Operation Texas was an undercover operation to relocate European Jews to Texas, USA, away from Nazi persecution.
In 1938, Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), then a Congressman and later the 36th President of the United States of America, worked covertly to establish a refuge in Texas for European Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. Johnson helped hundreds of European Jews enter Texas through Cuba, Mexico and South America.
In part, Johnson was influenced in his attitude towards the Jews by the religious beliefs that his family, especially his grandfather (Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr.), who was a member of the Christadelphian church, shared with him. Christadelphians believe that the Jews are God's chosen people, and LBJ's grandfather once said to him, "Take care of the Jews, God’s chosen people. Consider them your friends and help them any way you can." In reference to Operation Texas, Texas historian James M. Smallwood commented that LBJ "apparently took seriously his grandfather's charge."
Famous quotes containing the words operation and/or texas:
“You may read any quantity of books, and you may almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don’t have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite images which can only be acquired through the operation of your observing faculties on the phenomena of nature.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“During the cattle drives, Texas cowboy music came into national significance. Its practical purpose is well known—it was used primarily to keep the herds quiet at night, for often a ballad sung loudly and continuously enough might prevent a stampede. However, the cowboy also sang because he liked to sing.... In this music of the range and trail is “the grayness of the prairies, the mournful minor note of a Texas norther, and a rhythm that fits the gait of the cowboy’s pony.””
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)