Physical Description

[1] p. 275:2156 mm., light age staining, c5reased on folds, typed on stationary, signed in ink by Wise.

Detailed Description   

Letter to the the first solotwiner sick & benevolent society  on their 40th anniversay (incorporated on 1907-11-21) by Stephen S. Wise, on his 60th birthday at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. Stephen Samuel Wise (born Weisz, March 17, 1874 – April 19, 1949) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader. Wise was born in Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the son and grandson of rabbis. His grandfather, Joseph Hirsch Weiss, was Chief Rabbi of a small town near Budapest. His father, Aaron Wise, earned a PhD and ordination in Europe, and emigrated to the United States to serve as rabbi of Congregation Baith Israel Anshei Emes in Brooklyn, New York. Wise's maternal grandfather, Móric Farkasházi Fischer, created the Herend Porcelain Company. When Wise's father Aaron Wise sought to unionize the company, Moric gave the family one-way tickets to New York.

Wise immigrated to New York as an infant with his family. His father became rabbi of Rodeph Sholom, a Manhattan Conservative congregation of wealthy German Jews. Wise studied at the College of the City of New York, Columbia College (B.A. 1892), and Columbia University (PhD 1901), and later pursued rabbinical studies under rabbis Richard Gottheil, Kohut, Gersoni, Joffe, and Margolis. In 1933, Wise received an L.H.D. from Bates College.

While Wise served in prominent roles many notable organizations he also has been widely criticized. Dr. David Kranzler has criticized Wise for his alleged failure to recognize the Holocaust prior to American entry into World War II, the allegation that he dismissed early reports of the Final Solution as propaganda and obstruction of rescue.

In his book Holocaust Victims Accuse, Moshe Shonfeld asserts that Wise prevented the shipment of food packages from American Jews to German-occupied Poland due to fear that it would be interpreted by the Allies as giving aid to the enemy. This allegation is also made by historian Saul Friedländer, who writes: "In the spring of 1941 Rabbi Wise had decided to impose a complete embargo on all aid sent to Jews in occupied countries, in compliance with the U.S. government's economic boycott of the Axis powers (whereby every food package was seen as direct or indirect assistance to the enemy)... Strict orders were given to World Jewish Congress representatives in Europe to halt forthwith any shipment of packages to the ghettos, despite the fact that these packages did usually reach their destination, the Jewish Self-Help Association in Warsaw. 'All these operations with and through Poland must cease at once,' Wise cabled to Congress delegates in London and Geneva, 'and at once in English means AT ONCE, not in the future.'"

Authors David Wyman and Rafael Medoff, in their book A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust, make a further allegation that Wise displayed a lack of leadership that hindered the Holocaust rescue attempts of others (mainly the Bergson Group's). He also attempted to squelch showing and broadcast of the pageant "We Will Never Die", which sought to bring attention to the slaughter of Jews in Europe.

In a Rafael Medoff 2009 interview with Professor Benzion Netanyahu: Medoff: In your view, why were American Jewish leaders so cautious during the 1940s? Netanyahu: Part of the problem was how they saw themselves. In their contacts with president Roosevelt, Jewish leaders thought of themselves as weak or helpless. Take, for example, Rabbi Stephen Wise – leader of the American Zionist movement, the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress. He thought of himself as a servant of president Roosevelt. He referred to Roosevelt as "chief", and he really meant it that way – Roosevelt was the chief, and Wise was the servant. Wise was happy to just follow along with whatever Roosevelt wanted. He was content as long as FDR just remembered his name or gave him a few minutes of his time every once in a while.

References:

Wikipedia