FDR was singularly responsible for defeating Nazi Germany's brutal anti-Semitic regime. Yet sixty-one years after his death, FDR's legacy is entwined with allegations he was anti-Semitic and disinterested in the Holocaust.

As a liberal Jewish American I was always conditioned to regard FDR with an asterisk. Many times I've heard my predominantly liberal family say, "FDR was a great President, but ..." And they proceed to indict him for being unsympathetic to European Jewry during the Holocaust. In particular, FDR's critics cite the SS St. Louis, which arrived in Havana Harbor on May 27, 1939 with 936 European Jews seeking asylum, but were turned away. There was also FDR's failure to fire Breckinridge Long. While serving in FDR's State Department, Long obstructed and delayed visas, causing the deaths of Jews desperate to escape Europe.