Uncommon Allies

On March 27, 1933, representatives from across the American religious spectrum came to Madison Square Garden, united in a shared purpose to speak out against the rise of fascism in Germany and Adolph Hitler’s seizure of power. This rally—the first of several held at the Garden before, during, and after World War II—represents an unexplored moment of Jewish and Christian relations, challenging assumptions about Christian leaders’ indifference to the Jewish plight and their guilt as the realities of the Holocaust came to light. In Uncommon Allies, Alan Shore uses an impressive range of primary and secondary sources, including English and Yiddish newspapers of the time and neglected histories of various religious organizations, to shine a light on these pivotal rallies.

From the groundbreaking 1933 rally to a series of events in 1943 as the reality of Hitler’s “Final Solution” came to light, and ending in a postwar rally in 1945, as religious groups struggled with finding a way to help displaced and struggling Jews, Shore unearths the united religious front in the face of the horror of Nazism. Each rally is vividly presented and analyzed in terms of its background, planning, execution, content, and press coverage. Tracing the impact of these rallies through the years, Shore draws a clear line to the partnership between Christian and Jewish Zionists and the rhetorical use of “Judeo-Christian values.”