"Schwartz is the J.D.C – the J.D.C is Schwartz"

One man, one organization, and the fight to save European Jewry.

Rabbi Dr. Joseph (Joe) Schwartz served as director of the Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint) in Europe, as well as in North Africa, the Middle Eastern countries, and Mandatory Palestine during World War II and in its immediate aftermath. This study tells the story of a nearly unknown hero’s decisive contribution to the Jewish people in this fateful period and examines his involvement in Jewish rescue efforts during World War II: overt and covert; “legal” and “illegal”; in organizing the migration of tens of thousands of Jews who managed to get to France and from there to Spain and Portugal, and then to any country that opened its gates to them; in various ransom schemes to rescue the Jews of Europe; in different programs to save children; and more.
Schwartz also played a central role in addressing the needs of the displaced persons camps and their inhabitants, as well as in the Zionist movement’s political struggle against the repatriation of all refugees to their countries of origin. He drafted the principal version of the report submitted to President Truman on the question of Mandatory Palestine and steered the Joint toward active participation in Aliyah Bet and the Bricha, including the organization of overt and covert immigration operations from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

This account, while centered on Schwartz, also serves as an organizational biography of the Joint, whose mission and character he reshaped into a commitment to aid every Jew, by every means, wherever they are in distress.

Tuvia Friling is Professor Emeritus and former Senior Research Fellow at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism, and a lecturer in the Israel Studies Program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He earned his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1991; his dissertation examined David Ben-Gurion and the Holocaust of European Jewry, 1939–1945.

A pioneer in Israel in the development of computerized historical databases and digital research environments, Friling also served as Israel’s State Archivist from 2001 to 2004, during which time he initiated the master plan for the development of the country’s archival system.