April 14, 2024, marks the seventy-sixth anniversary of the re-establishment of a Jewish state and its official recognition by President Harry S. Truman.  This event is not to be taken for granted, given the anti-Jewish policies of today’s Biden administration, which is urging “Israel to capitulate to the terrorist group Hamas.”

Fortunately, in contrast to the current president’s antisemitism, it was a philosemitic Harry Truman who held office in 1948.  Truman, however, had been badgered and mistreated by Jewish political leaders with respect to the issue of a Jewish state in Palestine, upon expiration of the British Mandate, so he had stopped listening to them.  Thus, the founding of a modern Jewish State might never have happened, except for the intervention of an almost-forgotten man named Eddie Jacobson.

Jacobson and Truman had become friends during World War One, when Private Jacobson used to clerk for Lieutenant Truman.  After the war, the two men went into business together in Kansas City, Missouri, as partners in a haberdashery.  The shop eventually failed, but in spite of this, the two men remained close friends.

On March 13, 1948, Eddie Jacobson made his way to the White House for a private meeting.  When appointments secretary Matthew Connelly let Jacobson into the Oval Office, he warned Jacobson not to mention the subject of Palestine to Truman.  But Jacobson would disregard Connelly’s advice and raise the issue anyway.

Truman, after the usual small talk, said, “Eddie, I know what you are here for, and the answer is no.”  Jacobson looked deep into the eyes of the unblinking Truman and asked, softly and politely, that Truman reconsider his position on Palestine.  But Truman did not want to talk about “Palestine or the Jews or the Arabs or the British.”  He said he wanted to let the United Nations handle the matter.  Jacobson was so shocked by his friend’s refusal to hear him out that tears came to his eyes.

Then Eddie Jacobson noticed a replica statue of Andrew Jackson on horseback and said, “Harry, all your life, you have had a hero.  You are probably the best-read man in America on the life of Andrew Jackson. ... Well, Harry, I too have a hero, a man I never met, but who is, I think, the greatest Jew who ever lived.  I am talking about Chaim Weizmann.  He’s an old man and very sick, and he has traveled thousands and thousands of miles just to see you.”

Truman became quiet, regarded the statue of Old Hickory, and swiveled his chair around to look out the window into the Rose Garden.  After a time, Truman spun back around and said, “You win, you bald-headed son of a-b----.  I will see him.”

Five days later, on Thursday, March 18, after sundown, Chaim Weizmann was sneaked into the Oval Office, where Truman pledged to support the declaration of an independent Jewish state.  Despite this, U.N. ambassador Warren Austin announced the next day to the Security Council that the U.S. position vis-à-vis partition was that the U.N. should govern Palestine.

When Truman found he had been overruled by George Marshall at the State Department, he was furious, writing in his diary: “The first I know about it is what I see in the papers!  Isn’t that hell?  I’m now in the position of a liar and a double-crosser.”  Privately, Truman sent assurances to Weizmann that Austin’s U.N. speech was without presidential approval and that the commitment to stand with Israel still stood.

On April 11, 1948, Eddie Jacobson eluded the watchful eyes of the Washington press corps by entering the White House through the East Gate.  Bearing a message from Weizmann, Jacobson told Truman a Jewish state would be declared upon the exit from Palestine of British forces.  He told Truman it was “vital” that the U.S. recognize Israel as soon as the declaration was made.  Truman agreed and asked that Jacobson keep the meeting confidential.

Truman wrote his brother that, despite George Marshall and his State Department’s lack of support, he would “do what I think is right and let them all go to hell.”  In the days prior to the declaration of the Jewish state, Truman held meetings, allowing pro and con arguments with respect to recognizing an independent Jewish state.  Marshall opposed the idea, threatening to vote against Truman in the 1948 presidential election if Truman dared recognize a Jewish state.  Chaim Weizmann wrote Truman on May 13, urging the president to remember his promise.

On May 14, 1948, it was late morning in Washington (late afternoon in Palestine) when David Ben-Gurion read a “Declaration of Independence” proclaiming the existence of a Jewish state called Israel that would come into existence at 12:00 midnight on May 15, 1948 (6:00 P.M., on May 14, Washington time).  And so it came to pass that the State of Israel was reborn in the traditional homeland of the Jewish people.  Eleven minutes after Ben-Gurion’s declaration, the United States recognized Israel, with the following official statement: “This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof.  The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the State of Israel.”

But how might history have turned out differently, if a Missouri haberdasher named Eddie Jacobson had not spoken with his friend Harry Truman about officially recognizing the State of Israel?

Paul Dowling has written about the Constitution, as well as articles for American Thinker, Independent Sentinel, Godfather Politics, Eagle Rising, and Free Thought Matters.

Image via Picryl.