Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to Samuel I. Rosenman, President of the Jewish Education Committee in New York, December 16, 1940:
“Dear Sam, Please convey my best wishes to your co-workers in the Jewish Education Committee of New York, at the annual Hanukkah Dinner …
Our modern democratic way of life has its deepest roots in our great common religious tradition, which for ages past has taught to civilized mankind the dignity of the human being, his equality before God, and his responsibility in the making of a better and fairer world …
The world (is) … engaged in a great spiritual struggle to test whether that ancient wisdom is to endure, or whether … some few men shall dominate multitudes of others and dictate to them their thinking, their religion, their living …
We need the sustaining, buttressing aid of those great ethical religious teachings which are the heritage of our modern civilization.
For ‘not upon strength nor upon power, but upon the spirit of God’ shall our democracy be founded.”