Records of the American Jewish Committee Executive Offices (EXO-29), Morris Waldman Files

Morris David Waldman, a rabbi, social worker and Jewish communal leader, was born in Bártfa, Austria-Hungary (now Bardejov, Slovakia) in 1879 and brought as a child to the U.S. at the age of four. Waldman received education at New York University, Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University. He worked as a rabbi in New Jersey, and then in 1906-1908 headed the Galveston Project, aimed at directing East European immigrants to the less populous areas of the United States. At the same period Waldman was involved with the Industrial Removal Office, which had a mission similar to the Galveston project.

Prominent in the field of social work, Waldman was managing director of the United Hebrew Charities of New York from 1908 to 1917, and served as vice-president of the New York State Conference of Charities and Correction (1912), president of the New York City Conference of Charities (1915), and became a trustee of the Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City (1917), and a trustee of the Federation’s Board (1919).

In 1921-1922 Waldman held the post of European director of the Medico-Sanitary and War Orphans Departments of the American Joint Distribution Committee, when he organized relief for the European Jewry and introduced a number of social work and public health care innovations which substantially raised the level of Jewish health in Eastern Europe. Waldman advocated for advancements in social work, like the District Service Plan in Boston, Planned Parenthood in Detroit, and bureaus of Jewish education based on the principle of community control. Waldman was instrumental in aiding the creation of the Bureau of Philanthropic Research and the National Desertion Bureau.

In 1928 Waldman became executive secretary of the American Jewish Committee. At that time the only paid AJC executive was Harry Schneiderman, the assistant secretary from 1908 to 1949, aided by several low-salaried clerks. The post of executive secretary was vacant for 14 years before Waldman’s appointment. This vacancy reflected the position of the contemporary directors of the AJC who detested wasting funds on numerous expensive staff and preferred personal contact with prominent and influential members of the Jewish community and shtadlanut-style diplomacy to more systematic, wide-ranging and diverse work among the Jewish community to exert pressure on the powers that be, interceding on behalf of Jews within and without the U.S. Morris Waldman brought to the AJC his organizational and social work experience, fully employing it in his new position. With the Nazi rise to power in Germany and the growth of anti-Semitism in the United States, he organized in 1933 a comprehensive educational program aimed at familiarizing the American people with the general situation in Germany and the plight of the Jews. Under Waldman’s leadership, a public relations department, originally known as the survey committee, was established as one of the AJC divisions.

Morris Waldman, not sharing the optimistic views of the AJC president Louis Marshall on the outcome of events in Europe in the early 1930s, immediately recognized the day when Hitler was appointed a chancellor of Germany as a turning point in not only Jewish, but also European history, and he closely followed the situation in Germany. Nevertheless, like the other leaders of the AJC, Waldman considered mass emigration from Eastern Europe unnecessary, opposed the establishment of the World Jewish Congress and took a cautious position on the boycott of German goods in the U.S. Later Waldman changed his stance on Jewish emigration from Europe, and he traveled widely in Europe to assess the conditions of life of the Jews there and in Latin America to find solutions to the placement of large numbers of potential Jewish émigrés. Waldman was involved in the combined efforts of the ADL of B’nai B’rith, Jewish Labor Committee and the American Jewish Congress to combat anti-Semitism and provide relief for the Jewish communities in Europe. Along with the other AJC leaders Waldman interceded before the American government on behalf of the world Jewry, and advocated unity among the American Jewish organizations in the face of war and persecution of Jews.

On the international level Morris Waldman and AJC had close relations with representatives of the British Jews, the Board of Deputies and British Joint Foreign Committee, and especially Neville Laski, President of London Committee of Deputies of British Jews in 1933–1940. Waldman and the Committee were also in close contact with the Alliance Israelite of France and the main Jewish organizations of Germany: Zentralverein Deutscher Staatsbuerger Judischen Glaubens (The Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith) and Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (Relief Union of the German Jews). Waldman was especially preoccupied with the situation in Poland as the home of the Europe’s largest Jewish community. He visited Poland a number of times, meeting with local officials, intellectuals and representatives of the Jewish communities, advocating and intervening in order to improve the lot of Jews in Poland.

As a non-Zionist, like most of the AJC leaders, Morris Waldman was active in the work of the non-Zionist section of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and he supported collaboration and understanding between Zionists and non-Zionists. The main objection to Zionism on the part of Morris Waldman and his colleagues at AJC was a presumed “self-segregation” of Jews in a separate entity, and alleged dual loyalty in case of the creation of a Jewish state, as well as a specific understanding of American patriotism. Though he was opposed to Jewish nationalism and Zionist ideas, Waldman favored the establishment of the State of Israel.

In October 1945 Waldman retired from what was then his official AJC position as vice-chairman of the executive committee, but he continued his association with AJC as a lay member of the executive committee. Upon retirement Waldman was lauded by Edward Stettinius, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and former Secretary of State, for his advocacy of international legislation to safeguard minorities’ rights. Waldman’s efforts to fight anti-Semitism and strengthen the rights of minorities throughout the world resulted in the International Bill of Rights, a part of the United Nations Charter. Waldman was an author of several books and a large number of articles. He died at age 84 in 1963.