I am giving this book five stars, notwithstanding a factual error that should have been caught by the editor. On page 3 there is a reference to the Jewish Diaspora since "they had been defeated by the Romans in 70 B.C." Problematically, the actual year is 140 years later -- 70 C.E. (a/k/a A.D.). Having said this, the book is a fine work of scholarship and did enlighten me both with respect to the complexity of the issue, as faced both by FDR and Truman. FDR did vacillate, and clearly was more focused on the effort to win World War II, naively thinking that somehow the issue of Jewish slaughter and refugees would solve itself. He clearly had hopes of convincing Saudi King Ibn Saud of the wisdom of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine when he met him just after the Yalta conference. However, by then he was too ill to focus his true attention, and he clearly regretted that he did not challenge Saud on his fallacious historical claims.
Truman, a true hero in this drama, was beyond frustrated by the lack of progress by the British and the perceived lack of appreciation by certain Zionist leaders, particularly, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver.
There are several references in the book to the great playwright Ben Hecht, who as many may know wrote works as diverse at "The Front Page" and "Perfidy." In his autobiography, "A Child of the Century", Hecht opined that "in the warmest Christian heart, there is a cold spot for the Jew." While I do not believe the statement is universally true, it nonetheless represents a mindset that still prevails. Further, while the authors do not quote this statement, they demonstrate it in some of the more vitriolic comments by President Truman.
What ultimately comes through is that President Truman, as much as he was a politician wished to do what was just, and rose to the occasion, extending de facto recognition to the new State of Israel, when almost everyone in his cabinet was against doing so. He risked wholesale resignations both by the U.S. delegation to the U.N. and in the State Department itself. His courage was in taking the leap of faith necessary and damning the consequences if he proved wrong.
The book is an excellent, absorbing and engrossing telling of a fascinating series of events in world history. This is all the more important now, when the World at large seems to have forgotten its own complicity in the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews.
Moreover, when one reads the way the Arabs reacted to the possibility of even one more Jew emegrating to Palestine, one cannot help but conclude that the Arab Muslim mindset has not evolved at all in over sixty years. When the UNSCOP committee went to Palestine to interview both Jews and Arabs, the Arabs refused to meet with them and only the Marionite Christians in Lebanon expressed support for the idea of a Jewish State in Palestine, with which they could find common ground.
I must confess, that as an Orthodox Jew, I was exceedingly impressed by the leadership manifested both by Reform Rabbis Abba Hillel Silver and Stephen Wise. This was at a time when Reform Judaism took an egalitarian and anti-Zionist view of the world. Yet, these two men were moved by the passion to save the remnant of European Jewery. For this leadership and kinship they have earned both my thanks and admiration, and remind me that just as Hitler did view Jews based upon their level of observance, so too should we not do so.
