At a time when the American Jewish community organizes annual marches in support of Israel, it is important to remember that marches are a fairly new phenomenon. The Rabbis March on Washington D.C. on October 6, 1943 was the only public demonstration by American Jews to highlight the issue of rescue.
After the Bermuda Conference in April 1943 failed to solve the refugee crisis, rescue became a major concern for the American Orthodox Jewish community. The U.S. and British arranged the conference seemingly to address the crisis of wartime refugees, but this was a pretense to appease those demanding action.
Dressed in long, dark rabbinic attire, the rabbis walked from Union Station to the Capitol Building. There, Rabbis Eliezer Silver, Israel Rosenberg and Bernhard Louis Levinthal led a recitation of Psalms. Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook), who was head of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, introduced them to Vice President Henry Wallace and a number of Congressmen.
Bergson enlisted the rabbis and the American Jewish Legion of Veterans for the march. He expected the American clergy would join, but none did. Only the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada, the Union of Hassidic Rabbis and a commander of the Jewish Legion participated. The modern Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America sent Rabbi David Silver, Rabbi Eliezer Silver’s son.
White House adviser Judge Samuel Rosenman told the president that those “behind this petition” were “not representative of the most thoughtful elements in Jewry.” The “leading Jews” Rosenman knew opposed the march, but he admitted failing to “keep the horde from storming Washington.”
A number of Jewish congressmen had attempted to dissuade the rabbis from marching. This backfired when Congressman Sol Bloom, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that, “It would be undignified for these un-American looking rabbis to appear in the nation’s capital.”
At the Lincoln Memorial, the rabbis—who had declared a fast day—prayed for the welfare of the armed forces and the Jews of Europe and a quick Allied victory. Then they walked to the White House and prayed outside the gates. Though they expected to meet with the President, they were told he was unavailable. Later they learned he went to Bolling Field Air Force Base for a minor ceremony to avoid meeting them.
William D. Hassett, Roosevelt’s correspondence secretary, claimed that the newspaper correspondents, who left the march to accompany the president, deprived the rabbis of publicity. The Yiddish press disagreed.