John Stanley Grauel

Birth: 1917 Massachusetts, USA Death: Sep., 1986 New Jersey, USA Methodist Minister, crew member of the famed refugee ship the " SS Exodus "-1947 , secret " Haganah "- operative, credited with being the key individual who persuaded the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine to recommend for the Partition Resolution of November 1947, creating the State of Israel. " Golda Meir "-in a speech to the Jewish Agency, referred to his testimony as the first appeal by a “priest, a perfectly worthy gentile, a priori, no Jewish witness was to be believed,” and because of this, his graphic account became a turning point in the attitudes of the U.N. representatives.¹ American Christian Zionist leader: Born in Worchester, Massachusetts, he completed his education in 1941 graduating from the Bangor, Maine, Theological Seminary as a Methodist Minister. Reverend Grauel became very aware of the European Holocaust and the Zionist movement in 1942 through his close friendship with Judge Joseph Goldberg of Worcester. Grauel joined the " America Palestine Committee " in 1942. The Committee was dedicated to the establishment of a Jewish state. In 1943 he gave up the local ministry to assume a position as a director of the Committee's Philadelphia office. In 1944, attending his first Zionist meeting he met David Ben Gurion , the Zionist leader and future prime minister of Israel. Grauel learned of the Jewish underground army in Palestine, the Haganah, and the longtime humanitarian efforts of the Haganah to save Jewish lives from the Holocaust by smuggling Jews into Palestine. Reverend Grauel enlisted in the effort immediately, leading a double life working for the " America Palestine Committee " and the Jewish underground. March 23, 1947, he sailed aboard the famed illegal refugee running ship the Exodus . The " Haganah " deliberately placed him onboard as a secret opererative, under the cover of a foreign correspondent for the Episcopal journal, "The Churchman." Grauel's mission was to get the story of the Exodus '47 out to the world. In Europe he organized and transferred refugees from the DP Camps to the ship acting in multiple capacities as an administrative executive, quartermaster, cook and liaison for the crew and the refugees. The Exodus , heavily overburdened with 4554 refugees, was intercepted and captured by British destroyers off the coast of Haifa, Palestine in a brief violent assault that left two refugees and one crew member dead. Grauel was arrested by the British. He escaped, with help from the Haganah, and gave direct testimony before the " United Nations Special Committee on Palestine ". His first hand testimony was extremely effective in eliciting sympathy and understanding for the cause of unrestricted Jewish refugee immigration to Palestine. Golda Meir, a later Prime Minister of Israel, observed that Reverend Grauel's testimony and advocacy for the creation of the Jewish State fundamentally and positively changed the United Nations' to support the creation of Israel. His testimony before the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine was weighted very favorably because he was not Jewish. Just two short years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish attitudes were a reality that had to be dealt with at the United Nations by the Haganah and the Jewish Agency for Palestine Throughout his life he maintained close associations with Jewish concerns. In the 1950s and 1960's he led investigations into the terrible conditions of Jews living in Morocco and Algeria. In 1975 he led one of the first Jewish youth tours of the Nazi Concentration camps in Europe. Reverend Grauel was drawn to numerous humanitarian efforts including the American Civil Rights and Native American struggles. The State of Israel recognized Rev. He died in Roosevelt, New Jersey and was buried in Jerusalem,Israel with in attendance an Israeli Naval Honor Guard, B'Nai Brith, members of the Aliyah Bet and fellow crew members of the Exodus. No member of the Government of Israel attended. Burial: Alliance Christian Missionary Cemetery, Jerusalem,Israel There was great gratification for me in knowing that my eyewitness report was now a matter of record.²