Yoram Kaniuk, the prize-winning Israeli author and peace activist who passed away last week, often ventured well beyond the national consensus with his controversial views on issues such as the role of religion in public life and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But when it came to the question of America's response to the Holocaust, Kaniuk was one of the outstanding representatives of an important but often-overlooked right-to-left consensus in the Jewish world. Kaniuk was one of the featured speakers at a 2008 conference in Tel Aviv called "Rescue and Obstruction: The U.S. and the Destruction of European Jewry." The event drew public attention to the activities of the Bergson Group, the 1940s Jewish activists who sponsored rallies, newspaper ads and lobbying to challenge the Roosevelt administration's abandonment of European Jewry. Probably a few of Kaniuk's peers were surprised...

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