Rabbi Herbert Friedman: An advocate for his people
By Dr. Alex Grobman
April 11, 2008

Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, a former CEO, executive vice-chairman, and lay leader of the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) and the founding president of the Wexner Heritage Foundation died on March 31 at age 89. Articles will be written about his pioneering work in Jewish philanthropy and Jewish education; few know the extent of his critical role in assisting the survivors of the Shoah in post-war Europe.

Friedman was a 27-year-old Reform rabbi serving as an American chaplain in the American Army stationed at Headquarters Berlin District when Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein, then Advisor on Jewish Affairs U.S. Zones, Europe, asked him to serve as his assistant. The Jewish Displaced Persons (DP) required an advocate to explain their needs to the military, and Friedman was recruited to help them. 

The Allies assumed that, like the other refugees at the end of the war, the Jews wanted to return to their former homes. They did not appreciate that for a significant number of them, this was no longer a realistic option. Failure to understand the need for Jews to be given legal status as refugees, or to provide them with adequate shelter, clothing, kosher food, and a way to re-institute contact with family and friends, caused the military many problems. In July, 1946, Friedman was assigned to visit the DP camps throughout the American Zones of Occupation to interpret the survivors' needs to them.

As thousands of Jews fled Poland into the American zone of Germany and Austria in the wake of the Kielce pogrom of July 4, 1946, when 47 people were killed and more than 50 injured, the American Army decided to ease the crowding in the camps by moving Jews to less crowded facilities. On Sept. 30, a trainload of survivors arrived at Babenhausen, a former prisoner of war camp near Frankfurt.

When the survivors saw the inferior condition of the site with barbed wire still surrounding parts of the installation, they refused to disembark. After Lt. General Geoffrey Keyes, commanding general of the Third Army, came to assuage their fears, most agreed to enter the camp. Friedman, who was there when the survivors arrived, remained to ensure they received the food, shelter, and care the general had promised.

Even before Friedman became Assistant Advisor for Jewish Affairs under Bernstein, he was intimately involved with helping the Jews. He arrived in Berlin during the first week of April 1946 and immediately began working with Brichah, the organized and spontaneous illegal movement to smuggle Jews out of Europe and into Palestine. He furnished the Palestinian Jews, who were members of the Jewish Brigade, with trucks, gasoline, false papers, clothing, housing, cigarettes, and a cover story to justify their presence in the city. Established in September 1944, the Brigade worked with survivors in Italy and later with those in Germany.

Cigarettes were especially important since money had no value in post-war Europe. A carton of American cigarettes was valued at 1,500 marks or 150 dollars. Friedman and other Jewish chaplains used cigarettes to bribe Russian soldiers to smuggle Jews into the American Zone of Berlin. With one package, you could smuggle one Jew into the city. Jewish soldiers and other chaplains gave Friedman cigarettes; his father sent him 500 cartons every couple of days.

Friedman's illegal activities almost resulted in him being court-martialed. Only Bernstein's intervention saved him. At the end of the war, the Allies found huge amounts of books stolen from Jews randomly strewn in "makeshift depots." To protect and restore this enormous collection, they established the Offenbach Archival Depot in a vast five-story warehouse, across the river from Frankfurt. Fearing that these priceless books might not be properly cared for or might disappear altogether, he arranged for 1,100 of the most valuable books to be shipped to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

After the military discovered how Friedman had appropriated these books without their approval, his services were no longer required. He left Germany in May 1947, ostensibly to be discharged upon arrival in the states. When he landed in the U.S., Henry Morgenthau, Jr., former secretary of the treasury, asked that he speak at an emergency UJA conference. His talk went so well that Morgenthau, then national chair of the UJA, had him speak around the country for the next month.

When Friedman reported to be discharged, he was arrested for being absent without leave. He spent four days in military prison until Morgenthau's cable arrived explaining that Freidman had been authorized to speak for the UJA. After leaving the army on July 18, 1947, he became executive director of the UJA.

Dr. Alex Grobman is the author of Rekindling the Flame: American Jewish Chaplains and the Remnants of European Jewry, 1944-1948. His latest book is Nations United: How The UN Undermines Israel and the West.