The Protestant President Who Protected an Antisemite with Jewish Police Officers
In 1895, Theodore Roosevelt was still years away from the White House. But as New York City’s young and restless police commissioner, he was already testing the limits of power and principle.
That year, a German antisemite named Hermann Alvart came to Manhattan, planning a public lecture to spread his message. Local Jewish leaders pleaded with Roosevelt to cancel the event or, at the very least, withhold police protection. Roosevelt refused. He would not silence speech, even hateful speech. But he wasn’t going to ignore it, either.
Instead, he did something else. Roosevelt assembled a police security detail made up entirely of Jewish officers. Thirty men. Handpicked. Their assignment? Guard the man who hated them. Protect the event. Keep the peace.
It was a calculated move that Roosevelt believed would do more to expose Alvart’s ideology than any ban or protest ever could. And it worked. The image of Jewish officers defending the rights of a man who publicly attacked them left a mark, not just on the crowd that night, but on Roosevelt’s relationship with New York’s Jewish community for years to come.
Historian Andrew Porwancher, author of American Maccabee: Theodore Roosevelt and the Jews, reveals a quieter, more ironic Roosevelt than the one found in textbooks. One who believed the best way to fight hatred was to let its ugliness show and to trust that American values would stand taller in its shadow.