May 21, 1881: The Jew and the Red Cross

Among the small citizens group that launched the American Red Cross with Clara Barton on this date in 1881 was Adolphus Simeon Solomons, a Sephardic Jewish businessman who hosted many of the group’s meetings in Washington, DC and became vice-president of the new organization for its first eleven years. In 1884, Barton and Solomons were appointed by President Chester A. Arthur to represent the U.S. at the International Congress of the Red Cross (IRC), in Geneva, where delegates from thirty-seven nations elected him a vice president.

Solomons also helped found the American Jewish Historical Society and created the first training school for nurses in Washington. Ironically, the Red Cross — which was chartered by the U.S. government as a quasi-governmental agency in 1905 — developed a history of cooperating with Jim Crow laws, including the racial segregation of blood supplies and the mistreatment of black disaster victims. The organization also issued reports that minimized the brutality of conditions in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and refused for fifty years to accept as an IRC member Israel’s Magen David Adom (Red Star of David).

“Everybody’s business is nobody’s business, and nobody’s business is my business.” —Clara Barton