Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum (left) stands with Fiorello LaGuardia (center) and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise (right) in front of a medical field unit sponsored by the United Jewish War Effort that is being sent to the Soviet Union.
Overview
- Caption
- Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum (left) stands with Fiorello LaGuardia (center) and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise (right) in front of a medical field unit sponsored by the United Jewish War Effort that is being sent to the Soviet Union.
- Date
-
1943
- Locale
- New York City, NY United States
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Sheila Tenenbaum
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Sheila Tenenbaum
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise (1874-1949), American reform rabbi and Jewish political leader. Born in Budapest on March 17, 1874, Wise was the son and grandson of religiously orthodox but politically liberal rabbis. When he was 17 months old, his family immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. From childhood Wise intended to become a rabbi, which he did in 1893 after completing his undergraduate education at Columbia University. In 1902 he went on to complete a doctorate, also at Columbia. After serving as a rabbi in Portland, Oregon for six years, Wise returned to New York in 1907 to found the Free Synagogue, a congregation he headed until his death. Ardently committed to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, Wise helped to found the first American Zionist organizations in the final years of the nineteenth century. In 1898 he met Theodor Herzl at the Second Zionist Congress in Basle and agreed to serve as American secretary of the world Zionist movement. A decade later with Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurther, Wise helped to convince President Woodrow Wilson to support the British Balfour Declaration of 1917. He also spoke on behalf of Zionist aspirations at the Paris Peace conference (1919-1920). Wise served as vice president of the Zionist Organization of America (1918-1920) and later as president (1936-1938). He also played a leading role in the establishment of the American Jewish Congress (1920) and served as its vice president and president for many years. Wise was equally committed to a host of liberal political and social causes. He co-founded the NAACP (1909) and the ACLU (1920), in addition to crusading for child labor laws and labor's right to organize and strike. Wise was an early and passionate opponent of Nazism and was a featured speaker at numerous mass rallies in New York beginning in the spring of 1933. He also worked hard to rally support for an international boycott of German goods. In an attempt to create a worldwide organization to defend Jews against the ravages of Nazism and anti-Semitism, Wise helped to found the World Jewish Congress (1936), an organization he headed until the end of his life. On August 28, 1942 Wise was the recipient of the Riegner cable, a telegram sent by the representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva confirming the existence of the Final Solution, the Nazi program to concentrate, deport and exterminate the Jews of Europe. Directed by Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles not to publish the message until the State Department could confirm its accuracy, Wise did not make a public announcement until November 24, 1942. The following month Wise, together with a delegation of American rabbis, met with Roosevelt to urge him to action. At this time it became increasingly difficult for Wise to maintain political unity within the American Jewish community. Factions under the leadership of fellow reform rabbi Abba Hillel Silver and the revisionist Zionist Peter Bergson group, became impatient with Wise's reluctance to confront the Roosevelt administration publicly and undertook their own programs to bring pressure on the American government. By 1944 Wise had become deeply disillusioned. Though the end of the war and the subsequent founding of the State of Israel were a source of great relief and gratification, the realization of the extent of the losses suffered by European Jewry during the war filled him with despair during his last years. Rabbi Stephen Wise died in New York in 1949.
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (1882-1947), U.S. Republican Congressman from New York, three term mayor of New York City and Director General of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). LaGuardia was born December 11, 1882, in New York City. He was the third and youngest child of Achille Luigi LaGuardia, an Italian Catholic, and Irene Luzzato Coen, a Jew from Trieste. His parents had immigrated to the U.S. only two years before his birth. In 1883 LaGuardia's father joined the U.S. Army, and the family was sent to remote outposts in South Dakota and Arizona. After graduating high school in Prescott, Arizona, LaGuardia, an outstanding linguist, joined the American consular corps in 1900. He served overseas in Budapest, Trieste, and Fiume before returning to the U.S. and settling in New York City in 1906. For the next few years LaGuardia worked for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for Children and the U.S. Immigration Service while attending New York University Law School. Upon his graduation in 1910, he opened up a small practice that provided much needed legal assistance to immigrant workers in the garment industry and won him many friends in lower Manhattan. By 1914 LaGuardia had become involved in Republican politics. Utilizing his command of five languages (including Yiddish), LaGuardia won the 1916 election campaign for Congress from the 14th district (Lower East Side of Manhattan), the first Italian-American to be elected to Congress. During World War I LaGuardia served in the U.S. Air Service on the Italian-Austrian front. Soon after his return to New York LaGuardia married Thea Almerigotti on March 8, 1919. Tragically, two years later she succumbed to tuberculosis. In 1922 LaGuardia ran successfully for a second congressional term, this time representing the 20th district in upper Manhattan. He continued to serve in this capacity for the next 10 years. During this period he was married again, this time to Marie Fisher. Defeated for re-election in 1932, LaGuardia made a successful bid for mayor of New York City the following year. In addition to his many contributions to the city's infrastructure and quality of life during his three terms of office, LaGuardia made a name for himself as an outspoken opponent of Nazism. His harsh criticism won him the opprobrium of the new Nazi regime, which frequently targeted him in its propaganda. In 1941 Roosevelt named LaGuardia director of the Office of Civilian Defense. In this capacity he was responsible for the creation of a national rationing program, as well as for the preparation of cities against air attacks. Much to his disappointment, this appointment did not lead to a higher-ranking government or military position. After LaGuardia declined to run for a fourth term as mayor, he was tapped to become Director General of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in 1946. In this role he supervised the supply of food, clothing and shelter to the millions of European displaced persons after the war. At the end of that year LaGuardia was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he died on September 20, 1947.
[Source: American Jewish Historical Society, "Fiorello LaGuardia (1882-1947)." Jewish Virtual Library, American-Israel Cooperative Enterprise. n.d.
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