Ettelson of Temple Israel on Friday, May 31, 1946. He ascended to Senior Rabbi on Friday, April 2, 1954, upon the retirement of Rabbi Ettelson, who was then designated as Rabbi Emeritus.
In the years following his retirement Rabbi Wax served small communities in the Memphis/ Mid-South area. On October 8, 1989, while conducting Yom Kippur services at Temple Beth El in Helena, Arkansas, Rabbi Wax suffered an aneurysm. He was hospitalized and died on October 17, 1989. He was interred at Temple Israel Cemetery in Memphis.
On November 2, 1990, Temple Israel memorialized Rabbis Ettelson and Wax by naming the Temple Israel social hall the "Ettelson-Wax Social Hall."
The papers of Rabbi Wax are housed both atMemphis State (University of Memphis) Oral History dated May 13, 1970, as part of the Mississippi Valley Archives Collection, and the Memphis/Shelby Benjamin Hooks Library.
____________________
He would serve as Rabbi in Chicago and later at Temple Israel, Memphis, TN for 24 years (1954-1978)
Excepts from: "
Rabbi James A. Wax, A Forgotten Hero"
May 13, 2005
By H. Scott Prosterman
To some, the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike of 1968 represents a turning point for the Civil Rights movement, the American Labor movement, and the dynamics of municipal government everywhere. That the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., occurred as a consequence of this strike, forever burnishes the memory of that event in the minds of many Americans. It also has relegated some other important figures in the Civil Rights movement to footnote status, while their work merits heroic recognition. One of these men was Rabbi James A. Wax.
The Memphis sanitation workers strike prompted Dr. King to come to Memphis in February 1968. From the time the workers walked off their jobs on February 12, until the strike's resolution several days after Dr. King's death, Rabbi Wax was instrumental in mediating the strike and guiding its resolution. Curiously, his contribution was omitted from all historical accounts published to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Dr. King's death.
Rabbi Wax had come to Memphis in 1946 as Assistant Rabbi at Temple Israel, and became Head Rabbi in 1954. As president of the Memphis Minister's Association (MMA), Rabbi Wax served as a spiritual leader for the city, particularly during the strike.
Though composed of 111 white and 35 black clergy, the MMA played a crucial role in galvanizing the black community around the strike issues, which had clear racial implications. New York City had recently resolved its own sanitation strike, but without the racial ugliness present in Memphis.
Mayor Henry Loeb was viewed by many as the heavy in the strike. Though there was no city or state law prohibiting public employees from striking, Mayor Loeb refused to negotiate with the workers until they returned to their jobs. Rabbi Wax forced the city's hand, and negotiations began in the basement of St. Mary's Episcopal church on February 18. As president of the MMA, Rabbi Wax served as mediator between the city and AFSCME, which was seeking to represent the sanitation workers. Because the city refused to recognize the union, all communications were directed through Rabbi Wax, even when both parties were present.
Rabbi Wax forced four key issues onto the agenda:
recognition of the union with a contract,
a check-off dues system,
a grievance procedure and
higher wages.
As the strike wore into April, Loeb stuck by his "no recognition, no work" position and King returned to Memphis for a second visit. He did this, not only to prompt a resolution to the strike but also to show that a peaceful march could take place in that volatile climate. A King-led March the previous week had turned into a riot when police and marchers began jostling each other. Marchers said that a cordon of policemen "squeezed" them into a narrowing corridor so that a backlash was inevitable.
Mayor Loeb deeply resented the involvement of local clergy in city affairs. Despite this, he agreed to an off-the-record meeting with Rabbi Wax and Rev. Frank McRae on the Saturday before King was killed. McRae later described this as a "meeting of the minds that showed signs of progress." King was killed the following Thursday.
The day after King's death, Rabbi Wax led a march from St. Mary's, down Poplar Avenue, to City Hall and had a historical confrontation with Mayor Loeb on national TV. Rev. Nicholas Vieron remembers the plan as being, "not a demonstration, but a visit" to the Mayor's office. While Loeb was gracious in receiving his visitors, Rabbi Wax had his own agenda apart from the convivial "visit" the other clergymen had in mind.
Rev. Vieron saw the anger in the Rabbi's eyes and almost discouraged him from making the speech that was called, "one of the most powerful statements of justice and equality of our time," by Rev. Brooks Ramsey. With the nation watching on all three networks, Rabbi Wax stood eye-to-eye with Mayor Loeb and said:
"We come here today with a great deal of sadness and frankly, a great deal of anger. What happened in this city is the result of oppression and injustice, the inhumanity of man to man, and we have come to you for leadership in ending the situation. There are laws far greater than the laws of Memphis and Tennessee, and these are the laws of God. We fervently ask you not to hide any longer behind legal technicalities and slogans, but to speak out at last in favor of human dignity."
Ironically, Rabbi Wax had offered the invocation at Loeb's inauguration three months earlier. Loeb was a former member of Temple Israel but had recently joined the Episcopal Church. Though Loeb was the visible bad guy in this episode, he was under immense pressure from the city's council and attorney's office to defend the city's position. Memphis had switched from a commission to a council type of government, only that January, and its structure was fragile and uncertain. When news of King's assassination reached Loeb, he was said to completely break down in grief and shame.
The 1968 Sanitation Worker's strike changed the political and social landscape of Memphis, as well as the entire U.S. It also profoundly impacted the American Labor movement, particularly for striking municipal workers. The tragedy of King's assassination woke this country up in many ways and brought unprecedented legitimacy to the Civil Rights movement.
It was my honor to have Rabbi Wax officiate my bar mitzvah just six weeks after King was killed. I knew how important he was when I would come home from a bar mitzvah lesson, and see the same guy on the 5 o'clock news who was counseling me just hours before.
We tend to look back on 1968 with great romanticism. Yet we forget that it was one of the most violent and tragic years in American History. Bobby Kennedy was killed two months after King; Mayor Richard Dailey turned the Chicago police into a Gestapo-like force during the August Democratic National Convention; and the Viet Nam war brought violence and divisiveness throughout the country. In addition, the ongoing threat of nuclear war made it a very frightening time. Those of us who came of age in the late '60's did so at a time of painful soul-searching for our nation but we benefited from the new era of openness and spiritual exploration that followed.
A lesson I learned from Rabbi Wax is that one's politics is defined by one's sense of humanity, or the lack thereof. People who grew up during the Cold War were taught to perceive things in black and white, good vs. evil. During the Cold War, there was no such thing as neutrality. You were either a patriot or a communist. Relativity and definition of terms didn't matter. The same dynamics led Reagan and Bush to make the "Liberal Republican" extinct. While much has been accomplished in the last 30 years, it is sad that many of the battles won then must be fought over again and there is precious little gray area on any political spectrum.
Full article can be viewed at: RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT.
_________________________
Title: DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Sermon Delivered by Rabbi James A. Wax
Friday Evening, April 5, 1968
Temple Israel, Memphis, Tennessee
(Dr. King had been assassinated the day before in Memphis)
I shall speak only briefly tonight because of the time, but I do not feel that we can have a worship service as moral and responsible people without taking congnizance of what has transpired in these last days.
I am reminded of the speech delivered by President Roosevelt when the Japanese attached Pearl Harbor. The President said in addressing the Congress, that December 7, 1941 would live in infamy. I think it can be rightly said tonight that April 4, 1968 will be a day that will live in infamy.
Speaking this morning to the Mayor of our city, I said to him that I spoke with mixed emotions, of sadness and of anger, of deep and righteous resentment, and the view which I expressed is the view of the clergy of the city of Memphis. I know there are people in our city tonight who are not sad at what happened last night. I know there are some people in our city who might even be glad. I remember a few weeks ago at the Rotary Club when the television newscaster made his five minute report announcing that Dr. Marton Luther King was coming to Memphis there were some who sneered, and some who mocked the announcement. But I wonder who those people are contrasted with Martin Luther King. Who is this man, Martin Luther King that the President of the United States should proclaim a national day of prayer? Whose death is mourned in the capitals of the world? Whose death is deeply regretted by responsible people, decent people, wherever they may live? Who is this man whose name was sneered and mocked by some of our so-called civic civic leaders? I shall answer very simply and briefly, Martin Luther King was a prophet, a prophet like Amos and Isaiah and Jeremiah, a man who walked in the footsteps of Moses. And (if I were speaking in a Christian congregation) walked in the footsteps of Jesus.
What did Martin Luther King do? Martin Luther King helped to bring freedom to the oppressed people yet in this nation. He fought to break the chains that have oppressed people, he sought to give men dignity, he sought to make this a better world in which to live. Oh, how the cynics sneered when they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. they said, "What did he do to deserve it?" How little can people be? Here was a man in the tranition, the grandest traditions of Judaism and Christianity, bringing freedom to people. And we white hypocrites that speak about freedom for all people know full well that not many miles from here Negroes could not vote. In this very city, called a place of good abode, because their skin what black, they had to sit in the back of the streetcar. They were not even given the dignity of their name.
Martin Luther King was one of the greatest men of this century because he personified the greatest teachings in Judaism and in Christianity, and he did it without violence. He sought to appeal to the heart and the conscience of man.
When I memorialized or tried to memorialize the late President John F. Kennedy, standing in this place, I said, "You Judge a man not merely by the friends he has, but by his enemies." Who are the enemies of Martin Luther King? Segregationists! A segregationist is a bigot. A segregationist violates the laws of the Torah. A segregationist desecrates Judaism.. These are the people who dislike Martin Luther King.
Source: Jewish Women's Archive, Brookline, MA
Courtesy of the Rabbi, Board of Trustees, and Archivist of Temple Israel, Memphis, TN
_________________________
Top photo Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES.ORG
_________________________
Scroll down this page and click on the access link on the right to reveal more photos.
_________________________
Outside the civil rights museum in Memphis is a mural wall on which Rabby Wax's image appears in the lower, right-hand corner of the mural. The opening episode of the 2019 TV series BLUFF CITY LAW shows the starring actor Jimmy Smits and his co-star walking and talking right past the mural with Rabbi Wax's image in the shot.
____________________
The rabbi featured on this Find A Grave page is one of many included in a "Virtual Cemetery" of rabbis who've passed but who served on St. Louis pulpits during their rabbinate. The complete "Virtual Cemetery" list can be found at SAINT LOUIS RABBIS. Questions about this "Virtual Cemetery" project may be directed to:
Steven Weinreich
Email: [email protected]
____________________
FROM TEMPLE ISRAEL ARCHIVES:
James A. Wax was installed as assistant to Rabbi Harry W. Ettelson of Temple Israel on Friday, May 31, 1946. He ascended to Senior Rabbi on Friday, April 2, 1954, upon the retirement of Rabbi Ettelson, who was then designated as Rabbi Emeritus.
In the years following his retirement Rabbi Wax served small communities in the Memphis/ Mid-South area. On October 8, 1989, while conducting Yom Kippur services at Temple Beth El in Helena, Arkansas, Rabbi Wax suffered an aneurysm. He was hospitalized and died on October 17, 1989. He was interred at Temple Israel Cemetery in Memphis.
On November 2, 1990, Temple Israel memorialized Rabbis Ettelson and Wax by naming the Temple Israel social hall the "Ettelson-Wax Social Hall."
The papers of Rabbi Wax are housed both atMemphis State (University of Memphis) Oral History dated May 13, 1970, as part of the Mississippi Valley Archives Collection, and the Memphis/Shelby Benjamin Hooks Library.
____________________
He would serve as Rabbi in Chicago and later at Temple Israel, Memphis, TN for 24 years (1954-1978)
Excepts from: "
Rabbi James A. Wax, A Forgotten Hero"
May 13, 2005
By H. Scott Prosterman
To some, the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike of 1968 represents a turning point for the Civil Rights movement, the American Labor movement, and the dynamics of municipal government everywhere. That the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., occurred as a consequence of this strike, forever burnishes the memory of that event in the minds of many Americans. It also has relegated some other important figures in the Civil Rights movement to footnote status, while their work merits heroic recognition. One of these men was Rabbi James A. Wax.
The Memphis sanitation workers strike prompted Dr. King to come to Memphis in February 1968. From the time the workers walked off their jobs on February 12, until the strike's resolution several days after Dr. King's death, Rabbi Wax was instrumental in mediating the strike and guiding its resolution. Curiously, his contribution was omitted from all historical accounts published to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Dr. King's death.
Rabbi Wax had come to Memphis in 1946 as Assistant Rabbi at Temple Israel, and became Head Rabbi in 1954. As president of the Memphis Minister's Association (MMA), Rabbi Wax served as a spiritual leader for the city, particularly during the strike.
Though composed of 111 white and 35 black clergy, the MMA played a crucial role in galvanizing the black community around the strike issues, which had clear racial implications. New York City had recently resolved its own sanitation strike, but without the racial ugliness present in Memphis.
Mayor Henry Loeb was viewed by many as the heavy in the strike. Though there was no city or state law prohibiting public employees from striking, Mayor Loeb refused to negotiate with the workers until they returned to their jobs. Rabbi Wax forced the city's hand, and negotiations began in the basement of St. Mary's Episcopal church on February 18. As president of the MMA, Rabbi Wax served as mediator between the city and AFSCME, which was seeking to represent the sanitation workers. Because the city refused to recognize the union, all communications were directed through Rabbi Wax, even when both parties were present.
Rabbi Wax forced four key issues onto the agenda:
recognition of the union with a contract,
a check-off dues system,
a grievance procedure and
higher wages.
As the strike wore into April, Loeb stuck by his "no recognition, no work" position and King returned to Memphis for a second visit. He did this, not only to prompt a resolution to the strike but also to show that a peaceful march could take place in that volatile climate. A King-led March the previous week had turned into a riot when police and marchers began jostling each other. Marchers said that a cordon of policemen "squeezed" them into a narrowing corridor so that a backlash was inevitable.
Mayor Loeb deeply resented the involvement of local clergy in city affairs. Despite this, he agreed to an off-the-record meeting with Rabbi Wax and Rev. Frank McRae on the Saturday before King was killed. McRae later described this as a "meeting of the minds that showed signs of progress." King was killed the following Thursday.
The day after King's death, Rabbi Wax led a march from St. Mary's, down Poplar Avenue, to City Hall and had a historical confrontation with Mayor Loeb on national TV. Rev. Nicholas Vieron remembers the plan as being, "not a demonstration, but a visit" to the Mayor's office. While Loeb was gracious in receiving his visitors, Rabbi Wax had his own agenda apart from the convivial "visit" the other clergymen had in mind.
Rev. Vieron saw the anger in the Rabbi's eyes and almost discouraged him from making the speech that was called, "one of the most powerful statements of justice and equality of our time," by Rev. Brooks Ramsey. With the nation watching on all three networks, Rabbi Wax stood eye-to-eye with Mayor Loeb and said:
"We come here today with a great deal of sadness and frankly, a great deal of anger. What happened in this city is the result of oppression and injustice, the inhumanity of man to man, and we have come to you for leadership in ending the situation. There are laws far greater than the laws of Memphis and Tennessee, and these are the laws of God. We fervently ask you not to hide any longer behind legal technicalities and slogans, but to speak out at last in favor of human dignity."
Ironically, Rabbi Wax had offered the invocation at Loeb's inauguration three months earlier. Loeb was a former member of Temple Israel but had recently joined the Episcopal Church. Though Loeb was the visible bad guy in this episode, he was under immense pressure from the city's council and attorney's office to defend the city's position. Memphis had switched from a commission to a council type of government, only that January, and its structure was fragile and uncertain. When news of King's assassination reached Loeb, he was said to completely break down in grief and shame.
The 1968 Sanitation Worker's strike changed the political and social landscape of Memphis, as well as the entire U.S. It also profoundly impacted the American Labor movement, particularly for striking municipal workers. The tragedy of King's assassination woke this country up in many ways and brought unprecedented legitimacy to the Civil Rights movement.
It was my honor to have Rabbi Wax officiate my bar mitzvah just six weeks after King was killed. I knew how important he was when I would come home from a bar mitzvah lesson, and see the same guy on the 5 o'clock news who was counseling me just hours before.
We tend to look back on 1968 with great romanticism. Yet we forget that it was one of the most violent and tragic years in American History. Bobby Kennedy was killed two months after King; Mayor Richard Dailey turned the Chicago police into a Gestapo-like force during the August Democratic National Convention; and the Viet Nam war brought violence and divisiveness throughout the country. In addition, the ongoing threat of nuclear war made it a very frightening time. Those of us who came of age in the late '60's did so at a time of painful soul-searching for our nation but we benefited from the new era of openness and spiritual exploration that followed.
A lesson I learned from Rabbi Wax is that one's politics is defined by one's sense of humanity, or the lack thereof. People who grew up during the Cold War were taught to perceive things in black and white, good vs. evil. During the Cold War, there was no such thing as neutrality. You were either a patriot or a communist. Relativity and definition of terms didn't matter. The same dynamics led Reagan and Bush to make the "Liberal Republican" extinct. While much has been accomplished in the last 30 years, it is sad that many of the battles won then must be fought over again and there is precious little gray area on any political spectrum.
Full article can be viewed at: RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT.
_________________________
Title: DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Sermon Delivered by Rabbi James A. Wax
Friday Evening, April 5, 1968
Temple Israel, Memphis, Tennessee
(Dr. King had been assassinated the day before in Memphis)
I shall speak only briefly tonight because of the time, but I do not feel that we can have a worship service as moral and responsible people without taking congnizance of what has transpired in these last days.
I am reminded of the speech delivered by President Roosevelt when the Japanese attached Pearl Harbor. The President said in addressing the Congress, that December 7, 1941 would live in infamy. I think it can be rightly said tonight that April 4, 1968 will be a day that will live in infamy.
Speaking this morning to the Mayor of our city, I said to him that I spoke with mixed emotions, of sadness and of anger, of deep and righteous resentment, and the view which I expressed is the view of the clergy of the city of Memphis. I know there are people in our city tonight who are not sad at what happened last night. I know there are some people in our city who might even be glad. I remember a few weeks ago at the Rotary Club when the television newscaster made his five minute report announcing that Dr. Marton Luther King was coming to Memphis there were some who sneered, and some who mocked the announcement. But I wonder who those people are contrasted with Martin Luther King. Who is this man, Martin Luther King that the President of the United States should proclaim a national day of prayer? Whose death is mourned in the capitals of the world? Whose death is deeply regretted by responsible people, decent people, wherever they may live? Who is this man whose name was sneered and mocked by some of our so-called civic civic leaders? I shall answer very simply and briefly, Martin Luther King was a prophet, a prophet like Amos and Isaiah and Jeremiah, a man who walked in the footsteps of Moses. And (if I were speaking in a Christian congregation) walked in the footsteps of Jesus.
What did Martin Luther King do? Martin Luther King helped to bring freedom to the oppressed people yet in this nation. He fought to break the chains that have oppressed people, he sought to give men dignity, he sought to make this a better world in which to live. Oh, how the cynics sneered when they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. they said, "What did he do to deserve it?" How little can people be? Here was a man in the tranition, the grandest traditions of Judaism and Christianity, bringing freedom to people. And we white hypocrites that speak about freedom for all people know full well that not many miles from here Negroes could not vote. In this very city, called a place of good abode, because their skin what black, they had to sit in the back of the streetcar. They were not even given the dignity of their name.
Martin Luther King was one of the greatest men of this century because he personified the greatest teachings in Judaism and in Christianity, and he did it without violence. He sought to appeal to the heart and the conscience of man.
When I memorialized or tried to memorialize the late President John F. Kennedy, standing in this place, I said, "You Judge a man not merely by the friends he has, but by his enemies." Who are the enemies of Martin Luther King? Segregationists! A segregationist is a bigot. A segregationist violates the laws of the Torah. A segregationist desecrates Judaism.. These are the people who dislike Martin Luther King.
Source: Jewish Women's Archive, Brookline, MA
Courtesy of the Rabbi, Board of Trustees, and Archivist of Temple Israel, Memphis, TN
_________________________
Top photo Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES.ORG
_________________________
Scroll down this page and click on the access link on the right to reveal more photos.
_________________________
Outside the civil rights museum in Memphis is a mural wall on which Rabby Wax's image appears in the lower, right-hand corner of the mural. The opening episode of the 2019 TV series BLUFF CITY LAW shows the starring actor Jimmy Smits and his co-star walking and talking right past the mural with Rabbi Wax's image in the shot.
____________________
The rabbi featured on this Find A Grave page is one of many included in a "Virtual Cemetery" of rabbis who've passed but who served on St. Louis pulpits during their rabbinate. The complete "Virtual Cemetery" list can be found at SAINT LOUIS RABBIS. Questions about this "Virtual Cemetery" project may be directed to:
Steven Weinreich
Email: [email protected]
Served as an associate rabbi at United Hebrew Congregation, St. Louis, Missouri for 2 years from (1942-1943) under senior Rabbi Samuel Thurman. Rabbi Wax is listed along with other rabbis who served St. Louis congregations. You can find the full list at SAINT LOUIS RABBIS.
____________________
FROM TEMPLE ISRAEL ARCHIVES:
James A. Wax was installed as assistant to Rabbi Harry W. Ettelson of Temple Israel on Friday, May 31, 1946. He ascended to Senior Rabbi on Friday, April 2, 1954, upon the retirement of Rabbi Ettelson, who was then designated as Rabbi Emeritus.
In the years following his retirement Rabbi Wax served small communities in the Memphis/ Mid-South area. On October 8, 1989, while conducting Yom Kippur services at Temple Beth El in Helena, Arkansas, Rabbi Wax suffered an aneurysm. He was hospitalized and died on October 17, 1989. He was interred at Temple Israel Cemetery in Memphis.
On November 2, 1990, Temple Israel memorialized Rabbis Ettelson and Wax by naming the Temple Israel social hall the "Ettelson-Wax Social Hall."
The papers of Rabbi Wax are housed both atMemphis State (University of Memphis) Oral History dated May 13, 1970, as part of the Mississippi Valley Archives Collection, and the Memphis/Shelby Benjamin Hooks Library.
____________________
He would serve as Rabbi in Chicago and later at Temple Israel, Memphis, TN for 24 years (1954-1978)
Excepts from: "
Rabbi James A. Wax, A Forgotten Hero"
May 13, 2005
By H. Scott Prosterman
To some, the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike of 1968 represents a turning point for the Civil Rights movement, the American Labor movement, and the dynamics of municipal government everywhere. That the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., occurred as a consequence of this strike, forever burnishes the memory of that event in the minds of many Americans. It also has relegated some other important figures in the Civil Rights movement to footnote status, while their work merits heroic recognition. One of these men was Rabbi James A. Wax.
The Memphis sanitation workers strike prompted Dr. King to come to Memphis in February 1968. From the time the workers walked off their jobs on February 12, until the strike's resolution several days after Dr. King's death, Rabbi Wax was instrumental in mediating the strike and guiding its resolution. Curiously, his contribution was omitted from all historical accounts published to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Dr. King's death.
Rabbi Wax had come to Memphis in 1946 as Assistant Rabbi at Temple Israel, and became Head Rabbi in 1954. As president of the Memphis Minister's Association (MMA), Rabbi Wax served as a spiritual leader for the city, particularly during the strike.
Though composed of 111 white and 35 black clergy, the MMA played a crucial role in galvanizing the black community around the strike issues, which had clear racial implications. New York City had recently resolved its own sanitation strike, but without the racial ugliness present in Memphis.
Mayor Henry Loeb was viewed by many as the heavy in the strike. Though there was no city or state law prohibiting public employees from striking, Mayor Loeb refused to negotiate with the workers until they returned to their jobs. Rabbi Wax forced the city's hand, and negotiations began in the basement of St. Mary's Episcopal church on February 18. As president of the MMA, Rabbi Wax served as mediator between the city and AFSCME, which was seeking to represent the sanitation workers. Because the city refused to recognize the union, all communications were directed through Rabbi Wax, even when both parties were present.
Rabbi Wax forced four key issues onto the agenda:
recognition of the union with a contract,
a check-off dues system,
a grievance procedure and
higher wages.
As the strike wore into April, Loeb stuck by his "no recognition, no work" position and King returned to Memphis for a second visit. He did this, not only to prompt a resolution to the strike but also to show that a peaceful march could take place in that volatile climate. A King-led March the previous week had turned into a riot when police and marchers began jostling each other. Marchers said that a cordon of policemen "squeezed" them into a narrowing corridor so that a backlash was inevitable.
Mayor Loeb deeply resented the involvement of local clergy in city affairs. Despite this, he agreed to an off-the-record meeting with Rabbi Wax and Rev. Frank McRae on the Saturday before King was killed. McRae later described this as a "meeting of the minds that showed signs of progress." King was killed the following Thursday.
The day after King's death, Rabbi Wax led a march from St. Mary's, down Poplar Avenue, to City Hall and had a historical confrontation with Mayor Loeb on national TV. Rev. Nicholas Vieron remembers the plan as being, "not a demonstration, but a visit" to the Mayor's office. While Loeb was gracious in receiving his visitors, Rabbi Wax had his own agenda apart from the convivial "visit" the other clergymen had in mind.
Rev. Vieron saw the anger in the Rabbi's eyes and almost discouraged him from making the speech that was called, "one of the most powerful statements of justice and equality of our time," by Rev. Brooks Ramsey. With the nation watching on all three networks, Rabbi Wax stood eye-to-eye with Mayor Loeb and said:
"We come here today with a great deal of sadness and frankly, a great deal of anger. What happened in this city is the result of oppression and injustice, the inhumanity of man to man, and we have come to you for leadership in ending the situation. There are laws far greater than the laws of Memphis and Tennessee, and these are the laws of God. We fervently ask you not to hide any longer behind legal technicalities and slogans, but to speak out at last in favor of human dignity."
Ironically, Rabbi Wax had offered the invocation at Loeb's inauguration three months earlier. Loeb was a former member of Temple Israel but had recently joined the Episcopal Church. Though Loeb was the visible bad guy in this episode, he was under immense pressure from the city's council and attorney's office to defend the city's position. Memphis had switched from a commission to a council type of government, only that January, and its structure was fragile and uncertain. When news of King's assassination reached Loeb, he was said to completely break down in grief and shame.
The 1968 Sanitation Worker's strike changed the political and social landscape of Memphis, as well as the entire U.S. It also profoundly impacted the American Labor movement, particularly for striking municipal workers. The tragedy of King's assassination woke this country up in many ways and brought unprecedented legitimacy to the Civil Rights movement.
It was my honor to have Rabbi Wax officiate my bar mitzvah just six weeks after King was killed. I knew how important he was when I would come home from a bar mitzvah lesson, and see the same guy on the 5 o'clock news who was counseling me just hours before.
We tend to look back on 1968 with great romanticism. Yet we forget that it was one of the most violent and tragic years in American History. Bobby Kennedy was killed two months after King; Mayor Richard Dailey turned the Chicago police into a Gestapo-like force during the August Democratic National Convention; and the Viet Nam war brought violence and divisiveness throughout the country. In addition, the ongoing threat of nuclear war made it a very frightening time. Those of us who came of age in the late '60's did so at a time of painful soul-searching for our nation but we benefited from the new era of openness and spiritual exploration that followed.
A lesson I learned from Rabbi Wax is that one's politics is defined by one's sense of humanity, or the lack thereof. People who grew up during the Cold War were taught to perceive things in black and white, good vs. evil. During the Cold War, there was no such thing as neutrality. You were either a patriot or a communist. Relativity and definition of terms didn't matter. The same dynamics led Reagan and Bush to make the "Liberal Republican" extinct. While much has been accomplished in the last 30 years, it is sad that many of the battles won then must be fought over again and there is precious little gray area on any political spectrum.
Full article can be viewed at: RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT.
_________________________
Title: DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Sermon Delivered by Rabbi James A. Wax
Friday Evening, April 5, 1968
Temple Israel, Memphis, Tennessee
(Dr. King had been assassinated the day before in Memphis)
I shall speak only briefly tonight because of the time, but I do not feel that we can have a worship service as moral and responsible people without taking congnizance of what has transpired in these last days.
I am reminded of the speech delivered by President Roosevelt when the Japanese attached Pearl Harbor. The President said in addressing the Congress, that December 7, 1941 would live in infamy. I think it can be rightly said tonight that April 4, 1968 will be a day that will live in infamy.
Speaking this morning to the Mayor of our city, I said to him that I spoke with mixed emotions, of sadness and of anger, of deep and righteous resentment, and the view which I expressed is the view of the clergy of the city of Memphis. I know there are people in our city tonight who are not sad at what happened last night. I know there are some people in our city who might even be glad. I remember a few weeks ago at the Rotary Club when the television newscaster made his five minute report announcing that Dr. Marton Luther King was coming to Memphis there were some who sneered, and some who mocked the announcement. But I wonder who those people are contrasted with Martin Luther King. Who is this man, Martin Luther King that the President of the United States should proclaim a national day of prayer? Whose death is mourned in the capitals of the world? Whose death is deeply regretted by responsible people, decent people, wherever they may live? Who is this man whose name was sneered and mocked by some of our so-called civic civic leaders? I shall answer very simply and briefly, Martin Luther King was a prophet, a prophet like Amos and Isaiah and Jeremiah, a man who walked in the footsteps of Moses. And (if I were speaking in a Christian congregation) walked in the footsteps of Jesus.
What did Martin Luther King do? Martin Luther King helped to bring freedom to the oppressed people yet in this nation. He fought to break the chains that have oppressed people, he sought to give men dignity, he sought to make this a better world in which to live. Oh, how the cynics sneered when they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. they said, "What did he do to deserve it?" How little can people be? Here was a man in the tranition, the grandest traditions of Judaism and Christianity, bringing freedom to people. And we white hypocrites that speak about freedom for all people know full well that not many miles from here Negroes could not vote. In this very city, called a place of good abode, because their skin what black, they had to sit in the back of the streetcar. They were not even given the dignity of their name.
Martin Luther King was one of the greatest men of this century because he personified the greatest teachings in Judaism and in Christianity, and he did it without violence. He sought to appeal to the heart and the conscience of man.
When I memorialized or tried to memorialize the late President John F. Kennedy, standing in this place, I said, "You Judge a man not merely by the friends he has, but by his enemies." Who are the enemies of Martin Luther King? Segregationists! A segregationist is a bigot. A segregationist violates the laws of the Torah. A segregationist desecrates Judaism.. These are the people who dislike Martin Luther King.
Source: Jewish Women's Archive, Brookline, MA
Courtesy of the Rabbi, Board of Trustees, and Archivist of Temple Israel, Memphis, TN
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Top photo Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES.ORG
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Scroll down this page and click on the access link on the right to reveal more photos.
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Outside the civil rights museum in Memphis is a mural wall on which Rabby Wax's image appears in the lower, right-hand corner of the mural. The opening episode of the 2019 TV series BLUFF CITY LAW shows the starring actor Jimmy Smits and his co-star walking and talking right past the mural with Rabbi Wax's image in the shot.
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The rabbi featured on this Find A Grave page is one of many included in a "Virtual Cemetery" of rabbis who've passed but who served on St. Louis pulpits during their rabbinate. The complete "Virtual Cemetery" list can be found at SAINT LOUIS RABBIS. Questions about this "Virtual Cemetery" project may be directed to:
Steven Weinreich
Email: [email protected]
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FROM TEMPLE ISRAEL ARCHIVES:
James A. Wax was installed as assistant to Rabbi Harry W. Ettelson of Temple Israel on Friday, May 31, 1946. He ascended to Senior Rabbi on Friday, April 2, 1954, upon the retirement of Rabbi Ettelson, who was then designated as Rabbi Emeritus.
In the years following his retirement Rabbi Wax served small communities in the Memphis/ Mid-South area. On October 8, 1989, while conducting Yom Kippur services at Temple Beth El in Helena, Arkansas, Rabbi Wax suffered an aneurysm. He was hospitalized and died on October 17, 1989. He was interred at Temple Israel Cemetery in Memphis.
On November 2, 1990, Temple Israel memorialized Rabbis Ettelson and Wax by naming the Temple Israel social hall the "Ettelson-Wax Social Hall."
The papers of Rabbi Wax are housed both atMemphis State (University of Memphis) Oral History dated May 13, 1970, as part of the Mississippi Valley Archives Collection, and the Memphis/Shelby Benjamin Hooks Library.
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He would serve as Rabbi in Chicago and later at Temple Israel, Memphis, TN for 24 years (1954-1978)
Excepts from: "
Rabbi James A. Wax, A Forgotten Hero"
May 13, 2005
By H. Scott Prosterman
To some, the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike of 1968 represents a turning point for the Civil Rights movement, the American Labor movement, and the dynamics of municipal government everywhere. That the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., occurred as a consequence of this strike, forever burnishes the memory of that event in the minds of many Americans. It also has relegated some other important figures in the Civil Rights movement to footnote status, while their work merits heroic recognition. One of these men was Rabbi James A. Wax.
The Memphis sanitation workers strike prompted Dr. King to come to Memphis in February 1968. From the time the workers walked off their jobs on February 12, until the strike's resolution several days after Dr. King's death, Rabbi Wax was instrumental in mediating the strike and guiding its resolution. Curiously, his contribution was omitted from all historical accounts published to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Dr. King's death.
Rabbi Wax had come to Memphis in 1946 as Assistant Rabbi at Temple Israel, and became Head Rabbi in 1954. As president of the Memphis Minister's Association (MMA), Rabbi Wax served as a spiritual leader for the city, particularly during the strike.
Though composed of 111 white and 35 black clergy, the MMA played a crucial role in galvanizing the black community around the strike issues, which had clear racial implications. New York City had recently resolved its own sanitation strike, but without the racial ugliness present in Memphis.
Mayor Henry Loeb was viewed by many as the heavy in the strike. Though there was no city or state law prohibiting public employees from striking, Mayor Loeb refused to negotiate with the workers until they returned to their jobs. Rabbi Wax forced the city's hand, and negotiations began in the basement of St. Mary's Episcopal church on February 18. As president of the MMA, Rabbi Wax served as mediator between the city and AFSCME, which was seeking to represent the sanitation workers. Because the city refused to recognize the union, all communications were directed through Rabbi Wax, even when both parties were present.
Rabbi Wax forced four key issues onto the agenda:
recognition of the union with a contract,
a check-off dues system,
a grievance procedure and
higher wages.
As the strike wore into April, Loeb stuck by his "no recognition, no work" position and King returned to Memphis for a second visit. He did this, not only to prompt a resolution to the strike but also to show that a peaceful march could take place in that volatile climate. A King-led March the previous week had turned into a riot when police and marchers began jostling each other. Marchers said that a cordon of policemen "squeezed" them into a narrowing corridor so that a backlash was inevitable.
Mayor Loeb deeply resented the involvement of local clergy in city affairs. Despite this, he agreed to an off-the-record meeting with Rabbi Wax and Rev. Frank McRae on the Saturday before King was killed. McRae later described this as a "meeting of the minds that showed signs of progress." King was killed the following Thursday.
The day after King's death, Rabbi Wax led a march from St. Mary's, down Poplar Avenue, to City Hall and had a historical confrontation with Mayor Loeb on national TV. Rev. Nicholas Vieron remembers the plan as being, "not a demonstration, but a visit" to the Mayor's office. While Loeb was gracious in receiving his visitors, Rabbi Wax had his own agenda apart from the convivial "visit" the other clergymen had in mind.
Rev. Vieron saw the anger in the Rabbi's eyes and almost discouraged him from making the speech that was called, "one of the most powerful statements of justice and equality of our time," by Rev. Brooks Ramsey. With the nation watching on all three networks, Rabbi Wax stood eye-to-eye with Mayor Loeb and said:
"We come here today with a great deal of sadness and frankly, a great deal of anger. What happened in this city is the result of oppression and injustice, the inhumanity of man to man, and we have come to you for leadership in ending the situation. There are laws far greater than the laws of Memphis and Tennessee, and these are the laws of God. We fervently ask you not to hide any longer behind legal technicalities and slogans, but to speak out at last in favor of human dignity."
Ironically, Rabbi Wax had offered the invocation at Loeb's inauguration three months earlier. Loeb was a former member of Temple Israel but had recently joined the Episcopal Church. Though Loeb was the visible bad guy in this episode, he was under immense pressure from the city's council and attorney's office to defend the city's position. Memphis had switched from a commission to a council type of government, only that January, and its structure was fragile and uncertain. When news of King's assassination reached Loeb, he was said to completely break down in grief and shame.
The 1968 Sanitation Worker's strike changed the political and social landscape of Memphis, as well as the entire U.S. It also profoundly impacted the American Labor movement, particularly for striking municipal workers. The tragedy of King's assassination woke this country up in many ways and brought unprecedented legitimacy to the Civil Rights movement.
It was my honor to have Rabbi Wax officiate my bar mitzvah just six weeks after King was killed. I knew how important he was when I would come home from a bar mitzvah lesson, and see the same guy on the 5 o'clock news who was counseling me just hours before.
We tend to look back on 1968 with great romanticism. Yet we forget that it was one of the most violent and tragic years in American History. Bobby Kennedy was killed two months after King; Mayor Richard Dailey turned the Chicago police into a Gestapo-like force during the August Democratic National Convention; and the Viet Nam war brought violence and divisiveness throughout the country. In addition, the ongoing threat of nuclear war made it a very frightening time. Those of us who came of age in the late '60's did so at a time of painful soul-searching for our nation but we benefited from the new era of openness and spiritual exploration that followed.
A lesson I learned from Rabbi Wax is that one's politics is defined by one's sense of humanity, or the lack thereof. People who grew up during the Cold War were taught to perceive things in black and white, good vs. evil. During the Cold War, there was no such thing as neutrality. You were either a patriot or a communist. Relativity and definition of terms didn't matter. The same dynamics led Reagan and Bush to make the "Liberal Republican" extinct. While much has been accomplished in the last 30 years, it is sad that many of the battles won then must be fought over again and there is precious little gray area on any political spectrum.
Full article can be viewed at: RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT.
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Title: DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Sermon Delivered by Rabbi James A. Wax
Friday Evening, April 5, 1968
Temple Israel, Memphis, Tennessee
(Dr. King had been assassinated the day before in Memphis)
I shall speak only briefly tonight because of the time, but I do not feel that we can have a worship service as moral and responsible people without taking congnizance of what has transpired in these last days.
I am reminded of the speech delivered by President Roosevelt when the Japanese attached Pearl Harbor. The President said in addressing the Congress, that December 7, 1941 would live in infamy. I think it can be rightly said tonight that April 4, 1968 will be a day that will live in infamy.
Speaking this morning to the Mayor of our city, I said to him that I spoke with mixed emotions, of sadness and of anger, of deep and righteous resentment, and the view which I expressed is the view of the clergy of the city of Memphis. I know there are people in our city tonight who are not sad at what happened last night. I know there are some people in our city who might even be glad. I remember a few weeks ago at the Rotary Club when the television newscaster made his five minute report announcing that Dr. Marton Luther King was coming to Memphis there were some who sneered, and some who mocked the announcement. But I wonder who those people are contrasted with Martin Luther King. Who is this man, Martin Luther King that the President of the United States should proclaim a national day of prayer? Whose death is mourned in the capitals of the world? Whose death is deeply regretted by responsible people, decent people, wherever they may live? Who is this man whose name was sneered and mocked by some of our so-called civic civic leaders? I shall answer very simply and briefly, Martin Luther King was a prophet, a prophet like Amos and Isaiah and Jeremiah, a man who walked in the footsteps of Moses. And (if I were speaking in a Christian congregation) walked in the footsteps of Jesus.
What did Martin Luther King do? Martin Luther King helped to bring freedom to the oppressed people yet in this nation. He fought to break the chains that have oppressed people, he sought to give men dignity, he sought to make this a better world in which to live. Oh, how the cynics sneered when they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize. they said, "What did he do to deserve it?" How little can people be? Here was a man in the tranition, the grandest traditions of Judaism and Christianity, bringing freedom to people. And we white hypocrites that speak about freedom for all people know full well that not many miles from here Negroes could not vote. In this very city, called a place of good abode, because their skin what black, they had to sit in the back of the streetcar. They were not even given the dignity of their name.
Martin Luther King was one of the greatest men of this century because he personified the greatest teachings in Judaism and in Christianity, and he did it without violence. He sought to appeal to the heart and the conscience of man.
When I memorialized or tried to memorialize the late President John F. Kennedy, standing in this place, I said, "You Judge a man not merely by the friends he has, but by his enemies." Who are the enemies of Martin Luther King? Segregationists! A segregationist is a bigot. A segregationist violates the laws of the Torah. A segregationist desecrates Judaism.. These are the people who dislike Martin Luther King.
Source: Jewish Women's Archive, Brookline, MA
Courtesy of the Rabbi, Board of Trustees, and Archivist of Temple Israel, Memphis, TN
_________________________
Top photo Courtesy of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio AMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES.ORG
_________________________
Scroll down this page and click on the access link on the right to reveal more photos.
_________________________
Outside the civil rights museum in Memphis is a mural wall on which Rabby Wax's image appears in the lower, right-hand corner of the mural. The opening episode of the 2019 TV series BLUFF CITY LAW shows the starring actor Jimmy Smits and his co-star walking and talking right past the mural with Rabbi Wax's image in the shot.
____________________
The rabbi featured on this Find A Grave page is one of many included in a "Virtual Cemetery" of rabbis who've passed but who served on St. Louis pulpits during their rabbinate. The complete "Virtual Cemetery" list can be found at SAINT LOUIS RABBIS. Questions about this "Virtual Cemetery" project may be directed to:
Steven Weinreich
Email: [email protected]
