QUESTION FROM INTERVIEW WITH CONSERVATIVE DAVID GOLINKIN:
Your grandfather, Rabbi Mordechai Golinkin, took part in the Bergson Group's march by 400 rabbis to the White House in October 1943 . How did you feel when you learned that Wise and other Jewish leaders opposed the march and urged president Roosevelt not to meet with the marchers?
It was painful to discover that Jewish leaders urged president Roosevelt to ignore the rabbis. In the play, Rabbi Wise and Samuel Rosenman, a senior adviser to Roosevelt who was very reluctant to pressure FDR on this issue, sit in the White House and complain about the fact that 400 rabbis are demonstrating outside. In real life, Rabbi Wise wrote an article condemning the march as a "stunt." If there had been more such "stunts," perhaps more European Jews would have been rescued.
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