India and Israel Against Islamic Terror

CHAPTER 9
JEWS IN AMERICA 121
Between 1914 and 1918, the ”German Jews” lost out to

”Russian Jews” who rebelled and won in the name of Zionism,

stead of playing the game the American way and force the

majority for legitimacy and social justice, they pressed forthright

for Jewish interest. Louis Dembidz Brandeis, a friend of President

Wilson, heading the Zionist organisation, gave it respectability

and transformed the purely Russian movement into a public

force. Before 1914, Zionism in America differed from Zionism

in Europe, where it meant the Ghetto to live in and move out

to Palestine as a national home. In America it existed only to

take pride in and to help the country but not change itself by

moving out to Palestine, thereby conveying, that they had made

a mistake in coming to America for a home and re-pack again

to leave for Palestine.
The second generation Jews were not content to simply

disappear amongst the hoi polloi of America. These idealists

wished to make a difference as Jews. And they answered antiSemitism

by striving to remake America. They knew in their

bones that they had special responsibilities because they were

Jews. These men and women were not ”adjusting” to the existing

America, and, least of all, to the life of their own enclave of rich,

respectable Jews. The classic doctrine of Jewish theology, ”chosenness”

had reappeared among American jews, in the guise of

their special vocation to fight for social justice. The ”Russian

Jews” about which we have talked earlier, did not take very

kindly to the patronage of the ”German Jews” or Gentiles. And

this was the root cause of the birth of modern Zionism. To

quote Arthur Hertzberg, ”By acting as Zionists, these immigrants

ceased being silent proteges of the ”German Jews.” By demanding

Power in the American Jewish community, and by refusing to let

the ”German Jews” speak for them to the Gentiles, the immigrants

had taken the first major step towards refusing to remain ”on

approval” in America.”
After 1920 due to the Russian Revolution, the suspicion of
Communist Jews” and their Bolshevic leanings was an adverse
[actor in the assimilation of Jews. However, the Russian pogroms
br°ught out the evil aspects of Bolshevism and the Jews obtained
hk
122 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER ’
some sympathy from American society as victims of their archenemy,

Communism. Nevertheless Immigration Laws for the

Jews were tightened further, and the gates to the land of liberty

were partially closed. On the other hand, the children of Ghetto

had no alternative but to flee Russia, Poland and Romania and

their torture chambers to the safety of the United States. Jews

needed acceptance in America more than any minority and

their morale reached its nadir in I930, which coincided with the

depression and anti-Semitism. However, redemption was close

at hand. And the benevolent king of Jews in the person of

Frederick Delano Roosevelt (FDR for short), emerged on the

scene as the President of America. His place in the American

history is unique as one who offered the New Deal, brought in

State Reforms and applied correctives to unbridled capitalism

that put America back on it’s path to prosperity. In this gigantic

effort the Jews occupied the largest number of positions in the

Administration. Benjamin V Cohen and Samuel Rasenmen were

his most trusted bureaucrats while Henry Margentham Jr., his

friend and neighbour in Duchess County, was the Secretary of

Treasury. Felix Frank Furtler, the famous Professor of Law at

Harvard University, regulated the Economic Committees at the

White House. The Jews were visible, almost definably so, in the

upper reaches of Roosevelt Administration. Though always

consultants to the President, their very presence was a signal of

hope to the Jewish masses, endangered by Nazis abroad and

anti-Semitism at home. Civil services were open to the Jews

through competitive examinations and many Jews entered the

Government as many white collared jobs were created benefiting

the Jews. From the large pool of unemployed graduates, the

Jews entered almost all professions. The Work Progress

Administration (WPA), put people to work at Government

expense. Yiddish, the language of the ghetto, was encouraged

and was pronounced a part of the American life. Though the

WPA’s Yiddish writer project was a small recompense for the

discrimination of the Jews in the Immigration Laws, this beneficent

image of FDR was etched in the Jewish psyche. It was as much

a product of fantasy as substance. In spite of his active assistance
CHAPTER 9
JEWS IN AMERICA 123
the Jews, the public opinion forestalled many of his progressive

measures for the jews. Some of his own party-men rose against

ujm There was this tragic case of the ship St. Louis carrying 700

valid Jews for entry into the United States via Cuba which was

sent back for the travellers to be gassed by the Nazis as Roosevelt

stood helpless. The British blockade of Europe was as much

directed against Hitler’s Fortress Europa as against the Jews trying

to move out to their home land. At last, America did act and

its two years of neutrality ended in 1941 after Pearl Harbour,

as fresh news of the murder of 700,000 Jews in Poland alone

reached the State Department. This acquiesing in the holocaust

till 1943, by the US Administration and even some Jews is a

riddle which has not been fully explained till today. The reason

could have been FDR’s not being sure of an Allied victory and

he waited for the tide to turn against the Nazis. This indecision

proved fatal and six million Jews perished in Europe. The

insensitivity of the Americans contributed in no small measure,

to the failure of American Jewry’s attempt to finesse the difference

between Jews and other Americans while insisting that there was

no difference. Though the ”German Jews” did not appreciate

the depth of anti-Semitism feeling in America, the Jews remained

a ”sui generis” minority.
The self enforced amnesia of the American people to Jewish

sufferings did create problems in their assimilations in American

body politic... To quote Arthur Hertzberg:
”Perforce, American Jews looked at the death camps which

had been discovered by the Allies in 1945, but they preferred

to bury the issues raised by the newsreels of bodies attached

like cordwood in Bergen-Belsen, or of the ashes in the ovens

of Auschwitz. American Jews did not want to stand aside

from the rest of America. In their deepest souls, the sight of

the death camps had suddenly made them very lonely in

the world. As ”cobelligerents”, the Jewish people had lost

their war. But American Jews needed to feel that they were

part of America, that they were among the victors. Possible

American complicity, by inaction, in the murder of the Jews

of Europe could not be discussed. If such an accusation
124 INDIA AND ISKAEL CHAPTER 9
were true, America’s jews would have had to continue to
think of themselves as deeply alien. In the midst of the
euphoria of the spring of 1943, American Jews would have
been left to imagine themselves as stepchildren, more of a
nuisance than a source of pride, to America as a whole, and
even to the ”gracious king” Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
The Jews also took active interest in the emancipation of the
blacks. Otto Klineberg declared ”that the charge of inherent
racial inferiority is utterly without warrant”, and further that ”the
Jewish intellectual, steeped in the prophetic tradition of his people,
is necessarily a defender of democracy, a champion of justice
for all people”. Arthur Hertzberg again:
”To be sure, the involvement of Jews in the cause of blacks

did not come cheap. Jews pai d an outsize share of the

financial bill for the black organisations. Few statistics are

available, but it is a fair guess that at least a third of the

money that financed the NAACP and the Urban League in

the 1950s came from Jewish contributors. Thousands of

Jews helped organise and participated in the protest marches

in the South and in the North. These men and women were

most often passionately convince d idealists-but their efforts

for the black revolution served Je ws in a very deep way. The

era after the Second World Wa r was the time when Jews

were on the march, with the inte-ntion of arriving at the very

top of American society. By the anid-1950s, they had made

base camp, through their rapid economic rise, for the finah

assault on the Mount Everest of e lite status in America. Now,

through their role in the black resolution, Jews were making

their first overt bid for a major place in the American elite.

They were announcing themselves as a major force for solving

America’s worst problem, racial tension. The Jews were the

only white community in America, that was very nearly united

- in support of blacks. The great and passionate participation

of Jews in the battle for blacks w~as the very first time, in all

of American history, when Jews were not pleading for

themselves. They were leaders at the very cutting edge of

social change - and thus they hacd ”arrived” at the centre of

American life.”
CHAPTER 9 JEWS IN AMERICA 125
To say that the Black American was grateful to the Jews for

the espousal of his cause would amount to being economic with

the truth. In fact, he took this noble gesture as a condescension

from another white community and a token of hypocrisy to the

underdog. Black nationalism took various forms and these

movements were essentially similar in their Negro chauvinism

and in their ’anti-Whiteism.’ The Negro Muslim movement is

also anti-Christian and anti-Jewish.
The creation of Israel offered the jews of America a place

they could call their homeland, and in which they could take

pride and achieve a normal status in America. Again Arthur

Hertzberg:
”It was inevitable that American Jews would conceive of

their old-new homeland as uniquely heroic. This nation had

arisen again after a hiatus of two thousand years. This

”miracle” had more than a hint of ”chosenness” about it.

Those who identified with the new State of Israel could feel

very special as Jews, even as they were becoming Americans

with roots in a homeland of their own, just like all other

Americans.”
In the fall of 1947, Abba Hillel Silver, the elected leader of

the American Zionists, took a seat in the United Nations along

with Moshe Shertok, the political secretary of the World Zionist

Organisation. A reformed rabbi from Eastern Europe, who arrived

m the United States as a child, Silver was possessed of enormous

demagogic power as he took the cause of Zionism in ringing

tones with an American accent before the United Nations. He

swayed the Assembly to the approval of the ultimate dream of

”is generation. This son of the immigrants to America was

speaking for all the Jews of the world, as an equal to princes and

Prime ministers.
The American Jews were sure that the involvement in Israel

guaranteed the survival of their Jewishness. The faith in their
0|Tieland informed the rhetoric and the actions of the American

Jewry. It was more evident in the 1950s and 1960s that their
uPport for Israel would also guarantee the Jewishness of the
126 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 9
next generation of American Jews, funds were raised for Israel

to remind all Jewish children and grand-children that they shall

remember that they are Jews. They also now formed a solid

vote bank for any aspiring Presidential candidate. Increasingly

and ever more overtly, Jews were making the support of Israel

into an American political issue, and they were rising to the

heights of American politics precisely because of their involvement

in Israel.
American interference in the Suez canal crisis where the

Israeli forces along with the British and French troops occupied

the Suez Canal consequent to its nationalisation by Nasser of

Egypt in 1956, was a temporary damper to the Jewish enthusiasm.

Americans had their own reasons for what they did. But Israel

had equally valid reason to capture Suez as a reprisal to the

constant raids by the Egyptians into Israel’s territory. But for all

that the Jews in America were now convinced that they could

no longer exist merely on American goodwill but will have to be

in a commanding position in the country of their adoption, to

be not merely heard but respected and satisfied.
With President John F. Kennedy dawned another era of the

resurgence of Jewish influence in America. The Jewish ”otherness”

needed a positive juxtaposition as American Jews had to convince

their children for its need and rationale. To be ”proud to be

Jew” and not merely to be angered with their enemies. A ”useable

past” had to be constructed and editing of memories had begun

as soon as the Jews started arriving after the World War II. The

Rosenberg affair, where a Jewish couple Ethel and Julius

Rosenberg were convicted of spying for Russia on ”atomic secret”,

had ”corrected” the notion that many Jews were pro- Communist.

The Jews insisted that they had always been the most respected

American citizens. It would not be improper to state here that

the biggest event of history known to the Western world is the

mass migration of the scientific communities of the Jews from

Germany to America carrying with them the secrets of the atom

bomb. Hitler’s loss was America’s gain and the result was the

bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which brought the end o’

the Second World War. The new generation was not overtly
.»•--•; Q JEWS IN AMERICA