“I had just begun to come back into such military force to help bring about 1940 the Revisionist Zionists had sent Profile the stream of the living,” Rabinowitz the creation of a Jewish state. one of their representatives, Benjamin later recalled. “I had just begun to Bergson realized early on that to Akzin (who later became the dean of think in terms of the world around me influence London, he had to go the Hebrew University law faculty), to and the problems of my people rather through Washington. With England meet with members of Congress on than my own tragedy.” desperate for US aid in its war with occasion, but they did not have the Instead of allowing his grief to break Germany, the British government resources to sustain the effort. Now him, Rabinowitz resolved to devote his would have difficulty resisting a plan Rabinowitz would try to succeed life to furthering the ideals of Jewish endorsed by the Americans. Bergson where his predecessors had failed. pride, self-defense and the forthright needed someone full-time in the In the autumn of 1941, Rabinowitz political action for which Jabotinsky nation’s capital to press the case for a began his work on Capitol Hill. “Day stood. He resigned from B’nai Jewish army. He turned to after day I visited members of Congress An Unorthodox Rabbi on Capitol Hill: Abraham in late 1940 and moved to Rabinowitz, whose plea of “I’ve never of both Houses,” he recalled. “I saw an to work full-time for the met a congressman in my life—I average of six congressmen a day, five The Legacy of American Friends of a Jewish Palestine, wouldn’t know how to begin,” fell on days a week.” His first and closest ally in a Revisionist faction involved in pro- deaf ears. Although Rabinowitz was a Washington was an Irish-American con- moting Aliyah Bet—immigration from novice in the political world, he was gressman from New York, Andrew Europe to Palestine in defiance of the an experienced public speaker and Somers, whose hostility to the British British White Paper restrictions. possessed good interpersonal skills. drew him to support Zionism. Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz Among Rabinowitz’s close colleagues Earlier attempts at Jewish lobbying Rabinowitz worked out of Somers’ By Rafael Medoff in the Aliyah Bet campaign was Rabbi in Washington had never taken hold. office and used his connection with the Louis I. Newman of Temple Rodeph During the late 1930s, the mainstream congressman to cultivate ties with Shalom in , one of the American Zionist movement briefly numerous other members of Congress. few Reform rabbis who supported operated a Capitol Hill office led by He built relations on both sides of the Jabotinsky. Despite their theological dif- Isadore Breslau, but that lobbying aisle, although Republicans were often ferences, the Orthodox son of the effort soon fell victim to budget cuts more receptive to Rabinowitz’s appeals, Brownsviller Rebbe and the Upper West and divisions among Zionist leaders while many Democrats hesitated to defy Side disciple of Stephen Wise worked over the propriety of pressing Jewish the Roosevelt administration’s line on Long before there was such a in Washington that is today a staple of are today on display at the Jabotinsky side by side and developed a deep per- L issues in Washington. Likewise, in Palestine or refugees. The tireless young thing as AIPAC or the Orthodox American Jewish political life. Museum in Tel Aviv. sonal admiration for one another. Union’s Institute for Public Affairs After his return to the United States (IPA), long before the term “Jewish in 1934, Rabinowitz continued his From New York to lobby” had entered the American Born in Brooklyn in 1914, studies part time at the Rabbi Isaac political lexicon, a young Orthodox Rabinowitz was the son of the Elchanan Theological Seminary Washington rabbi was lobbying on Capitol Hill to “Brownsviller Rebbe,” Rabbi Samuel A. (RIETS)—which is today Yeshiva rescue Jews from the Holocaust and Rabinowitz, a sixth-generation direct University’s affiliated rabbinical The group for which Rabinowitz establish a Jewish state. Rabbi Baruch descendant of the Ba’al Shem Tov, the school—while assuming an active role in worked in New York was led by a Rabinowitz, who passed away in founder of Chassidism. Raised in the American wing of the Jabotinsky dynamic Jabotinskyite emissary from Jerusalem this past December at the Canada and Bayonne, New Jersey, movement. When Palestinian Arab Jerusalem named Hillel Kook. The age of eighty-nine, was an unrecog- Baruch traveled to Jerusalem in 1932 to rioting erupted anew in 1936, the nephew of Rabinowitz’s revered teacher, nized pioneer of the lobbying activity study under Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Revisionist leadership sent him on a Chief Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook, Hakohen Kook, the first chief rabbi of speaking tour to raise funds for the Hillel adopted the pseudonym “Peter Dr. Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman British , from Zvai Leumi, the underground Bergson” in America to shield his fami- Institute for Holocaust Studies, which focuses whom he received rabbinical ordination. militia established by Revisionists to ly from any embarrassing publicity. on issues related to America’s response to the During those years, Rabinowitz combat Arab violence. Bergson arrived in the United States Above: A Bergson Group Holocaust–(www.WymanInstitute.org). became a follower of Vladimir Ze’ev In 1938, Rabinowitz began a in the spring of 1940, and under his advertisement that His books include A Race Against Death: Jabotinsky, founder of the militant promising new career in the rabbinate leadership the American Friends of a appeared in the Chicago Sun on Monday, Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust Revisionist Zionist movement (the as spiritual leader of Congregation Jewish Palestine was transformed into November 29, 1943. forerunner of today’s Likud Party). B’nai Abraham in Hagerstown, the Committee for a Jewish Army, (coauthored with David S. Wyman)(New Right: Baruch Maryland. But less than two years York, 2003), Militant Zionism in America: Shortly after the Nazis rose to power which campaigned for the creation of Rabinowitz addressing a The Rise and Impact of the Jabotinsky in Germany in 1933, Rabinowitz and later, his life was shattered when his a Jewish armed force to fight alongside meeting in Washington, Movement in the United States, 1926- a group of his fellow activists climbed wife, Harriet, was killed by a reckless the Allies against the Nazis. The DC, circa 1943. Photo 1948 (Alabama, 2002) and Historical atop the German Consulate in driver. Three months after that came British rejected the proposal because of courtesy of The David S. Dictionary of Zionism (coauthored with Jerusalem and tore down its swastika another traumatic loss—the sudden Arab opposition, and because they Wyman Institute for Chaim I. Waxman) (Maryland, 2000). flag. The charred remains of the flag death of his revered leader, Jabotinsky. feared the Jews would eventually use Holocaust Studies Spring 5764/2004 JEWISH ACTION JEWISH ACTION Spring 5764/2004 Leventhal (regarded as the chief rabbi their keynote speaker. He did so, and in 1944 to raise funds for Bergson’s The Search For Baruch Rabinowitz of Philadelphia). Also among the Support from Hollywood the gathering raised over $100,000. Holocaust rescue work, featured skits Unique among Jewish organizations, the Bergson group voluntarily dissolved marchers were many young rabbis who Cohen himself organized a fundraiser at and comedy routines by Bob Hope, shortly after the creation of the State of Israel. It had been conceived strictly as a would later become prominent such as and Broadway Slapsie Maxie’s nightclub in Gracie Fields, Jimmy Durante, Ethel vehicle for confronting an emergency; after the Holocaust and the establishment of Rabbis Moshe Feinstein, Abraham Bergson had a penchant for creating Hollywood. As Hecht described it, the Merman, Zero Mostel, Molly Picon the Jewish State, it was no longer needed. It left behind no alumni association and Joshua Heschel and Israel Miller and new committees to confront each new audience consisted of “a thousand and others. Milton Berle served as held no reunions of former members, thus making it difficult for historians to find some whose children would become crisis, and Rabinowitz had no trouble bookies, ex-prize fighters, gamblers, master of ceremonies. Musical num- them. Some Bergson activists stayed in touch with each other over the years, but famous, such as Naftali Carlebach making the necessary transitions. At jockeys, touts and all sorts of lawless bers were performed by Paul Robeson, others did not. Rabbi Baruch Rabinowitz was one of the latter. (father of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach), war’s end, the Emergency Committee and semi-lawless characters—and their Perry Como, the Andrews Sisters, the When I sought to contact him for my research on the Bergson group, I found that Charles Kahane (father of Rabbi Meir to Save the Jewish People of Europe womenfolk.” An estimated $200,000 Xavier Cugat Band and the Count none of the surviving activists from the group knew where he lived, and none of the Kahane) and Isaac Lewin (father of converted itself into the American was raised that night. Basie Band, among others. major Jewish archival institutions could find a clue—in part because, unbeknownst League for a Free Palestine, and shifted A long list of celebrities backed The American League for a Free to me, he had shortened his name to “Robbins” and was living in quiet retirement in Nathan Lewin). the focus of its lobbying to the strug- Palestine enjoyed similar support a small town in Israel. The diligent efforts of Maryland podiatrist Gerald Falke, a The ads and rallies, followed by the Bergson’s work both during and after longtime member of Congregation B’nai Abraham, eventually led to contact with dramatic march of the rabbis, set the gle for Jewish statehood. Rabinowitz’s the Holocaust. When, in 1943, the from Hollywood and Broadway. Rabinowitz’s sister in Brooklyn, and then to Rabinowitz himself. stage for the Bergson group’s crowning work on Capitol Hill now aimed to Bergson group staged We Will Never Vincent Price chaired its 1947 dinner He kindly consented to a series of interviews and shared with me achievement: a November 1943 con- intensify the congressional pressure on Die, a Hecht-authored pageant that in Los Angeles. Harpo Marx, Carl his unpublished 225-page autobiography, an invaluable source gressional resolution urging the the British to pull out of Palestine. roused public awareness of the Reiner, and of information about his lobbying days. Roosevelt administration to establish a Shocked by the realization of the full Holocaust, such famous actors as Canada Lee endorsed the League’s Fortunately, I made contact with Rabinowitz in time for his government agency to rescue Jews extent of the Holocaust and moved by Edward G. Robinson, , work. spoke at its work to receive its first public recognition, in the form of a from the Holocaust. As the resolution the plight of hundreds of thousands of Sylvia Sydney and volun- rallies around the country. But per- panel about him in a 1997 exhibit by the Jewish Historical was gaining steam in December, 1943, Holocaust survivors languishing in teered for the cast. A haps Rabinowitz’s biggest coup in the Society of Maryland on The People of Maryland and the Land Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, European Displaced Persons camps, Show of Shows, held in recruitment of VIPs was his success of Israel. Jr. and his senior aides were uncover- large numbers of prominent Madison Square Garden in persuading Colonel James Baruch Rabinowitz, age eleven, in the summer of 1925 ing a series of secret steps taken by the Americans, including enter- (right), with his sister, Sylvia (left) and an unidentified State Department to obstruct opportu- tainers and other VIPs, lent friend. Photo courtesy of Sharon Rabinowitz Ettkin nities for rescuing Jews and to block their support to the American the transmission of Holocaust-related League for a Free Palestine. information to the United States. Orthodox rabbis do not usu- rabbi frequently burned the midnight Capitol Hill, pleading for US govern- Morgenthau decided to bring the ally mingle with Hollywood and oil while ghostwriting pro-Zionist ment action to save Jews from Hitler. issue to the president. With the threat Broadway stars, but Rabinowitz speeches for sympathetic congressmen. At the same time, the Committee’s fre- of congressional action looming in the increasingly found himself rub- The Jewish army idea was later quent full-page newspaper ads and background, Morgenthau warned bing shoulders with the celebrities taken up by mainstream American public rallies were instrumental in President Roosevelt that the State of the day. Dispatched to Jewish organizations, which lobbied rousing American public interest in Department’s actions would ignite an California on a fundraising mission Allied officials behind the scenes while the suffering of Europe’s Jews. The embarrassing public scandal—just ten in 1946 by the American League the Bergson activists kept up the pres- ads, often authored by the Academy months before the presidential election. for a Free Palestine, he solicited sure in the media and on Capitol Hill. Award-winning screenwriter Ben He convinced Roosevelt to pre-empt contributions from entertainers Danny Eventually the British agreed to estab- Hecht, bore hard-hitting headlines the rescue resolution by establishing a Thomas, Jimmy Durante and Frank lish the Jewish Brigade, which fought such as “Time Races Death: What Are War Refugee Board (WRB) to rescue Sinatra, among others. Rabinowitz later with distinction against the Germans We Waiting For?” and “How Well Are European Jews from the Nazis. described Sinatra as “especially enthusi- in the spring of 1945. Many of its vet- You Sleeping? Is There Something You Although Roosevelt intended the astic and helpful,” and recalled an inci- erans took part in the postwar smug- Could Have Done to Save Millions of WRB as little more than an election- dent in which he and Sinatra were sit- gling of Holocaust survivors to Eretz Innocent People—Men, Women, and year gesture, and although it was ting in a bar, and another customer Yisrael, and then put their military Children—from Torture and Death?” underfunded and understaffed, the made a derogatory remark about Jews. training to use in Israel’s 1948 War of As part of the rescue campaign, WRB helped save some 200,000 Jews “Frank turned around and punched Independence. Rabinowitz helped organize a dramatic during the final fifteen months of the him out.” march of 400 Orthodox rabbis to the war. One of the WRB’s most notable Rabinowitz also recruited former White House just before Yom Kippur accomplishments was its role in facili- boxing champion Barney Ross. The Lobbying to Save Lives in 1943 to plead for US action to save tating and financing the life-saving Ross connection proved especially for- In 1943, after reports of the Nazi Jewish refugees—the only such protest activities in Budapest of Swedish tuitous when a group of St. Louis genocide were confirmed by the Allies, in Washington during the Holocaust. diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Among Jewish gangsters, associated with the Bergson established a new organiza- The marchers included such illustrious those Wallenberg saved were future US reputed mobster Mickey Cohen, Left: A Bergson Group advertisement that appeared in The New York Times on Tuesday, tion, the Emergency Committee to rabbinical figures as Eliezer Silver (the Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA), offered to hold a fundraising event for May 4, 1943. Above: Baruch Rabinowitz (right), his brother David (left) and their father, Save the Jewish People of Europe. most prominent Orthodox rabbi in then fifteen years old, and Lantos’s the League on condition that Rabbi Samuel A. Rabinowitz (the Brownsviller Rebbe), who is holding the sefer Torah, in Rabinowitz went door to door on America at that time) and Bernard future wife, Annette. Rabinowitz produce the Jewish boxer as Brooklyn, 1938. Photo courtesy of Sharon Rabinowitz Ettkin Spring 5764/2004 JEWISH ACTION JEWISH ACTION Spring 5764/2004 Roosevelt, son of the late president, of the Knesset Arieh Ben-Eliezer. Theater in Washington, DC. But of Capitol Hill or hobnob with to serve as chair of the League’s West Hecht and thirty-two other play- Hollywood stars or other public figures. Coast Division. Memorial Fund wrights had just announced they Yet there was Rabinowitz writing speech- Breaking Down Barriers would not permit their works to be es for Congressmen, meeting with the The David S. Wyman Institute for Holo- During his years on Capitol Hill, performed there because the National president of the Dominican Republic, caust Studies (www.WymanInstitute.org) Rabinowitz also played a role in an barred African-American theatergoers. Finding Support South has established the Baruch Rabinowitz talking up the Irgun at Frank Sinatra’s important civil rights battle. The incident The Washington performance was Memorial Fund to encourage research pool, rubbing shoulders with gangsters of the Border into the Holocaust rescue activity of centered around , a Hecht rescheduled for Baltimore’s Maryland at Slapsie Maxie’s and working with On one occasion, the Bergson group Rabinowitz and his colleagues. The Wyman play about elderly Holocaust survivors Theater, and Rabinowitz organized a African-American leaders to smash racial sent Rabinowitz to Mexico, together Institute holds the Baruch Rabinowitz who encounter a young Zionist on his group of eighteen US senators to travel barriers in Baltimore. with Congressman Somers and Stella Papers, a collection of memoirs and docu- way to the Holy Land to fight for Jewish to Baltimore for the event. For young Orthodox Jews today, Adler, who, in addition to her work as ments pertaining to his work. statehood. Paul Muni and But on the eve of the performance, none of this may seem extraordinary. an actress and as a renowned acting starred alongside twenty-two-year-old the NAACP alerted the Bergson group After all, Orthodox organizations now coach, was a central activist in the Marlon Brando, a protégé of Stella Adler. that the Maryland Theater, while not have full-time lobbyists in Washington; Bergson group. The ostensible purpose Trujillo who was then under criticism Brando recalled in his memoirs how his barring African-Americans, restricted more than a few Orthodox rabbis have of the mission was to set up a south- in the US for his harsh domestic poli- character’s lines criticizing American them to the balcony. Using the left their pulpits to pursue careers in of-the-border branch of the American cies. Rabinowitz agreed to praise the Jewish apathy during the Holocaust “sent NAACP’s threat to picket as leverage, the public arena; several prominent League for a Free Palestine. But while Trujillo administration in his meetings chills through the audience,” and at some Rabinowitz and his colleagues success- Orthodox rabbis have developed well- Somers and Adler were addressing ral- with congressmen, in exchange for performances, “Jewish girls got out of fully pressured the theater manage- publicized friendships with Hollywood lies and giving interviews to the local false passports to help Irgun fighters their seats and screamed and cried from ment to rescind the seating discrimina- stars, and an Orthodox rabbi in New media, Rabinowitz slipped away for escape from a British detention camp the aisles in sadness.” tion. Twelve African-Americans York is the head of an organization secret talks with Mexican government in Eritrea, East Africa. Four future After a successful ten-week run on attended the opening night perfor- devoted to strengthening Black-Jewish officials to seek weapons for the Jewish Israeli leaders owed their freedom to Broadway—during which the London mance of A Flag Is Born and sat where relations. What is remarkable is that revolt against the British. Rabinowitz’s efforts: Prime Minister Evening Standard denounced it as “the they chose. Exuberant NAACP leaders Rabinowitz did all of these things— Rabinowitz was also sent to the Yitzhak Shamir, Justice Minister most virulent anti-British play ever hailed the “tradition-shattering victo- and he did them sixty years ago, help- Dominican Republic, where he bro- Shmuel Tamir, Finance Minister staged in the United States”—Flag was ry” won by the alliance of Black and ing to pave the way for the future of kered a deal with President Rafael Yaacov Meridor and Deputy Speaker supposed to be staged at the National Zionist activists against theater dis- political activism by American crimination. That triumph was subse- Orthodox Jews. JA quently used by Baltimore civil rights activists to help bring about the deseg- The OU in Washington regation of other theaters in the city. In 1986, the OU established the Institute for Public Affairs (IPA) to protect the interests and promote the values of the American Orthodox Jewish community. Working with members of Congress and the executive branch, the IPA Paving the Way addresses issues ranging from religious freedom, to Israel’s security, to education-funding policies. Rabinowitz’s pioneer lobbying in The IPA files legal briefs in federal and state courts, meets regularly with the diplomatic corps and conveys the OU’s Washington helped pave the way for full views in broadcast and print media outlets. The IPA pursues its goals through educating our community’s grass roots Jewish participation in American political life about legislation or government initiatives that the OU endorses, as well as protesting initiatives antithetical to Jewish in the era following the Second World War. interests through constituent missions to Washington and the IPA’s Collegiate Congressional Internship Program. OU His was a generation of immigrants senior leadership is often invited to the White House, whether for publicly announced meetings with the president or and children of immigrants, many of to participate in off-the-record briefings and dialogues with the president’s chief aides. whom did not yet feel fully secure in IPA activities are regularly covered by the Anglo-Jewish media and by major general media outlets such as C-Span, American society and were reluctant to FOX, CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post. press Jewish issues in the public arena. Some of the IPA’s recent accomplishments include: Yet Rabinowitz aggressively pleaded his people’s cause on Capitol Hill and in Facilitating the receipt of more than $1 million in federal disaster relief funds by the earthquake-damaged Seattle • the mass media. In his era, Orthodox Hebrew Academy through intercession with President Bush, who reversed the unfair policy of the Federal Emergency rabbis typically focused their energies Management Agency (FEMA), which had denied such funds to religious on maintaining traditional observance institutions; in the face of social and economic pres- •Securing the introduction of the federal Workplace Religious Freedom sure on their congregants to assimilate. Act in the United States Senate with a record twenty-one cosponsors—there- Yet Rabinowitz forsook the pulpit and by positioning this legislation for action in 2004; focused his attention on the national • Playing a major role in the passage of the Syria Accountability Act in struggles of the Jewish people. In those both the House and the Senate. days, it was unheard of for an Orthodox rabbi to pound the corridors

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