https://www.jewishlinknj.com/features/30756-fear-and-panic
Part XVII
Throughout April, May and June 1940, the Nazis continued their drive to dominate Europe by conquering Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. As Saul Friedlander noted, the stunning Nazi victories caused panic in the U.S. and fear that an invasion of the Western hemisphere might be imminent.
The Germans understood that America was impotent as a result of the defeat of the Allies, and that no matter how vociferous their verbal objections might be, they were not in a position to initiate practical action. The U.S. was virtually in a state of paralysis in light of a looming election campaign, the speed in which 120 German divisions attacked the entire length of the Western front and the complete lack of preparedness on the part of the American armed forces.
The Jews had “worked themselves into a state of panic, verging on catastrophic despair,” observed Salo Baron, professor of Jewish history at Columbia University in the July-August 1940 edition of the Contemporary Jewish Record. An ever-increasing number of Jews began to believe that there was little use in attempting to ameliorate even a “small fraction” of the distress, for the refugee crisis seemed to be growing beyond their ability to cope with it.
The point had been reached where some Jews were “beginning sincerely to favor, or else find a ready excuse for, complete inertness and a fatalistic suspension of all activities, including even the financial contributions for relief of European Jewry and the reconstruction of Palestine.”