“The question of Jews and power
boils down to whether a God-inspired and morally constrained people
can hold out until the surrounding nations accept the principle of peaceful coexistence.
The creation of Israel was the hopeful answer to that question:
Hatikvah, literally, the hope of a people.
Neither the war against Israel in the Middle East
nor opposition to the Jews’ right to a state will likely fade in the years ahead.
Let us see if we have the power and moral stamina to keep that hope alive.”
– Ruth R. Wisse
* * * * * * *
There’s a saying: “You may not be interested in politics, but politics may be interested in you.”
There’s another saying: “You may not be interested in war, but war may be interested in you.”
And so, while the great majority of my posts pertain to history; the past; that which has gone before, given ongoing “events” (ah, how inadequate a word!) in Israel, I think it’s time to touch upon contemporary issues pertaining to the Jewish people, Israel, the United States, the Western world; Europe; “the world” in general.
So, rather than “plow” intellectual ground already so well and deeply furrowed, in a future post I’ll point to essays and opinion pieces which I think precisely (if not brilliantly) focus on “how we got here”, as of October 7, 2023. (Or, 22 Tishrei, 5784).
And still, now.
But until then…!
I’ve not posted anything here – at TheyWereSoldiers – or my brother blog (focusing on art and illustration in science fiction pulp magazines of the mid-twentieth century, and, other literary genres) WordsEnvisioned – for some time. I hope to return with more posts at both blogs in the reasonable future. For TheyWereSoldiers, these will comprise…
The story of First Lieutenant Henry Irving Wood, a fighter pilot in the 75th Fighter Squadron of the 23rd Fighter Group, who survived captivity as a POW of the Japanese after being shot down on October 1, 1943.
Arnold Zweig’s stunning 1917 piece from “Die Schaubühne”, “Judenzählung vor Verdun” (“Count of the Jews before Verdun”): His literary reaction to the October, 1916 “Jew Count” in the German army in the midst of the First World War.
Essays from two German Jewish newspapers – Der Israelit, and Judische Rundschau – which in the early 1930s published opinion pieces expressing skepticism and disillusionment about the implications of Jewish military service, specifically in terms of perpetuating Jewish identity and peoplehood, and, validating Jewish patriotism and courage in the eyes of the forces arrayed against them.
From “The Jewish Frontier”, a perspective on the New York Times’s coverage of the Shoah, Zionism, and “Jewish” issues … in the year 1942.
A “friendly fire” incident: A Liberator bomber (B-24J 42-73429 “Shootin’ Star” of the 374th Bomb Squadron, 308th Bomb Group) shot down by F4U Corsairs of VMF-124 over the South China Sea, on January 12, 1945.
“The One That Got Away”: The escape from German captivity of Sergeant Barney Schollnick, an A-20 Havoc crewman in the 645th Bomb Squadron, 410th Bomb Group, 9th Air Force, captured during a bombardment mission against German positions in Brest, France on September 6, 1944.
Possibly (possibly…; maybe…; perhaps…; who knows…) accounts of how Senior Lieutenant Lidiya Vladimirovna Litvyak (Лидия Владимировна Литвяк), General Lev Mikhaylovich Dovator (Лев Михайлович Доватор), and General Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky (Ива́н Дани́лович Черняхо́вский), of the Soviet Union, were reported upon in the Western press – the Jewish press and the “general” news media – during WW II.
Also from “The Jewish Frontier”, a most non-military topic: a skeptical if not scathing take on Jewish comedians, and, the (taken-for-granted?) cultural association between Jews and comedy, on stage, film, and radio … from the late 1930s. How refreshing. How dignified. How needed. (Thankfully, I think that in the world of 2023, and beyond, Jewish comedians have become passé. Perhaps – sometimes opportunistically indulging in self-abasement – they always were passé, even in their illusory, and retrospectively fleeting, twentieth century heyday.)
Movie time again!!! In the same vein as my posts about Louis Falstein’s novel “Face of a Hero” and Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22”, and, the 1943 movie “Destination Tokyo”, an investigation of James Jones’ focus on the experience of Jews in the United States Army of the 1940s in his novel “The Thin Red Line” through the character of Captain “Bugger” Stein, which is entirely absent in Terrence Malick’s 1998 film adaptation of the book. Likewise for the United States Navy: Jewish Naval Officer Barney Greenwald (played by José Ferrer) in “Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny”, versus the negation of this aspect of the character’s identity in Edward Dmytryk’s 1954 film of the same name.
As part of my continuing series of accounts of Jewish military service in the Second World War (among all the Allied nations), based on accounts in The New York Times and other sources, posts about Jewish military service and Jewish military casualties pertaining to (for example)…
Squadron Leader David Goldberg (J/4242); Survived
Fighter Pilot
No. 403 Squadron
Royal Canadian Air Force
Shot Down and Evaded Capture; Returned to England May 6, 1944
March 8, 1944 – Spitfire IX MJ356
2 Lt. Jesse Herbert Lack (0-694883) .ת.נ.צ.ב.ה
Navigator
755th Bomb Squadron, 458th Bomb Group, 8th Air Force
United States Army Air Force
KIA March 8, 1944 – B-24J 41-28720
2 Lt. Theodore Herman (“Ted”) Lederer (0-2000710) .ת.נ.צ.ב.ה
Infantry
398th Infantry Regiment, 100th Infantry Division
United States Army
KIA April 4, 1945
1 Lt. James Kaplan Levy (0-793649) .ת.נ.צ.ב.ה
Fighter Pilot
347th Fighter Squadron, 350th Fighter Group, 12th Air Force
United States Army Air Force
KIA June 10, 1944 – P-39Q 44-2454
Lieutenant Commander Alfred Labori Lyons (0-307073) .ת.נ.צ.ב.ה
Surgeon
USS Pinkney
United States Navy
KIA April 28, 1945
T/Sgt. Leonard Mann (12128372) .ת.נ.צ.ב.ה
Aerial Gunner
33rd Bomb Squadron, 22nd Bomb Group, 5th Air Force
United States Army Air Force
KIA March 23, 1945 – B-24L 44-41652
Lieutenant Naum Naumovich Rabinovich (Лейтенант Наум Наумович Рабинович); Survived
Fighter Pilot – “Ace”
Six aerial victories – all FW-190s; 5 individual and 1 shared
513th Fighter Aviation Regiment, 331st Fighter Aviation Division, 2nd Air Army
Military Air Forces (VVS) – USSR (Военно-воздушные cилы России (ВВС) – СССР)
Aircraft (Yak) damaged in dogfight with FW-190s on July 13, 1944
Crash-landed; Injured; Rejoined Regiment
In 1980s, a “Refusenik”…
Applied for exit visa to emigrate in 1981; Permission Denied
Received permission to emigrate in April, 1989
(See more at Yad Vashem Archives)
______________________________
But for now, but for thought, but for warning, a poem:
Thus Satan Said
“How will I overcome
this one who is under siege?
He possesses bravery, ingenuity,
weapons of war and resourcefulness.”
And he said: “I’ll not sap his strength,
Nor fill his heart with cowardice,
nor overwhelm him with discouragement
As in days gone by.
I will only do this:
I will cast a shadow of dullness over his mind
until he forgets that justice is with him.”
✡ ✡ ✡
This is what the Satan said and it was as if
the heavens trembled in fear
as they saw him rise
to execute his plan.
____________________
Nathan Alterman (1919-1970)