The Rabbis March of 1943 : The Religious Jews attempted to save Europe

[muman613]

I read about this march last week, when I was researching the background of the Boyanor Rabbi {who is the Rabbi who lights the bonfire at the Lag BaOmer festival in Meron}. The Boyanor Rabbi attended a march in 1943 which was attended by 400 Rabbis which attempted to bring the plight of European Jewry to the attention of the President of the United States, Franklin Delanor Rosevelt.

It turned out that FDR turned his back on the Jewish people, both out of his own lack of concern for the Jewish people, and the pressure of the liberal Jewish American lobby. As a result little was done to save the Jews who were being systematically exterminated in Germany and Poland. Chaim is right that the American Jewish lobby is partly responsible for the death of the six million Jewish martyrs and should accept responsibility for their foul transgression.

In this audio clip on the topic Walter Bingham, of Arutz Sheva in Israel, relates the story of the March in 1943.


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/Player.aspx#2#593

He mentions that Rabbi Kahanes father attended this march. Also Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one the the greatest Jewish sages in the last century also attended this march.

Wiki has the following on this topic @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbis%27_march_(1943)

The Rabbis' March was a protest for American and allied action to stop the destruction of European Jewry. It took place in Washington, D.C. on October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur. It was organized by Hillel Kook, nephew of the chief rabbi of Mandate 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[1], from New York and cities throughout the eastern United States.

Though the delegation was reluctantly received by Vice President Henry Wallace, President Franklin D. Roosevelt avoided meeting the rabbis, both out of concerns regarding diplomatic neutrality, but also influenced by the advice of some of his Jewish aides and several prominent American Jews. Many thought the protest would stir up anti-Semitism and claimed that the marchers, many whom were both Orthodox as well as recent immigrants (or first-generation Americans), were not representative of American Jewry. 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, and refused to read their petition aloud, instead handing it off to the Presidential secretary, Marvin McIntyre.

The march garnered much 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 commented, "Would a similar delegation of 500 Catholic priests have been thus treated?"

Participants

Participating rabbis included the leading rabbinical figures of the era, including Rabbi Eliezer Silver. One of the participants was Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, later to become one of the most important and famous American Orthodox rabbis.

See also:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/march.html

“Make way for the rabbis.” It was probably the first time the station master at Washington, D.C.'s Union Station had shouted these words. But the crowd before him was unlike any ever seen in the nation's capital. Four hundred rabbis converged on Union Station two days before Yom Kippur, 1943, in a stirring display of unity to rescue Jews from Nazi extermination.

The march was the brainchild of 33-year-old Hillel Kook (b. 1910), a Jerusalem-born nephew of Abraham Isaac Kook, former chief rabbi of Palestine, who arrived in the United States in 1940. For reasons known only to him, once here, Kook took the Americanized name Peter Bergson. Purchasing full-page ads in American newspapers criticizing British limitations on the number of Jews who could emigrate to Palestine, then under British rule, and pleading for Allied action to rescue European Jewry, Bergson and his associates known as the Bergson Group - used the mass media to rouse public interest and influence the Roosevelt administration to intervene against Hitler. Most provocatively, Bergson called for the formation of an international Jewish army, which would fight under Allied auspices to liberate European Jewry.

One of Bergson's most spectacular initiatives was the 1943 March of the Rabbis. Despite his Orthodox background, Bergson himself was not observant, nor were most of his followers. They understood, however, the powerful visual impact of hundreds of Orthodox rabbis with their beards, black coats and hats converging on Congress and the White House.

Gaining access to the Orthodox rabbinical leadership was no simple task for the uninitiated. The elders of the Orthodox community in the 1940s were mostly European-born Talmudic scholars who spoke little English and were generally unfamiliar with the political ways of the New World to which they had emigrated. Few were accustomed to receiving national press coverage. But Bergson and his associates used their fluent Yiddish and Bergson's family connections to win the trust of rabbis in the Hasidic and general Orthodox communities.

So it was that on October 6, 1943, more than 400 Orthodox rabbis, accompanied by marshals from the Jewish War Veterans of America, marched solemnly from Union Station to their first stop, the Capitol. Vice President Henry A. Wallace and a large bipartisan delegation of Congressional leaders received them. While passersby gawked and newsmen snapped photos, the rabbis recited the Kaddish; sang the traditional Jewish prayer for the nation's leaders to the tune of the “Star Spangled Banner”; and solemnly read aloud, in English and Hebrew, their petition calling for the creation of a special Federal agency to rescue European

Jewry and expand the limited quota on Jewish refugee immigration to the United States. Time Magazine commented that, on receiving the petition, Vice President Wallace “squirmed through a diplomatically minimal answer.” The rabbis then marched from the Capitol to the White House.

On the advice of his aides, FDR, who was scheduled to attend a military ceremony, intentionally avoided the rabbis by leaving the White. House through a rear exit while they marched silently in front. When Roosevelt's decision not to encounter the rabbis became known to the press, reporters interpreted Roosevelt's actions as a snub, adding a dramatic flair that transformed the protest rally into a full-fledged clash between the rabbis and the administration.

[muman613]

Oh, forgot the reference concerning the Boyan Rabbi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyan_(Hasidic_dynasty\)

Over the next 40 years, the Boyaner Rebbe of New York succeeded in uniting the Ruzhin-Boyan survivors of the Holocaust and proved that Hasidut could be a viable lifestyle in America.[14] The Rebbe exuded the sense of nobility and spiritual loftiness characteristic of rebbes of the Boyaner dynasty, but he also expressed a warmth and paternal concern for his disciples which attracted many American youth who had never seen a Hasidic rebbe. Yeshiva students and secular Jewish boys alike were drawn to him in large numbers, and he made many ba'alei teshuvah (returnees to the faith).[12][15] The Rebbe also took an active role in American Jewish leadership, being a founder[16] and president of the Agudath HaAdmorim (Union of Grand Rabbis) of the United States (in which capacity he participated in the Rabbi's March on Washington in 1943[17]); first vice president of Agudath Israel of America[18][19] and a member of that body's Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah;[20] and president of Vaad HaEzra, in which capacity he raised funds to help Holocaust survivors in post-war Europe.[21]


Lag BaOmer tradition

The Boyaner Rebbe traditionally lights the first bonfire at the annual Lag BaOmer celebration at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in Meron, Israel. This privilege was purchased by Rabbi Avrohom Yaakov Friedman, the first Sadigura Rebbe, from the Sephardi guardians of Meron and Safed; the Sadigura Rebbe bequeathed this honor to his eldest son, Rabbi Yitzchok, the first Boyaner Rebbe, and his progeny.[28] The first hadlakah (lighting) is attended by hundreds of thousands of people each year; in 2001, the crowd was estimated at 300,000.[29]

[muman613]

Google image yielded some photos from the event:



http://njjewishnews.com/njjn.com/043009/sxHistorianRecallsDay.html

[muman613]

The NYT article on the march :

[muman613]

Rabbis usually start or end with a joke... So here is an appropriate joke..


From http://www.torchweb.org/torah_detail.php?id=131

I would like to conclude with a humorous - and true - story I heard recently that took place over 65 years ago during the famous Rabbis’ March on Washington toward the end of World War Two:

The Rabbis' March was a protest for American and allied action to stop the destruction of European Jewry. It took place in Washington, D.C. on October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur. It was organized by Hillel Kook, nephew of the chief rabbi of mandatory Palestine, and involved more than 400 rabbis, mostly from New York and cities throughout the eastern United States. (My late grandfather, Rabbi Joseph Mordechai Baumol ZT”L, was one of the prominent Rabbis in the group.) [To learn more about the Rabbis’ March on Washington and its impact in saving tens of thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust, see: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/march.html]

At one point during the march, as the rabbis were standing in a lineup, waiting to meet with Eleanor Roosevelt, it occurred to the first rabbi in line that the First Lady would undoubtedly extend her hand in greeting, and that he needed to decide his course of action. As she held out her hand to shake his, the rabbi said, “I am sorry, Mrs. Roosevelt, but my religion forbids me from shaking hands with a woman to whom I am not married”. To which the First Lady responded, “I only wish my husband had that religion!”

[JTFenthusiast2]

Muman,

Very interesting post.  You may be interested in a recent ask JTF I was listening to about this very issue from February 2007, I want to say it is Broadcast C from the JTF archive website. I think it is the  February 27th broadcast.

[angryChineseKahanist]

one of these guys looks like he could be an oriental jew except for that chin.

[JTFenthusiast2]

I am listening to this link now.