I Am a Man Who Breaks the Law

Soon after arriving in America, the Rebbe tried to obtain visas for the many destitute survivors in Eastern Europe who longed to join him. The immigration authorities refused, afraid that the newcomers would need public assistance. At that time the House Foreign Affairs Committee was chaired by a Jew, Sol Bloom, who in spite of repeated appeals would not stretch the law to admit more Jews.

The Rebbe resolved to try for himself and set up a meeting in Bloom's office. He traveled to Washington the night before and, having nowhere to stay, spent the night in a shul. At dawn he stood outside the office in wrinkled clothes. He had been promised five minutes, and when they began he was shown inside. For several minutes Bloom did not raise his head, and then he asked who this man was. Rav Alexander Teitelbaum, the Kolbosaver Rav, translated.

The Rebbe's thoughts raced, and then the words came: “I am a man who breaks the law.” Now Bloom was listening. The Rebbe went on to describe the law in the land he had come from: every Jew was to be sent to Auschwitz and worked as a slave, and when he was too weak to work he was burned. The law forbade hiding, escaping or giving a Jew any food or help, and he had broken every one of those laws. He told Bloom that he had come to ask him to join in the crime. Refugees were forbidden to enter the country by law, but that law would bring about deaths and deny people the chance of a future and of raising children. Such a law, he said, had to be broken.

Sol Bloom rose, came around his desk and took the Rebbe's hand. “I am with you,” he said. With his standing in Congress he secured visas and gathered funds, and many Jewish refugees were brought to the United States.