JWV Co-Hosts National Veterans Day Ceremony

By Cara Rinkoff, Managing Editor

The Jewish War Veterans successfully hosted this year’s Veterans Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery. Last year veteran service organizations (VSO) were only allowed to have one representative apiece due to the COVID pandemic. This year there were still restrictions, but the annual ceremony had a greater sense of normalcy to it.

JWV National Commander Alan Paley sat on the dais in the cemetery’s amphitheater next to the Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough. In a special section for members of the co-hosting organization, JWV had multiple representatives, including National Vice Commander Nelson Mellitz and his wife Debbie, Art and Roz Kaplan, and National Executive Director Ken Greenberg and his wife Janet. Department of Wisconsin Commander Kim Queen and his wife Ilene also attended the ceremony.

In addition to delivering remarks at the event, Paley led the Pledge of Allegiance, and both he and Mellitz placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown.

In the introduction to Paley’s remarks, the speaker recognized that 2021 marked the 125th anniversary of the Jewish War Veterans and noted that we are the oldest, continuously active veterans’ organization in the United States.

Paley then delivered the following remarks.

“President Biden, Secretary McDonough, Director Aguilera, distinguished guests, my fellow veterans, ladies, and gentlemen.

On Veterans Day, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, we pause for a few brief moments to both honor and pay tribute to the men and women who served in the defense of our country and then returned home. We owe you our thanks, our respect, and our freedom.

George Washington spoke about the country’s obligation to care for its veterans and their families, he said: “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any way, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.”

Paley and Mellitz place wreath at Tomb of the Unknown. Photo by Christy Turner.

Let us remember, “Treated and appreciated.”

Engraved on the granite wall of the Korean War Memorial a short distance from here is the simple but powerful phrase “Freedom Is Not Free.” The freedoms we enjoy today, were made possible by the more than 19 million living veterans, and countless others who served in the defense of our country.

The symbols of America and freedom are interlocked, and they are present here today. The flags flying, the white grave markers, and ALL OF US – the veterans and servicemembers who protected our nation.

It is you that we celebrate and honor today.

Our work continues as citizens in supporting America’s veterans and servicemembers. JWV and VSO’s must continue to fight for adequate funding for VA services and assure that issues facing veterans from all eras remain at the forefront. I call on each of you to take action and make your voice heard on issues we continue to face, including ending homelessness, increasing access to healthcare, delivering mental health care, reducing claims processing times, deploying integrated electronic health records and addressing toxic exposure concerns in a comprehensive way.

Seated throughout the amphitheater this morning are the leaders of many Veteran’s Service Organizations.

Every VSO was created with the purpose to advocate for the unique needs of the Veteran community. VSOs understand and work tirelessly to maintain and improve the benefits we earned. There is strength in numbers, and veterans must continue to be strong advocates and have our voices heard.

When the Jewish War Veterans celebrated its 100th anniversary, our National Commander, Robert Zweiman also addressed this gathering.

His closing remarks that day are just as powerful today, as they were in 1996.

He said, “Never should our government presume that by setting aside but one day they have met their obligation to the survivors of yesterday’s wars and today’s or tomorrow’s conflicts. We welcome your thoughts that this is not merely a singular day of honor, but indeed a public recognition of obligation to service. And we welcome your concerns that such obligation must be answered with compassion and with resolve.”

I stand before you as a Veteran myself. As we honor, celebrate, and share thanks, we must remain vigilant, and continue to ensure that the freedoms, benefits, and services we enjoy today, remain with us for centuries to come.

May God bless those who have earned the title of veteran, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank You.”

You can watch the entire ceremony and hear Paley’s remarks on Arlington National Cemetery’s official Facebook page.

After the ceremony, JWV hosted the traditional Veterans Day luncheon for VSOs at the Military Women’s Memorial, which is near the entrance of the cemetery.

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Closing My Chapter on Afghanistan

By Maj. Sarah Schechter, U.S. Air Force

Operation Allies Refuge is the largest noncombatant evacuation operation in the history of the United States, and I am fortunate to say, “I was there.”
The operation included 22 Religious Support Teams who provided 24/7 religious accommodation to our 35,000 guests and was nothing short of miraculous. It was a collaboration between the military, German Police, Embassies, the State Department, USAID, the USO, interpreters, volunteers, and big hearts of all kinds.

I am an Air Force Chaplain/Rabbi and belonged to this once in a lifetime team. At the close of daily leadership meetings, the officer in charge called on me for final thoughts. “And Chaplain, what do you have for us today?” The turn of events had impacted my perspective on our presence in Afghanistan over the last twenty years. I experienced a range of emotions and prayed to G-d for insight. It then occurred to me that this operation was our country adopting another people as its own. That realization defined the rest of the operation for me and thus at the camp meeting I said, “Our Afghan guests are about to be adopted by our country to be our fellow American citizens. Our role at Ramstein is much like that of a foster family. What does a foster family do? It provides love, care, stability, safety, nurturing, and shelter. We are the foster family, and our guests are on their way to becoming family. Our family! And our fellow Americans.”

U.S. citizens and their families process through the passenger terminal at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, to board a departure flight on their way to the United States as part of Operations Allies Refuge, Aug. 23, 2021. Ramstein, a transit location for evacuees from Afghanistan, provided temporary lodging, food, medical services and treatment while they awaited transportation to the United States. Nearly 48 hours after the operation began, more than 7,000 evacuees have landed at Ramstein. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman Edgar Grimaldo)

Operation Allies Refuge, one of the most challenging and powerful experiences of our life, was a giant foster family. Months later, as the operation came to a close and last flights departed Ramstein with passengers smiling ear to ear, many a heart ached. Hearts ached at having to say farewell to children whose little feet they clothed in socks and shoes. Children with whom they played ball, taught English, and snuck candy into hands, just to bring a smile and make their difficult life more pleasant. Hearts were aching because in the bittersweet moment, they were now all gone off, we hope, to a brighter future. The once teeming tent cities that sprang up overnight are now empty, silently echoing the non-stop, problem-solving, rhythm of their life here. Now a ghost town. The Islamic call to prayer we played over loudspeaker to thousands of people, five times a day, for two months, is no longer needed.

I escorted the last Afghans leaving Ramstein and realized that I was there due to a decision I had made 20 years ago. I joined the military because of September 11, going to a recruiter on September 12, 2001. By some uncanny coincidence, I was the last military member to say goodbye, on one of the last flights to the United States. For me, this closed that chapter of September 11.

Former Chief Rabbi of England, Rabbi Sacks once said, “We are as great as the challenges we have the courage to undertake.”

This operation, and its various challenges, has been a courageous undertaking. We are providing the homeless with a home, the nationless with a nation. People who had no future, now have a future.

How is greatness achieved? To again quote Rabbi Sacks, “When we hand our values to the next generation and empower them to build a future.” Our newest American citizens are our family and our next generation. May God bless them, and may God bless America, through them.

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USS Olympia: Centennial of Unknown Soldier’s Voyage Home

By National Vice Commander Nelson Mellitz

On October 25, I represented JWV on the USS Olympia at Independence Seaport Museum (ISM) in Philadelphia for the 100 Years Later recognition ceremony. This event commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Unknown Soldier’s journey home aboard the USS Olympia. On October 25, 1921 the United States World War I Unknown Soldier returned from France on that ship.

The USS Olympia’s journey home with the Unknown Soldier started at Le Havre, France and after a 16-day voyage concluded at the Washington Navy Yard. En route to the nation’s capital, the Olympia ran into two hurricanes which generated waves that were 20 to 30 feet high. I stood on the Olympia’s upper deck, where 100 years ago, the Unknown Soldier’s casket was tied down and only two deck plates helped to anchor it in place. During the journey, Marine guards stood watch over the casket on the ship’s upper deck. Several times they physically held down the casket so it would not float overboard. The Olympia arrived at the Washington Navy Yard on November 9, 1921 six days later than expected.

During the ceremony on October 25, the USS Olympia bells were rung to mark the exact moment the Unknown Soldier was brought aboard on October 25, 1921. Later in the ceremony, a gun volley took place between the Olympia on the Philadelphia side and the Battleship New Jersey on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River to mark the moment Olympia got underway from Le Havre, France.
2021 marks the centennial of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.

It was my great honor to participate in the USS Olympia commemoration event.

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Trees for Troops

Four Jewish veterans marked the first day of Chanukah in 2021 by performing a mitzvah, volunteering to help fellow veterans and service members of the New York National Guard to load donated Christmas Trees at Ellms Tree Farm in Ballston Spa, New York on November 29.

Post Commander Altman

The JWV members from Albany Post 105 helped load 110 donated Christmas trees onto a truck for delivery to military bases around the country to support military families this holiday season as part of the Trees for Troops program.

The program has been ongoing for 17 years, said Richard Goldenberg, the JWV Capital District Council Commander.

Goldenberg began volunteering in 2006 following his return from a combat deployment to Iraq with the Army National Guard.

“The holiday season, when deployed far from home, can be especially difficult for military families,” Goldenberg said, “whether it is lighting candles for Hanukkah or gathering around a Christmas tree.”

The donated trees are a reminder of home, no matter your faith, he said. The trees provide a sight and smell of life back at home and remind troops that they are not forgotten when so far away.

“It amazes me, each and every year to see the support of our local tree farmers and the turnout to help load these trees,” said Garth Ellms, the third-generation owner of Ellms Family Farm, the collection site for regional tree farms.

Trees for Troops was launched in 2005, and with the help of FedEx Corp., has delivered more than a quarter million Christmas Trees to U.S. military bases at home and overseas.

The local effort is a reflection of JWV supporting veterans of all faiths, explained Gene Altman, the JWV Schenectady Post 106 Commander. He said it is a way of showing our support to all military families.

Supporting the mitzvah effort at Ellms Family Farm were Altman, Goldenberg, Gary Hoffmann, and Dan Tilsner.

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Veterans History Project -Preserving Stories of Service

By Kerry Ward, Veterans History Project Liaison Specialist

Jacob Weinstein. Melvin Cohen. Bonnie Koppell.
These names may not be etched into popular memory, but they fought unrelenting bigotry in two World Wars, battled communist forces within the jungles of Vietnam, and operated peacekeeping missions in some of the most difficult environments in the world. With their brothers and sisters in arms, they followed a long tradition of Jewish Americans who have heeded the call to serve and, in doing so, helped form the fabric of our military, history, culture, and society. They faced barrages of artillery in the trenches of France during The Great War, flew bombing missions over Germany during World War II and counseled the men and women on the front lines during the most recent conflicts. By sharing their diverse experiences, we as a nation can begin to understand their immeasurable contributions.

Created by Congress in 2000, the Library of Congress Veterans History Project (VHP) includes those treasured stories of service and over 112,000 other first-person narratives of U.S. veterans and Gold Star family members. As a grassroots effort, volunteers around the nation help the veterans in their lives and communities gather and submit audio and video oral history interviews, original photographs, letters, diaries, and other documents chronicling their time in the military. These collections create a lasting record of service, while simultaneously providing an invaluable cultural resource that informs the historical record and illuminates the times in which our nation’s veterans lived. Our repository is full of information that focuses solely on veterans’ personal experiences – memories of what they did, saw and felt- no matter their branch, rank or religious affiliation.
Those of Jewish heritage have served our nation since before the Revolutionary War and have continued to serve through every U.S. conflict. More than half a million Jewish Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II.

Fighting Nazi Germany took on special significance for this group of U.S. servicemen in the European Theater. Even those Jewish soldiers, airmen, Coast Guardsmen, Marines, and sailors who were serving elsewhere in World War II understood that defeating the Axis would be a defeat for blind hatred of any ethnic group or nationality. First-person accounts of 10 veterans of the Second World War are spotlighted in one of VHP’s Experiencing War online exhibits, titled Jewish Veterans of World War II.

One veteran included in the exhibit is Milton Stern, who enlisted in the Army Air Force in October 1941, six weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fresh out of high school in Rochester, New York, he was working in a defense-related job which might have exempted him from service, but he was determined to serve in uniform. By March 1944, he was flying as a navigator in a B-17 in bombing missions over Germany.

The enemy shot down his plane over Holland and after 10 months of being sheltered by Dutch partisans, he was captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. Being captured relatively late in the war had its advantages. Stern’s captors knew he was Jewish, but they were too distracted by the advancing Allied forces to transfer him to a death camp. He kept a secret diary, which detailed his dwindling rations, as well as wish lists. By May 1, 1945, the German guards had fled the camp and the prisoners’ Russian liberators had arrived.

Not included in the exhibit, but available in the online database is the oral history of Dr. Henry Heimlich, who accepted an assignment as a U.S. Navy chief medical officer at Camp Four of the Sino-American Special Technical Cooperative Organization (SACO) located in northern China. Following the war, Heimlich continued to think of a Chinese soldier he saw die from a bullet wound to the chest. This experience led to the creation of the Heimlich Chest Drain valve, which helps save individuals with a collapsed lung. This valve would go on to save countless lives during the Vietnam War. His innovations continued and he is credited with creating the first aid procedure popularized in 1974 called the Heimlich maneuver.

Jewish veterans continued to make impacts throughout the U.S., whether during a conflict or peacetime, through traditional military occupational specialties and those not as common. Rabbi Israel Drazin served during the Cold War and was the first person of the Jewish faith to serve as the Army’s Assistant Chief of Chaplains. As a lawyer, the Army called on him to defend the constitutionality of military chaplaincies. When he won that case, he helped to open the door for chaplains to serve people of all faiths, as well as atheists.

Regardless of whether Jewish American service members ventured onto foreign soil or supported efforts stateside, the ones who chose to tell their stories are contributing to the record of human understanding and the evolution of American society. If you are a veteran, share your story with VHP so we can add it to the national repository for future generations. If you have a veteran in your life, even if they are deceased, VHP welcomes you to submit their personal narrative and/or original materials as soon as you can.

You can download a VHP How-to Field Kit at www.loc.gov/vets, check out the adapted training materials and guidance for library users engaged in VHP collecting activity in person or via remote interviews.

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Department of Minnesota Celebrates 76th Anniversary

By DC Lou Michaels

The Department of Minnesota celebrated its 76th anniversary with a dinner at Mancini’s Steakhouse in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 13.  The Department has held its annual dinner at this location since 1946.

This year more than 115 people attended the event, including National Commander Alan Paley and National President of the Jewish War Veterans Auxiliary Sandra Cantor.

The annual dinner is always connected to the city of St. Paul’s Winter Carnival and its Senior Royalty were once again in attendance.  Senior Royalty knighted NC Paley and NP Cantor along with a few others. This is the fourth year in a row that JWV National Commanders have attended the dinner and were knighted in connection with the Winter Carnival.

Congresswoman Betty McCollum of the state’s 4th District sent a certificate of congratulations to JWV Posts 152, 331, and 354 on their work for both JWV and their community. The certificate also recognized Department Commander Lou Michaels on his work, including his induction into the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

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What is Sigd?

By Larry Jasper, National Editor

Sigd is an Ethiopian Jewish holiday held 50 days after Yom Kippur. It is about accepting the Torah and yearning for Israel and the Temple. It is thought to be the date on which G-d first revealed himself to Moses. For centuries Ethiopian Jews have used this holiday to plead to return to Zion.
It is also a tradition for the community to hold communal introspection in addition to the self-examination during Yom Kippur because in order to be worthy of returning to Jerusalem from exile, you must engage in communal introspection and repentance. Sins of community members are forgiven during Yom Kippur and the subsequent 50 days. On the 50th day, following communal introspection, the community returns to the Yom Kippur experience with prayers and a fast.

The Ethiopian Jews are also known as Beta Israel. They are one of the oldest Diaspora communities. The Torah refers to the land of Cush. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the return of the Jews who were exiled to a variety of lands, including Cush, which is now part of Ethiopia and the Sudan.
In the ninth century, the story of Eldad ha-Dani became well-known. He maintained that the tribe of Dan chose to leave the holy land rather than join the fight between Rehoboam and Jeroboam when the Kingdom of David split. The tribe went to the land of Cush. It is probably from this account that the idea arose that the Ethiopian Jews were descendants of the tribe of Dan.

The Ethiopian Jews have continued to practice Judaism for centuries despite persecution and isolation. Because of isolation their type of Judaism differs from that practiced elsewhere. The most significant difference is that Ethiopian Jews base their beliefs on the Torah and some oral traditions passed from generation to generation. The rest of the Jewish world bases its practices on both written law (the Torah) and oral law. Oral law is the rabbinical interpretation of the Torah which was largely codified by the year 400 in the Talmud.

Since the Ethiopian Jews were unaware of the oral law, they were not familiar with any of the practices, rituals, and interpretations developed over the centuries by the rabbis. The Ethiopian Jews also had their own interpretations of the Torah and did not fulfill many of the biblical commandments, including the wearing of prayer shawls (tzitzit), posting of mezuzot on doorposts, or sounding the shofar on Rosh Hashanah.

The Ethiopian Jews also did not speak or write Hebrew, but speak Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia. Jews living in the region of Tigre speak Tigrinya. Their holy books are written in Geez, a language considered holy and used also by Ethiopian Christians. Their Torah is handwritten on parchment as a book, rather than as a scroll.

The first modern contact with the Beta Israel occurred in 1769, when Scottish explorer James Bruce stumbled upon them while searching for the source of the Nile River. He found them impoverished, heavily taxed, and oppressed. His estimates at the time placed their population at 100,000.
The Ethiopian Jewish community lived in complete isolation from other Jewish communities for many centuries. For this reason, the Ethiopian Jewish community developed many holidays and celebrations that do not exist in other Jewish communities. In the mid-20th century, during civil war and famine in Ethiopia, many Beta Israel were air-lifted to Israel.

The Knesset passed the Sigd Law in 2008, declaring the 29th of Cheshvan as a national holiday.
In Israel, it is celebrated for an entire month leading up to the 29th of Cheshvan and is an opportunity to raise Ethiopian Jewish visibility and educate Israeli Jews about the Beta Israel.

Today, since most members of the Ethiopian Jewish community have made Aliyah to the State of Israel and learned to speak Hebrew, during the holiday members of the community travel to Jerusalem and visit the Wailing Wall and the promenade in the city’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood. The holiday serves as an annual gathering of the entire Ethiopian community and its members view it as an opportunity to strengthen the connection with their roots and culture.

The Kessim (Ethiopian Jewish religious leaders), dressed in their traditional robes, carry the Torah scrolls while holding multi-colored umbrellas. They stand on an elevated stage, read excerpts from the Bible, and recite prayers before members of the community. Public officials attend the celebration and greet the audience, and many of the community members continue to fast until late in the afternoon.

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Preserving the Legacy of Jewish American Veterans

by James LaPaglia, Digital Services Chief, National Cemetery Administration

Julien Saks (Dachau Liberator), Arnold Ascher (Berga Prisoner of War), Edwin Cornell (Bad Orb Prisoner of War), Leonard Domb (Berga Prisoner of War), Julius Bernstein (Landsberg Liberator), Meyer Lemberg (Berga Prisoner of War) – these are just a handful of thousands of Jewish Veterans interred in VA National Cemeteries and in VA-funded state, tribal, and territory Veteran cemeteries. All of them have stories — stories of their lives and their service to country, family, friends, and battle buddies.

More than 42,000 Jewish Veterans have interactive profile pages in the Veterans Legacy Memorial (VLM) (www.va.gov/remember) where family, friends, and others can see their military service and internment information, and upload tributes (comments), images, biographical information, career milestones, historical documents, and a word cloud.

Launched in 2019 by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA), individual veteran profile pages are populated with military service and cemetery information. This publicly available information is gathered from Department of Veterans Affairs records and includes service branch with logo, dates of birth and death, rank, war period, decorations, emblem of belief, and cemetery information. Currently more than 4.3 million veterans have VLM profile pages.

Colonel Julien David Saks was an attorney and realtor from Anniston, Alabama, who was commissioned as an Army reserve officer in December 1933 and entered active duty in September 1940. He attended Chemical Warfare School and the Command and General Staff College. When his 12th Armored Division arrived in France in November 1944, it quickly joined the final offensive push against German forces. His division crossed the Rhine River on March 28, 1945, and on April 27 captured the city of Landsberg in Bavaria. They liberated the Kaufering camp, the largest of eleven subcamps in the region comprising the Dachau concentration camp system. Here, thousands of prisoners, predominately Jewish, were used as slave labor to construct underground facilities to produce German fighter planes. Conditions at the camps were deplorable and mortality rates very high. As American forces approached, SS guards evacuated the inmates who could walk, sending them on forced death marches toward Dachau. Many who were unable to travel were brutally murdered and the bodies burned. Upon their arrival, the 12th Armored discovered some 500 dead prisoners. Saks, assigned to division HQ, visited two camps within hours of their discovery. He described the scene after. Fixated with shock upon seeing a building filled with burned corpses, he recalled, “I didn’t see a pile of naked women about three feet high behind me. I was told about it later. We were combat troops used to death and destruction, but this was so shocking that we were speechless.” Saks was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service in Europe and returned to Alabama after the war. He died in Houston, Texas, in 1993 and is interred in Houston National Cemetery – his VLM page is available at https://www.vlm.cem.va.gov/JULIENDAVIDSAKS/1780C94.

NCA plans to continue adding additional cemeteries to VLM in the coming years, including military and other government-run cemeteries and private cemeteries. Eventually NCA hopes to have a page for all deceased veterans, including those buried at sea or who are otherwise not interred in a cemetery.

You can search for a veteran by entering their first and last names, plus any additional identifying information such as cemetery location, service branch, war period, date of birth, date of death, or decoration. To submit items to a veteran’s page, users provide a name and email address, and then upload the content. All content is reviewed by moderators before posting to ensure VLM remains a respectful digital cemetery experience. To date more than 26,000 items have been posted to veteran pages.

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INTERFAITH FOXHOLES

By Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff
Two recent statements by former and current military leaders made news when they revealed vastly different visions for our nation.

We should take pride in the fact that the United States is unusual precisely because we are a nation that was not founded based on a shared faith, race, or ethnicity, but rather on shared support of ideas: self-evident truths such as equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Asserting that diversity is one of our strengths, current Commandant of the Marine Corps General David Berger announced a plan called Talent Management 2030, to make the Marine Corps more diverse “to reflect America, to reflect the society we come from.”

Berger has shared his view that America’s strength lies in its diversity, and the same is true for our military. He understands that “we don’t all think alike” but we are stronger because of that truth, not weaker. We have learned different lessons because as he said, “we didn’t come from the same backgrounds.”
Jewish teaching affirms this idea. We’re taught that G-d’s word is like a hammer striking an anvil, creating many sparks. Depending on our backgrounds and experiences, we understand the light and the brilliance of sparks that others will miss. The challenge is to share the insights we glean as individuals, so that we all might benefit as a community, a people, and a world.

Religious diversity is a particularly strong value for me because my life has been touched and enriched by the values and visions of so many separate religious traditions. Judaism has much wisdom to share with others, often based on our past experience as slaves and tied to that, our eternal belief in freedom, but also lessons from our history in the wilderness and search for a promised land.

Many of my non-Jewish friends have been struck by Jewish insights, including those gleaned from the way Jewish tradition finds wisdom in the connections between words and events. The time of the Omer, for example, linking Passover and the exodus from Egypt to Shavuot and receiving the commandments at Sinai, can help us understand the tension between rights and responsibilities.

From Passover we learn we are not slaves, but from Shavuot we learn we are not gods; from Passover we learn what to stand against, but from Shavuot, what to stand for; from Passover we learn about our rights, but from Shavuot we learn about our responsibilities.

I started my Navy career in Vietnam, on a ship that became the first commissioned vessel to enter the waters of Cambodia. As I faced fear and wrestled with issues of life and death, I often struggled with the war within that would define me as a human being – the battle between the better and lesser angels within me. During that time, a Christian chaplain, Father Les Westling, ultimately inspired me to make the decision to become a rabbi.

When I reentered the Navy as a chaplain, his footsteps were the ones I tried to follow.

From him and other non-Jewish chaplains, I learned lessons that have guided me ever since. I learned the lesson of Francis of Assisi, “Preach the gospel everywhere. Use words when absolutely necessary.” That teaching, that we share our lessons of hope and faith primarily through our presence and through our kindness, more than through our words alone, has been a guiding principle of my life.

When serving as a chaplain for the 6th Fleet, I was stationed onboard the USS Puget Sound, with the responsibility to visit all ships in the Mediterranean, as well as U.S. military personnel assigned to the peace-keeping force in Beirut. During my many visits to Beirut I saw a landscape filled with foxholes and bunkers representing the multi-national force personnel, along with those of Israelis and Lebanese.

What struck me about this experience was that in midst of foxholes filled with people representing one group or another, from the warring Lebanese Christians and Muslims to the predominantly Jewish forces of Israel’s IDF, we Americans had what I called interfaith foxholes. Thinking back on that time, amid religious wars around the world, I have said that if the world had more interfaith foxholes, perhaps we’d have less need for foxholes and have more room for faith.

On October 23, 1983 at 6:22 a.m., a suicide bomber in a van full of explosives attacked the American component of the multi-national force. The blast demolished a building 75 yards from where I was staying. Father George Pucciarelli, the Catholic chaplain assigned to the Marine Amphibious Unit, grabbed his purple uniform stole, and put it around his neck, preparing for the certainty that he would be administering last rights in the face of so many wounded and dying.

We lost 241 Americans that day. I remember how desperately we needed the medical assistance that would eventually arrive, a need made worse because many of the sailors who died were corpsmen.

We all did what we could until more help arrived. I tore my t-shirt apart to use pieces to wipe dirt and blood from the faces and bodies of the wounded and then I used my kippa, until I lost it in the rubble.

When we had a moment to breathe, Pucciarelli saw my head was uncovered, and he came over to me, ripping a piece of his camouflage uniform off so that I could use it as a temporary, makeshift kippa. I remember what he said to me – that in Lebanon, where every religion was fighting every other religion, he wanted our personnel to remember not only that American chaplains reached out to everyone, regardless of religion, regardless of whether anyone wounded even had a religion, but through the symbolism of the stole around his neck and the kippa on my head, he wanted our men to remember that we represented different faiths but worked together, side-by-side.

At that point in America, a debate had been raging about whether Jewish personnel could wear kippot with their uniforms. Normally Jewish chaplains were allowed to wear them, but it was unclear when it came to others, and often the default assumption was that they could not. For two years, the religious apparel amendment that would officially allow head-coverings for religious reasons had failed to pass Congress. After the story of Pucciarelli’s creation of the “camouflage kippa” was told in both the House and the Senate, and printed in the Congressional Record for both chambers, the amendment passed.
What I think happened was that many civilian and military leaders had been opposed to the idea because it conflicted with military uniformity. The story changed their minds. They saw uniformity as only a means to an end, and the end was unity, a unified effort to defend our freedoms, including freedom of religion. Cherishing our diversity could protect us from becoming one more nation torn apart by differences.

The religious apparel amendment laid the foundation for a series of instructions and directives outlining policies for religious accommodation within the military services. Some branches of the military still use that title, but as of September 1, 2020, the latest Department of Defense instruction chose a new title, religious liberty in the military services. For me, that instruction recognized our policies were not simply accommodating needs.

Instead, we were strengthening our freedoms, our rights, and ultimately, protecting the liberty we in the military defend.

Religions often have different ultimate visions, and those visions are mutually exclusive from those of other faiths. Therefore, our lesson must be that when it comes to interfaith cooperation, the more we focus on the end of days, the more we’ll disagree. But the more we focus on the end of today, to make today a better day for the sick, the hungry, for those suffering from pain or fear, the more we’ll agree. Then, we can all roll up our sleeves and work together. For me, that’s the secret behind the success of the military chaplaincy. We take strength from our diversity, then unite to help others, and do some good for our world.

At a time when religious tension, hostility, and even conflict are far too evident throughout our world, we must share the vision of interfaith foxholes, and the knowledge that our differing backgrounds, experiences, teachings, and faiths can strengthen and enrich us all.

I am inspired by the wisdom of Berger’s new vision. Perhaps the story of the camouflage kippa will become a part of that vision. In the meantime, I pray that the men and women of the U.S. Marine Corps grow stronger through their renewed respect for diversity as a strength. May they be ever faithful to that vision. May that vision and that strength be a blessing for our military, our nation, and our world.

Rabbi Resnicoff is a life member of JWV who began his Naval career as a line officer in Vietnam and with Naval Intelligence in Europe before rabbinical school and ordination. As a rabbi he served in chaplain assignments around the world, culminating in the position of Command Chaplain, U.S. European Command. Following retirement, he served as National Director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee and Special Advisor for Values and Vision to the Secretary and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force.

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The Jews Should Keep Quiet: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust

By Rafael Medoff

For those of us old enough to remember the esteem with which American Jews held President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the U.S. effort against Nazi Germany in World War II, this book may change your mind. Similarly, if you or someone close to you lost relatives or friends in the Holocaust, the contents of this book may disgust you. To cite just two quotes in this book, this is what the editors of The New Republic, published following the Bermuda Conference of April 1943, “If the AngloSaxon nations continue on their present course, we shall have connived with Hitler in one of the most terrible episodes of history.” A letter to Under Secretary of State Sumner Wells from the Joint Emergency Committee on European Affairs from June 1, 1943 said, “To relegate the rescue of the Jews of Europe, the only people marked for total extermination, to the day of victory is…virtually to doom them to the fate Hitler has marked out for them.”

This excellently written and researched book deals with the relationship between Rabbi Stephen Wise and his personal relationship with and devotion to President Roosevelt. Wise was a Reform rabbi, outspoken Zionist, founder of the American Jewish Congress (AJC), and one of the most prominent leaders of the American Jewish community at the time. Roosevelt used his relationship with Wise to stifle “potential Jewish criticism of his refugee policy.” The book’s eight chapters begin with the indifference of Roosevelt to the situation in Germany, the isolationist and anti-immigration policy of the Congress, and the failure of the United States government to undertake measures that might have saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis. It also includes a discussion of the issue of bombing the railroads leading to the extermination camps and closes with a discussion of anti-Semitism in the White House. This book makes a valuable contribution which may fundamentally change our understanding.
Throughout the book, Medoff tells us that Wise agonized over the fate of the Jews of Europe, but that his misplaced devotion to the president would not allow him to go against the government’s policies. On the other hand, he discouraged any active efforts by Jewish organizations he did not control to publicly raise the issue of the wholesale murder of Jews in Europe, lest it place the Jews in a position of appearing to fail to support the president in wartime and lead to acts of anti-Semitism at home. The October 1943 march on Washington by 400 rabbis, was anathema to Wise. Marshals for that march were provided by the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A. (JWV). At the same time, Wise’s large ego often led to conflict with other Jewish organizations, such as the Bergson Group, and Jewish organizational leaders whom he felt were attempting to usurp his leadership role.

Wise continued to use every opportunity he could to meet with the president, thinking that his access equaled influence, but he was wrong. Yet despite Roosevelt’s failure to do anything, Wise remained a staunch supporter. Wise’s turning point came with the arrival of two telegrams. The first, on August 8, 1942, from AJC’s representative in Switzerland Gerhard Rieger, who reported on German plans to exterminate all the Jews in Europe. This telegram, which the State Department had marked as “unreliable,” also went to the British Foreign Office. Wise only received a copy on August 25.

The second, received in September 1942 came from Racha and Yitzchak Steinbuck, who were AJC orthodox activists. It went to the President of Agudath Israel, who relayed it to President Roosevelt and Rabbi Wise. It reported that the Germans had “bestially” murdered 100,000 Jews. Nonetheless, the U.S. position was nothing could be done to aid the Jews except to swiftly defeat the Nazis. The continued reporting of German atrocities by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, The New York Times, and others, combined with pressure from the British Foreign Office, led the U.S. State Department to publicly acknowledge in December 1942 that hundreds of thousands of Jews had been slaughtered by the Nazis as part of the “Final Solution.”

Medoff also describes the issue of Jews and Palestine and the U.S. failure to oppose its wartime ally, Great Britain, which subverted the Balfour Declaration making Palestine a homeland for the Jews and restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine to a trickle. In the same vein, he discusses the anti-Semitism of Breckenridge Long, Assistant Secretary of State, who rejected more than 190,000 visas for Jews attempting to escape Europe and the anti-immigration Congress which refused to change and even disregarded 1924 immigration quotas limiting immigration of foreigners, especially Jews.

Other actions the U.S. government was asked to take that might have helped are discussed in the book, including the bombing of railroads leading to Auschwitz. In this particular case, the government argued they could not divert airplanes from their mission to destroy German industry despite the fact several targets were within 20 miles of Auschwitz. In fact, both the U.S. and the British diverted aircraft that flew over Auschwitz to aid a losing battle fought by the Polish Home Army. Medoff writes that of 1,200 cannisters of weapons and supplies dropped, less than 300 were retrieved by the Poles. The Germans recovered the rest. The above notwithstanding, the U.S. saw efforts against Auschwitz as a Soviet issue. Medoff indicates this decision was political, made in the shadow of the 1944 election and designed to retain the Polish American vote.

An essay written by Jeffrey Herf concludes there is no real answer to the question of whether the Russians could have slowed the “Final Solution” as the needed research has not been done. More than half of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust were already dead by November 1943, most in extermination camps that no longer functioned or were destroyed by the Germans. Auschwitz was the only exception. In addition, while the Soviet Air Force gained air superiority over the Eastern Front except for Poland in mid-1943, and their aircraft had the range and capability, Soviet strategy focused on combined arms operations. Russians fought in World War II to save themselves, not the Jews.

It should be noted however that the Jewish Agency Executive in Jerusalem and others in the U.S. opposed the bombing idea. They thought it will kill Jews and that German propaganda would claim that Americans were also killing Jews.

Medoff covers much more, such as lies and dissembling by the U.S. government to placate Wise and make him believe that things were being done to rescue the Jews when, in fact, nothing was being done. He also discusses the issues surrounding the president’s Executive Order leading up to the creation of the War Refugee Board on January 22, 1944 and the subsequent attack on the Bergson Group that sponsored the Congressional Rescue Resolution, of which Wise disapproved.

The last chapter of the book questions whether Roosevelt was an anti-Semite. Medoff gives no answer but describes the environment that FDR was bought up in, including his parents attitude toward Jews and race in general. Medoff writes of the family’s interest in bloodlines, “at least a dozen lines of Mayflower descent converged in Franklin….” And that “his pride in his family’s racial pedigree melded easily with the common early twentieth century perception in America that the Caucasian, or Aryan, race was locked in an ages-old struggle with inferior races.”

For those students of the Holocaust, of American policy during World War II, and German-Jewish/American-Jewish history in general, “The Jews Should Keep Quiet” describes a little known but important period in American history that needs to be told.

Volume 75. Number 4. 2021

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