President Harry S. Truman has on a number of occasions shown his sympathy with the work of Jewish organizations and has defended the Jews against slurs, it was pointed out in Jewish circles here today.
In October 1943 he voluntarily appeared at the St. Louis B’nai B’rith contennial meeting and denounced slurs which had been made on the Jewish part in the war effort. During his term as Grand Master of the Masons in Missouri, Truman appointed a rabbi as Lodge Chaplain.
In his first speech after his inauguration as vice-president, made in Chicago go on March 17, 1945, President Truman made a strong plea for religious tolerance. He said “bigotry and intolerance are the munitions of our enemies. Evil doctrines of discrimination frequently imported from gangster nations plague certain areas in America. Racial and religious intolerance is being preached here by agents of our enemies as well as by innecent victims of their propaganda.”
Truman warned against the enemy doctrine of divide and rule and said that the after-effects of the poison of intolerance would long circulate in the nation’s bloodstream unless it were resolutely opposed.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
