Dr. Joseph J. Schwartz, vice-chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee who died yesterday at the age of 75, will go down in Jewish history as one of the greatest Jews of our time. Hundreds of thousands of Jews now in Israel literally owe their lives to him.
It was he, as director of the JDC operation Europe, who was instrumental in rescuing thousands of Jews from Nazi hands. It was he who enabled tens of thousands of Jewish displaced persons to find their way to Palestine as "illegal immigrants" after the fall of the Nazi regime when they were liberated and kept in DP camps in Germany. It was he who brought out some 50,000 Yemenite Jews on the "Magic Carpet" planes to Israel in 1950 when their lives were in danger. It was he who organized the highly-praised JDC-Malben institutions in Israel after the war for the remnants of the Holocaust: the old and sick whose families were no longer alive to take care of them. It was also he who directed the rebuilding after the war of the Jewish communities in Europe that were destroyed under Nazi occupation.
Dr. Schwartz came to the JDC in the darkest years of Jewish history, when Hitler’s war machine overran Europe and began to annihilate the Jews. His mission was to reach the threatened and frightened Jews with every possible aid. This was not an easy task. It became even more difficult after Hitler declared war against the United States.
WORKED DAY AND NIGHT
A humanitarian with deep Jewish feelings, Dr. Schwartz threw himself body and soul, into carrying out his mission. He worked literally day and night seeking ways of reaching the trapped Jews with relief and helping those who escaped the Nazis to find their way to a new life in safety. When I saw him at work in Europe during the war, he looked like someone who had been on the battlefield–emaciated, sleepy and fatigued–but working all through the night into the early hours of the morning.
On his desk in the JDC headquarters in New York, a visitor can see two military stars of the U.S. Army. They are the insignia of U.S. Maj. Gen bestowed upon him by the military authorities who recognized the importance of his work often conducted on the front lines. All too often, Dr. Schwartz had to travel dressed in the uniform of an American military officer of higher rank to reach Jews with necessary aid. In this he had the full cooperation of the U.S. military command.
Highly respected by all who saw him at work in those gruesome years, he was especially admired by the JDC leadership in New York and by the leadership of the American Jewish community. His staff looked up to him with affection. Jewish groups that came in contact with him spoke of him with veneration. So did individual Jews who came to know him in the process of seeking aid from him. He was a man of heart. not of formalities. To him the individual in need of help was important he always visualized behind the relief dollars.
POPULAR IN U.S. AND ISRAEL
He was perhaps the most Jewishly learned man among the Jewish social workers in this country. His Jewish scholarship was tremendous His erudition went back to his younger days, when he was a student of the Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary–now Yeshiva University–in New York. He received his Ph. D. at Yale University at the age of 28. The next year he was teaching at the American University in Cairo. His father was a well known Orthodox rabbi in Baltimore.
Dr. Schwartz was popular in the United States and also very popular in Israel and among Jewish leaders in Europe. He did much for Israel before and after the Jewish State was established. His devotion to Israel was boundless. There was a great affinity between him and David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and other top Israeli leaders. A graduate program for training senior personnel of community centers in Israel, carrying his name, is now functioning at the Paul Baerwald Center in the Hebrew University. He was honored by the Israel government. The French government gave him the Legion of Honor Award for helping refugees.
While remaining on a leave of absence from the JDC after the war, Dr. Schwartz was mobilized to direct the United Jewish Appeal as executive vice-chairman. Later he became executive vice-president of the Israel Bond Organization. During his years of service, the Bond campaign reached unprecedented heights. He retired from the Bond Organization and resumed active interest in the JDC.
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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.
