We are delighted to welcome author SCOTT D. SELIGMAN back to A Tree with Roots! Scott is a public historian with a speciality in uncovering long-forgotten yet fascinating and pivotal moments in our history.

The struggle over the place of religion in public schools has deep roots. In the 19th century it was an intramural struggle between Protestants and Catholics. But at Christmastime in 1905, when the Presbyterian principal of a Brooklyn elementary school urged his Jewish students to be more like Jesus, Jews entered the fray in a big way. It was just the trigger activist Albert Lucas had been waiting for. Fresh from battling Christian settlement houses brazen about their intent to convert Jewish children, Lucas accused the public schools of illegal proselytizing and demanded limits on religious content in the schools.

After the Board of Education let the principal off with a slap on the wrist in 1906, the New York Jewish community staged a boycott of school Christmas pageants, prompting widespread student absences. The proest prompted policy changes—but also an enormous antisemitic backlash. Jews were accused of “waging war on Christmas” and of being less than true Americans. Scott Seligman’s new book The Great Christmas Boycott of 1906 describes how this moment shaped the Jewish community’s long term efforts to challenge Christian influence in public life and traces the dispute to the present day.

Scott D. Seligman is a national award-winning writer of narrative non-fiction and biography with an interest in the history of hyphenated Americans. He has written three books on American Jewish history, including The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902, which was a finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Book Awards and won gold medals in history in the Independent Publisher Book Awards and Reader Views Literary Awards.

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