Shortly afterward, Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board, which helped rescue as many as 200,000 Jews during the final year of the war.
Months later, Rav Aaron Kotler and Rav Avraham Kalmanowitz, along with Irving Bunim, a lay leader who left an indelible mark on American Orthodoxy, met with Treasury Secretary Morgenthau to discuss a plan that involved transferring funds to the Germans through Switzerland to save large numbers of Jews
Morgenthau, a close confidant of Roosevelt, was aghast at the idea of paying ransom to the Nazis.
Rav Kotler, speaking in Yiddish (which Bunim translated), said Morgenthau was afraid of losing his job.
“Tell him,” Rav Kotler urged Bunim, “that if he cannot help to rescue his fellow Jews at this time, then he is worth nothing, and his position is worth nothing, because one Jewish life is worth more than all the positions in Washington.”
Morgenthau was deeply moved. “Tell the rabbi that I am a Jew,” he said. “Tell him that I’m willing to give up my life – not just my position – for my people.”
Though that particular ransom plan ultimately fell through, the civics-minded rabbis and community leaders had once again shown no hesitation in bucking an American Jewish establishment fearful of confronting the Roosevelt administration. These rabbis knew they had to reach the government, and they knew how to do it.
I once saw a presentation by a Christian school about the Holocaust. Included in the program was a video of the rabbis’ march on Washington. I had attended yeshiva, sent my children to yeshiva, participated in Yom HaShoah programs, and served as president of the National Council of Young Israel, yet I had never before seen that film.
The story of European-born rabbis, gedolei hador, working closely with American Orthodox laymen to push the U.S. government to save Jews during the Holocaust should be part of every yeshiva curriculum. If there is no room to tell this story and show this video to every yeshiva student during secular studies classes, then I believe it would be appropriate to do so during limudei kodesh hours, perhaps on Rav Kotler’s yahrzeit.
Few elected Democrats during World War II dared to publicly criticize Roosevelt’s policies. But a congressman from Maryland named Thomas D’Alessandro – whose devotion to Roosevelt was such that he named his son after him – was so disturbed by the plight of European Jewry that he risked his political career by personally challenging FDR for failing to save more Jews during the Holocaust. (D’Alessandro was also an early and outspoken supporter of the creation of a Jewish state.)
After the war, the Jews of Baltimore rallied around D’Allesandro and helped elect him mayor in 1947, despite the opposition of Democratic leaders who hadn’t forgotten D’Allesandro’s criticism of Roosevelt. D’Alessandro transmitted his vigorous support for Israel to his daughter, whom we know today as Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the current minority leader and former speaker of the house.
Over the years there have been other prominent non-Jewish elected leaders who rose to positions of national power and proved themselves true friends of Israel and the Jewish people – a number of whom, including Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Henry (Scoop) Jackson of Washington, represented states with relatively small Jewish populations.
These historical facts should be part of any yeshiva civics curriculum.
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At a minimum, every child in our yeshivas needs to be taught how important it is, to the Jewish people and Israel, to utilize their right to vote and to cast an informed vote in every local, state and national election. They also need to know how to sift through information about the candidates presented in the media, and how to separate facts from rumor and innuendo.
