During World War II, an untold number of Jewish children were sheltered by Gentiles, often in orphanages and convents. In 1946, Yitzḥak Halevi Herzog—a Polish-born rabbi who grew up in England and France and served as the chief rabbi of Ireland before leaving for the Land of Israel—traveled to Europe on a quest to find these children, whose caretakers and adoptive parents weren’t always ready to give them up. Herzog, who would later become Israel’s first Ashkenazi chief rabbi, returned to the British-ruled Palestine six months later with 500 children in tow. Shai Ben-Ari writes:

From synagogue shootings, to attacks on Jews on the streets, to the gathering strength and viciousness of anti-Zionism, especially in the corridors of political power, American Jewry has ample reason for concern about its safety and wellbeing. But, surveying both the present situation and the deep roots of what has made America a welcoming home to Jews with “no analogue in the 2,000 years after the destruction of the Temple,” Josef Joffe argues that the U.S. remains exceptional. The bad news, however, is still bad: