Defending Democracy: A JWV Art Exhibit

By Neal Gosman

Six-year-old Cub Scout Elijah Dale carefully scrutinized the various works on display at the Capp Building of the Jewish Community Center (JCC) at an art exhibit co-sponsored by the JCC and the Jewish War Veterans Department of Minnesota.

“That one is just like the picture on the wall in my Dad’s office,” Dale pointed out. This is not as surprising as it might have been, because the artist is in fact his Dad, Jeffrey Dale, a Saint Paul photographer, coder, and Afghanistan War veteran who served in the U.S. Army for ten years.

More surprising is why the Department of Minnesota is sponsoring the art exhibit that opened on December 11.

Last summer, the department put out a call for artists to present works on the themes, Defending Democracy, Fighting Oppression, and Tzedakah. “This is a pilot project that we haven’t tried before,” explained Department of Minnesota Commander Lou Michaels. “We want to be more present in the community with our dual missions of being a Jewish Voice for Veterans and a Veterans’ Voice for Jews.”

Michaels said he wants to raise the profile of JWV in the community, which will in turn focus attention on the needs of veterans in general and on why they put their lives on the line in service of American ideals.

Jeffrey Dale presented three photos from his series Friday Night, based on his experience in Afghanistan. “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to show some of my work. All too often, the established art world shies away from the soldier’s perspective,” he said.

Other artists showed paintings reflecting empathy with Latin American refugees, honoring the Ukrainian resistance, and there were also posters calling for justice, empowerment, and democracy.
The exhibit also featured a pen and ink drawing by the late Mark Zhitnitsky, a former Soviet and Israeli artist, which illustrates his struggles in 1919 Ukraine against antisemitic pogroms.
“The ultimate aim of this exhibit, hopefully the first of more to come, is to build awareness of the JWV in Minnesota, to grow public support, and to attract new members from among veterans in the Jewish community,” said Stewart Mednick, Department of Minnesota Vice Commander.

Volume 77. Number 1. 2023

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Stanley Samberg, A Forgotten Veteran

Once forgotten, the Department of New York is making sure no one will ever again forget a Jewish veteran who gave his life in World War II. Department Commander Gary Glick received an email from Barbara Silberman, who found a grave in disrepair at the Wellwood Cemetery.

Silberman said bushes and weeds had overtaken the gravestone, which she noticed while visited the graves of her parents.

The grave belonged to Stanley Samberg, a 19-year-old veteran who died on December 17, 1944. In her email, Silberman wrote, “having given his life for our country, he deserves our respect, and something should be done.”

Glick told Silberman he would see what could be done, and went to the cemetery to see the site, and take some pictures.

Glick contacted the cemetery to make sure they would clean up the bushes, weeds, and other debris. When he went back to see the site, he placed a JWV marker and flag on the grave.

Glick says he hopes to have the cemetery clean the stone, and wants them to consider taking similar actions for other veterans who no longer have family and friends to take care of the site.

Volume 77. Number 1. 2023

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Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: the Union Army – by Adam D. Mendelsohn

By Sheldon Goldberg, PhD

Ten years ago, when I became a Docent and Historian at the National Museum of American Jewish Military History, I was honored to follow in the footsteps of those who had come before me. I gathered the materials they used, read the histories written about Jews in the military, and did research on the internet to update them, especially about the Jewish Medal of Honor recipients. I also found the museum’s exhibit books invaluable as I wrote my lectures and prepared scripts to memorize for tour groups. And so it went until the arrival of “Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: The Union Army” by Adam Mendelsohn.

Mendelsohn’s book is the result of ten years of research sponsored by the Shapell Manuscript Foundation, using Simon Wolfe’s “The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen,” from 1895, as a starting point.  Wolfe claimed as many as 10,000 Jews served in the Civil War. “Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War” is an attempt to correctly identify every Jew who served in the Union Army, something Wolfe’s error-prone book attempted. While Mendelsohn’s book has been published, it is, in fact, unfinished.  Shapell researchers continue to attempt to identify Jews who fought on both sides, delving into archives across the country, finding personal letters, photographs, memoirs, and of course, official documents, thus adding names on an almost daily basis. That said, it tells a story – one I had been telling, but which now requires some key changes.

“Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War” is presented in six chapters that describe where those identified Jews who served came from, what their occupations were, how and why they enlisted, many, but not all, just for the bonus, and for how long. It is important to note that not every Jew who served was an abolitionist. Many feared that freed slaves would take their jobs.

Mendelsohn writes that the dearth of Jewish compatriots, as opposed to some majority German or Irish regiments, led some to deny their faith, even to other Jews, or to change their names. Among those who served were brave heroes and cowardly deserters, upstanding members of society, and lowly crooks. He also points out that while antisemitism existed, Jewish soldiers often changed their units to avoid the slurs and attempts to proselytize them. That said, the exigencies of combat and the conditions under which all soldiers lived also created friendships between Jews and non-Jews, many of which lasted beyond the end of the war. Mendelsohn also clarifies the roles played by the Board of Delegates of American Israelites in Washington and Rabbi Arnold Fischel, by debunking the existing myth of how three Rabbis came to serve as Jewish Chaplains in the Union Army.

Lastly, although it is not made clear in the book, this project is a work in progress. Based on the research conducted when the book was published, there were only 1,235 Union soldiers positively identified as Jewish out of what is believed to be just over seven thousand. Of those identified are six generals, five of whom were breveted, i.e., temporarily promoted to a rank higher than what they normally held. One appendix shows that of those 1,235, only a few regiments had as many as twenty Jews while most had but one or two. Furthermore, the research has confirmed a fifth Jewish Medal of Honor recipient, Eugene P. Jacobson. That said, this is an outstanding work, easy to read, that sheds a whole new light on the Jewish contribution to the Civil War.

Volume 77. Number 1. 2023

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