The date was October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur and more than four hundred rabbis had come to plead for U.S. government action to save Jews from Hitler.
.... Two of the leaders of the march read aloud the group's petition to the president, in Hebrew and English."Children, infants, and elderly men and women, are crying to us, 'Help!'... Millions have already fallen dead, sentenced to fire and sword, and tens of thousands have died of starvation ... And we, how can we stand up to pray on the holy day of Yom Kippur, knowing that we haven't fulfilled our responsibility? So we have come, brokenhearted, on the eve of our holiest day, to ask you, our honorable President Franklin Roosevelt ... to form a special agency to rescue the remainder of the Jewish nation in Europe."The protesters proceeded to the Lincoln Memorial, where they offered prayers for the welfare of the president, America's soldiers abroad, and the Jews in Hitler Europe, and then sang the national anthem. Then they marched to the gates of the White House, where they had expected a small delegation would be granted a meeting with President Roosevelt. Instead, to their surprise and disappointment, they were met by presidential secretary Marvin McIntyre, who told them the president was unavailable "because of the pressure of other business."
In fact, the president's schedule was remarkably open that afternoon. His daily calendar listed nothing in between a 1:00 lunch with the Secretary of State and a 4:00 departure for a ceremony at an airfield outside Washington.
The real reason FDR declined to meet the rabbis was that he had been urged to avoid them by his speechwriter and adviser Samuel Rosenman (a prominent member of the American Jewish Committee) and Dr. Stephen Wise (president of the American Jewish Congress), who were embarrassed by the protesters and feared the march might provoke antisemitism.
Compare to the Days of Awe 5764/2003 (Power Line).
Gd should help us to learn all that we can from those who came before us. Amen.
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