What is remarkable about Kennedy’s concern with the rights of Soviet Jews – and his support of the State of Israel – was the fact that he was the son of an antisemite.
By ELI KAVONTHE JOHN F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza is pictured on the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas.(photo credit: REUTERS)
Lee Harvey Oswald murdered American President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on the Friday afternoon of November 22nd of 1963. Oswald’s heinous act traumatized our nation and plunged most of the world into grief for the slain leader. What is not well known is that the murder of Kennedy was also a temporary setback for the Jews of the Soviet Union. Kennedy was a pioneer – years before his presidency – in advocating for the oppressed Jews of the USSR. He had plans to speak out on their behalf after returning from Dallas. Alas, he was dead, as was his plan to speak out on behalf of Soviet Jewry.In their informative and well-written study of The Presidents of the United States and the Jews (2000), rabbis David G. Dalin and Alfred J. Kolatch focus on Kennedy’s efforts for Jews in Russia suffering under communist dictatorship. According to Dalin and Kolatch, “One of John F. Kennedy’s first acts after taking his seat in the US Senate had been his sponsorship, in February 1953, of a Senate resolution condemning the persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union.”What is remarkable about Kennedy’s concern with the rights of Soviet Jews – and his support of the State of Israel – was the fact that he was the son of an antisemite. His father, Joseph Kennedy, as ambassador to Great Britain from 1938-1940, opposed the possibility of America’s entrance into World War II. In his A History of the Jews in America (1992), historian Howard M. Sachar notes that Joe Kennedy “had never concealed his distaste for Jews.” Joseph Kennedy’s sons did not perpetuate the anti-Jewish animus professed by their father and they established a loyal constituency among Jews in America. Kennedy’s Catholicism was not an issue for most American Jews. As a presidential candidate he reassured Jewish leaders that his religious faith had no bearing on his attitude toward Jews. Jews had a right to be suspicious, considering that Father Charles Coughlin was one of the most outspoken and rabid antisemites in America of the 1930s. Father Coughlin’s radio program – he spewed his anti-Jewish venom every week – attracted a large listening audience. To JFK’s credit, he rejected his father’s bigotry and that of Father Coughlin, becoming a friend of Soviet Jews and the State of Israel.In an era that presaged the movement to liberate Soviet Jews, Kennedy had the foresight to make this an issue before most American Jews. Dalin and Kolatch state that the president raised the issue of Soviet Jewry with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on a number of occasions, with Kennedy protesting the mistreatment of Jews in the USSR. Only months before he was murdered, Kennedy addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations. On September 20, 1963, the president told the international body that the Declaration of Human Rights is “not respected when a [Soviet] synagogue is shut down.”Two months later, Kennedy met with Lewis H. Weinstein, a confidant and long-time political ally, and promised Weinstein upon his return from his trip to campaign for the 1964 election he would convene a conference in Washington with American Jewish leaders to discuss the plight of Soviet Jewry. Weinstein, who would soon become leader of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, told Kennedy that no president since Theodore Roosevelt had intervened in the persecution of Jews in Russia. Authors Dalin and Kolatch write that Kennedy replied, “Well, here’s one president who’s ready to do something.” The Oswald murder of Kennedy soon after dashed the hopes of convening that conference.Historian Sachar notes that Kennedy’s interest in the condition of Soviet Jewry and the promotion of their emigration from Russia “were essentially symbolic gestures, but they registered on American Jews. The latter felt Kennedy’s death profoundly.”Two final notes: first, US presidents, since Martin Van Buren’s protest of the Damascus Blood Libel in 1840, have usually intervened on behalf of Jews being persecuted abroad, even if the protest was solely symbolic. Kennedy follows in that tradition. Second, Kennedy was a pioneer in advocating on behalf of Soviet Jews, as was Max Hayward – the outstanding Russian scholar of his generation in England. It would be impossible to imagine the robust response of American Jews to the plight of Soviet Jewry without the vision of these early defenders.The writer is rabbi of Congregation Anshei Sholom in West Palm Beach, Florida.
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