He wrote '' Mostly Morgenthaus : A Family History '' ( 1991 ) , focused on several patriarchs : The first Morgenthau of record , Moses ( 1773 – 1834 ) , impoverished teacher of Hebrew from Gleusdorf in Bavaria , who later became a ritual slaughterer married to a rabbi ’s daughter , was required to take a family name when the Jews of Bavaria were granted citizenship in 1813 . Waiting in line at city hall in the predawn , he looked at the damp ground and decided to call himself Morgen Tau ( " morning dew '' in German ) . His and Brunhilda Morgenthau 's son , Lazarus ( 1815 – 1897 ) was making nicotine-free cigars , candy from pine needles , tongue scrapers , and gum-label machines . Married in 1843 to Seline Babette Guggenheim , he moved to Mannheim and opened a cigar manufactory , a business that grew rapidly when his brother Max ( also called Mengo ) wrote from California in 1849 suggesting he ship his cigars to the American market . Lazarus 's success had been extraordinary , but the luck that had followed him could not prevent the business failure that followed the rise of protective tariffs in the United States when war broke out there in 1861 . Financially overextended , Lazarus moved to New York in 1866 , where his fortunes plummeted further . Lazarus 's ninth child , Henry Sr. ( 1856 – 1946 ) , saw his mission as restoring the family to its rightful position . As Wilson 's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire ( Turkey ) during the crucial years before and during World War I , he supported the Jews in Palestine and heroically rescued Armenians persecuted by the Turks . Henry Jr. ( 1891 – 1967 ) was a close friend of both Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt , FDR 's Secretary of the Treasury and leader of U.S. efforts on behalf of Holocaust survivors . In his book Henry Morgenthau III casts doubt on the alleged Communist associations of his father 's Treasury aide Harry Dexter White , whom Whitaker Chambers accused of being a Soviet spy and conspirator
Armenians
Armenian Genocide
Henry Morgenthau III