 When the scale of rescue work needed became apparent in the 1930s, he became the executive director of the Chief Rabbi's Religious Emergency Council, formed under the auspices of his future father-in-law, Chief Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz, in 1938.He personally rescued many thousands of Jews from Nazi forces in Central and Eastern Europe during the years 1938-1948.He felt Zionism had aided the Nazi regime's persecution of Jews.