Did FDR Betray the Jews? Or Did He Do More Than Anyone Else to Save Them?

Abstract

There has been a strange turn in the attitude of American Jews toward Franklin D. Roosevelt. For a long time he was a hero. No president had appointed so many Jews to public office. No president had surrounded himself with so many Jewish advisers. No president had condemned anti-Semitism with such eloquence and persistence. Jews were mostly liberals in those faraway days, and a vast majority voted four times for FDR.

In response to the appearance, in April 1994, of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) film “America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference,” Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., expressed wonder at how attitudes toward FDR have changed so drastically in the past decades. This in spite of the fact that very little has been offered to change the historical record from the time Roosevelt was considered a champion of the Jews and a hero for rallying the nation to defeat Adolf Hitler.