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Rekindling the Flame
American Jewish Chaplains and the Survivors of European Jewry, 1944-1948

Alex Grobman

A study of American Jewish chaplains in displaced persons' camps after World War II, Rekindling the Flame provides a historical analysis of the survivors' impact on American Jewish chaplains and indirectly on American Jewry.
This critical and controversial study examines not only the adequacy of the response by the U.S. government and military to the survivors, but also the American Jewish response. Grobman concludes that the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee the Jewish organization most responsible for providing aid to the survivors, did not adequately respond.
Rekindling the Flame is based on several sources including chaplains' reports and other records; oral interviews with chaplains, their assistants, American soldiers, and Holocaust survivors; diaries and personal correspondence of chaplains; and archives in the United States, Israel, and Europe.

"[Grobman's] telling research reveals that the silence and paralysis that characterized much of the behavior of American Jewish leadership during the Nazi era extended into the crucial months after liberation . . . Fortunately, one group of young men stepped into the breach. US Army chaplains—whose experience rarely extended beyond conservative, orthodox, or reformed pulpits—managed to save thousands of lives . . . These rabbis provided real leadership at a time when designated leaders provided lame excuses for inaction. Dr. Grobman is owed a debt of gratitude for introducing us to American Jewry's unsung heroes."—Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Simon Wiesenthal Center
 
$34.95s cloth / ISBN 0-8143-2413-4

262 pages
16 illustrations

1993