Jewish Immigration Under FDR and European Discrimination Toward the Jews in the Early 1900s

The Great Depression brought the election landslide of one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States: Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt, wasn't just another president, he radically transformed our nation. In addition, he was very supportive of the Jewish people and immigrants in American society and many Jewish people became prominent politicians in his cabinet and White House staff. As President, FDR worked closely with Jewish Supreme Court Judge, Louis Brandeis and the two men worked together in approving New Deal legislation which stimulated the economy for growth and a huge increase in employment for workers in a time period in which unemployment was at an all-time high.

FDR rose to politics in NY where he became governor. He hired a multitude of Jewish businessmen and politicians onto his staff including his general counsel of the Treasury Department, the chairman of the Tennessee Valley Corporation, general counsel of the Agriculture Department, general counsel of the Labor Department, general advisor for national-income in the Commerce Department, and a Jewish man was appointed as Director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Franklin Roosevelt showed no bias toward any immigrant and welcomed Jewish immigrants and people with open arms. Some Jews saw FDR as a secular messiah and he helped change the image in America toward the Jewish people. In 1936 FDR received 86 percent of the Jewish vote and won the election overwhelmingly.

It was also FDR's stance in support of the Jews that made many of them conform to liberalism and secularism in the economy and hold secular jobs in a secular lifestyle. FDR radically transformed the lives of Jewish people and they were grateful to him for it.

During this time period from 1914 to 1915, the American Jewish Committee played an important role in supporting the Jews in Eastern Europe. The President of this committee was Louis Marshall and it was funded by Jacob Schiff. His biggest influence was in helping Eastern European Jews come to the U.S. for refuge. In 1911 the tsar of Russia refused to grant visa to Russian Jews so that they could come to America. Marshall successfully organized a campaign against the tsar which helped stop the Russian-American Commercial Treaty. In 1914 the tsar made Jews evacuate from their homes and Marshall took the lead in setting up protests and demonstrations against the tsar's actions.

Louis Marshall was also instrumental in helping Polish Jews who had pogroms against them. Marshall played the role of a diplomat and used the Paris Peace Conference to help the Jews. Marshall contacted President Woodrow Wilson and called to the president's attention the pogroms against Jews in Poland. Marshall tried to convince the Polish government to stop the Pogroms against the Jews and in return they would gain recognition on an international scale. Marshall became the ambassador for the Jewish people worldwide as he tried to appeal to western leaders in a "bill of rights" type of fashion. Marshall's efforts were a huge success as the Minorities Treaty was signed by the Polish Prime Minister Ignancy Paderewski in Versailles. The Treaty consisted of 12 articles which awarded full civil, religious and political rights to all citizens in Poland. This document as historic as it set up an equal rights clause in Poland for all citizens. Soon afterward, other governments that were formed like Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Romania, Greece and Armenia signed similar declarations and documents for full citizenship of all people of their nation. Minority treaties and provisions were also imposed by the Allied nations of World War One onto the losers of the war which included the countries of Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.

Despite the signing of this document by Poland and despite the best of efforts and intentions made by Louis Marshall, Poland still had much anti-Semitism existing the country. In the 1920s, Poland restricted the economic activities of its Jewish people. Taxes were raised for Jews and life became strenuous.

One leader rose to the occasion by the name of Yitzhak Greunbaum who was the chairman of the General Zionist Party in Sejm, the Polish Parliament. In 1921 he proposed the creation of the "Bloc of National Minorities" which would be an electoral group of all the non-Polish people. Each ethnic group would get representation in the Sejm Parliament. In 1922, he put his plan into action, uniting the minority groups in Poland and successfully winning 81 seats. Out of these 81 seats, Jews made up 35 of those seats. However, despite the efforts to unite the minority groups in Poland, the Party failed as each ethnic group broke away from the Party. The Ukrainians had refused to join because they were anti-Semitic and many other ethnic groups saw the jews in a racist view. Josef Greunbaum also served on the Executive Board of the Jewish Agency which was in Palestine after Greunbaum's immigration there. He would later become Israel's first minister of the Interior

In 1924, the Zionists in Poland tried to come up with another way of the Prime Minister Wladyslaw Grabski to help the Jews and grant equality. Although the Prime Minister had originally devised discriminator measures against the Jews, he was eager to have investments and capital abroad on an international level and he thought that the Jews could provide it for him. In the end however, the agreement stalled and the only concessions that the prime minister was willing to make was to include Yiddush as an official language and including Yiddish words in telegrams so that Polish Jews could better communicate.

In May of 1926, Josef Pisludski who was a soldier and statesman in Poland decided to take control over the Polish army. He orchestrated a coup of the government and gained a lot of power and became a dictator, even though the Parliament still existed. Josef Pisludksi had expressed a sympathy toward the Jewish people during his rule in the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1934, Pisludksi became ill and ineffective as the leader of the Polish people and although his reign was marked by non-discrimination toward the Jews in his non political agenda, his death in 1935 marked a rightist takeover of the government. In September of 1934, under the new Polish leadership, the government formally announced their rejected of the Treaty of Minorities, marking a huge defeat for the Jewish people.