A Jewish Leader at Just the Right Time

This week marks the 65th yahrzeit of the leader of one of the most important Jewish boycott movements in history. Long forgotten but deeply deserving of remembrance, J. George Fredman was part of the national leadership in the American Jewish community only briefly—but at exactly the right moment, when the community needed him most.

Born and raised in northern New Jersey, Fredman graduated from New York Law School in 1916, shortly before the United States entered World War One. He enlisted in the Quartermaster Corps, ultimately rising to second lieutenant.

Intensely proud of his service to his country, Fredman joined the Jewish War Veterans of America and gradually rose through its ranks. When he was elected national commander in September 1932, the danger of the Nazis ruling Germany still seemed remote. The major issues discussed at that year’s JWV convention were repealing prohibition and a government bonus for veterans.

Hitler’s rise to power the following year found mainstream American Jewish leaders confused and divided. The American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith argued that public protests would only make things worse. Even the American Jewish Congress, which usually was more outspoken than the others, hesitated to act. It was left to J. George Fredman to organize the first major American Jewish demonstration against the Nazi regime.

On March 23, 1933, more than 20,000 Jewish war veterans and their supporters gathered in lower Manhattan. There a group of cantors, bearing a Torah scroll, assembled on a balcony overlooking the crowd and chanted the “El Maleh Rachamim” prayer in memory of Jews who had been murdered during the early days of Hitler’s reign. Then the protesters marched across town to City Hall, where Fredman, one of the keynote speakers, called for a boycott of German goods.

The boycott proposal was the subject of considerable controversy. The president of the American Jewish Committee claimed a boycott would “kill the Jews of Germany.” B’nai B’rith denounced the boycott proposal as “little short of madness.” It called for “a dignified silence, silence with suffering [which] may become more potent than emotion.”

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, leader of the American Jewish Congress, initially opposed the boycott and blocked a pro-boycott resolution that Fredman introduced at a meeting of Jewish leaders in March. Wise was deeply loyal to President Roosevelt and opposed boycotting because it did not have “the sanction of our government.”

The Roosevelt administration favored friendly trade and diplomatic relations with the Hitler regime. Secretary of State Cordell Hull warned that “a racial or political boycott” of Germany would be damaging to American interests. The administration quietly undermined the anti-Nazi boycott movement by permitting German goods to be labeled as having been made in a particular city or province, so they could be stamped with a local (and thus unrecognizable) name rather than “Made in Germany.”

Fredman’s impassioned speeches in the spring and summer of 1933 mobilized widespread Jewish public support for the boycott and put Rabbi Wise on the defensive. “Pussyfooting must cease and American Jewry must take steps to vigorously combat the Nazi persecutors,” Fredman declared at one event. This escalation of grassroots pressure played a major role in forcing Wise and the AJCongress to finally embrace the boycott in late August.

In the years to follow, the AJCongress—especially its Women’s Division—took over the leadership of the boycott movement and transformed it into an organized and effective campaign. Fredman’s pioneering role was eventually forgotten. Rabbi Wise, in his autobiography, even claimed that “the American Jewish Congress launched the boycott.”

When Fredman’s one-year term as head of the Jewish War Veterans was approaching its conclusion in the summer of 1933, his colleagues pressed him to accept another term, but Fredman chose to step aside and give someone else a chance. How often do you hear of a Jewish leader nowadays declining to serve again?

Even after stepping down as national commander, Fredman remained a potent force in JWV activism. In 1941, he helped persuade the authorities to shut down Camp Nordland, a two hundred-acre site that the German American Bund used for pro-Nazi rallies and paramilitary training in Andover Township, NJ.

Fredman also served as editor of the JWV’s magazine, The Jewish Veteran; coauthored (with Louis A. Falk) the book “Jews in American Wars” (1943); and edited “Framework of Democracy,” a booklet of key American documents that was widely distributed to chapters of the Boy Scouts and other groups promoting good citizenship.

Today, J. George Fredman Park, situated on JFK Boulevard in North Bergen, NJ, stands as humble testimony to Fredman’s contributions to America and American Jewry. A monument features a replica artillery piece, symbolizing his military service, and a plaque reads, “J. George Fredman: Veteran- Lawyer – Author / A Dedicated American.”

“Those words sum up Uncle George’s life and legacy,” his nephew, Art Fredman, told me. “In his brief but crucial service as a national Jewish leader, and in his lifetime of devotion to America and American Jewry, he exemplified the highest qualities that all Americans cherish. He spoke out when too many others were silent or afraid.”

Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust.