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