After outstanding service in the Navy during World War II, he served the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat for the 11th Congressional District in Massachusetts (1946–52). In 1952, Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts and was reelected in 1958. In 1957, Kennedy proposed two bills affecting Jewish immigration, one that included the admission of Middle Eastern Jews to the United States and the other with a clause insuring nonquota status to about 10,000 Jewish refugees from the United Arab Republic. In the pamphlet A Nation of Immigrants (1959) he reviews the role of immigration in U.S. history.
In 1960, when he was elected president, Kennedy had the support of an estimated 82% of Jewish voters. As president he demonstrated friendship for Israel by tripling the amount of American financial assistance to Israel and by selling the country ground-to-air Hawk missiles in 1962 for protection against air attack. He alerted the U.S. Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean when subversion in Jordan by the United Arab Republic threatened to undermine the stability of the entire area. He increased the shipments of military supplies when Soviet weapons sent to the Arab states appeared to be giving them arms superiority. He promised United States assistance in the development of a desalination plant to expand Israel’s water and power resources.
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