I recently started reading Ben Urwand's book, entitled "The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler". In it, Urwand makes a rather harsh accusation that the Hollywood film industry, fearing loss of the lucrative German market, routinely edited and cancelled films that were opposed by the Nazi regime. In the course of this work, Urwand points the finger at several ethnically Jewish film directors, including Louis Meyer, Samuel Goldwyn and Jack Warner. Accusations of potential collaboration aside, Urwand's book has prompted me to ask a number of questions, which I'm hoping my AskHistorians colleagues will assist me in answering.
What segments of American Jewish society in the 1930s and 40s were active in aiding persecuted Jews in Germany and occupied European countries? What did these efforts entail and what was their ultimate aim? Did these actors always agree in what course of action to take? Were any of the personalities Urwand accuses of collaboration simultaneously active in Jewish relief efforts? Lastly, how successful were any of these efforts?
A big problem for American Jews advocating during this time was fear that their actions would be interpreted as "trying to drag America into war" or fear-mongering or otherwise looking out for Jews in Europe over Americans. Given that those narratives were present in both the US and among the Nazis in Europe, their fears weren't entirely unfounded.
Anyway, there was a degree of advocacy among Jews in the US. A large-scale boycott of Germany was announced after German electoral victory, which was interpreted as a Jewish attack on Germany by both the Nazis and by right-wingers at the time (and by modern Nazis).
As the war began and evidence of massacres got out, Jewish groups did some pressuring of government. One example is the Rabbi's march, where hundreds of Rabbis demanded the allies work to alleviate the killings. They were mostly ignored by the administration.
It's worth noting that these efforts were mostly futile, even elsewhere. One Jewish politician in the Polish government in exile killed himself after an inability to take any action to help his fellow Polish Jews. Despite his hopes that his suicide would gain some attention for it, this was also ignored.