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I'm sorry that PDF hurt your feelings. I didn't anticipate that. The notice, as well as other materials associated with it seem rather philo-semetic to me. The

I'm sorry that PDF hurt your feelings. I didn't anticipate that. The notice, as well as other materials associated with it seem rather philo-semetic to me. The reaction to it here implies (to me) that it was likely not intended to be made public. Now that you bring up your grievance about it, though--I do wonder if one of these tools the FBI uses for surveillance is the ADL, as is evident in other declassified documents. You know how the FBI was using Twitter to implement its agendas and goals? Just a thought. Anyhow, I didn't intend to discount anything any individual in your family experienced. The notice and individual experiences are not mutually exclusive, though. The notice is easily verifiable for anyone interested: https://web.archive.org/web/20190220195545/https://www.nytimes.com/1936/06/26/archives/war-duty-exemption-for-all-jews-urged-conference-of-american-rabbis.html https://web.archive.org/web/20190220195545/https://www.nytim... My apologies for any hurt feelings. Be well.

azinman2 4y ago
Thank you for this. I appreciate it. The NYTimes article only says something more vague in its headline, but the body is talking about the need for Jews to be more active in social justice work, and that communism is incompatible with Judaism. I’ve read what I could find of the report and all it talks about is social justice work. I’d love to learn more about this. Whatever the context was, we know that a huge amount of jewish soldiers died in WWII as linked by another commenter, so in my mind as a seeming non-sequitor it followed a common anti-Semitic trope that American Jews are more loyal to Judaism and Israel than to the U.S. Of course this has also been the trope for many other immigrants as well. I cannot guess about the ADL other than it being involved a huge amount of other stuff clearly not related to the FBI. Remember that in 1935 Harvard had an official Jewish quota of 15%, and Israel largely exists because the U.S./UK/France didn’t want to take the Eastern European Jewish diaspora — discrimination was widespread at the levels of power. The population was also small, so its hard to imagine it had much value other than perhaps keeping tabs on intellectuals who were friendly to communism.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
Your unsupported claims damage the case against such overreach. You are just helping the FBI to ridicule these accusations. Don't wonder, stick to the facts. You are drifting the topic. Your conclusions are baseless for that matter. This is why they are so easy to ridicule.

azinman2 4y ago

Thank you for this. I appreciate it. The NYTimes article only says something more vague in its headline, but the body is talking about the need for Jews to be more active in social justice work, and that communism is incompatible with Judaism. I’ve read what I could find of the report and all it talks about is social justice work. I’d love to learn more about this. Whatever the context was, we know that a huge amount of jewish soldiers died in WWII as linked by another commenter, so in my mind as a seeming non-sequitor it followed a common anti-Semitic trope that American Jews are more loyal to Judaism and Israel than to the U.S. Of course this has also been the trope for many other immigrants as well. I cannot guess about the ADL other than it being involved a huge amount of other stuff clearly not related to the FBI. Remember that in 1935 Harvard had an official Jewish quota of 15%, and Israel largely exists because the U.S./UK/France didn’t want to take the Eastern European Jewish diaspora — discrimination was widespread at the levels of power. The population was also small, so its hard to imagine it had much value other than perhaps keeping tabs on intellectuals who were friendly to communism.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

Your unsupported claims damage the case against such overreach. You are just helping the FBI to ridicule these accusations. Don't wonder, stick to the facts. You are drifting the topic. Your conclusions are baseless for that matter. This is why they are so easy to ridicule.