"Against the tide"
Wednesday night we saw the documentary "Against the tide" at the Macdonald shool in Netanya. It was made by Moriah Films, a division of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, directed by Richard Trank and narrated by Dustin Hoffman. It is a scathing indictment of the passivity and even the deliberate indifference of the US Government and American Jewry to the plight of European Jews during the Holocaust. It is at the same time a stirring account of the activities of the young Palestinian immigrant to the US Peter Bergson and a heart-rending account of the continuing massacres that he was trying to prevent, carried out as a deliberate policy by the German Nazi Government.
The information about the massacres of the Jews began to be known in the US shortly after they began in earnest in 1941, about the time that the US entered the war against Nazi Germany. The official Jewish organizational leadership were very concerned that American Jews not be seen as both pushing the US towards war and selectively helping the Jews of Europe and not pressuring Pres. Roosevelt whom they supported. Rabbi Stephan Wise was the acknowledged leader of US Jewry and he typically took a passive, don't rock the boat, attitude. A friend of Roosevelt, he eschewed directly proposing any policy that might have saved Jewish lives while Roosevelt himself was personally unenthusiatic about such actions. Added to which a number of Roosevelt's advisors were themselves actively anti-Semitic, including Secty of State Stimson and the crucial head of State's Visa Section Breckenridge Long. How do we know about their bigoted opinions, from the documentary evidence that is the backbone of this film.
Into this sorry situation came Peter Bergson, real name Hillel Kook, grandson of the famous Rabbi Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine as it was then. He had been forced to take a pseudonym to avoid arrest by the British who had stopped all Jewish immigration into Palestine when it was most needed. Bergson, seeing that Jews in Europe were being decimated while the Jews of America were playing it safe, took an activist approach. He organized a public campaign for action to save Jewish lives, he put pressure on the Roosevelt Administration with ad campaigns in major newspapers, by organizing major rallies in cities around the US and by persuading about one third of the Congressmen to support action to save Jewish lives. The most despicable aspect of this situation was that the official Jewish communtiy leadership under Rabbi Wise did everything they could to undermine Bergson's rescue plans instead of trying to help him.
Eventually Roosevelt responded to the pressure and established the War Refugee Board, that sent emissaries into the cauldron of war in order to save Jewish lives. One of them was the notable Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. It is estimated that the WRB saved ca. 250,000 Jewish lives, but it was too little, too late. By the time the war ended in 1945 6 million Jews had been killed. They were being killed at a rate of ca. 4,000 a day, hoping vainly that the powerful American Jewish community was working to save them. Moral of this story, never depend on Jews in the Galut for anything.
The information about the massacres of the Jews began to be known in the US shortly after they began in earnest in 1941, about the time that the US entered the war against Nazi Germany. The official Jewish organizational leadership were very concerned that American Jews not be seen as both pushing the US towards war and selectively helping the Jews of Europe and not pressuring Pres. Roosevelt whom they supported. Rabbi Stephan Wise was the acknowledged leader of US Jewry and he typically took a passive, don't rock the boat, attitude. A friend of Roosevelt, he eschewed directly proposing any policy that might have saved Jewish lives while Roosevelt himself was personally unenthusiatic about such actions. Added to which a number of Roosevelt's advisors were themselves actively anti-Semitic, including Secty of State Stimson and the crucial head of State's Visa Section Breckenridge Long. How do we know about their bigoted opinions, from the documentary evidence that is the backbone of this film.
Into this sorry situation came Peter Bergson, real name Hillel Kook, grandson of the famous Rabbi Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine as it was then. He had been forced to take a pseudonym to avoid arrest by the British who had stopped all Jewish immigration into Palestine when it was most needed. Bergson, seeing that Jews in Europe were being decimated while the Jews of America were playing it safe, took an activist approach. He organized a public campaign for action to save Jewish lives, he put pressure on the Roosevelt Administration with ad campaigns in major newspapers, by organizing major rallies in cities around the US and by persuading about one third of the Congressmen to support action to save Jewish lives. The most despicable aspect of this situation was that the official Jewish communtiy leadership under Rabbi Wise did everything they could to undermine Bergson's rescue plans instead of trying to help him.
Eventually Roosevelt responded to the pressure and established the War Refugee Board, that sent emissaries into the cauldron of war in order to save Jewish lives. One of them was the notable Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. It is estimated that the WRB saved ca. 250,000 Jewish lives, but it was too little, too late. By the time the war ended in 1945 6 million Jews had been killed. They were being killed at a rate of ca. 4,000 a day, hoping vainly that the powerful American Jewish community was working to save them. Moral of this story, never depend on Jews in the Galut for anything.
posted by Jack Cohen at 7:31 AM
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