The Jewish Trail of Tears The Evian Conference of ... - Haruth.com

pretends pity.” 27 Publicly, he read to the conference a telegram received from FDR
supportive of Zionist aspirations for Palestine in which the President stated that he had
followed the “rehabilitation of the Jewish Homeland with deep interest” and hoped that
“constructive action” on the part of the ZOA would lead to the “realization of a noble
ideal.” 28 Despite such expressions of support, however, the Administration had ensured
that during the Evian Conference Palestine would not be considered as an option for
Jewish resettlement.
Representative Samuel Dickstein, Democrat, NY, the Jewish Chairman of the
House Committee on Immigration, stated that “under the existing conditions it would be
unwise to tamper with the immigration or quota law.” Dr. J. D. Hertzler, Professor of
Sociology at the University of Nebraska, supported an international refugee congress as a
means of dispersing the refugees over a number of democratic nations while highlighting
the political and cultural milieu that had created the crisis but he opposed any alteration
of immigration quotas as detrimental to American employment.
Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of the American Jewish Committee, resisted changes
in the immigration laws “as it is not likely that any larger numbers would seek admission
here than are now possible under the quotas.” 29
Adler and his colleagues preferred the
time-honored “sha-sha philosophy of Jewish polemics, which sought to turn away wrath
27 Sumner Welles to Harry Friedenwald, August 18, 1938 cited in Melvin I. Urofsky, A Voice that Spoke
for Justice: The Life and Times of Stephen S. Wise (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press,
1982), 305. Wise was a strong advocate of an economic boycott of the Reich.
28 The Jewish Criterion, July 8, 1938, 4.
29 “Question of the Week,” The U.S. News, April 4, 1938.
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