Theodore Roosevelt

On Anti-Semitism

Roosevelt generally judged men and women by their character, or on more than one occasion by their politics, but not on their race or religion. As police commissioner, he opened the department to Jews. One Jewish officer, Otto Raphael, said the traditional prayer for the dead over Roosevelt's body the night before he was buried.

One of the favorite stories of TR and Jews comes from his time as a Police Commisioner of New York City. A German anti-semitic preacher planned to give speeches in New York "denouncing" Jews. The preacher expected protection from the police department and that is where Roosevelt came in.

Many Jews were alarmed and/or outraged and asked Roosevelt to prevent the speeches. "Of course I told them I could not - that the right of free speech must be maintained unless he incited them to riot." But, "On thinking it over, however it occurred to me that there was one way in which I could undo most of the mischief he was trying to do."

Cleverly, TR put a Jewish Police Sergeant in charge of the preachers protection, along with forty Jewish Policemen and the fanatical preacher looked absolutely ridiculous.

[Miller, pg 232]

Roosevelt also stood firmly against Russian aggression against the Jews. "following a particularly savage explosion of anti-Semitic violence in Kishinev during Easter week of 1903, Roosevelt,..., ordered the State Department to forward a protest petition from prominent American Jews to the Russian government. He also issued a statement expressing, 'the deep sympathy felt not only by the administration but by all the American peole for the unfortunate Jews who have been the victims in the recent appalling massacres and outrages.' "

The Russians would not formally receive the petition, but the message was there, both for the Russians, and the Jewish voters of the US.

[Miller, pg. 443-444]