Evil fools have brought the Bohemian Club into the news recently. The hatred that the Party of Hate (Democrats) has brought to Justice Thomas has boiled over to the Bohemian Club, where he was invited to visit, claiming it to be some domestic version of Davos.
It isn’t a domestic version of Davos. In fact the only significant event is the two-week summer camp at the Bohemian Grove on the Russian River. A few famous people have been invited, including a few Republican presidents. The club is not elite. Many of my friends have been and are members. There is nothing elite or sinister about us.
Otherwise the most interesting part of the Club's history is that in the late 1880s and 1890s the local social elite, including the hereditary social elite, decided to exclude Jews from the three main clubs and the two women’s clubs. This was during the great wave of East European Jewish immigration from the late 1880s to the mid 1920s.
The Jews who had, since the founding of the City, been important leaders and major businessmen simply took over the Bohemian Club for themselves. Jews were the ones who bought the property on the Russian River and created the Grove and its traditions. Remember Jews were a key component of the theatrical world at the time, so they humorously made that a part of the Club facade.
The looney haters in the media seem to take public urination as some sign of the Club’s perversity. It is a men’s club and there is a tradition of peeing on the redwood trees. It is just a form of camaraderie.
It is a men’s club. By Federal law you cannot have a men’s only club with over 200 members if the club is important to business. The Bohemian Club bans all discussion of business and is in fact not important to any local business.