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Rafael Medoff

Rafael Medoff is the founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and the author, most recently, of The Anguish of a Jewish Leader: Stephen S. Wise and the Holocaust (available on Kindle).

Fall 2016

Zion and Party Politics, 1944

Rafael Medoff

In the summer of 1944 support for Zionism was transformed from a low-risk political gesture to a bona fide election issue. FDR was not pleased.

Summer 2015

Desk Pounding and Jewish Leadership

Rafael Medoff

The trouble between Wise and Silver came to a head at the end of 1944, when Silver, over the Roosevelt administration’s objections, pressed for a congressional resolution endorsing Zionist aims—while Wise was quietly assuring the White House that he would do nothing for the resolution against the president’s wishes.