Overview

Nearly seventy-five years after World War II, a contentious debate lingers over whether Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned his back on the Jews of Hitler's Europe. Defenders claim that FDR saved millions of potential victims by defeating Nazi Germany. Others revile him as morally indifferent and indict him for keeping America's gates closed to Jewish refugees and failing to bomb Auschwitz's gas chambers. In an extensive examination of this impassioned debate, Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman find that the president was neither savior nor bystander. In FDR and the Jews, they draw upon many new primary sources to offer an intriguing portrait of a consummate politician--compassionate but also pragmatic--struggling with opposing priorities under perilous conditions. For most of his presidency Roosevelt indeed did little to aid the imperiled Jews of Europe. He put domestic policy priorities ahead of helping Jews and deferred to others' fears of an anti-Semitic backlash. Yet he also acted decisively at times to rescue Jews, often withstanding contrary pressures from his advisers and the American public. Even Jewish citizens who petitioned the president could not agree on how best to aid their coreligionists abroad. Though his actions may seem inadequate in retrospect, the authors bring to light a concerned leader whose efforts on behalf of Jews were far greater than those of any other world figure. His moral position was tempered by the political realities of depression and war, a conflict all too familiar to American politicians in the twenty-first century.

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Reviews

"A well-organized, accessible study.-- ""Kirkus"" ""At long last, two historians have sought to provide an analysis of Roosevelt's stance on the 'Jewish question' that avoids the tempting urge to judge the past through the lenses of the present...In short, FDR and the Jews is a narrative that resists the temptations of artificial drama and a work of scholarship that avoids facile categorization."" -- ""Washington Post"" ""Sadly, Roosevelt left behind a rather thin paper trail. He didn't write a memoir or record many White House conversations, and he refused to allow note-taking at his personal meetings. To fill this gap, Breitman and Lichtman have combed the archives of the leading players who did write down their thoughts and recollections, and the result is quite impressive. Even those who disagree with the book's conclusions must acknowledge the mountain of research on which they rest...The authors rightly note the squeamishness of America's modern presidents in dealing with genocide...Historically speaking, Roosevelt comes off rather well...[An] eminently sensible book."" -- ""New York Times Book Review"" ""This splendid book should banish forever the notion that Franklin Roosevelt was a blinkered anti-Semite who made little effort to stop the Holocaust. With dazzling research and astute judgments, Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman portray FDR as a cunning politician who, in the dreadful context of his times, did more to aid Jews than any other leader in the United States or abroad."" -- ""Michael Kazin, author of American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation"" ""While this incisively written study is unlikely to sway anyone whose mind is already made up, readers without fixed views will find plenty to ponder. And it will remind everyone not only of the enormity of the Holocaust but...the ultimate limitations of the presidency, no matter who holds the office."" -- ""Cleveland Plain Dealer"""

Author Information

Richard Breitman is a professor in the department of history at American University. He is the author or coauthor of several books on German history, U.S. history, and the Holocaust, including Hitler's Shadow and Official Secrets. Richard is editor of the journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He also served as director of historical research for the Nazi War Criminal Records and Imperial Japanese Records Interagency Working Group. Allan J. Lichtman is Distinguished Professor of History at American University. He has authored several books and many popular and scholarly articles. His book White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction. Todd McLaren, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, was involved in radio for more than twenty years in cities on both coasts, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. He left broadcasting for a full-time career in voice acting, where he has been heard on more than five thousand television and radio commercials, as well as television promos; narrations for documentaries on such networks as A&E, Discovery, and the History Channel; and films, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

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