Archive for category: Features

By Greg Lee

The Jewish War Veterans Department of California partnered with the American Legion and the Los Angeles County Department of Mil-Vet Affairs to host an event honoring Medal of Honor recipients at Bob Hope Patriotic Hall on April 11.

The featured guest was Medal of Honor recipient, Colonel Jack Jacobs, a JWV life member.

The event began with a roundtable featuring Jacobs, JWV National Commander Nelson Mellitz, and others from the military and veteran communities. They discussed the needs of minority and female veterans and the challenge of homeless veterans.

Dr. Shad Meshad, founder of the National Veterans Foundation and the VA Vet Centers said, “Despite other factors including substance abuse and mental health, the one common denominator among homeless veterans is the lack of affordable housing.”

Dr. Steve Braverman, the Director of the VA’s Greater Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center said that when it comes to female veterans, “We have created dedicated women’s clinics, separate waiting areas, and even separate entrances to our facilities. We do not tolerate harassment of any of our patients, especially our women veterans.”

Mellitz spoke about the Jewish War Veterans and its fight against both bigotry and antisemitism.

After the roundtable, there was a ceremony honoring both Jacobs and another Medal of Honor recipient, Captain Ben Salomon. Jacobs unveiled a painting by artist David Schwartz which featured Salomon. The painting is the latest addition to a collection called “True Honor,” which features Jewish Medal of Honor recipients.

Congressman Brad Sherman presented Mellitz and Jacobs with American flags that were flown over the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

One highlight of the day was Jacobs administering the Oath of Enlistment to a new Army Recruit.

The positive response generated from this event has provided inspiration for similar events in selected cities across America.

Volume 77. Number 2. 2023

By Miranda Bass, Post 1

One of the aspects of my time in the Army that I value most was my exposure to different types of people. Even though my hometown of New York is one of the most diverse cities in the world, the Army enabled me to forge deep, meaningful relationships and lifelong friendships with people I otherwise had little in common with and would never have met. Many veterans reflect on this feeling of brother and sisterhood as a unique aspect of their time in the service, and I feel lucky to have had this opportunity from the age of 17.

It was not until I left the Army years later that I realized how unusual this experience was of living, training, and becoming friends with people so different from me. In civilian life, most of us are naturally surrounded by people we choose based on shared values or common interests, and this is a good thing. It allows us to foster community and feel grounded and safe. But in recent years, the pandemic and political climate have created a vicious cycle of polarization and isolation, keeping us away not only from our chosen communities, but creating even more distance from those with whom we disagree or don’t have much in common.

Recently, I was privileged to be a Mahloket Matters Fellow at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies based in Jerusalem. Mahloket is a Hebrew word meaning disagreement, specifically, disagreement that is generative and deepens our understanding of ourselves and others, as opposed to disagreement that is reductive, destructive, and isolating. The program used sources from the Tanakh up through the present day to illustrate how our Jewish tradition values Mahloket, how we can foster it in our lives, and the potential it has to help heal some of our culture’s deep wounds.

The Mahloket Matters curriculum is incredibly rich, too much so to do it justice in a brief article, but perhaps the most powerful idea I learned from Mahloket Matters is the 49-49 conversation. In Jewish texts, the number 50 often represents an idea of wholeness and completion, that everything is encompassed and contained. The Talmud teaches us in a story that even our great sages, the early rabbis, could only achieve 49 in their learning and knowledge. It is impossible for a human being to know and contain all the wisdom and perspectives on a given matter, and so we need to live and disagree with a profound humility. This humility does not mean that we cannot advocate for and defend our beliefs. On the contrary, the premise of a 49-49 conversation is that we are already doing just that! What it means is that we need a level of openness in the conversation to truly hear and understand not just the differing opinions or beliefs someone else holds, but why they feel that way, the context in which they came to hold their beliefs, and our common humanity. The goal is not to win an argument, but to deepen our understanding of others and ourselves.

A 49-49 conversation is also predicated on mutual respect and safety in order to be vulnerable enough to share our beliefs and receive others that may be directly opposed. If all parties can muster that basic respect and feel safe enough, Mahloket has the potential to transcend disagreement and turn into real learning and even healing.

Nowhere have I seen Mahloket in action in my life more than in the Army. Units, barracks living, duty assignments, training, deployments, and more, all put us on intimate terms with every other type of American out there. For much of my career, I spent every waking moment around people with whom I strongly differed and disagreed. This resulted in funny, frustrating, and even painful misunderstandings and disagreements, but through them I learned that relationships can survive and become stronger through disagreement, and that there can actually be fun, joy, and incredible learning in seeing Mahloket through, and becoming true friends with someone with whom you disagree. Military life has much to teach us about the value and practice of Mahloket and how we can not just coexist, but live well with people with whom we disagree.

Volume 77. Number 2. 2023

By Cara Rinkoff, Programs and Public Relations Director

On March 8, JWV National Commander Nelson Mellitz testified before a joint hearing of the Senate and House Veterans Affairs Committees. Mellitz testified alongside leaders of eight other organizations.

Several members of JWV were at the hearing to show support for Mellitz, including Vice Commander Barry Lischinsky, Chief of Staff Larry Rosenthal, Department of New Jersey Commander Selina Kanowitz, and New York Senior Vice Commander Gary Ginsburg.

Here is the statement he delivered:

Chairmen Tester and Bost, Ranking Members Moran and Takano, veterans in the audience, veterans sitting in Congress, veterans at this table. It’s my honor to serve, and sir, I’ve heard you say that before and I 100% agree, we serve not only in the military, we serve as veterans.

I have served 32 years in the United States Air Force, enlisted and as an officer. I enlisted in 1970, served Vietnam through Iraq, 2005-2006 in Iraq. It was my last assignment. The reason I say this is not to make myself sound good, but when I left the military originally, after the Vietnam War, I went to the VA, I didn’t go back a second time for a lot of years. The VA has improved, has substantially improved, they’re wonderful now in many areas. It’s because of what the VSOs have done, what you have done in Congress. Thank you for that.

I have the privilege and the honor to represent the Jewish War Veterans as the 93rd, sorry, 91st National Commander. The Jewish War Veterans is the oldest national veterans organization in the United States. We were formed in 1896 by a few veterans from the Civil War. The reason we were formed is because of antisemitism. Again, we’re the longest serving veterans service organization. We advocate for all veterans, not just Jewish veterans, but for all veterans, for benefits and services and we’ve been doing that for at least 127 years. In fact, we’ll be celebrating our 127th anniversary next week on March 15.

Our mission is strong and clear. Fighting for military and veterans benefits and services, advocating on behalf of Jewish veterans, Catholic, women, African Americans, Asians, all veterans… We oppose all forms of discrimination, but we concentrate especially and we’re outspoken on antisemitism…. We will defend the right of everybody in this United States and we will continue to do so… As antisemitism continues to grow in the United States, JWV asks you, Congress members, to specifically help defend our country’s freedoms and go forward and fight antisemitism and all forms of hate and bigotry wherever it exists. Key to that, in our opinion, and at JWV is educating the U.S. citizens.

We have priorities for the 118th Congress… I will emphasize a few things that are important not only to JWV but to you and we haven’t really mentioned them to the extent I think is necessary.

We know the PACT Act was instrumental when you passed it. It took a lot of pressure. It didn’t just take one year for the VSOs to put the pressure on Congress members, it took many years. Please keep that in mind for future efforts. But with the PACT Act we also know that VA started working on hiring people, organizing to address the 3.5 million new claims that they estimate will be filed. But yet, it’s not enough. I know there are some bills going through Congress right now that say give more money to doctors, nurses, administrators at VA. We need to push those bills through the system because if we don’t have those people in place, claims will increase and then the appeals will increase continuously.

Yes, we addressed toxic exposure by the PACT Act, do all the veterans out there know about their benefits? The VSOs and Congress have to stand out. Make sure they know those benefits, know that they can apply for the benefits, put claims in. You addressed in a previous meeting the predator lawyers. Yes, JWV agrees with Veterans of Foreign Wars, penalties should be applied to those people. But there should also be incentives for additional veteran service officers to come out, to be employed by the organizations like the Jewish War Veterans. Yes, we’re increasing our program and trying to recruit as many VSOs as possible to process those claims and we will do that.

Suicide prevention and mental health. We obviously know more must be done. We know that one veteran, one military member taking their life is too much. But everything I’ve heard over all these many panels, all these many hearings, didn’t address what happens in the military before you get to the veterans side. I think, from day one that you join the military, you should be addressing, in the military, mental health. When you go through basic training, that is extremely important to address it. I think maybe even before that, and we work with an organization called Our Community Salutes, who actually works with the families of the veterans, of the military members rather that are going into the military directly out of high school…

Supporting women veterans. The fastest growing group of veterans, as you know, is women. It’s haphazard. I visited many veterans locations, many veterans affairs medical centers, and some are great. The one that I go to in Philadelphia is fantastic at addressing women’s needs. That might be because the director is a woman. I don’t know. I’ve gone to others and that’s not the case. It needs to be looked at not as a total VA package, but individual centers.

Expanding service to veterans and caregivers. Again, we know this is important. One area we want to stress is, JWV urges Congress to remove the regulatory requirement for the 70 percent disability rating to be eligible for this program. That’s ridiculous. And that’s my words. Take it out. It wasn’t there before. Take it out.

Major Richard Star Act. Committee Chairman Tester, thank you for heading up that effort. And there are others. In New Jersey where I come from, we have gone to all our Senators, all our Congresspeople, and they have signed on. We have encouraged all the JWV members to go to the 50 states and territories and get their Senators and Congresspeople to also sign on. It impacts over 50,000 combat injured veterans.

Ending veterans’ homelessness. We’ve made progress. Between 2020 and 2022, 11 percent of the veterans that were on the street are no longer homeless. The best we’ve done in five years. The problem is that’s not good enough. JWV has submitted to many of you members just last week steps that we should take that you haven’t really discussed before. I don’t have time in my short period of time here to go over them, but I encourage you to look at that, I’d be happy during the questions and answers to answer some questions.

Fixing the electronic system, and I’ll be very quick with this, I know we have one other item after this. I worked for the IRS for 11 years during the period of time they put their new tax base database in place. We did a better job than VA’s doing. What’s going on here? Less money. Yes, we made some mistakes at first, but we now have tax returns coming in from more than 65 million taxpayers. What’s VA talking about? A maximum of 12 million with the new PACT Act. Please do oversight on this. I don’t know what the problem is, we don’t need any more research, we need implementation. And go back to DoD like was said by VFW. You need to start the process with DoD and not just be isolated. And I know there’s committees that talk to each other between VA and DoD, but they’re not doing what we need.

Conclusion. We started out in the military. Most of us volunteered. We served out country. Now we’re veterans and we’re still volunteering. Everybody on this table is a volunteer. Many of you are volunteers and veterans service organizations. We continue to serve. Call on us. We can help you. And we love this nation. G-d bless the United States of America. Thank you.

House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-IL) recognized Mellitz for a question on veteran suicide, and Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX) said he agreed with Mellitz when he called for mental health treatment to begin at the start of basic training.

You can watch Mellitz’s testimony on our website or find the entire hearing on the YouTube channel of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Volume 77. Number 1. 2023

By Bob Jacobs and Jerry Alperstein

On January 18, 2023, approximately 40 members of JWV and the Ladies Auxiliary gathered at the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the end of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

JWV’s Vietnam Veterans Committee sponsored the event. Committee Chairman Bob Jacobs welcomed everyone who attended the event and issued a special welcome home for the Vietnam veterans in attendance. Jerry Alperstein played the national anthem on his bugle.

Jacobs reflected on the problems faced by veterans when they returned from service in Vietnam. He noted that the public did not separate their distaste for the war from those who were forced to fight in it.

National Commander Nelson Mellitz spoke about how Jews have stepped up to serve in every conflict in this country since the Revolutionary War. He also talked about his memories of anti-Vietnam veteran protests. He said Vietnam veterans pledged to “leave no one behind” and to make sure that later veterans would not be similarly mistreated. He pledged that he and future JWV National Commanders will continue to protect all veterans.

General Edward Chrystal, the head of Taskforce 23, which is overseeing the official Vietnam War 50th anniversary commemoration on the National Mall this May spoke to the assembled group as well.

The General thanked the work done by Vietnam vets, which helped ensure that later veterans would not be mistreated following their return. He also spoke about the role JWV plays in helping all veterans.

Jacobs, Mellitz, Chrystal, and Alperstein ended the remembrance ceremony by placing a wreath at the site.

Volume 77. Number 1. 2023

By Marc Schenck

In the course of researching our family tree with my father, Lt. j.g. Bernard Schenck, a Navy veteran who served during the Cold War between 1956-1960 on the USS Virgo (KA-20) and the USS Glacier (AGB-4), I first learned about the scope of one of our family member’s military service in two wars. Forgotten by most, his sacrifice is worthy of acknowledgment and our memory.
My father’s uncle, Mack Schenck, was an immigrant from Belarus along with his four siblings, probably in the first decade of the century. In 1928, along with three other men, they founded Temple Beth-El Congregation in Great Neck, New York. At the time, Great Neck had a population of 12,000 people and only 115 Jewish families. It was the first synagogue in the town.

Mack had a son named Robert Schenck, my father’s cousin, born on May 30, 1921. He was a bomber pilot who flew a B-17 Flying Fortress in World War II and received the Distinguished Flying Cross. As part of the 379th Bomb Group, 527th Bomb Squadron, based at Kimbolton, UK, they flew more sorties than any other Bomb Group in the Eighth Air Force and dropped a greater bomb tonnage than any other Group.

The B-17 Flying Fortress Group was awarded two Distinguished Unit Citations, the first for operations between May 28, 1943 and July 31, 1944. Its first combat mission was the bombing of German U-boat pens at St Nazaire, France, on May 29, 1943. The second was awarded to the 1st Bomb Division as a whole for flying without fighter protection to bomb aircraft factories at Oschersleben, Germany, on January 11, 1944.

Flying with the 527th during the Spring and Summer of 1944 Capt. Robert Schenck participated in missions throughout Western Europe and as far east as Poland. Several missions over Germany flew into the highly defended airspace above Berlin. It was a hazardous profession for the aircrews and more American airmen died over Europe than Marines died in the Pacific. He flew 35 missions, mostly on the Busy Baby, above the minimum of 25, and later 30, necessary for having the option to return home. By November 1944, the Busy Baby, after 87 missions, was classified as war weary. It was relegated to scrap in Kingman, Arizona in December of 1945.

After the war, his path was less clear, but a family member recalls hearing that he had gone into business importing goods from the Dominican Republic. He remained a reservist and was called back for the Korean War, this time as the senior pilot of a C-119C Flying Boxcar from the 63rd Troop Carrier Squadron, 403rd Troop Carrier Group.

Until the end of 1952, it dropped paratroopers and supplies, transported personnel and equipment, and evacuated casualties in support of the Far East Command and UN forces. The group flew more than 6,300 flights, dropped nearly 10,000 personnel, more than 18,000 tons of cargo, 380 tons of supplies, and airlifted almost 14,000 medical patients.

On November 14, 1952, his aircraft was enroute from Ashiya Air Base, Japan to Seoul, Korea when it crashed into Hill 683 near Cho-ok, about 15 miles east of Airfield K-19, killing all 44 servicemen on board. Robert Schenck was just 31-years-old and was awarded the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal.

His remains were recovered, and he is interred at Beth-Alom Cemetery in New Britain, Connecticut. He was survived by his parents and siblings. Upon learning of our family history, we will never forget the sacrifice he paid in service of our nation. Remembering is the least we can do.

If any readers have any comments or additional information regarding Capt. Robert Schenck or related events I would welcome them. I can be reached at mschenc1@optonline.net.

Volume 77. Number 1. 2023