Rabbi Eliezer Silver רב אליעזר סילבר

Born in Lithuania, he came to America in 1907 and served in Harrisburg and Cincinnati. In 1939 he took charge of the Vaad Hatzala, the rescue committee of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, working where the ordinary routes were shut: Curaçao visas, Japanese transits, money through neutral countries, later parcels to the camps and outright bribery.

On 6 October 1943 he led some four hundred rabbis to the White House—the only Jewish march in wartime Washington. Roosevelt avoided the meeting, but the noise helped bring about the War Refugee Board three months later.

After the war he went himself through the displaced persons camps and the monasteries, looking for Jewish children left in hiding. It is told that he checked the lists simply: he would walk in and begin saying the Shema aloud, and the children answered.