*Editor’s Note: This is part VI in a series from Dr. Grobman. You can read Part V, here
In response to the ominous Nazi victories in Western Europe, President Roosevelt sent an exigent message to the American Congress on May 16, 1940 asking them to provide a billion dollars to fund urgent military needs, including a significant increase in the production of aircraft to 50,000 a year. The Congress had previously balked at extending substantial financial aid to the Allies, fearing it would deplete American resources.
On December 8, 1940, Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a message to Roosevelt describing the condition of the British military and assuring him that American soldiers were not required to win the war. Given the losses sustained from German submarines, Churchill asked for American assistance in transporting part of the armaments they purchased from the U.S. He added that Britain could not pay for the weapons they ordered.
Lend-Lease
At a news conference on December 17, Roosevelt introduced the concept of lend lease to the American people by using a garden hose metaphor: “Suppose my neighbor’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire. Now, what do I do? I don’t say to him before that operation, “Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it.” What is the transaction that goes on? I don’t want $15–I want my garden hose back after the fire is over.”
In the future, Roosevelt said, the U.S. would lend certain nations essential equipment they needed to defend themselves. At a “fireside chat” on December 29, he announced that America must become “the great arsenal of democracy. For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.” Although Roosevelt submitted the lend lease bill to the Congress on January 7, 1941, the bill did not become law until March 11.
American Jewish Support for Lend-Lease
Large segments of American Jewry applauded Roosevelt’s initiatives. Articles in the National Jewish Monthly, the Contemporary Jewish Record, The New Palestine, Der Tog, Forward, Jewish Frontier and Congress Bulletin called upon all Americans to rally behind the president. They were particularly in favor of aid to Britain. Many concurred with Stephen S. Wise, who declared that Jews could no longer afford to wait idly by, speculating on the outcome of the war. He called for an immediate response to help Britain defend the democratic way of life.
In an article in the August-September 1940 issue of The Call, entitled “A Call To Action,” the Jewish Labor Committee proclaimed its support “without equivocation and qualification the defense program of President Roosevelt.” The U.S., the Committee declared, “must extend a helping hand to fighters for the liberation of humanity. Not only is Europe on the brink of a precipice; the menace also threatens America. The wealth of America must be put at the disposal of the defense of America.”
B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Committee backed the lend lease program. When the American Jewish Congress suggested establishing a separate Jewish organization to assist Britain, the Committee opposed the idea. The Committee feared the agency “might be used by our enemies as proof of our war mongering,” leading to negative “repercussions” in America.
American Jews Accused of War Mongering
Jewish support for lend lease was enough justification to raise the issue of war mongering the American Jewish Yearbook (AJYB) reported in its 1941 volume 43 edition. In a radio speech on March 1941 about the bill, Montana’s Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D), the most outspoken and active isolationist said: “Now we find these same international bankers with their friends, the royal refugees, and with the Sassoons of the Orient and with the Rothschilds and Warburgs of Europe in another theme song…investments in India, Africa and Europe must be preserved. Save democracy…”
Colonel Charles Lindbergh, one of the most famous and vocal opponents of American assistance to Britain, and a supporter of the antiwar America First Committee, stated in a speech on April 23, 1941: “We have been led toward war by a minority of our people. This minority has power. It has influence. It has a loud voice… That is why the America First Committee has been formed—to give voice to the people who have no newspaper, or newsreel, or radio station at their command….”
In the July 12, 1941 issue of The America First Bulletin, the official publication of the organization’s New York chapter, an article claimed there were “numerous groups which fight for America’s entry into the war—foreign and racial groups which have special and just grievances against Hitler,” and railed against “a powerful group—the most powerful of all—the refugee Germans and their fellow racial and religious brethren, who protest …. against any peace in Europe that does not include the invasion of Germany.”
In Jews in the Mind of American Jews, sociologist Charles Herbert Stember cited four surveys conducted between 1939 and 1941 that found one third of Americans responded “yes” when asked if “the Jews in this country would like to get the United States into the European war.” The largest number of comments mentioned Jewish concern for their fellow Jews, and one comment in four claimed Jews expected to gain financially from the war. Once the U.S. entered WWII, not more than one percent said Jews were among “people or groups that are taking unfair advantage of the war to get money or power for themselves.” When Jews were explicitly named in a list, just 13 percent accused them of profiteering, while 53 percent charged labor leaders and 25 percent of businessmen.
American Jews Not Deterred
The Jewish labor Committee did not fear that antisemites “might infer from our position, as they would certainly misinterpret it in any case, and if we were to do nothing at all, they would try to put the blame on us anyway.” The Labor Committee concluded that “on certain occasions, Jewish action is the only one possible under the circumstances.” The Yiddish-language daily newspaper Der Tog agreed with this analysis.
The Labor Committee’s assessment proved correct. In December 1942, when Americans were asked if “there are any particular religious, nationality or racial groups who are not doing all they could to help win the war,” Jews were described as shirkers twice as frequently as either Germans or Japanese. Stember believed this attitude reflected the view that support for the war as a function of allegiance to the US. Jews were generally seen as avoiding their responsibility because their loyalties were primarily to other Jews, not the society at large.
With the help of Jewish communities throughout the country, the American Jewish Congress established an agency to organize support for Britain. To maximize their efforts, they joined forces with the Interfaith Committee to Aid the Democracies, chaired by Dr. Henry Sloan Coffin, president of the Union Theological Seminary in New York. The AJYB reported that toward the end of 1940, American Jewry launched a campaign to raise $400,000 to provide 200 mobile field kitchens, medicine, money and other essentials for the war effort.
In the December 20, 1940 edition of the Congress Weekly, the American Jewish Congress explained that this assistance as the “only means of identifying the Jewish people as active participants in the struggle against Hitlerism. This contribution to Hitler’s defeat would “assure the Jews the position of a people among peoples deserving liberation.”
“More is at Stake than the Security of the Jews in this Country”
In summing up the pernicious antisemitism in the U.S., the editors of the 1941 edition of the American Jewish Yearbook concluded that, “More is at stake than the security of the Jews in this country. Those who indulge in antisemitism are, consciously or not, playing the Nazi game, and their repudiation is the duty of every patriot.”
