Bethlehem has never been silent in face of atrocity
A March 7 Morning Call article about activists seeking a statement from Bethlehem City Council regarding a cease-fire in Gaza included this comment from a participant: “It is time for profound moral courage and to rewrite this city’s shameful history of silence in the face of atrocities.” That statement requires a look at some Bethlehem history.
At the time of the Vietnam
War, Bethlehem City Council became one of the first — and one of the few — municipal bodies to condemn the war. When that resolution was passed by
City Council, protesters who had come to the council meeting exulted in what they called “their” surprising victory. Robert Snyder, then president of council, was my colleague at the time. He explained the decision to me as not political, not reactive, but simply rational and humane.
I remember he asked: “What sane person is in favor of war or killing? Who would not rightly condemn warfare?” Bob had a personal perspective on the subject of war. He participated in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II and was a prisoner of war, seeing war’s brutality at close range.
A half-century before the war in Vietnam, members of the Bethlehem Woman’s Club launched a program to bring Russian Jews to the U.S., rescuing them from the Russian Civil War that killed an estimated 250,000 Jews, primarily in Ukraine. More than a thousand pogroms drove an estimated half-million Russian and Slavic Jews from their homes, and orphaned at least 50,000 — perhaps as many as 300,000 — children.
At a time when women were expected to focus on family and social niceties, members of The Bethlehem Woman’s
Club reached half-way around the world to rescue those being persecuted. Their efforts spurred other communities to action. These Bethlehem women were not silent in the face of atrocity; they were active, effective and visionary.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, thousands of Bethlehem workers in the steel industry battled a different kind of atrocity when they fought for pay that was more than 10 cents an hour, shifts that weren’t 12 hours long and humane working conditions. They wanted benefits as modest as fewer back-toback 12-hour shifts (24 straight working hours) and more than one day off every two weeks. It took decades for the workers to successfully organize, but they never wavered. Their resolve helped to define fair labor practices and improve working conditions for millions of blue-collar workers across the nation.
During America’s Civil War, Moravians in Bethlehem viewed slavery very differently than did their counterparts in Southern states. That was a moral challenge, and one for which silence was never an option.
In his book “Underground Railroad: In Pennsylvania,” historian William Switala notes that Bethlehem was a key stop for Black slaves fleeing on the Underground Railroad as they headed toward New York and Canada. One route of the Northeastern Corridor of the Underground Railroad went north from Philadelphia to Quakertown, then to Bethlehem, Easton and Stroudsburg, with important stops at Norristown, Telford and Perkasie.
Switala wrote that a station on the Underground Railroad, at Bingen, helped slaves flee to safety, and these slaves were provided “respite by the Moravians in Bethlehem.” Providing aid and comfort to escaped and even freed slaves in the early 1860s was a risky undertaking, even in Northern states. But Bethlehem citizens provided such assistance without hesitation. Once again, they were neither silent nor absent in the face of atrocity and human need.
In its earliest days, Bethlehem was not only the location for a hospital to care for the wounded and dying of the Revolutionary War, it was also a place where town leaders reached out to nearby Native American tribes. In Bethlehem’s God’s Acre cemetery, many Native American names can be seen on the flat tombstones, a reflection of equality and of cordial and cooperative relationships formed in the 18th century. In 1792, Bethlehem residents welcomed and met with the tribal leaders of the Six Nations, who were on their way to meet with George Washington in Philadelphia.
Again, not silence, not shame, but outreach, assistance and respect. Without doubt, every individual, every community, every organization — in every era — can always do more, do better, to address need or injustice.
Like all towns and cities — like all human beings — Bethlehem is imperfect. But to say that Bethlehem has “a shameful history of silence” in matters having a national or international moral dimension denies the admirable good done in this place for 283 years. It denies the truth.
Truth is under assault in many places, and it is being driven from classrooms, curricula, libraries, and political discourse. But truth will not be erased from Bethlehem’s history.