Shaping the Future by Remembering the Past
Leon Lawrence Lewis – Lawyer, Activist, Jewish Spymaster
The telephone rang in Leon Lewis’ Beverly Hills home just after dinner.
He picked up the phone, “Hello.”
The voice on the line was cold, to the point. “Stop harming the German American Federation (the Bund), or your children will be kidnapped. They will not see their next birthdays.” The caller hung up.
It was a threat that would deeply frighten any parent.
Leon Lewis was the National Secretary of the Anti-Defamation League, the ADL. His job was to monitor and counter antisemitism in America. Lewis was keenly aware of the rise of Adolph Hitler and the insinuation of Nazism into vulnerable German American communities. He knew that German American organizations were being radicalized against Jews and others. He knew he had to act.
The ADL and Lewis were at odds over how to respond to the viciousness of rising American antisemitism. Lewis did not agree with the ‘lay low’ response. On his own and financed from his own pocket because no Jewish organization in L.A. would help him, Lewis created a Spy network to infiltrate the Bund.
His spies were fellow Disabled Veterans from World War I, mostly German Americans who were horrified by Nazism and what it meant for German Americans.
The Spy network uncovered plans for assassinations of mostly prominent Jewish Americans, from the Film industry, media, and legal profession. They discovered bomb plots. They discovered plans to attack armories in California, kill American soldiers if necessary, and capture weapons.
The German American Bund’s leadership, controlled and largely funded by Hitler’s Nazi Germany, created cultural, social, and sports links for its innocent public face. They indoctrinated their members with antisemitism and flooded hate literature wherever they could.
The Bund had larger plans than just using and poisoning the Democratic process.
On “Der Tag”, on “the (designated) day”, the Bund was going to unleash a violent revolution in California, much as Hitler had done in Germany. Lewis’s spies had discovered the Bund was planning to overthrow the American government.
Lewis took the information to the Los Angeles Police Chief, James Davis. Lewis explained that the Jews were only the appetizers for the Bund. The Police Chief was not interested. He was somewhat sympathetic to Bund. The Chief’s focus was not on a few crazy Germans. He was obsessed with stopping Communists.
Lewis had to find a way to expose the Bund and its Nazi leadership. He did. Through brilliant tactical legal maneuvers, he exposed the Bund in court to the public. Lewis connected with American military intelligence in Washington. His Spy network and the legal maneuvers were costing Lewis much of what he had. He needed deeper pockets since the Jewish establishment in L.A. was not willing to help him.
In 1937, Lewis reached out to the L.A. film and entertainment industry leaders, many of whom were Jewish. He revealed to them the Nazis planned to assassinate Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Paul Muni, James Cagney, and Jack Benny, among many. Studio executives and media influencers to be assassinated were Louis B. Mayer, William Weyler, Samuel Goldwyn, and Walter Winchell. At the top of the assassination list was Leon Lewis.
The movie moguls reached into their pockets with one condition. Their funding of the anti-Nazi Spy network was to be kept secret. They knew that American antisemitism would not look kindly on films produced by studios that were operating shadow spy rings on other Americans.
Without firing a shot, Lewis broke the back of the Nazi led German American Bund. He further severed their distrustful mutual cooperative relationship with the KKK. After World War II broke out, the secret Spy network continued working, revealing to the FBI and military intelligence continuing risks to American national security.
Lewis’s Spy network broke up the kidnapping/murder plot of his children.
The cost of spying was high. A number died under mysterious, still unsolved circumstances.
After the war, Lewis returned to his law practice and revealed little to his family. He died of a heart attack in 1954. Until recently, Lewis and his patriotic fight for America were largely unknown, certainly not honored.
Iron County Historical Museum
Wednesday afternoon, August 20, 2025, in the little town of Hurley, Northern Wisconsin, where Lewis was born, a historical interpretive marker was dedicated. The marker was donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation. The marker, prominently sited in front of the museum, was made possible by the strong support of the Iron County Historical Society and the Hurley community.
Multiple documentary cameras filmed the event. Interviews were conducted in the Iron County’s Museum’s historical courthouse. Over 100 people crowded the hard courtroom benches. It was a very large turnout. Hurley has a population of 1500. They were proud to honor Leon Lewis.
Yes, Lewis did what he did because he was a Jew. He really did what he did because he stared into the face of evil threatening all Americans.
Leon Lewis would not hide.
A Lewis marker offer has been made to the Jewish community of L.A. So far, there has been no interest.
The text of the marker:
“Leon Lewis, a Jewish Los Angeles attorney, ran an anti-Nazi spy ring from 1933 to 1941. Born in Hurley, Wisconsin, Lewis obtained his law degree in 1913 from the University of Chicago and served in the US Army in France during WWI. Lewis later was the first national executive secretary of B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League and founder of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Relations Committee. Because of governmental indifference, even sympathy to rising fascism in the 1930s, Lewis enlisted non-Jewish WWI veterans to infiltrate Nazi organizations in Southern California. After disrupting a plot by militants to sell weapons to American Nazis, Lewis developed allies in U.S. Naval Intelligence. Lewis’s agents uncovered another plot to seize west coast military armories as part of a planned fascist insurrection, Naval Intelligence shut it down. Lewis’s agents prevented assassinations of prominent Jewish citizens and supported prosecution of American Nazis in the 1930s and during WWII.”
Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation