Rabbi Dr. William Franklin Rosenblum (1892-1962), Grodno, Poland, was a Reform movement rabbi and scholar in the United States. He immigrated with his family to the US in 1897, graduating from the College of the City of New York and earning a law degree at Tulane University. During World War Ⅰ, he served in the United States Navy. In 1926, he was ordained at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. He was assistant rabbi at synagogues in Steubenville, Ohio, and Washington before assuming the pulpit at Temple Israel (New York City) in 1930. From 1928 to 1933 he served as chaplain in the US Army Reserve. In 1946 and 1948, as an official representative of B'nai B'rith, Rabbi Rosenblum met with Pope Pius Ⅻ in lengthy private audiences. Their discussions were credited with having laid the ground work for improved Christian-Jewish realtions. In 1958, in a demonstration of interfaith action that was regarded as rare at the time, Rabbi Rosenblum took the initiative in organizing a committee of Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish clergymen pledged to raise the moral and spiritual climate of the city: the Committee of Religious Leaders. In 1961 he served a term as president of the New York Military Chaplains Association and conducted Passover Seder services for United States armed forces in Saigon, South Vietnam. In a 1968 sermon, Rabbi Rosenblum asserted that anti-Semitism would evaporate "the moment men are no longer taught that the Jews, in rejecting the idea of a Christ, rejected the ideas of Jesus." He suggested that the Christian church should “emphasize that Jesus not only was born a Jew but that he remained a devout and loyal Jew, never preaching anything but the faith he had learned at his mother's knee and at the feet of his Jewish leaders." A 33rd degree Mason, Rabbi Rosenblum was for many years grand chaplain of the Grand Lodge of New York. He also was president of the Association of Reform Rabbis and the Synagogue Council of America.