Scandals in Presidential History: FDR and the Rabbis March
This series began with the story of Sumner Wells, FDR's alcoholic Undersecretary of State who was fired for propositioning railroad porters. Wells was one of a group of men in the Roosevelt administration who obstructed giving aid to European Jews who were destined for Adolph Hitler's gas chambers and concentration camps, but he wasn't the only one. Surprisingly, two of Roosevelt's aides who supported this policy were Jews themselves: Samuel Rosenman and Stephen Wise.
Sam Rosenman (seated to the right of FDR - on FDR's left - in the photo above) was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Solomon and Ethel Rosenman. He graduated From Columbia Law School in 1919 and became active in Democratic politics. He was a member of the New York State Assembly for five years in the 1920s and served as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1936 to 1943. Rosenman became a leading spokesman for the New York Jewish community. Rosenman was a senior advisor to Roosevelt and later became a leading figure in the war crimes issue. He was also the first official White House Counsel (then called Special Counsel) from 1943 to 1946. Previously he had been a speechwriter for Roosevelt, dating back to Roosevelt's tenure as Governor of New York, and it was Rosenman who couned the term "New Deal", a phrase in the conclusion of FDR's acceptance speech at the 1932 Democratic National Convention. He also helped with speech writing during the 1936 campaign and was a key speech aide for the remainder of Roosevelt's life.
Stephen Wise was a Rabbi from New York and was also a close friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR turned to Wise for advice on issues concerning the Jewish community in the United States. At the 1924 Democratic National Convention, he was a delegate from New York and at the opening of the sixth session on June 28, 1924, he offered the invocation. Initially, Wise was a vocal opponent of the Nazis in Germany and therefore his later actions were quite surprising. In 1933 while acting as honorary president of the American Jewish Congress, Wise led efforts for a Jewish Boycott of Germany. In a speech he said, "The time for prudence and caution is past. We must speak up like men. How can we ask our Christian friends to lift their voices in protest against the wrongs suffered by Jews if we keep silent? What is happening in Germany today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth unless it is challenged and rebuked. It is not the German Jews who are being attacked. It is the Jews". He urged Secretary of State Cordell Hull to protest to the German government's treatment of Jews.
Wise served as founding president of the World Jewish Congress president until his death in 1949. On November 24, 1942, after meeting with Sumner Welles, Wise held a press conference in Washington, D.C. and announced that the Nazis had a plan for the extermination of all European Jews, and had already killed 2 million. The announcement failed to attract too much media attention.
But some of Wise's other actions have been judged by historians negatively. In the spring of 1941 Wise called for a complete embargo on all aid sent to Jews in occupied countries. He did so because he said that this was in compliance with the U.S. government's economic boycott of the Axis powers, which considered every food package sent to be direct or indirect assistance to the enemy. Wise gave strict orders to World Jewish Congress representatives in Europe to forthwith hald any shipment of packages to the ghettos. The order was made despite the fact that these packages did usually reach their intended destination, the Jewish Self-Help Association in Warsaw. In his cable, Wise wrote, 'All these operations with and through Poland must cease at once.' The cable was sent to Congress delegates in London and Geneva. He added: 'and at once in English means AT ONCE, not in the future.'"
On October 6, 1943, an event known as the Rabbis March took place. It was a demonstration in support of American and allied action to stop Hitler's "final solution". The March took place in Washington, D.C. three days before Yom Kippur. It was organized by Hillel Kook, nephew of the chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine and head of the Bergson Group, and involved more than 400 rabbis, mostly members of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, from New York and cities in the eastern United States.
The group had planned to meet with FDR, and as it turned out, FDR was available for a meeting. Roosevelt had several free hours that afternoon and could have met with the group. Instead he dodged them on the advice of both Stephen Wise and Sam Rosenman. Wise and Rosenman told Roosevelt that the protesting rabbis "were not representative" of American Jewry and not the kind of Jews he should meet. Wise also accused the rabbis of "offending the dignity of the Jewish people."
Vice President Henry Wallace agreed to meet with the group, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to do so on the advice of Wise and Rosenman. Shortly before the protest reached the White House, FDR left the building through a rear exit to attend an Army ceremony, and then left for a weekend in the country. Disappointed and angered by the President's failure to meet with them, the rabbis stood in front of the White House where they were met by Senator William Warren Barbour and others.
The march did attract media attention, much of it focused on what was seen as the cold and insulting dismissal of many important community leaders, as well as the people in Europe they were fighting for. The headline in the Washington Times Herald read: "Rabbis Report 'Cold Welcome' at the White House." Editors of The Jewish Daily Forward wrote in an editorial, "Would a similar delegation of 500 Catholic priests have been thus treated?"
The failure of the Roosevelt administration to come to the aid of European Jews who were being persecuted by Adolf Hitler continues to be a major black mark against its record. What is even more troubling is that prominent leaders in the American Jewish community were among those leading the obstruction of aid to those destined for Nazi death camps.
Sam Rosenman (seated to the right of FDR - on FDR's left - in the photo above) was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Solomon and Ethel Rosenman. He graduated From Columbia Law School in 1919 and became active in Democratic politics. He was a member of the New York State Assembly for five years in the 1920s and served as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1936 to 1943. Rosenman became a leading spokesman for the New York Jewish community. Rosenman was a senior advisor to Roosevelt and later became a leading figure in the war crimes issue. He was also the first official White House Counsel (then called Special Counsel) from 1943 to 1946. Previously he had been a speechwriter for Roosevelt, dating back to Roosevelt's tenure as Governor of New York, and it was Rosenman who couned the term "New Deal", a phrase in the conclusion of FDR's acceptance speech at the 1932 Democratic National Convention. He also helped with speech writing during the 1936 campaign and was a key speech aide for the remainder of Roosevelt's life.
Stephen Wise was a Rabbi from New York and was also a close friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR turned to Wise for advice on issues concerning the Jewish community in the United States. At the 1924 Democratic National Convention, he was a delegate from New York and at the opening of the sixth session on June 28, 1924, he offered the invocation. Initially, Wise was a vocal opponent of the Nazis in Germany and therefore his later actions were quite surprising. In 1933 while acting as honorary president of the American Jewish Congress, Wise led efforts for a Jewish Boycott of Germany. In a speech he said, "The time for prudence and caution is past. We must speak up like men. How can we ask our Christian friends to lift their voices in protest against the wrongs suffered by Jews if we keep silent? What is happening in Germany today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth unless it is challenged and rebuked. It is not the German Jews who are being attacked. It is the Jews". He urged Secretary of State Cordell Hull to protest to the German government's treatment of Jews.
Wise served as founding president of the World Jewish Congress president until his death in 1949. On November 24, 1942, after meeting with Sumner Welles, Wise held a press conference in Washington, D.C. and announced that the Nazis had a plan for the extermination of all European Jews, and had already killed 2 million. The announcement failed to attract too much media attention.
But some of Wise's other actions have been judged by historians negatively. In the spring of 1941 Wise called for a complete embargo on all aid sent to Jews in occupied countries. He did so because he said that this was in compliance with the U.S. government's economic boycott of the Axis powers, which considered every food package sent to be direct or indirect assistance to the enemy. Wise gave strict orders to World Jewish Congress representatives in Europe to forthwith hald any shipment of packages to the ghettos. The order was made despite the fact that these packages did usually reach their intended destination, the Jewish Self-Help Association in Warsaw. In his cable, Wise wrote, 'All these operations with and through Poland must cease at once.' The cable was sent to Congress delegates in London and Geneva. He added: 'and at once in English means AT ONCE, not in the future.'"
On October 6, 1943, an event known as the Rabbis March took place. It was a demonstration in support of American and allied action to stop Hitler's "final solution". The March took place in Washington, D.C. three days before Yom Kippur. It was organized by Hillel Kook, nephew of the chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine and head of the Bergson Group, and involved more than 400 rabbis, mostly members of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, from New York and cities in the eastern United States.
The group had planned to meet with FDR, and as it turned out, FDR was available for a meeting. Roosevelt had several free hours that afternoon and could have met with the group. Instead he dodged them on the advice of both Stephen Wise and Sam Rosenman. Wise and Rosenman told Roosevelt that the protesting rabbis "were not representative" of American Jewry and not the kind of Jews he should meet. Wise also accused the rabbis of "offending the dignity of the Jewish people."
Vice President Henry Wallace agreed to meet with the group, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to do so on the advice of Wise and Rosenman. Shortly before the protest reached the White House, FDR left the building through a rear exit to attend an Army ceremony, and then left for a weekend in the country. Disappointed and angered by the President's failure to meet with them, the rabbis stood in front of the White House where they were met by Senator William Warren Barbour and others.
The march did attract media attention, much of it focused on what was seen as the cold and insulting dismissal of many important community leaders, as well as the people in Europe they were fighting for. The headline in the Washington Times Herald read: "Rabbis Report 'Cold Welcome' at the White House." Editors of The Jewish Daily Forward wrote in an editorial, "Would a similar delegation of 500 Catholic priests have been thus treated?"
The failure of the Roosevelt administration to come to the aid of European Jews who were being persecuted by Adolf Hitler continues to be a major black mark against its record. What is even more troubling is that prominent leaders in the American Jewish community were among those leading the obstruction of aid to those destined for Nazi death camps.