The World That Jewish Veterans Built
Opinion
By Deborah Dash Moore
Each year, as Veterans’ Day comes around, there are fewer and fewer Jewish veterans to observe it. Unfortunately, this does not reflect a peaceful age without wars. Rather, it stems from a dramatic decline in Jewish military service in the United States in the past half-century.
Not that long ago, however, Jewish veterans were a dominant force in American Jewish life. They occupied positions of leadership, they filled the ranks of volunteers in Jewish organizations and they transformed the character of the Jewish community.
During World War II, more than a half-million Jews served in the American military. Almost every Jewish family had a brother, son, husband, uncle or cousin in uniform. Entering the armed forces, often as teenagers, these Jewish servicemen sometimes left home with little more than a nominal sense of what it meant to be Jewish. Their experiences in the armed forces taught them not only how to handle a weapon and to fight, but also how to be American Jews.
Many non-Jewish soldiers and sailors met their first Jew in the military. Stereotypes abounded. Some Jewish soldiers reported being asked about their “horns” by their fellow servicemen.
Jerome Minkow graduated from high school in the Bronx on January 30, 1945 and entered the army on January 31. When he reached basic training at Camp Blanding down South he couldn’t understand how he could be such an oddity for his fellow GIs. One of them even asked him to sign a piece of paper to show the folks back home what a Jew’s signature looked like. Minkow was flabbergasted, and stunned by the animus that surrounded him. He regularly found himself in fights. Eventually Minkow earned respect in the boxing ring.
Jews returned to civilian life unwilling to accept discrimination as a fact of life and willing to take risks to eliminate this stain from the fabric of American society. In December 1945, after the Army returned the Miami Beach hotels it had requisitioned during the war to their proprietors, Burnett Roth and 16 of his fellow Jewish veterans donned their uniforms and made the rounds trying to persuade hotel and rooming-house owners to remove offensive signs advertising “Restricted Clientele,” and “No Jews Wanted.” They followed their persuasion with politics, getting the City Council to pass an ordinance to prohibit discriminatory advertising. Gradually, veterans built a new agenda for the American Jewish community that emphasized the importance of changing the United States, making it a more just society.
At the same time, they fought for a Jewish state. In July 1946 more than 4,000 Jewish veterans rallied in Washington to advocate for the admission of 100,000 Jewish displaced persons to Palestine. The Jewish War Veterans even promised President Truman that they would recruit a full division of Jewish volunteers for service in Palestine to help keep the peace.
Before World War II, neither the cause of Zionism nor that of civil rights enrolled more than small numbers of American Jews. After the war, both achieved new prominence on the Jewish agenda as veterans increasingly set priorities for the Jewish community.
Military service empowered Jewish men; they learned how to fight to defend themselves, their fellow soldiers, their country and their people. No one, they felt, could impugn their patriotism, even when that patriotism demanded recognition of injustices in American society and commitment to rectify them.
Then came Vietnam, a very different war. Many young Jews, born after World War II, decided that they didn’t want to fight in a war that made no sense to them. A few became conscientious objectors. Many more took advantage of deferments, going to college, teaching public school or marrying and having a child.
In 1973, due in no small part to the protests against the Vietnam War in which many young Jews had participated, the federal government ended conscription and moved to an all-volunteer army. Like members of many other relatively affluent demographic groups, young American Jews have since largely chosen to pursue higher educations and civilian careers over military service.
Today, even with two wars going on, many segments of American society are distant from the experience of our nation’s veterans. That’s why honoring their service and sacrifice requires affirmative efforts. The Jewish community, especially, should recognize not only our Jewish veterans’ wartime service but also how they remade their world, the one they bequeathed to future generations. Their struggle to make America a more just society offers us a model worthy of emulation.
Deborah Dash Moore is the Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor of History at the University of Michigan. She is the author of “GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation” (Harvard University Press, 2004) and, most recently, “American Jewish Identity Politics” (University of Michigan Press, 2008).
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Gi Jew was a terrific book. And I know I'm spitting in the wind here but any Jew that visits Washington should drop in on the JWV museum. It really does make you proud.
As a veteran of Korea and Vietnam, I admire the few Jews that have volunteered for military service. They are the true spirit of the American Jew. In a world where at least 2 billion people would like to eradicate Jews from the face of the earth, you cannot continue to hide behind all those "goyim" soldiers that make sure you can sleep peacefully at night, or maybe you can? It is perverse and reassuring to know that there are Jewish soldiers in the world that will fight(Israel) and that you can hide behind a very formidable army here. I wonder if German Jews thought the same thing in 1930. The Jews in the holocaust found out the hard way that freedom isn't free. So, you sit back and enjoy the privileges this country offers without contributing to the fabric that is America and eventually you will disappear without even a footnote in history to show you existed. Those men and women in the 1940's were the essence of the jewish spirit that came to this country for freedom and opportunity. Too bad, the spirit disappeared in a sea of economic wealth and liberal-socialist hogwash
Dear Mr. Fishman,
Very-well said! Thank you very much on behalf of all the Jews, those who understand the ever-present threat, and those who, as you described it, forgot the valuable history lessons amidst 'a sea of economic wealth and liberal-socialist hogwash'. Please, accept my deepest regards.
Well-stated and a necessary reminder.
In 1970, a senior at Yale, I decided not to cash in my IV-F medical draft exemption for nice-Jewish-boy allergies, asthma, fifteen years of shots, etc., and joined the Marines. I was engaged to be married at the time to a woman whose father was both proud of his own Army service and vehemently against the "peaceniks." When I told him of my decision, he was shocked and furious. Finally, he said that if I felt I had to serve, I should let myself be drafted and he would make up the difference between officer and enlisted pay. When I asked why he would do that, he replied, "It'll be easier to explain to our friends."
Hypocrisy was not the monopoly of the Baby Boom back then.
As I write this, it's 10 November. To all you other Jewish Marines out there, "Happy Birthday!"
Philip Gold Major, USMCR (Hon Ret)
Modern Jews in the U.S. Military http://www.jewsingreen.com/
From a Jewish perspective W W II and Vietnam were in different categories and elicited different Jewish responses.. W W II was a melchemes mitzva or a war against Amalek. Hitler's goal was to destroy Western as well as Jewish civilization and enslave many races to serve the German 'super race'. The war in Vietnam, previously lost by France, was no direct threat to Western and / or Jewish civilization. We accepted that we couldn't do what was needed without risking a war with Communist China and those with a bit of foresight understood this. In W W II boys lied about their age to enlist early, while during Vienam boys prayed to get a high number in the lottery to avoid being taken. Afghanistan is the justified response to 9 / 11, although Iraq is a bit less obvious.
Cudos to Charlie Fishman. I am a Veteran of WW II. I enlisted in the Reserves and joined the ROTC at the University of Illinois when I was 19 years old. I told my parents that if I joined the Reserves, which I needed their Permission to do, that I would st
Poasted above portion inadvertently. To continue. Did that, as I told my Parents, would keep me in school. It was October of 1942. February of 1943 was called to Active Duty which was the plan all along.
Went into Service as a little kid knowing a pretty good life as food was on the table all through the depression. Stung by the many signs Charlie mentioned and wondering why we as Jews we were picked on, and in reality, were second class citizen. Went overseas with B 29's and spent 2 1/2 years overseas in the Pacific theater of operations.
Came back a different lad then when I went in. No rotations in that War. Went in and stayed till it was over. Brother served in the Philapines and his division liberated Battan, which I doubt any reader except WW II Veteran knows what that is. Point is, Jewish servicemen came back with an attitude they no longer were to be demeened by anyone. I am sorry to say, it seems only those who serve have that demeaner.
It is, perhaps, why I have such disdain for American Jews in Israels hour of need. They have never paid a price for their freedom, their affluent life style, everything handed on a platter to them with no payback except for some who have contributed educationally and through Social Services. Many who rode the Government for their livelyhood, civil servants, teachers, Social workers and consequently support large Government which Obama opitimizes.
They have no idea how proud Israel in its traveils made us proud to be Jews. Back in the 40's, 50's, 60's when Israel the little Country of Holacaust survivors, was kicking the s--t out of the Arabs on every War forced upon them. These Generational Jews have no idea what the cost of their freedoms are, and again I say I have no use for the Effete Liberal left Wing Jews who are so supportive of other human rights that they will march to the ovens without a fight once again.
Hail to the Military. I am a memeber of JWV 440, and though I couldn't wait to get out of the Army then, I have learned to respect and be proud of my Service.
Maybe if kids visiting Israel in their high school years wouldn't find sympathetic ears at their synagogues when they regale us about how hard that ten minute Israeli boot camp was...
Too many vets in our synagogues keep quiet when they hear that stuff. It's the closest some of our soft-handed youth will get to grimy work in their entire lives.
I'm here to tell you, and I see someone already linked to our site, www.jewsingreen.com, but there's a vibrant community of Jews still serving our military, and we serve in higher proportions still than many other ethnic and religious subcultures within the US.
I'm proud of my grandfather's service in the AEF in World War I, and my father's and uncles' in WWII, and I am in awe and honor them for it. However, when I was in Queens College in the early 1970s, I wanted no part of Vietnam. I was a very young and immature 18 and while service might have "made me a man," all the same I am quite glad not to have been tested in that manner, and wish the same for my sibling's kids.
BTW, loved GI Jews, a terrific book.
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