"Those by Whose Side We Have Labored": American Jewish Women and the Peace Movement between the Wars

Abstract

In May 1935 Lillian Cantor Dawson took a leave of absence from running the New York social services section of the Workmen's Circle, a Jewish socialist organization, to attend the twentieth anniversary meeting of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (wilpf) in Washington, D.C. A longtime wilpf member, Dawson had come to believe, like many former suffragists, that women were particularly suited to peace work because, as she put it, “their natural female role of helping the culture survive might lead to peace.” She was convinced that women could and should play an important role in international affairs, and therefore she came to the meeting with a mission. Dawson and a small group of allies tried to introduce a resolution condemning Adolf Hitler's political and military actions and especially Nazi treatment of Jews. When the presiding officer, Jane Addams, who would die later that month, and other wilpf officials would not entertain the motion, more than one hundred Jewish and non-Jewish delegates walked out of the meeting. Dawson was crushed by what she perceived as the moral failure of the organization to denounce such an obvious, directed threat, despite the passage by the wilpf international congress the previous year of a resolution emphasizing the rights of Jews as a national minority. She felt personally betrayed by the women with whom she had worked for years—especially Addams, whom she considered a personal friend and a mentor in the peace movement. After returning home from the meeting, Dawson continued to despair as the treatment of Jews worsened: she “just could not believe that the world should stand by and let Hitler happen. But at the same time I thought war was the greatest scourge of mankind. It was, of course, a difficult personal decision for me.” Ultimately, Dawson felt compelled to support any measure—even war—that might save her fellow Jews.1