Female WWII Veteran’s Military Cap Project

By Barbara Leap

During the final throes of World War II, when May Brill was 20, she decided to follow her two brothers into the military.
Her reasoning: “What about me? It’s my country, too.”

While her brothers were in the Army and Coast Guard, Brill thought the Navy might be a good fit for her. But there was a problem. The year was 1944 and the Navy wouldn’t accept women for another four years. It did have a women’s auxiliary called the WAVES, and that’s what Brill joined.
Now 96, Brill is engaged in a new battle. She wants to make sure the world knows that women in all branches of the military have served, fought, and died for their country.

“Women veterans are invisible,” Brill says. Now she’s spearheading a project encouraging female veterans to order a cap designed with their military branch, and to wear it daily like their male counterparts.

The longtime resident of Cherry Hill, New Jersey launched her project with a single cap, her own, designed with the U.S. Navy insignia. She has arranged for the Keystone Uniform Cap Corporation in Philadelphia to produce them for other veterans for $45.

Three of Brill’s friends, Air Force veterans Selina Kanowitz, Julia Coker, and Army veteran Constance Cotton, are helping her to promote this effort.

Despite approaching the century mark, Brill, energetically continues her involvement in volunteer activities, including serving as honorary commander of JWV Post 126 of Southern New Jersey. Last year she established the Norman and May Brill Memorial Legacy to permanently provide public forums at the JCC each Friday in May in honor of all veterans.

Brill is so busy, she jokes that her four daughters, 11 granddaughters, and four great-granddaughters, “have to make an appointment to see me.”

Volume 74. Number 4. 2020

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JWV Founding Ceremony

JWV Post 1 held a ceremony in New York on March 13 to celebrate the 124th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish War Veterans and Post 1. National Commander Harvey Weiner participated in the ceremony at the site of the founding meeting, which is now the DoubleTree by Hilton Metropolitan. In the lobby, a plaque reads:

“On this site on March 15, 1896, in the Lexington Avenue Opera House, the Hebrew Union Veterans Association which became the Jewish War Veterans of the USA, the oldest active veterans organization in the United States was founded.”

Singled out for special mention at the ceremony were the seven Jewish Civil War veterans who organized that first meeting: Jastrow Alexander, Isadore Eckstein, Isadore Isaacs, Jacob Jacobs, Joseph Steiner, Joseph Unger, and Joseph Wolff.

Post 1 Junior Vice Commander Rabbi Andrew Scheer said during the ceremony, “I am heartened when I see American flags on the grounds of the historic 18th and 19th century [Jewish] cemeteries in Chinatown, Greenwich Village, and Chelsea where Jewish veterans from Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue, are buried.”

He added, “Their sacrifice is a reminder that although our membership in Jewish War Veterans today continues a tradition begun in 1896, we are part of an even longer, unbroken lineage of proud and patriotic Jewish military service that stretches back before our nation was even founded.”
During the ceremony Scheer also led memorial prayers in honor of those seven men who attended the first meeting.

Volume 74. Number 2. 2020

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A Special Birthday Celebration

By Barry Lischinsky

On Sunday, December 15, members of JWV and the JWVA gathered to celebrate North Shore Post 220 member Lillian Aronson’s 102nd birthday. At the age of 26, Aronson volunteered to join the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). She became a career soldier, spending the next 20 years on active duty and achieving the rank of a Sergeant First Class. During the birthday celebration, JWV National Commander Harvey Weiner presented her with a Centenarian Certificate and a JWV Commander’s Coin.

JWV MA Department Commander Jeffrey Blonder presented Aronson with a certificate from Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey and JWV MA North Shore Post 220 Commander Alan Lehman presented her with a certificate from Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton. Aronson is still an active member of both the Jewish War Veterans and the Disabled American Veterans.

Volume 74. Number 1. 2020

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JWV Jersey Shore Post 125 Completes a Noteworthy Year

Jersey Shore Post 125 represented the JWV with a tent at the 29th annual Oceanfest celebration on July Fourth in Long Branch, New Jersey. An estimated 225,000 people attended the event, and many stopped by Post 125’s tent to express their appreciation for the service of Jewish veterans. More than 20 volunteers manned the tent that day, including officers from National, the Department of New Jersey, and the Ladies Auxiliary. Oceanfest served as the season finale for Post 125’s year of activities.

The Post decided not to brave the cold weather, and moved its traditional Veterans Day Poppy Drive to Labor Day in 2018. Dedicated volunteers sold poppies at multiple locations, exceeding fundraising expectations. The money raised from the sales allows Post 125 to continue supporting programs and assisting the residents of New Jersey veterans’ homes.

Post activities during the fall months honored surviving World War II veterans with speakers from both Monmouth County’s active veteran services office and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. On Veterans Day, Post 125’s Gerald Levine, who serves as the Honorary Commander of the Department of New Jersey, lead a 21-bell salute in the city of Long Branch, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the World War I armistice. That ceremony also included a reading of the names of the victims from the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue.

Following a winter slowdown, Post 125 hosted another World War II veterans’ event and ran an extremely successful Memorial Day poppy drive. The Post elected Levine as Honorary Post Commander, while the Department of New Jersey named Post 125 as its Post of the Year, and further honored Levine as its Person of the Year.

Volume 73. Number 3. 2019

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The Safe Haven Museum

By Gary Ginsburg, Commander, Post 41-NY

Consul General of Israel Dani Dayan and JWV Post 41 Commander Gary Ginsburg

Nearly 1,000 refugees and Holocaust survivors arrived in the United States’ only refugee camp on August 5, 1944. Exactly 75 years later, 200 people gathered to remember them at The Safe Haven Museum, which is located at the site of the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, New York. Among the crowd were 19 of those refugees, as well as their families, friends, and community leaders.

The Consul General of Israel in New York, Dani Dayan, was just one of the many speakers at the event. Dayan expressed his “most sincere thanks and appreciation to the people of this small city with a population of about 18,000 – Oswego, New York for opening the space of Fort Ontario and their hearts to these Holocaust survivors during 1944, which was a most difficult and violent time in history.”

While many of us think of Oswego, New York in terms of only three things – a State University of New York college campus, a nuclear power plant, and severe winter weather – the Safe Haven Museum and story of the Fort Ontario Refugee Shelter is both an extraordinary and positive chapter in both Jewish and American history.

Volume 73. Number 3. 2019

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Burial and Memorial Service held for Homeless Veteran

By Ben Kane

On August 19th, a Jewish war veteran named Neil Schaffer passed away in a Los Angeles hotel room. He had no known family, only a few friends, no job, and no home to call his own. In March of this year, the JWV was made aware of his passing, and sought to recognize him in a manner that befit a member of the tribe. JWV-CA Chaplain Dov Cohen and Department Commander Greg Lee led the efforts to memorialize Mr. Schaffer.

Chaplain Dov Cohen is the National Cemetery Foundation President, as well as the JWV National Chairman of the “End Homelessness Now” program. He helped put together several memorial programs in Mr. Schaffer’s memory—one at the Los Angeles City Hall, one at the Los Angeles National Cemetery, and ensured that he was honored at the Annual Gala at the Reagan Presidential Library. Mr. Schaffer’s memorial service at the National Cemetery was the first to be conducted in the remodeled Bob Hope Chapel and served as the start of a new program with the goal of memorializing deceased homeless veterans. The National Cemetery is currently working to provide military funerals to deceased veterans providing buglers, flag folding ceremonies, and all the other crucial parts of the military funeral before laying them to rest in a recently constructed columbarium.

The JWV department of California is very active in the fight against veteran homelessness. Posts in the area are working for the sake of veterans with groups like the American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America, VFW, and more. From job and benefits assistance to working behind the scenes on pro-veteran legislation, these partnerships help ensure that veterans of all faiths have a higher chance of getting the recognition, respect, and assistance they deserve. The JWV is honored to do its part in serving the American Jewish veteran community, throughout their years of service and afterwards.

Volume 73. Number 2. 2019

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Sar-El (Volunteers for Israel)

By Harvey Weiner, JWV National Judge Advocate

Sometime around 1982 during the Galilee War, my wife and I were asked to host a dinner for a visiting retired Israel Defense Force (IDF) general, who was in the United States recruiting civilian volunteers to come to Israel to help the IDF in support positions. We had a pleasant evening with Dr. Aharon Davidi (z”l), the former head of the IDF Paratroopers and Infantry Corps. Over cognac, about which the general was an expert, I somehow promised him that I would eventually participate in his program if it came to fruition. As a result of his efforts, in the spring of 1983, “Sar-El”, —the National Project for Volunteers for Israel – was founded as a non-profit, non-political organization. “Sar-El” is the Hebrew acronym meaning “Service for Israel.”

Each year since then, volunteers, including those in their 70’s and 80’s, work on non-combat IDF bases throughout Israel doing support work for a one to three week period. Although such volunteers are civilians and not members of the IDF, they are led by madrachot, who are IDF soldiers. Volunteers work on a Sunday through Thursday schedule doing work such as quartermaster/supply work, base maintenance, maintenance and equipment repair, kitchen work or construction. Weekends are for traveling, sightseeing and visiting family and friends. There are frequent interesting lectures and question and answer sessions with Sar-El and military personnel. Of course, you work side by side with IDF soldiers, many of whom are now proud owners of Boston Red Sox pens. Alas, there are no JWV pens!

The free facilities are spartan and not a little nostalgic. Volunteers live in communal barracks in sleeping bags on cots with communal bathrooms. There is no central heat or air conditioning. Hot water is at a premium. Men and women are housed separately, including married couples. The mess hall food, however, is filling.

In December, 2015, over thirty-three years after I had rashly made a promise to the General, I spent two weeks for Sar-El in an army base in central Israel. Better late than never. We were a group of fourteen and worked very hard collecting, inventorying and crating military supplies, particularly tank maintenance equipment and parts. One of our speakers told us that Sar-El volunteers have unusually high productivity, presumably because they are motivated and because they only have a very short time commitment. There is both an initiation ceremony, during which the Sar-El epaulettes are placed on you, and a graduation ceremony, during which you receive the Sar-El pin and a Certificate of Appreciation.

The makeup of Sar-El volunteers is diverse. About 4,000 volunteers come per year and in 2014 they were from 51 countries. Tellingly, in 2014, France had the most volunteers with 1,161 with the U.S. having 938. France, of late, has the most people making Aliyah. In our group of fourteen, there were volunteers from Canada, England and South Africa, as well as the United States, and we were joined for a brief period on our bus by a small group from Hungary and Holland. There was also a Christian in our group, who is an avid supporter of Israel. Most of my Sar-El volunteer group were repeats and one woman in our group was there for the 13th time. The group bonded and there was a great sense of camaraderie and friendship, as well as a lot of laughs.

One day, the group went north of Haifa on a tour of the Ghetto Fighters’ Museum and there became the first to plant yellow daffodils in Israel as part of Project Daffodil, whereby it is intended to plant 1.5 million daffodils throughout the world in memory of the 1.5 million children who were murdered in the Shoah. (See daffodilproject.net )

There are no upper age limits for volunteers, and there were two volunteers in our group in their 70’s, but one should be relatively fit and healthy and willing to work. I was given one of the daily honors of raising the Israeli flag on the Israeli base followed by the singing of Hatikvah. My ancestors (and General Davidi) would have kvelled. (Many of the facts above are taken from the Sar-El website).

You can tie in a Sar-El experience prior to the JWV Israel trip, as did Membership Chair Barry Lischinsky, or you can do it independently, as I did and as National Quartermaster Nelson Mellitz did.

Volume 73. Number 1. 2019

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Vigil Held for Hebrew Cemetery of Fall River, MA

Hundreds turned out for a vigil Tuesday night at the Hebrew Cemetery of Fall River where 59 gravestones were vandalized with hateful, anti-Semitic messages. The vigil attendees stood shoulder to shoulder, sending a clear message to the vandals who scrawled anti-Semitic graffiti on the headstones and any anti-Semites considering following their footsteps. Hateful phrases on the headstones such as “expel the Jews,” along with other anti-Semitic words and phrases, should be condemned as unacceptable.

The message for the individual(s) who wrote these hateful words are simple, “We will not be expelled, and we will not remain silent,” Jeff Weissman, Jewish War Veterans member and cemetery caretaker, also spoke at the event. Additionally, Junior Vice Commander Stephan Bloch; Department Commander Sanford Gorodetsky; Judge Advocate Howard Lipsey; and Senior Vice Commander Ira Fleisher were in attendance at the vigil, as well as officers of the department of Rhode Island. We are proud of these members of the JWV who attended the vigil, and to all who lend their support in a line of solidarity against anti-Semitic hate.

Volume 73. Number 1. 2019

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JWV Brotherhood Award Presented to Local Chaplain

Members of the Jewish War Veterans joined with the First Reformed Church of Schenectady and nearly 100 area attendees in the Clark Poling Chapel to honor Rev. Charlene Robbins as the 54th recipient of the Four Chaplains’ Brotherhood Award Sunday, February 24.

Albany Post 105 of the Jewish War Veterans has led the effort to recognize a local member of the community since 1966 in honor of the value of selfless service of the Four Chaplains.

Clark Poling was one of the Four Chaplains lost in the North Atlantic in February 1943 during the sinking of the troopship Dorchester. Poling had served the faith community at the First Reformed Church before entering military service as an Army Chaplain in World War II.

Charlene has led a life of service to others in various forms since her ordination on September 9, 2001 from the Holistic Studies Seminary Institute in Albany, first ministering to and comforting first responders and aid workers following the terror attacks at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

“Charlene inspires us in her devotion to others, and in particular her focus on serving veteran organizations,” said Fred Altman, JWV Albany Post 105 Commander.

Robbins is also a Gold Star Mother to Army Staff Sergeant Thomas Robbins, who died in action in Iraq on February 9, 2004, attempting to save the lives of his soldiers during a mortar explosion.

It was the intersection of these two elements of her life that inspire Charlene’s efforts today.
“All my life, I just wanted to be that person to help others,” Robbins said.

She was recognized in 2005 as a grand marshal by the City of Albany Memorial Day Parade, participating on her son’s behalf. Her introduction to the wider veterans’ community 14 years ago sparked her action and support, bringing spiritual leadership, empathy, comfort and peacefulness to the many veteran and civic events she supports.

She is Chaplain of the Tri-County Council of Vietnam Era Veterans as well chaplain for countless community programs, including the Albany County Honor-A-Veteran program, the Albany County Honor-A-Living Veteran program, Albany High School Junior ROTC, the City of Albany Memorial and Veterans Day parades and the Town of Colonie annual Memorial Day Service.

“As a Gold Star Mother, Charlene stands among our veterans as a cherished and honored family member. Her sympathy and enthusiasm to give back to the many veteran groups and causes is a shining example of the commitment to others that the Four Chaplains gave their lives for.”

The Four Chaplains Brotherhood Award exists to further the cause of “unity without uniformity” by encouraging goodwill and cooperation among all people. The non-denominational award honors people whose deeds symbolize the legacy of the Four Chaplains.

“Today’s honoree, in addition to being called Reverend, has devoted her life’s work and passion in a manner that exemplifies the exceptional character of the Four Chaplains,” Altman said.

“When you read the story of these Four Chaplains, it really makes you take pause, to reflect on those values that come to the front in difficult times,” said Congressman Paul Tonko.

Tonko presented Robbins with a proclamation, prepared by himself and Congressman Antonio Delgado, representing the region and was joined by a litany of elected officials, including New York State Senator James Tedisco, Assembly representative John McDonald, City of Albany Treasurer Darius Shahinfar, and New York State Division of Veterans Affairs Deputy Director Jason Chakot.

All joined in the praise of Robbins’ presence and support to the veterans’ community with state and local proclamations, including the City of Albany declaring February 24 as Charlene Robbins Day.

The vision of the Four Chaplains Award is to impart the principles of selfless service to humanity without regard to race, creed, ethnicity, or religious beliefs.

“I thank and commend the Jewish War Veterans for bringing us together each year for this event, to retell the tale and honor those in our community who live up to the ideals of those Four Chaplains,” Tonko said.

First held in 1966, the Jewish War Veterans of the Capital District have recognized civic leaders, community organizers and issue advocates, educators, healthcare providers and clergy for their humanitarian efforts that convey the spirit of the Four Chaplains.

The Jewish War Veterans have posts in Albany, Schenectady and Saratoga Springs. For more information or membership, visit www.jwv.org.

Volume 73. Number 1. 2019

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The Jewish War Veterans Legacy Program: Our Story

By PNC Robert Pickard, MD

The Jewish War Veterans Legacy Program seeks to ensure the permanence of L’Dor V’Dor, from generation to generation. JWV has a long history of protecting veterans’ benefits, promoting community, ensuring our armed forces may serve free of bigotry and prejudice, and preserving the Jewish American military legacy. We need your help to ensure that JWV’s mission continues long into the future.

If statistics are correct, there are approximately 13 million Jews in the world. That works out to about .2% of the world’s population. Jews make up only 1.7% of America’s population and it is no secret that the number of Jewish War Veterans is a tiny fraction of that small number. We cannot rely solely on membership dues to sustain our organization. You can ensure the survival of JWV’s legacy through your estate plan at no liftetime cost to you.

Many of today’s American Jewish service men and women come from families in which fathers, brothers, sisters, and mothers have served and still serve. There is a proud family tradition of serving in uniform for Jews in America. We are part of a proud legacy, L’Dor V’Dor.

My father served in WWII. When the war in Vietnam heated up, I told my father I planned to accept my commission as a medical officer in the U.S. Air Force. He was proud of his service as an active duty Army soldier. I am honored to continue my service, through the U.S. Army, to this day.

We need you and your loved ones to help us expand our Legacy Program to Jews on active duty, to those who already served, and to Jews who didn’t wear the uniform but are proud of the service of their families and friends.
We propose that you include the JWV U.S.A. Foundation in your estate plan, so that we can continue our proud history of service to our active duty service members, veterans, and their families. Any amount, no matter how large or small, will help us continue our mission and to always be able to say proudly to Jew and non-Jew alike,“JEWS SERVE.”

Volume 73. Number 1. 2019

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