Benjamin H. Freedman

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Benjamin Harrison ^[1] Freedman, (1890–May 1984)^[2] was an American businessman who lived in New York City. Freedman was a speaker and author, known for his anti-Zionist views and writings. He was a convert from Judaism to Catholicism.^[3] He was a partner in a dermatological institute.

Contents 1 Personal 2 Freedman as a revisionist 2.1 The Casus Belli for the American Entry into WWI 2.2 The alleged Zionist plot against Germany 2.3 Claims of Jewish control of newspapers 2.4 Blackmailing Woodrow Wilson 3 Freedman's connections and claimed connections with public figures 4 Publications 4.1 Common Sense 4.2 League for Peace With Justice in Palestine 4.3 Facts are Facts 5 Criticisms 6 Notes 7 See also 8 Works 9 Resources 10 External links

[edit] Personal

Freedman was born Oct 4, 1890 in New York City.^[4] Freedman claimed that he was present at the 1912 presidential campaign as an assistant to Bernard Baruch, and regularly sat at meetings with candidate Woodrow Wilson. He claimed in a speech that he was a liaison between Rolla Wells and Henry Morgenthau, Sr. This could only have been with the Democratic National Committee sometime between 1912 and 1916, as in that year Rolla Wells was appointed a Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis. His World War I draft registration card states that he was living at 340 West 86th in New York.^[5] A few houses away, at 309 lived Samuel D. Leidesdorf. The 1925 New York City directory lists "Benj H Freedman (Freedman-Salisbury Co) h340 W86th"^[6] Also living at the same address is "Mrs Moritz Freedman", his widowed mother. His partner in this company is listed as "Milton S Salisbury imprs 233 Bway R2156".

New York Times, May 10, 1924, pg 21: "Dissolution Notice": "The co-partnership of Freedman-Salsbury Co., composed of Benjamin H Freedman and Milton S. Salsbury, and also doing business as the Herkules Saw Sales Co. of America with address at 233 Broadway, New York City, has been dissolved." - Milton S Salsbury (Milton Salsbury was the son of Buffalo Bill's manager Nathan "Nate" Salsbury.)

He was at one time a partner with Samuel D. Leidesdorf in John H. Woodbury and the John H. Woodbury Laboratories, a dermatological institute ^[7] and a derivative company of the old Woodbury Soap Company. He states that he was in that business from "I would say 1925 to 1937 or 1938." ^[8] In 1931, "Benj H Freedman" is listed in the city directory as living at the Paramount Hotel^[9] In 1946 he sued the American Jewish Committee for $5,000,000 for libel.^[10] In 1948, he, through Hallam Richardson, attorney for the League for Peace With Justice in Palestine sued the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League (founded by Samuel Untermyer) for criminal libel, that they had libeled Mr Richardson in a pamphlet by saying he had "long been known in the halls of pro-Fascist propaganda." The case was heard before Hyman Bushel in Mid-Manhattan Court for 23 days and then dismissed.^[11]

In 1954, his address is stated to be 960 Park Avenue. He contributed money to the anti-Semite Conde McGinley, publisher of the periodical Common Sense.^[12] In 1955, Rabbi Joachim Prinz (1902–88) (later President of the American Jewish Congress), sued McGinley for branding him a "red rabbi", and Freedman was called as a witness.^[13] He also produced several pamphlets over the years. The New York Times reported a meeting at the Henry George School where Benjamin H. Freedman spoke on "The Genesis of Middle East Tensions".^[14] And again they reported that "Long John Nebel" on WNBC "will discuss anti-Semitism with Benjamin H. Freedman, industrialist."^[15] He continued his political activities until the mid-1970s, when he was well over 85 years old. Benjamin Freedman died in May 1984 at the age of 94. ^[16] His wife was named Rose.^[17][18]

[edit] Freedman as a revisionist

[edit] The Casus Belli for the American Entry into WWI

In The Hidden Tyranny Freedman explained the American entry into the war thus: “Congress only declared war against Germany because President Wilson informed Congress that a German submarine had sunk the S.S. Sussex in the English Channel in violation of international law and that United States citizens aboard the S.S. Sussex had perished with the ship.” (The text of Wilson’s message to Congress of April 2, 1917 can be reviewed here.)

[edit] The alleged Zionist plot against Germany

He claimed a conspiracy among powerful Zionists in the banking and financial elite to undermine Germany during World War I. He also claimed that a group of Zionists offered to embroil the United States in World War I on the Allied side in return for British support for a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. He claimed support was offered in the form of the Balfour Declaration issued by the British Government to the head of the British Jewish Community Lord Rothschild, but Freedman offered no evidence for the Jewish conspiracies. He claimed that he was there and "ought to know".

[edit] Claims of Jewish control of newspapers

Freedman also claimed that all the newspapers at the time were owned by Jews. He also claimed that their newspapers were pro-German before the war and that after the alleged deal was struck between the Zionists and the British that these newspapers became anti-German. He provided no evidence for either assertion.

[edit] Blackmailing Woodrow Wilson

Freedman also claimed that the prominent lawyer Samuel Untermyer visited President Wilson in the White House and threatened him with a breach of promise suit on behalf of the wife of a Princeton professor with whom Freedman alleged Wilson had carried on an affair and to whom he offered marriage. Untermeyer's client wanted $40,000, which Wilson did not have. Untermeyer offered to pay his client off if Wilson would allow Untermeyer to dictate the next available Supreme Court nomination, which in the event went to Louis Brandeis. Freedman offers no evidence for these claims. For an account of the law involved here, see breach of promise. For a detailed and documented account of Wilson's close relations with Brandeis and his desire to have him as his first Attorney-General, see the first two volumes of Arthur S. Link's Wilson.

[edit] Freedman's connections and claimed connections with public figures

• Besides Baruch and Wilson, Freedman claimed to be acquainted with Henry Morgenthau, Sr., Samuel Untermyer, Franklin Roosevelt, Joseph Kennedy, and his son John F. Kennedy, and other influential persons such as H. L. Hunt and son Nelson Bunker; he also claimed to have attended the Versailles Peace Conference.

• Freedman was an advisor to Nelson Bunker Hunt an American businessman most famous for his silver dealings: ^[19], as he was a friend of his father H. L. Hunt, who was believed to be the richest man in the world at the time of his death.

• In Robert John's Behind the Balfour Declaration, published by the Institute for Historical Review, the only acknowledgment is to Freedman. John says that Freedman "gave me copies of materials on the Balfour Declaration which I might never have found on my own and encouraged my own research."^[20]

• Col. Curtis B. Dall put Freedman in a list of unspecified acknowledgments in FDR My Exploited Father-In-Law^[21], a book about father in law and 32nd President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

[edit] Publications

[edit] Common Sense

Benjamin Freedman contributed funds toward the once-well-known "patriotic" newspaper Common Sense, published by Conde McGinley. In an article in the February 1955 issue of Commentary magazine, he is cited as a financial backer of Conde McGinley, publisher of the periodical Common Sense. In the libel trial by Rabbi Joachim Prinz against McGinley, Freedman as a witness testified that "he had given Mr. McGinley financial support of 'more than $10,000 but less than $100,000'".^[22]

[edit] League for Peace With Justice in Palestine

After the demise of Common Sense, Benjamin Freedman continued to write and publish his own broadsheets under the aegis of the League for Peace With Justice in Palestine, which he had founded in 1946.^{[23] [24][25]}

[edit] Facts are Facts

This is a pamphlet purporting to be the text of a 1954 letter from Freedman to David Goldstein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and an exponent of the idea that Christianity fulfilled Judaism. The text expounds the notion that most people now identified as Jews are the descendants of Khazars, a Turkic people of Central Asia who converted to Judaism. Throughout the text of this pamphlet, the author never refers to "Jews" simpliciter. He always refers to "so-called or self-styled 'Jews,'" as if there were really no Jews.

[edit] Criticisms

Freedman opposed the nomination of Anna M. Rosenberg to be Assistant Secretary of Defense in 1950.^[26] "An article in the ADL Bulletin entitled The Plot Against Ann Rosenburg attributed the attacks on Rosenberg's loyalty to 'professional anti-Semites and lunatic nationalists,' including the 'Jew-baiting cabal of John Rankin, Benjamin Freedman, and Gerald Smith.' ([http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0231106386 Stuart Svonkin, Jews Against Prejudice, p 120, search for "Freedman")

"Freedman, an apostate Jew, was well known to the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee as an active supporter of the Arab cause in the Middle East. (fn 33) In the course of his erratic and often contradictory testimony before the Senate committee, Freedman revealed the roles played by anti-Semitic agitators and right-wing anticommunists — including Gerald L.K. Smith, Conde McGinley, the "Reverend" Wesley Swift, Congressman John Rankin, Senator Joseph McCarthy, and J.B. Matthews — in the campaign against the Rosenberg appointment. (fn 34)"^[27]

The February 1955 issue of the American Jewish Committee's Commentary magazine included an article attacking Conde McGinley's Common Sense newspaper, which Freedman wrote for and subsidized, saying:

"One of McGinley's angels is the Jewish anti-Semite Benjamin Freedman, who told the Armed Services Committee on December 12, 1950 that he had given $15,000 to Common Sense."^[28]

That Freedman was the 'financial angel' of Conde McGinley's Common Sense is also confirmed by Jewish historian Svonkin. ^[29]

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs called him a "self-hating Jew" or "Jewish anti-Semite." The House Committee on un-American activities called him a "retired toilet goods manufacturer"^[30].

[edit] Notes

[edit] See also

• World War I
• World War II
• Balfour Declaration, 1917

[edit] Works

• Facts are Facts, Noontide Press (Softcover), ISBN 0-317-53273-1
• Why Congress is Crooked or Crazy or Both, Founder, 1946, League for Peace with Justice in Palestine (self-published, New York, 1975)
• Palestine, Destiny: The Magazine of National Life (Jan. 1948): 26-28 (originally appeared in the National Economic Council’s Council Letter, no. 177, Oct. 15, 1947). Published in Haverhill, Mass.,

[edit] Resources

• Hall, Gordon D., The Hate Campaign Against the UN. Beacon Press, 1952. OCLC 4028401
• Nomination of Anna M. Rosenberg to be Assistant Secretary of Defense OCLC 9714984
• Svonkin, Stuart, Jews Against Prejudice:American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties. Columbia University Press 1997. ISBN 0-231-10638-6
• House Committee on un-American Activities, 1954 (PDF 3 Meg) (from the Eugene Debs collection)
• The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate, Robert Griffith. Publisher: Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 1987, ©1970. ISBN 0-87023-554-0

[edit] External links

• Woodbury ad

• The audio of the speech in its entirety is 87 minutes long:
  • Speech (Part1)
  • Speech (Part2)
  • Speech (Part3)
• A CD with the 1961 Willard Hotel speech: Link