B&W isolated portrait of Rabbi Israel Dresner photoshopped onto a patterened red background.

Rabbi Israel Dresner

America's most arrested rabbi.

Rabbi Israel Dresner

Early Life and Advocacy

Raised in New York City by immigrants from Hungary and Poland, young Israel was taught to appreciate the rich tapestry of Jewish history and the religious community that surrounded his family. His parents, Abe and Rose, sent him to traditional Hebrew schools.

At 13, Israel joined Habonim Dror, a Progressive Labor Zionist movement that connects Jewish youth with their cultural roots and promotes social justice. By the time he was just 16, Israel was a high school graduate and an active leader within Habonim Dror. Two years later, in 1947, Israel Dresner was arrested for the first time as he protested outside of the British Empire Building in New York City.

Dresner earned his BA at Brooklyn College and his MA at University of Chicago. From 1952 to 1954, he served in the U.S. Army as a chaplain's assistant. He was ordained in 1957 and became rabbi at Temple Sha'arey Shalom in Springfield, New Jersey in 1958.

The Freedom Riders & the Tallahassee Ten

At the beginning of the 1960s, religious officials like Rabbi Dresner were closely watching the growth of the Civil Rights Movement. He was particularly inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycott and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent methods.

In the Summer of 1961, Rabbi Dresner was invited by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE; an interracial group of activists, founded in 1942) to join the Freedom Riders (protesters that challenged racial segregation by riding interstate bus lines) and become an "Interfaith Freedom Rider." The young rabbi (30 at the time) jumped at the opportunity.

On June 13, 1961, a group of interfaith clergy — seven Black ministers, seven White ministers, and four White rabbis (Dresner among them) — left Washington D.C. on a Greyhound Bus. They traveled south — through the Carolinas and Georgia, with their final destination being Tallahassee, Florida. At each stop, they faced threats of violence and arrest from White citizens and the authorities.

The Interfaith Freedom Ride was completed on June 15, 1961. Just as the group was about to fly out of Tallahassee, ten protesters decided to "test" the airport's restaurant by attempting to dine there as an interracial group. They were denied service and staged an impromptu protest outside of the restaurant. Eventually, they were arrested for unlawful assembly, going down in history as the "Tallahassee Ten.

A legal battle of three years ensued, and eventually, the case of Dresner et al v. Tallahassee made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was the first case involving the Freedom Riders to do so. Rabbi Dresner chose to return to Albany three years later, in August 1964, to serve a sentence.

Dr. King and the Albany Movement

Starting in the Winter of 1961 and throughout 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC; a civil rights advocacy group) joined a protest campaign in Albany, Georgia. Protests there led to King being jailed multiple times in July 1962.

Rabbi Dresner met Dr. King at the Albany County Jail in August of 1962. Through the prison bars, the two men shook hands and engaged in conversation while jailed protesters sang "Oh, Freedom" to drown out their discussions, preventing the guards from overhearing. King and Dresner developed a close friendship, with King referring to Dresner as "Sy."

Along with his friend, Reverend Ralph Lord Joy (a fellow Interfaith Freedom Rider), Rabbi Dresner mobilized a kneel-in at Albany City Hall on August 28, 1962. Although Police Chief Laurie Pritchett requested for Dresner and the others to disperse, they remained resolute in their cause. This event led to the arrest of 75 ministers and rabbis, including Dresner, and is the largest arrest of interfaith clergy in the nation's history.

Israel Dresner and the St. Augustine Movement

During the Jim Crow Era (~1877-1964), African American citizens of St. Augustine, Florida, faced daily discrimination. By 1963, St. Augustine locals had begun protesting racist policies, like segregation, on the regular. Answering the call of Dr. Robert B. Hayling (leader of the St. Augustine Movement), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC joined the protests here on May 18, 1964.

One month later, the 1964 Conference of American Rabbis, at which Rabbi Dresner was a participant, was interrupted by a telegram from Dr. King. He described the conflict in St. Augustine and compelled the attendees to "join [him] in a prophetic witness against the social evils of our time." 17 Jewish men (Dresner included) answered Dr. King's summons immediately and boarded a bus to Florida.

Those 17 men (16 of them rabbis) became a part of an infamous day of St. Augustine's Civil Rights history. On June 18, 1964, the SCLC and local activists staged a multi-leveled peaceful protest centered around the Monson Motor Lodge on St. Augustine's bayfront. Dresner and the other rabbis prayed outside of the motel's restaurant while other groups of protesters staged "sit-ins" and "swim-ins."

News reporters and photographers flooded the scene, and tensions rose to a breaking point. Police detained many of the protestors, including Dr. King, Rabbi Dresner, and the other Jewish activists.

This was the largest mass arrest of rabbis in the United States to date.

That night at the St. Johns County Jail, Dresner and the other Jewish activists wrote a letter entitled "Why We Went," which explained their actions and what they had witnessed in St. Augustine.

Rabbi Dresner's Lasting Legacy

After the demonstrations in St. Augustine, Israel Dresner continued to live up to the moniker "America's Most Arrested Rabbi." On the historic day of March 9, 1965, over two thousand civil rights activists marched on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, with Rabbi Dresner delivering a benediction to the crowd.

Rabbi Dresner's final arrest was during a 1980 protest against Apartheid outside New York City's South African consulate. Dresner has rightfully been recognized for his commitment to social justice and nonviolent protest, which persisted until he passed away at 94 on January 13, 2022.

Resources

Online Resources

Further Reading

  • St. Augustine, Florida, 1963-1964: Mass Protest and Racial Violence, edited by David Garrow, 1989.