As the Middle East prepares for President Trump's Middle East tour, a forgotten anniversary approaches. On May 13, 1949, in Berlin, a Holocaust survivor named Rabbi Samuel Snieg presented the first copy of what we now call the "Survivors' Talmud" to an American general.
Few Americans know this story. All should.
The scene itself tells a tale of redemption. Picture it: A rabbi who had endured the concentration camp at Dachau, standing in the heart of defeated Germany, offering an American military leader a sacred text printed by the U.S. Army.
"I bless your hand," Rabbi Snieg said, "in presenting to you this volume embodying the highest spiritual wisdom of our people." The general receiving this gift was Lucius Clay, Military Governor of the American Occupation Zone in Germany.
How did such a moment come to pass?
After World War II, Jewish survivors gathered in displaced persons camps across Europe, many housed in former concentration camps. When American officials asked what these survivors needed most urgently, the answer surprised them. Many survivors asked not for food or medicine but books – specifically, the Talmud, the ancient text containing Jewish law, ethics, and traditions.
The Nazis had methodically destroyed Jewish libraries throughout Europe. Now, in an act of both practical aid and profound symbolism, two Holocaust survivors proposed something audacious – printing an entirely new edition of the Talmud in Germany.
The U.S. Army embraced this vision. The agreement, dated September 11, 1946, called for printing 3,000 copies of a complete Talmud under Army supervision.
The challenges proved considerable. No complete set of the Talmud could be located in Western Europe. Materials were scarce in post-war Germany. Even finding collodion – a substance needed for transferring page images to zinc plates – required reaching into the Soviet zone as the Cold War began.
Yet against all odds, the project advanced. The printing took place at the Carl Winter Printing Plant in Heidelberg – the very presses that had previously produced Nazi propaganda. Where hatred had once been manufactured, wisdom would now flow.
The completed volumes bear a title page depicting a Nazi concentration camp surrounded by barbed wire at the bottom, with palm trees and scenes of Israel above. These images are connected by Hebrew words meaning: "From bondage to freedom, from darkness to a great light."
Inside, a dedication reads: "This edition of the Talmud is dedicated to the United States Army... This special edition of the Talmud published in the very land where, but a short time ago, everything Jewish and of Jewish inspiration was anathema, will remain a symbol of the indestructibility of the Torah."
Seventy-six years later, as antisemitism darkens campus quads and social media feeds, the anniversary of the “Survivors’ Talmud” arrives with unsettling relevance. We stand at a similar crossroads for moral leadership. What separates then from now is not the presence of hatred but our response to it – will we excuse what should be confronted? Will we muster the same moral courage that those post-war leaders displayed?
In 1946, this fight was led by soldiers in Army green. Today, that same battle continues from the Oval Office to the halls of the Department of Justice and the offices of the FBI. The uniforms have changed, but America's commitment to combating hatred remains steadfast.
This continuity of purpose connects us directly to those post-war days of moral clarity. The yellowing pages of the Survivors' Talmud whisper across decades, reminding us that America's finest hours emerge when we recognize that some principles transcend our divides. When we understand, as those Army officers did standing amid the rubble of fascism, that our truest strength lies not in what we destroy but in what we preserve.
Soon, Secretary Hegseth will stand with Israeli officials discussing security concerns. President Trump will meet with Arab leaders. The complicated geopolitics of the Middle East persists. Yet somewhere, in libraries and collections around the world, these volumes remain – quiet testaments to an American moment when we helped transform ashes into wisdom.
That is leadership in its purest form. That is America at its best, that is the America we all know and love..
The writer is the former chairman of the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.