But the three other Jewish congressmembers, all of them New York Democrats, were men of significance. Sol Bloom chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Samuel Dickstein chaired the Immigration and Naturalization Committee. Emanuel Celler was the most vocal exponent of Jewish concerns, and especially Jewish immigrant rights, on Capitol Hill. They were well positioned to challenge FDR’s response to the Holocaust. But were they willing to?
Bloom, 73, was the elder statesman of the Jewish congressmen. Elected to represent Manhattan’s Upper East Side “silk stocking” district, he remained loyal to the administration’s line, much to the disappointment of Jewish leaders. One characterized Bloom as “notoriously obsequious to the bidding of the State Department.”
Bloom served as a member of the State Department’s delegation to the Anglo-American refugee conference in Bermuda, called by the British and American governments to give the impression of concern for the refugees even as they concluded that rescue was impossible.
When Bloom declared himself “satisfied” with the conference results, he inadvertently confirmed both the State Department’s assessment of him as “easy to handle” and Jewish leaders’ description of him as “the State Department’s Jew.”
Dickstein, for his part, was a peculiar character, to put it charitably. Documents that have come to light in recent years show him to have been deeply corrupt, taking payoffs both for individual favors and for providing intelligence to foreign governments, including the Kremlin. Assessing Dickstein on the question of FDR and the Holocaust is complicated because it is hard to know which of his positions were manifestations of political courage and which were motivated by some personal profit angle.
At least it may be said that, in and of themselves, Dickstein’s stances were not what one would expect from a liberal Democrat in 1943-1944. He strongly and repeatedly criticized the administration’s refugee policy, decried the U.S. position at Bermuda as “sterility,” and in September 1943 even introduced a resolution calling for the temporary admission of all persecuted refugees until six months after the conclusion of the war. (The administration blocked it from coming up for a vote.)
The congres smember who really stands out, however, is Celler. He blasted Bermuda as “a bloomin’ fiasco” (a well-aimed slap at his colleague), introduced legislation to admit all refugees fleeing German-occupied France, and denounced FDR’s refugee immigration policy as “cold and cruel.” When reporters questioned the sharp-edged tone of his remarks, Celler did not “walk them back,” as pundits today like to call it. He told them: “I do not measure my words because the hangmen do not tarry.”
Celler played a key role in exposing false testimony to Congress by a State Department official on the refugee issue, and also helped pre-empt a planned U.S.-British ban on public discussion of Palestine during World War II . Most of all, he took to the floor of the House again and again to challenge Roosevelt’s hollow “rescue through victory” slogan. “Victory, the spokesmen say, is the only solution,” he declared in one particularly memorable speech. “After victory, the disembodied spirits will not present so difficult a problem; the dead no longer need food, drink and asylum.”
For a liberal Jewish Democrat in Congress to so boldly defy his party and president was no small matter. All the more so because Celler passionately supported the New Deal and everything the Roosevelt administration stood for – except for its abandonment of the Jews.
Which model today’s Jewish congressmembers will follow – Sol Bloom or Emanuel Celler – remains to be seen.