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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on Laura Margolis’s work for the American Joint Distribution Committee, an American Jewish philanthropic organization, as an example of the way gender shaped American international NGOs and American diplomacy more broadly during the Second World War. Margolis’s gender and Jewishness both set limits and offered unprecedented opportunities for the expression of American Jewish internationalism on the ground in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Through her use of strategies only available to a woman, Margolis was able to succeed in her mission of saving Jewish refugees in Shanghai and spreading American democratic values.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank her research assistants Daniel Rosenblatt and Aaron Slavik; Jaclyn Granick, Abigail Green, two anonymous reviewers and the participants of the Gendering Jewish Internationalism Conference for all their helpful feedback and comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Kaufman, “Interview with Laura Margolis,” 15.
2 Margolis’s work is detailed in Litvac Glaser, “Laura Margolis and JDC Efforts.”
3 Iriye, “A Century of NGOs,” 426. For recent relevant literature, see Hopkins, American Empire.
4 See Dekel-Chen, Farming the Red Land; Heller, “The Gendered Politics of Public Health;” and Granick, International Jewish Humanitarianism.
5 On gender and associational life within America, see McCarthy, Noblesse Oblige; Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion; and Walkowitz, Working with Class. On American Jewish women working beyond American borders see McCune, Whole Wide World, Without Limits; and Klapper, Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace.
6 This topic is detailed in Glaser, “Refugees And Relief.” See also Halpern, “Saving the Unwanted;” Rosen-Bayewitz, “JDC Female Professionals;” and Hobson Faure and Daelen, “Private Jewish Welfare After the Holocaust.”
7 Gram-Skjoldager, “Bringing the Diplomat Back In.”
8 Zalewski, “Feminist International Relations;” Mori, “How Women Make Diplomacy;” and Cassidy and Althari, “Modern Diplomacy through a Gender Lens.”
9 Wood, “Diplomatic Wives;” and Sluga, “Bankers at the Congress of Vienna, and in International History.”
10 Green, “Liberals, Socialists, Internationalists, Jews,” 12.
11 Handlin, A Continuing Task; Yehuda Bauer, My Brother's Keeper; and Granick, International Jewish Humanitarianism.
12 Lehmann, “Baron Hirsch, the Jewish Colonization Association;” and Leff, Sacred Bonds of Solidarity.
13 Granick, International Jewish Humanitarianism; Dekel-Chen, Farming the Red Land; and Tessaris, “War Relief Work in Poland and Lithuania.”
14 Sluga and James, Women, Diplomacy and International Politics, 1.
15 Glaser, “Laura Margolis and JDC Efforts,” 169-171.
16 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 130, Laura Margolis personnel file.
17 Hofstadter, Age of Reform; and Zunz, Philanthropy in America: A History. On the intersection of state/non-state initiatives see Balogh, Associational State; and Porter, Benevolent Empire.
18 Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion; Walkowitz, Working with Class.
19 Kaufman, “Interview with Laura Margolis,” 9.
20 USHMM Interview transcript, 7; JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 506, Margolis to Hyman, March 27, 1939, and Siegel, Veissid, and Margolis, Study of Change in Status Cases from January 1937 to October 1940, Dec. 1, 1940.
21 USHMM Interview 127:12-20.
22 Kaufman, “Interview with Laura Margolis,” 7.
23 Bejerano “Interview with Laura Margolis,” Transcript 1, 21-22.
24 Ibid.
25 Granick, International Jewish Humanitarianism; and Porter, Benevolent Empire, 30-33.
26 USHMM Interview, 140:01-141;20.
27 Ibid.
28 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 130, Hyman to Hollzer, January 19, 1942.
29 Bejerano, “Interview with Laura Margolis,” transcript 2, 7.
30 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 461, “Report on Jewish Refugees Problem in Shanghai,” 1939, and Folder 463; and Ristaino, Port of Last Resort.
31 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, “Laura Margolis at the National Refugee Service.”
32 Ibid.
33 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, Margolis, “Confidential Report Dec. 8, 1941-September 1943.”
34 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 130, Margolis, “Race Against Time in Shanghai,” Survey Geographic, 1944, 170, 191.
35 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 461, Margolis to Baerwald, May 13, 1941, and Margolis to Pilpel, May 29, 1941.
36 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 461, Report of the Secretary to the Executive Committee Meeting Joint Distribution Committee, April 16, 1941.
37 USHMM Interview, 1:45:15-45.
38 Kaufman, “Interview with Laura Margolis,” 15.
39 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 130, Insurance Claim, December 21, 1941.
40 Kaufman, “Interview with Laura Margolis,” 15.
41 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 461, Margolis to Pilpel, June 11, 1941.
42 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 130, Hyman to Hollzer, January 19, 1942.
43 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 149-151.
44 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 461, Margolis to Pilpel, June 18, 1941.
45 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 461, Cable from Margolis to Jointdisco, June 5, 1941, and Margolis to Warren, June 3, 1941.
46 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, “Refugees in the Far East,” Testimony of Laura Margolis in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 78th Congress, April 13, 1944.
47 In addition to Shanghai, such an approach to funding was used by field offices in Poland, France, Roumania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Italy. JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, “JDC Pays Loan for Funds Aiding Refugees in Shanghai,” October 3, 1943.
48 USHMM interview, 1:43:01
49 USHMM Interview, 1:45:02
50 USHMM Interview, 1:45:09
51 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, Margolis, “Confidential Report Dec. 8, 1941-September 1943.”
52 Ibid.
53 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 149-151.
54 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, “Refugees in the Far East,” Testimony of Laura Margolis in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 78th Congress, April 13, 1944.
55 ibid.
56 Heppner, Shanghai Refuge, 100.
57 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, “Refugees in the Far East,” Testimony of Laura Margolis in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 78th Congress, April 13, 1944.
58 All quotations in paragraph in JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 130, Margolis, “Race Against Time in Shanghai,” Survey Geographic, 1944.
59 USHMM Interview, 1:45:09
60 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, “Evacuator of Cuban Refugees Continues Work in Shanghai,” Jewish Review and Observer (Cleveland), October 16, 1942.
61 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, Margolis, “Confidential Report Dec. 8, 1941-September 1943.”
62 Ibid.
63 USHMM Interview, 1:45:45; 150: 20-55.
64 Ristaino, Port of Last Resort, 157.
65 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, “Refugees in the Far East,” Testimony of Laura Margolis in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 78th Congress, April 13, 1944.
66 Kaufman, “Interview with Laura Margolis,” 29.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid., 31.
69 JDC Archives, Records of the New York Office, 1933-1944, Folder 463, “JDC Pays Loan for Funds Aiding Refugees in Shanghai,” October 3, 1943.
70 In addition to Margolis, Cecilia Razovsky was critical to this in this moment; see Bat-Ami Zucker’s Cecilia Razovsky.
71 USHMM Interview, 149:01.
72 Sluga and James, Women, Diplomacy and International Politics, 2.
73 Ibid., 1, 9.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Rebecca Kobrin
Rebecca Kobrin is the Russell and Bettina Knapp Associate Professor of American Jewish History at Columbia University in New York. She is the author of Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora (Indiana University Press, 2010) and editor of Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter with American Capitalism (Rutgers University Press, 2012) and of Purchasing Power: The Economics of Jewish History (University of Pennsylvania Press, Spring 2015).