Research recounts achievements of Coldwater native

COLDWATER - The name James Grover McDonald may not mean much to village residents now but it does to Israelis.

After a quiet childhood in Coldwater, McDonald grew up to work with world leaders of the 1930s and 1940s and even shared a conversation with Adolf Hitler.

Bob Rutschilling, who has been researching McDonald since August, shared what he knows about the former village resident during the Coldwater Kiwanis meeting Tuesday at Mercer County Community Hospital.

McDonald's humble beginning was the start of a politically charged life helping to establish the state of Israel in 1947 and helping the Jewish population after World War II. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1949-1951, Rutschilling said.

McDonald's service to the Jews is recognized across Israel with streets, schools and synagogues named in his honor. He has been referred to as the George Washington of Israel, Rutschilling said.

McDonald was born Nov. 29, 1886, in what was once The Chronicle building on the southeast corner of West Walnut and South First streets in Coldwater. He attended village schools, Holy Trinity Catholic Church and lived in the village until his teenage years when his family moved to Albany, Ind., Rutschilling said.

"I haven't spoken to anyone from Coldwater that had even a clue he was born here," he said.

Rutschilling started his journey into the past after he remembered seeing a picture of McDonald hanging in the Coldwater library. The caption noted he was the first ambassador to Israel.

Through his research of The Chronicle building, he found McDonald's father was the original owner in 1883.

"That kind of jogged that name in the back of my head," he said.

Rutschilling looked up the first ambassador to Israel and began making the connections, he said.

He found McDonald was very involved in the political sphere, trying to help the Jewish people in the 1930s and 1940s.

McDonald's drive to help the Jews started in 1933, when he went to Germany as high commissioner for European refugees for the League of Nations and had a conversation with Adolf Hitler three months after he had taken office as German chancellor, Rutschilling said.

"In 1933, Grover was in Germany and he noticed that there were signs all over the place saying 'Don't buy from the Jewish merchants,' " he said.

Hitler told McDonald he was going to do what the rest of the world was afraid to do and get rid of the Jewish population, he said.

McDonald told President Franklin D. Roosevelt about his conversation.

"Roosevelt didn't want anything to do with it. It was a political hot potato at the time," Rutschilling said.

McDonald also spoke to French, British, Spanish, Italian and Russian leaders about how to help the Jews, but no one wanted to do anything, he said.

The Vatican also did nothing to help the Jews after they recognized the Nazis as an official government, Rutschilling said.

"He believed that Hitler was going to get rid of the Jews and that Hitler was going to bring the world into another world war," he said.

That prediction started coming true on Nov. 9, 1938, with Kristallnacht or Night of the Broken Glass when German soldiers raided Jewish homes and businesses, killing more than 100 and taking more than 30,000 to concentration camps, he said.

McDonald was able to help a couple of thousand Jewish refugees come to America before World War II as he advised the State Department on changing Jewish immigration laws.

After the war, McDonald was a member of the Anglo-American Committee to determine how to relocate Jewish war refugees.

"The war was over. The Jewish prisoners were free. There were millions of them, but they had nowhere to go. Their homes had been burned down, businesses had been burned down. Basically, they stayed in the prisoners camps," Rutschilling said.

McDonald told President Harry Truman that giving the Jews the land of Israel would follow what the Bible says. Truman took him seriously and the committee started the state of Israel. It was recognized by the United Nations in 1947, Rutschilling said.

Historians at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum found McDonald had felt an attack on Jews was an attack on Christianity, religion itself and humanity as a whole, Rutschilling said. A full explanation can be found in his letter "A Credo."

His daughter, Barbra McDonald Stewart, went to Israel with him in 1948, serving as his secretary. She had very little knowledge of his childhood other than the fact he had been born in Coldwater, Rutschilling said.

She was a professor at Columbia University and died at the age of 89 in December, he said.

"As we know today, Israel is a very stable country and one of our premier allies," Rutschilling said.

He said the Coldwater library has books about McDonald for those interested in learning more.