Rebecca Shapiro Thesis (11 May 2011).pdf - Brandeis Institutional ...

Board meeting in which Alpha Epsilon Pi adopted a resolution encouraging members togive room and board without charge to German Jewish refugee students. 123Fraternity and sorority members often fiercely negotiated with their universitiesand U.S immigration officials to bring and keep students on the campus. For example,two refugees bound for Tufts University were held at Ellis Island in New York and onlyreleased after petitions from the fraternities' Refugee Committee begged the Departmentof State to keep them on American soil rather than deport them back to Europe. 124 Thesefraternities helped raise funds and awareness to save the lives of other Jews.Consequently, these efforts bolstered support from the alumni, Jewish community,administration and faculty of their schools. Those who previously ignored or dismissedthe Jewish Greek system, saw these efforts as noble and gained instant respect for thefraternities. 125Students also created contingency plans, should Nazism come to America.Antisemitism on college campuses, escalated from the exclusion of Jewish students andthe establishment of quotas, to the raiding by local authorities of Jewish fraternity houses.In two of these raids, one directed against Phi Beta Delta fraternity at Iowa University,and the other against Sigma Tau Phi at Temple University, students were arrested,drawing national attention to the illicit and immoral behavior of those in the fraternityhouses. Newspapers reported that the Phi Beta Delta house was kept in a disorderlymanner and that the fraternity housed two juvenile girls "for immoral purposes." 126 Theheads of the Jewish fraternity movement used this as an opportunity to show the123 Toll, 152124 Sanua, 236,125 Sanua, 236126 Sanua, 25934