The morning after the first Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were reported, there were announcements from a number of Jewish groups waiting in my inbox. I expected them to urge me to call my senator, or perhaps write to my local newspaper. Instead, a major Jewish religious organization urged readers only to “pray and yearn for peace and truth to reign.” Another informed Jewish women that simply by lighting Shabbat candles, they themselves would qualify as “rising lions.” A U.S. religious Zionist group called on the Jewish community to add three psalms to daily prayer services.

The pattern continued in Shabbat sermons the next day. The rabbi of the synagogue where I attended services told the congregation that we should respond to the threat from Iran by “doubling our prayers.” Nothing more. That night, I asked several friends and colleagues in other cities what their rabbis had recommended in their Shabbat sermons. One reported that the rabbi urged congregants to respond to the crisis by “strengthening our Shabbos observance.” Several others told of similar statements.

I sent a very restrained inquiry to the rabbi who was focused on strengthening observance, asking if he might also consider encouraging his congregants to contact their elected officials. He replied: “Thanks very much for your thoughts. Much appreciated.” For some reason, this rabbi who usually has so much to say suddenly seemed to have very little to say.

There is a natural human tendency to become mired in business as usual, to adhere to familiar routines and modes of behavior, even in times of crisis. Leaders of Jewish organizations and religious institutions, however, have a responsibility to recognize when a crisis demands communal action. In a sense, that’s part of their job description.

‘As if nothing were happening’

News of the mass murder of Jews in Europe was confirmed by the Allies in December 1942; yet in the weeks that followed, much of American Jewish communal life proceeded undisturbed. The editors of The Jewish Spectator, writing in January 1943, found it ‘‘shocking and — why mince words? — revolting that at a time like this our organizations, large and small, national and local, continue ‘business as usual’ and sponsor gala affairs, such as sumptuous banquets, luncheons, fashion teas, and what not…’’ 

A survey of the advertisements that appeared in American Jewish periodicals during those years reveals a community partaking of the same leisure activities one would have expected it to patronize in ordinary times: concerts, dances, carnivals; sea water baths along the Atlantic City boardwalk, sulphur baths in resort hotels in the Catskills. Elie Wiesel alluded to this state of affairs in his 1974 book Zalmen, or The Madness of God. Even after the mass killing was known, “holidays were celebrated; charity balls and dinners were organized; people went to concerts, to the theater,” Wiesel wrote. “Everything went on as if nothing were happening.”

Three students at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative rabbinical seminary in New York City, were troubled by the community’s apathy. In December 1942, Noah Golinkin, Jerry Lipnick and Bertram “Buddy” Sachs arranged to meet with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, the foremost American Jewish leader of that era, to share their concerns.

Some years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Sachs about that meeting. He described how he and his friends urged Wise to lead an activist campaign to press the Roosevelt administration to help Jewish refugees. But Rabbi Wise resisted.

“His position was basically to sit and be patient,” Sachs recalled. “We couldn’t be patient at a time like that.”

A time to act

In the months following that meeting, the students lobbied Jewish leaders, wrote articles and letters and handed out leaflets at Jewish events, urging a more activist response by the Jewish community to the plight of Europe’s Jews. Remarkably, they succeeded in persuading the Synagogue Council of America to launch a nationwide educational campaign in the spring of 1943. The council declared the Sefira weeks between Passover and Shavuot a “Period of Mourning and Intercession” — and they also sent mailings to thousands of rabbis nationwide urging them to organize protest rallies, write letters to government officials and mobilize non-Jewish allies to call for rescue of Jews from the Nazis.

The synagogue council also pressed rabbis to adopt a series of measures, drafted by the three JTS students, that were intended to alter communal life in ways that would make the plight of Europe’s Jews uppermost in everyone’s mind. These included adding special prayers about European Jewry to synagogue services, draping the synagogue’s ark in black and limiting public “occasions of amusement.”

The council’s action plan included steps for individuals to take at home as well. For example, the Birkat Hamazon prayer recited after each meal should include an extra four-stanza section. ‘‘How can we enjoy our food while we know that our brothers perish by famine and sword?’’ the additional text asked. Individuals were also urged by the synagogue council to undertake partial fast days, “and in lieu thereof a special pidyon shvuyim contribution be given to the United Jewish Appeal which is engaged in rescue work.”

A touching episode reported in a UJA newsletter not long afterwards may have been inspired by the council’s campaign. The UJA received a check for $10.60, “to be used in bringing relief to Jewish refugees,” from a group of non-Jewish young men in Michigan who were working in a Civilian Public Service camp. The camps had been created as a way for conscientious objectors to perform alternative national service (firefighting, soil conservation and the like) during the war. The men subsisted on a monthly stipend of $5; the money they sent to the UJA was raised “by a group of campers here who participated in two fasts for this purpose,” they wrote. “Fasting is one way which those of us who are in C.P.S. campus are able to make a contribution to the relief of those who are suffering.” (Read the full story here.)

Obviously there are vast differences between today’s circumstances and those of the Holocaust years. Indeed, today a Jewish air force is in the process of ensuring that there will be no second Holocaust. Yet Iranian missiles are wreaking havoc and have already murdered dozens of Israelis. Millions are huddled in bomb shelters. 

Today, as in the 1940s, there are good people who are ready to act and are simply waiting for guidance from our leaders. The initiative undertaken by the three rabbinical students in 1942 offers a model for how Diaspora Jews should respond when fellow Jews are in danger in any country — a timeless strategy for caring and acting. 

Rafael Medoff is the founding director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history and the Holocaust. His book The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War Against the Jews will be published on Oct. 1, 2025, by the Jewish Publication Society/University of Nebraska Press.