JEWISH  WESTERN BULLETIN
ROOSEVELT'S JEWISH ASSOCIATIONS .
• FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT'S political emergence mafked an historic milestone in American life, and it is by, reason of this that his Presidency had probably more Jewish associations than that of any other President in American history.
Roosevelt has frequently been compared to Jackson. Jackson, like Roosevelt, had a so-called Kitchen Cabinet corresponding to Roosevelt's brain trust. Jackson-ian democracy meant an advance over the Jeffersonian democracy just as Roosevelt's New Deal meant an advance over the Jack-sonian democracy. But Roosevelt-ian democracy was a reversal of Jacksonian democracy in one very significant way. Jacksonian democracy was the coming to i>ower of the frontier—^the rural and new settlements of the population. Rooseveltian democracy on the other hand was the coming to power of the larban elements. In Roosevelt's days, the cities, with their great concentration of population, came to exercise the balance of power.
It was because of the fact that the city had reached this powerful position, that we must trace these- Jewish associations. F.D.R. first emerged politically, we remember, when he rose to place in nomination for the Presidency, "Al Smith," the pride of New York's east side.
It will be recalled that AI Smith had strong support among the Jews of New York. A Jewish woman, Mrs, Henry Moskowitz, was
then regarded as Smith's leading political adviser.
But Smith was not destined to win out, and, instead, the figure of the man who had nominated "the Happy "Warrior," Franklin Delano Roosevelt, loomed to the fore.
When Roosevelt first ran for the Governorship of New York, young Herbert H. Lehman, wealthy banker who liked to devote most of his time to settlement work, was induced to run as Lieutenant Governor on the Roosevelt ticket. The association of Lehman and Roosevelt was to continue to the end. After Governor Lehman had served ten years in the gubernatorial mansion at Albany, President Roosevelt appointed him as head of UNRRA.
Among the other Jews who have been prominent in their association with President Roosevelt are Henry Morgenthau Jr. a neighbor of the President at Hyde Park, Judge Samuel Rosenman, commonly regarded a., one of the intimates of his "Krain Trust"; Felix Frankfurter whom Roosevelt named to the Supreme Court, Bernard Baruch, who began his friendship with F.D.R. in the Wilson days of the first World War and David Lilienthal, the director of the T.V.A.
The Nazis have long tried to paint Roosevelt as being under Jewish domination and, in fact, even repeatedly charged that he was of Jewish descent. Of covaae, this is all nonsense—and the fact of the matter is, that Roosevelt has not named an excessive nimi-
ber of Jews to office. In fact, the number of his Jewish appoint-mentees is probably much less than one would expect from the proportions of the Jewish populatioa.
In the Ladies Home Joiimal, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt once answered a query which had come in about the alleged Jewi^ descent of the President. She wote at that time:
"As far as I know. There's no Jewish blood on ^itfter side in my husband's ancestry. I do not think he favors any nationality particularly, and neither does he have any prejudice. He looks upon people as people, regardless of their race, religion or color, and when he is trying to find the right person to do a job, I think he tries to think exclusively about the qualities of mind and chjurac-ter wthich are essential for that job and I doubt whether any other consideration enters into his decision."
Mrs. Roosevelt was undoubtedly right in this. The President has become identified as a friend of the Jews principally perhaps because he has been an outstanding leader in the fight against Nazism,
It is no secret that the Nazis hated President Roosevelt even more than they hated Churchill— and President Roosevelt rather enjoyed the fact that he was not on their love list. Once when an Am-e r i c a n correspondent returned from Germany and told the President that he was the prize hate of the Nazis—that he was hated more than Chvirchill and Stalin—
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ON PALESTINE AT FRISCO
• LONDON (WNS)—A decision on Palestine could not be reached at San Francisco even if the Jewish Agency were represented there, Dr. Chaim Weizmann said in an interview appearing in the Manchester Guardian. The Zionist leader declared that a solution of the Palestine question rests entirely with the great powers, and above all Britain, because the Arabs will consider the case of the Jews only when it is projected with all the sympathy and authority of the major nations behind it.
Declaring that the time has comfe for a "real settlement," Dr. Weizmann said that to perpettzate tJift present indeterminate posit-tion on Palestine by making slight concessions to Jews on immigration will lead nowhere and may merely aggravate matters. The problem presented to the great powers should be regarded as an opportxmity for an act of great statesmanship, Qie added.
Dr. Weizmann pointed out that the Arabs prosjjered during the war—having borne neither the pain nor the loss and having been enabled to increase their sovreign rights and form a federation-while European Jewry has been scattered and reduced by millions. The remnants of the Jewish popu-
lations of Europe, he continued, are without a centre and a future, imless a futxure is assured them by the united Nations.
"The contrast between the two peoples," the world Zionist leader continued, "should form the basis of an appeal by the great powers which, if uttered with smcerity and conviction, could not fail o rouse the world and sway the Arabs, too. If the Allies show that they are in earnest in judging what is just for the Jews, and will support the implications of such judgment, then there is nothing to prevent the realization of Jewish hopes for free immigration into Palestine, with the prospect of the national Qiome becoming an independent, a sovereign state."
Delegates to Conference
(Cont'd, from Page 1)
flict and give aggressors their chance" and that the purpose of the international organization to be established will be to build a world where "tyranny and oppression will be impossible" and where opportunities will be provided "for all people, of every race, creed and color." Zionist leaders who are here in conection   with   the conference were taken by surprise when they learned of Attlee's statements to the press.  None of them as yet, has had a chance to see any of the members of the Sritisli delegation.   The surprise was all the greater since it was expected that Dr. Weizmann might be received by Prime Minister Churchill in London prior to the British delegation's leaving London for San Francisco. If Attlee's statement is the final word on the attitude of the British Government towards the Palestine question, it can only mean that Britain is determined to keep Palestine  for  itself imder sole British trusteeship instead of under international trusteesihip and perhaps, may permit the United States to have a share in Palestine to the same extent as under the present mandate.
Dr. Stephen S. Wise and Dr. Na-hum Goldmann, both of New York, have been designated as special emissaries by the executive of the Jewish Agency for Pal-
estine, to represent tnat body at San Francisco, They will leave at once for San Francisco where they will act solely in that capacity.
A special memorandimi setting forth the Zionist position on the establishment of Palestine as a free and democratic Jewish Commonwealth is being submitted to the Conference over the signature of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agenc/. Tliis memorandum, after reviewing the legal status of the JewisOi Agency and the history of the "tmdertak-ing contained in the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine," declares:
"No action should be taken at the San Francisco Conference which would be inconsistent with or prejudicial to the special rights of the Jewish people under the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate, and all such rights shall be expressly reserved and safeguarded."
"In view of the uniQue character" of the Palestine Mandate and the special rights of the Jewish   people   thereunder," the Memorandum states, "any plan which may be adopted for a mandates system or an international trusteeship in succession to the existing system of League of Nations' Mandates, should be sufficiently flexible and broad in scope to permit within its framework of the solution of the Palestine   problem  in accordance with the underlying intent and purpose of the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate."
• SAMUEL ROTHSTEIN,
President of the United Sjniagogue of America, and leader in New York religious activities, has been named winner of the 1944 Nehemiah Gitelson Award, presented annually by Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity, National College fraternity of 25 chapters, to the member who excels in Jewish Communal Activity.
Camp Prisoners To be Repatriated
• BUCHENWALD (WNS) —The approximately 2,-
250 French, Dutch and Belgian Jews who were found in the Buchenwald camp by the Allied armies are being repatriated together with their non-Jewish compatriots.
No steps have been disclosed with regard to the statiis of the Jewish survivors in the camp who came from eastern European countries. It is believed that this matter mvist await ftu-ther clarification by the military authorities.
When the Buchenwald camp was seized by the Allied forces, it yielded approximately 4,500 Jewish survivors.
The story of how he saved his two sons, Stepftien, five, and Yerzy, ten, by hiding them in a ward for contagious diseases whenever the SS made their rounds, was related here this week by Dr. Moses Jaco-bowitz. The SS men, Dr. Jacobo-witz said, were in such mortal fear of contagion that they dreaded to enter the ward.
Dr. Jacobowitz, who was first held as a physician at Pietrokoff, where he saw his muther, sister and three brothers shot by the Germans, said that two trusties, Clement Buchowsky and Carl Hubbel, endangered their lives by hiding and protecting the children in the Buchenwald camp.
Harry Zweig, a Cracow lawyer, saved his three-year-old son by carrying him in a sack and hiding him in his barracks.
the President laughed and said he hadn't had such good news in a long time.
Jews liked to point to the fact that Roosevelt came to power in the same year as Hitler, Just two months after Hitler came to power shouting about the New Order, which he would introduce into the world, Roosevelt came into office proclaiming the New Deal, Had another man come into office instead of Roosevelt in this critical year, the picture of the world today might be vastly different. If America had not, through Roosevelt's policy, immediately begun the "cash and carry" provisionsf which enabled England to begin buying armament in Aamerica, if America Ihad not gone through with the end Lease which enabled England and Russia to gird themselves more strongly xor the fight, if America had not fSrown the full weight of its military force on Germany, today instead of anticipating early victory, we might anticipate a world really dominated by the Nazis—we might have seen that "new order of a thousand years" about which Hitler shrieked so much,
God called forth Franklin D. Roosevelt to clean out the scourge of Nazism and prepare for the foimdation of a higher civilization. Franklin D, Roosevelt now belongs to the immortals. In Jewish history, too, his fame remains secure.
—Seven Arts Feature
bcuatSor biippcrts Zionist Demands
• QUITO (WNS)—The Ecuadorian delegation to the San Francisco Conference has been instructed to support Zionist demands for the establishment of a Jewish state should that issue be raised at the international conclave, it was disclosed here by President Jose Velasco Iberra.
President Velasco Ibarra made the disclosure in a cable to Colonel Morris Mendelsohn of New York, president of the New Zionist Organization. The cable is reported to have stated that the Ecuadorian delegation "has been instructed to defend, if the case arises, the legitimate rights of the Jewish people to their own administrative regime within the geographic area prescribed by the history, tradition and glory of the Jewish race,"
The adoption by New York State of legislation barring discrimination in employment lhas aroused considerable interest and editorial reaction here.
The influenti^ newspaper El Dia, in an editorial commenting on the dispatch reporting the new law, points out that a similar provision is contained in the recently adopted Ecuadorean constitution, although little publicity has been given to it. It cites Paragraph 2 of Article 141 which declares: "The State guarantees equality before the law. All discrimination based on class, sex or racial differences if, punishable,"
Directs Surgery Over Telephone
• WITH THE 96th Division (WNS)—The story of one of the most skilful operations made in this war was disclosed here when it was
announced that a Jewish doctor had saved the life of a soldier by removing a non-explosive 10-inch bullet from
his body.
The doctor is Captain Sidney Cohsn, of New York.
The bullet was ten inches long, over 2 inches in diameter, and weighed about three pounds.
When the wounded soldier was brought to the hospiu.1, the surgeons there called in Lieutenant Richard Greenman, of Philadelphia, a bomb expert, who directed Dr. Cohen over the telephone how to remove the bullet without the risk of explosion. It took the Jewish doctor ten minutes to remove the bullet. The operation took forty minutes.
Dr. Cohen is 28 years old. He was bom in New York, where he was graduated from City College.
• ELLIOT E. COHEN, whose appointment as editor of the "Contemporary Jewish Record" was announced by Joseph M. Pros-kauer, president of the American Jewish Committee, publishers of the magazine.
Settlement Named After Roosevelt
9 JERUSALEM (WNS)-Establishment of a large settlement bri Jewish National Fund land to be named in honor of the late President Roosevelt was decided upon by the board of directors of the JNF. Funds for the project will be raised mainly in the United States, but also in other countries where Mr. Roosevelt's name is cherished. Dr. Abraham Gran-Gvsky, JNF director, said.
Friday, May 4,1945
France's Orphans Wards of Gov't
• PARIS (WN3) - AU minor children, irrespective of nationality, whose parents or guardians were deported from Prance for political or racial reasons, have been placed under the provisional guardianship of the Office of Mutilated Veterans, War Victims and Wards of the Nation, vmder the decree issued here.
Meanwhile, David Sealtiel, Jewish Agency representative here, denied a report published in New York that children of alien Jewish deportees were being substituted i'or those of deported French Jews, in order to overcome the government's opposition to the emigration of 200 Jewish children to Palestine. Sealtiel asserted that the Ministry of Dejwrtees has refused permission for the emigration of any children, regardless of their nationality. He said that the case of each child is now being examined individually by the Ministry.
Sealtiel annoimced that Ruth Klu-ger, a specialist in emigration, has arrived here to extend the activities of the Paris office of the Jewish agency to all of liberated north-western Europe.
Weizmann Has Eye Operation
• LONDON (WNS)—Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who was operated here for an eye ailment is progressing satisfactorily, it was disclosed .Jiere ..by ..personal friends of the Zionist leader.
Dr. Weizmann has been ill for several ^eek.s.
BUCHENWALD YIELDS 4,500 INCLUDING 1000 CHILDREN
«   PARIS (WNS)—About 4,500 Jewish survivors were found at the Buchenwald concentration camp, according to a report by an American army chaplain received here. Chaplain Herschel Schacter, who
is at the camp at the present time, said that 2,000 of the survivors are from Poland, 1,000 from Hungary and the remainder from various European coxmtries. About 1,000 are children between the ages of three and fifteen.
Capt.   Shacter  said  that he spoke to hundreds of the survivors and that they were overjoyed  at seeing an American rabbi, but that their main question was: "Where do we go from here?" Children of five and six, he reports, told him, pridefully, in Yiddish, "I am a Jew." The Paris press features the ac-cotmts of the horrors at Buchenwald despite the nunored desire of the Ministry of Deportees to soft-psdal   reports  of atrocities. However, Jewish circles feel tJhat these accounts will not do much to   enlighten  the  public about Jewish sufferings, ^ce Buchenwald was not, primarily, a Jewish camp.
Some means of informing the public about the atrocities committed upon Jews is necessary to offset the whispering and leaflets campaign of anti-Semitic groups, which are spreading rumors that "there were no Jewish aeportees nor any Jewish resistance." Organized lopposition to restoration of Jewish apartments is also being continued, by the "Association for Reconstruction of the French Home."
Of the 1,000 children who have been fotmd among the 4,500 Jewish survivors in this camp, only four of them are with their fathers. Many lost their fathers when nearly 5,000 Jews were evacuated from Budhenwald shortly before its liberation.
A secret school for the children in Buchenwald was run by Mor-decai Striegler, a Warsaw writer, with the assistance of six Polish teachers. The school was in operation for* six mont!hs, but was finally halted when Striegler was warned that it was becoming too dangerous.
Al committee, \vhicn was formed here, consisting of Striegler, Max Munk, a Czech Jew, Tydor Heine from Frankfurt and WilliJolliarch from Vienna, appealed to the Jew-
ish Agency to secure Palestine immigration certificates for the children.
A tj^ical, although almost \m-believable, story of how those yoimgsters were saved from the Germans was told to correspondents by Yisrael Slaffstein, who formerly lived in a small village in the province of Sandomierz in Poland. For almost foiir years he has been hiding his son, Josai, in one concentration camp after another to prevent him being killed by the Nazis.
When he was first arrested, Slailstein said, his wife was sent to a death camp, but he was spared because he was an expert  leather worker and was • needed by  the  Germans. He bribed a Nazi officer with the entire stock of his small business to allow him to take his baby to the concentration camp with him. During the year-and-a-h"If that he spent in this small camp, Slaffstein saved the child by paying a weekly bribe to the camp commandant, a 55-year-old major from Leipzig. The bribe, consisting usually of coffee, tea or cigars, was collected by the 500 Jews in the camp. After a year-and-a-half the inmates were sent to the Hassag munitions factory, because a radio had  been found  in the camp. Slaffstein and two other workers brought along children. The other ciiiidren were sliiot, but Slaffstein saved his son by having him listed as an adult, throu^ the cooperation of a trusty in command of the barracks.
When the Russfens approached, the camp was evacuated and Slaffstein painfully carried the child to stUl another camp where the Jews were used to dig antitank trenches. When the Rsd Army also closed in on this camp, all the slave laborers were loaded into open freight cars and sent to Buchenwald. Slaffstein hid young Yosai in a sack, and, again, with the aid of a trusty, had him listed as an adult. The S.S. men infrequently entered the camp, leaving the administration to the trusties, and he was able to keep the child's presence hidden until the camp was freed.
REPEAT PERFORMANCE! BY PUBLIC DEMAND! University Players present Shakespeare's
Of THE
LYRIC—Wed. & Thurs., May 16-17
Tickets On Sale at Kelly's on Seymour