The JLC was no stranger to criticism, from both allies and longtime opponents. Some in the Jewish community felt the Committee devoted too much time to non-Jewish comrades and non-Jewish causes. Others went so far as to suggest that the JLC muted its opposition to American anti-Semitism for fear of offending non-Jewish supporters. In fact, the JLC followed the path dictated by its own principles, even at the risk of unpopularity. In 1943, for example, the JLC received conclusive evidence that Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, the most highly respected leaders of the pre-war Polish Bund, had been imprisoned and then executed in the Soviet Union. True to its Bundist roots, the JLC organized a mass memorial meeting in New York, thus incurring the displeasure of Amalgamated Clothing Workers President Sidney Hillman, who feared annoying the Roosevelt administration with a public attack on its wartime Soviet ally.
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| As the war drew to a close the immediate needs of survivors became the JLC's prime concern. By 1944 it was spending close to $1,000,000 a year, mostly on European relief. The full contribution of the JLC cannot, however, be measured in dollars alone. Intangibles were just as important: knowledge of conditions in Europe; links to the underground; the ability to find jobs, homes, and care for emigres; the mobilizing of union locals to solicit vast quantities of free clothing, toys, and other goods from employers; and the thousands of hours of donated labor given to AFL and CIO anti-fascist projects by JLC supporters.
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