REV. JOHN STANLEY GRAUEL

CHRISTIAN ZIONIST

A SLIDE SHOW PRODUCED BY ARTHUR L. FINKLE

OF THE JEWISH HERITAGE MUSEUM

OF MONMOUTH COUNTY

PO BOX 7078 FREEHOLD TOWNSHIP, NJ 07728

JANUARY 25, 2015

GRAUEL, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS TOLD TO ELEANOR ELFENBEIN,

IVORY HOUSE, FREEHOLD, NJ 1982

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REV. GRAUEL’S HOUSE IN ROOSEVELT, NJ

6 Homestead Lane

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JOHN STANLEY GRAUEL (1917 – 1986)

John Stanley Grauel was born and raised in Worchester, Mass. His mother, whose father was from England, was a deeply religious woman, a strong advocate of the brotherhood of man, black and white, Jew and non-Jew.

She possessed a special place for the Jewish people, frequently observing that as the Jews are treated, so is the strength of the Christianity and, indeed, Western civilization.

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EARLY LIFE

During the Depression, his father, who was of German ancestry, took work wherever it was. He and his family traveled to Virginia to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

His father developed a fatal disease and brought his family back to Massachusetts where he died in his 40s.

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RELIGIOUS VOCATION

After vagabonding for a few years, working for the Boston political machine and shored up by the Kennedys of Cape Cod, he finally enrolled in a Methodist Seminary in Maine at age 23.

During this period, he married but the death of both his wife and child at childbirth left him a widower at an early age. He never married again.

After graduating, he worked as a Minister for Community Churches in a small, isolated island in Maine.

Grauel reading a letter in his study in Maine circa 1942-43 6

W O R L D W A R I I

Congregationalist minister Carl H. Voss was the founder of the

American Christian Palestine Committee. The group called for a Jewish

national state to give refuge to survivors of the Nazi Holocaust.

Exempted from military service, he felt personally impelled to help European Jews as horrific stories about Nazi atrocities increased.

Approaching Judge Goldberg of Boston to guide him, he was referred to Dr. Carl Herman Voss of the American–Christian Palestine Committee. Created in 1 9 4 3 , t h i s w a s a n a t i o n a l organization tied in with the Zionist Emergency Council to help create a Jewish State.

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American-Christian Palestine Committee

AMERICAN–CHRISTIAN PALESTINE COMMITTEE PHILADELPHIA

Assigned as Director of its Philadelphia office, Grauel became involved in Zionist activities.

In 1945, he attended a Zionist conference in Princeton, N.J. This conference profoundly affected him, especially after he met and heard Rabbi Stephen Wise reporting that the Nazi’s had already killed at least seven hundred thousand Jews. He also met David Ben Gurion, who was to become Israel’s first Prime Minister.

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise addressing a throng in Battery Park, New York,

May 10th,1933 in protest against mistreatment of Jews in

Germany.100,000 marched in NYC.

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ZIONISTIC WORK

In Philadelphia, Grauel serendipitously ran into the Haganah Recruitment office located in his building.

The Haganah was the shadow Jewish Army, building up for the military component of the new state of Israel.

After he found out their activities, he involved himself, going to meetings every Friday night with the likes of David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Teddy Kollek, Nachum Goldman, Meyer Weisgal and many others working for the establishment of the Jewish national home.

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PRESIDENT WARFIELD: AKA EXODUS

The Haganah bought the President Warfield as war asset junk at a bargain price. So far past her prime, the vessel, built in 1928, only ferried between Washington and Baltimore, although it saw action on D-Day as a backup ship.

The Israeli agents found the Warfield was in bad condition. Boarded up on all sides, no heat, and infested with rot and rats, it took months to prepare it (scrubbing, sanding, polishing, mending, painting, etc.) for its long voyage. In January 1947, a crew of nearly 40 American Jews volunteered to shepherd the ship to Palestine.

President Warfield at Norfolk, VA July 29, 1945

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JOURNEY

The Exodus’ journey began in Baltimore, then to Bordeaux, to Italy to Haifa. Harassed by British ships following it and ramming it 17 miles from Haifa, contrary to International Law (beyond 5 miles, no country has jurisdiction), it arrived at Haifa. Two immigrants and a crewman were killed in the battle, and 30 were wounded. The British

forcibly boarded the ship with war clubs and machine guns blazing.

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REASON FOR ILLEGAL SMUGGLING OF JEWISH REFUGEES

John Stanley Grauel, a Methodist Minister, who served as the official observer for the American Christian Palestine Committee, became a member of the crew.

The Mosad's intention was to draw international attention to the British policy of not admitting Jews who survived the Holocaust. It wanted to persuade members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), who were on a fact-findiing mission in Palestine.

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RECRUITMENT AS CREW MEMBER OF THE EXODUS

A high ranking Zionist official recruited Reverend Grauel to help transport 4,500 displaced persons from the ravages of the Holocaust because he was an accomplished seaman having learned the trade in Hyannis Port and in Maine. He also represented the public face of the American-Christian Palestine Committee, a Christian voice of the Haganah.

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JULY 1947 DEPARTURE FROM FRANCE

In early July 1947, 4,500 Jewish Displaced Persons moved from camps in Germany to transit camps in the south of France. With the cooperation of several French Socialist cabinet ministers, they boarded the President Warfield near Marseilles.

Out at sea, the crew renamed the vessel “Exodus 1947”. 14

THE EXODUS

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EXODUS PASSENGERS: NOWHERE TO GO

As anticipated, the British navy followed and rammed the Exodus 1947 off the coast of Palestine.

British sailors boarded the vessel, roughed up some of the recalcitrant passengers by war club and machine guns and towed it to the Port of Haifa.

After an extended struggle, the British changed its policy from detaining illegal immigrants in Cyprus to returning them to the Displace Persons camps from which they came.

When the British ships arrived in France on July 28, the passengers staged a sit-in. The French refused to accede to the British demand to force them out.

For a month, the three ships remained anchored as the refugee passengers suffered. Finally, after a

Jewish refugees crowd together in the sleeping quarters aboard the Exodus 1947

hunger strike, the British decided to return the refugees to Displaced Persons camps in Germany. 16

ALIYAH BET

Refugees crowd the rail of the Aliyah Bet ("illegal" immigration)

ship "Josiah Wedgwood," anchored at the Haifa port. British

soldiers transported the passengers to the Atlit internment center. Palestine, June 27, 1946.

The Aliyah Bet was an underground movement established to smuggle Jews into Palestine. Because the British had banned Jewish immigration to Palestine in 1937 continuing after World War II, the only method to increase population and to relieve displacement was to transport these unfortunates illegally.

As head of the Jewish Agency in October and November 1945, Ben-Gurion made a tour of the Displaced Person camps in Europe. He encouraged the survivors to join in establishing a Jewish homeland in Israel and calling world attention to their plight.

POST-WAR REFUGEE RESETTLEMENT

After the war, the International Relief Agency resettled approximately 1.2 million people of which 500,000 were Jews. Their resettlement, however, became a serious problem. They did not want to return to their former homes. Some who did endured anti-Semitic “welcoming parties” and mob murders in Poland. Others did not want to return to Soviet puppet states. To further complicate matters, many countries refused to allow the survivors to enter. A large number of Jewish survivors wanted to go to Palestine. The British, however, opposed such immigration only allowing fewer than 100,000 Jews to enter before Israel declared its independence in May 1948.

Israeli flag raised by El’azar on a British armored car in the streets of Jerusalem, November 29, 1947

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SURVIVORS: CHILDREN

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SURVIVORS: ADULTS

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Sympathy Hunger StrikeIn the Palestine Mandate, Golda Meyerson (Golda Meir) proposed a hunger strike by fifteen Zionist leaders to support the refugees and to force the British to allow the immigrant ships to sail. Before starting the strike, the leaders went to see the chief Secretary of the Palestine Government, Henry Gurney. In her memoirs Mrs. Meyerson recalled how he listened, then he turned to me and said: “Mrs. Meyerson, do you think for a moment that his Majesty's Government will change its policy because you are not going to eat?” I said, “No, I have no such illusions. If the death of six million didn't change government policy, I don't expect that my not eating will do so. But it will at least be a mark of solidarity”. The hunger strike was, in fact, successful, and on May 8 the Dov Hos and the Eliahu Golomb sailed for Palestine, their 1,014 passengers having been granted immigration certificates from the next month's quota.

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ZIONISM

Modern Zionism, as founded by Theodore Herzl, was a movement advocating a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine (Israel). Zionist intentions were to demonstrate to the world that Holocaust survivors were coming to Israel, one way or another. Having been denied entry into all other lands, these Jews wanted a land of their own where they could be free to live freely.

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DISPLACED PERSONS DEMONSTRATION

Contrary to policy, the refugees were not settled in Cyprus. Rather, in a cruel change of policy, they returned to Europe, back to the same camps from which they departed.

The international news seized on his inhumane policy to demonstrate the continuing plight of Europe’s Jews.

Marc Jarblum addresses a crowd of Jewish DPs at a demonstration in the

Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp that called for free immigration to

Palestine and protested the return of the Exodus 1947 passengers to Germany

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REV. GRAUEL TO THE RESCUE

As the passengers of the Exodus demonstrated, The Mosad whisked Rev. Grauel to meet with the U.N. Investigating Committee in order for them to understand the needs of these tragically battered, but hopeful refugees.

The U.N. Report recommended a two-state solution and a permit to allow Jewish refugees to Palestine.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 “created” Israel,

based upon an understanding that this resolution partitioned Palestine

or otherwise conferred legal authority or legitimacy to the declaration

of the existence of the state of Israel

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EXODUS’ PASSENGERS

Most of the Exodus refugees remained in the DP camps for over a year, reaching Israel only after the state was established in May 1948.

In 1951 the Mayor of Haifa announced that the Exodus 1947 was to become "a floating museum, a symbol of the desperate attempts by Jewish refugees to find asylum in the Holy Land.“

Commemorative plaque at Exodus 1947 launch site in Sète, France.

Baltimore plaque commemorating the Exodus 1947

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GRAUEL’S CONTINUING ZIONIST EFFORTS

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Grauel led investigations into the terrible conditions of Jews living in Morocco and Algeria. He campaigned for the United Jewish Appeal to raise funds for Israel’s new immigrants for settlement in a strange but promised land.

Eleanor Roosevelt and Grauel at United Jewish Appeal in New York,

1953

In 1975, he led one of the first Jewish youth tours of the Nazi concentration camps in Europe. In the 1960’s Rev. Grauel involved himself in the Civil Rights movements.

The State of Israel recognized Rev. Grauel through the Humanity Medal, the Fighter for Israel Medal, and the Medal of Jerusalem.

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REV. GRUAEL'S LECTURE TOUR

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!tI WAS CAPTURED BY THE BRITISH NAVY"

Hear a first-hand report about the Exodus 1947 from a student preacher who volunteered as an ordinary seaman aboard the historic vessel which carried "illegal" Jewish immigrants to Palestine.

JOHN STANLEY GRAUEL Lecturer — World Traveler — Writer — Radio Commentator

will speak this Friday evening, November 19, 1948 at eight o'clock

at. the

BETH EL TEMPLE SERVICES You and your friends are cordially invited to attend.

Maxwell Zedd, President Dr. Paul Reich, Rabbi

BROOKDALE COMMUNITY COLLEGE HOLOCAUST CENTER

The Center for Holocaust Studies at Brookdale

Community College, Lincroft, N.J.

campus, was

founded in 1979 by Professors Seymour

Siegler and

Jack Needle. The center, now officially

named

chhange, Center for Holocaust, Human

Rights and

Genocide Education, awards a Rev. John S.

Grauel

Scholarship.

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AMERICAN CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ALLIANCE CEMETERY

Rev. Grauel died at his home in Roosevelt N.J. in September 1986 at age 69.

The American Christian Missionary Alliance Cemetery located in the Germany Colony in Jerusalem was established after the American Colony sold its Mount Zion plot to the German Templars in 1906. Many unkempt graves were moved here, and today, this cemetery is unique, in that it accepts anybody for burial.

One monument stands out because of its height, its two stars of David and a cross attesting to Rev. John Stanley Grauel.

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REV. GRAUEL MAN OF CONVICTION & MAN OF ACTION

“Whatever your faith or beliefs, you cannot help but be deeply moved by John Grauel's story of his dramatic life, a Christian minister who became a founding father of Israel, a pacifist who fought in what he came to feel was a more noble cause."

David Schoenbaum, author broadcaster

Grauel, An autobiography as told to Eleanor Elfenbein, Ivory House, Freehold, N.J.

1982 –Back cover

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