We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com
Israel Remembers 23,169 Fallen Soldiers: Israel Hayom, May. 2, 2014— This year’s Memorial Day for Fallen soldiers will commemorate the 23,196 soldiers who have died since 1860.
Not Home Alone: Foreigners Came to Israel’s Rescue in 1948: Andrew Esensten, Ha’aretz, Jun. 15, 2012— Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion called them “the Diaspora’s most important contribution to the survival of the State of Israel,” and in recent years the volunteers from 58 countries who fought for Israel during its War of Independence have sought greater recognition for the crucial role they played in the struggle for a Jewish homeland.
We Haven’t Forgotten: Itay Itamar, Israeli Air Force Magazine, Feb. 27, 2013— George Frederick “Buzz” Beurling was born in Montreal in December 1921 to an observant Christian family.
Tibi Ram: The Holocaust Survivor Who Fought in Every Israeli War (Video): IDF, Apr. 27, 2014
The Spirit of Mahal Lives On: Smoky Simon, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 27, 2014
The Last Descendant – The Story of Those Who Can’t Speak: IDF Blog, May. 2, 2014
With New Films, Hollywood Finally Telling Story of Fledgling Israeli Air Force: Tom Tugend, JTA, Apr. 3, 2013
ISRAEL REMEMBERS 23,169 FALLEN SOLDIERS
Ya’akov Lappin
Israel Hayom, May 2, 2014
This year’s Memorial Day for Fallen soldiers will commemorate the 23,196 soldiers who have died since 1860. Since last year’s Memorial Day on April 15, 2013, 57 soldiers and 50 disabled veterans died. According to Defense Ministry for 2014, there are 17,038 bereaved family members, including 2,141 orphans and 4,966 widows of fallen Israel Defense Forces soldiers and security agents. Eighty-seven percent of bereaved parents and 74% of widows are more than 60 years old.
According to National Insurance Institute data published in advance of Memorial Day, 2,495 civilians have been killed in terror attacks since the end of the Independence War on Jan. 1, 1950. Since last Independence Day, two civilians were killed in such attacks. From the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000 until today, 996 civilians were murdered in terror attacks. Terror attacks have left 2,853 children without a parent, 99 of whom lost both parents. There are 978 widows and widowers as a result of terror attacks, and 800 bereaved parents.
This year marks the fifth year that the Knesset will hold a joint commemoration ceremony for fallen soldiers and terror attack victims on the eve of Memorial Day. The event, called “Songs in their Memory,” will take place on Sunday evening… The state memorial ceremony will take place on Monday afternoon on Mount Herzl beside the monument in memory of terror victims. The ceremony will be attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, Edelstein, Mor-Yosef, IDF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz and Supreme Court Chief Justice Asher Grunis. On Sunday evening at 8:00 p.m., a minute-long siren will be sounded throughout the country signaling the beginning of Memorial Day. At 11:00 on Monday, a two-minute-long siren will be sounded before state memorial ceremonies begin.
Each Memorial Day, there are typically three state ceremonies: a candlelighting ceremony, the laying of flowers on the graves of the fallen and the laying of Israeli flags with a black ribbon attached to them on each grave. The Families and Commemoration Department at the Defense Ministry is preparing for some 1.5 million people to arrive at military cemeteries throughout the country. A new Israeli application called “We will Remember Everyone” will allow visitors to navigate through the military cemetery on Mount Herzl and to receive information about the fallen soldiers buried there by scanning the gravestone. The application is part of an initiative called “Memorialize.” The initiative, including the idea and execution of the application, was done as a volunteer project by David Ansbacher, CEO of Otzarot, a company that specializes in educational tourism using innovative technology.
On Thursday evening at an event for bereaved families called “Life Afterwards,” in which people showcased art that they created as a way to deal with loss, Ya’alon said, “This exhibition gives us a glimpse of a unique and touching way to deal.” Peres met with the head of the Families and Commemoration Department at the Defense Ministry, Aryeh Moalem, Yad Labanim Chairman Eli Ben-Shem and Bereaved Families representatives ahead of Memorial Day. One representative said, “Israeli children do not know stories of heroism from the war.” To which Peres responded, saying, “The heroes of Israel’s wars endangered their lives to defend the nation, and we must remember them for the good of our country.”
NOT HOME ALONE: FOREIGNERS CAME
Andrew Esensten
Ha’aretz, Jun. 15, 2012
Former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion called them “the Diaspora’s most important contribution to the survival of the State of Israel,” and in recent years the volunteers from 58 countries who fought for Israel during its War of Independence have sought greater recognition for the crucial role they played in the struggle for a Jewish homeland. A new addition to the core exhibition at Tel Aviv’s Beit Hatfutsot, the Museum of the Jewish People, represents a modest step in that direction, said several of the volunteers, now in their late 80s and early 90s, at the opening of the exhibit earlier this month (The exhibition continues to be open in 2014—Ed.). The exhibit is entitled “By Land, By Air and By Sea: Volunteers from Abroad in Israel’s War of Independence.”
“Machal is one of the glorious chapters in the annals of modern Jewish history,” said Stanley Medicks, 86, using the Hebrew acronym for Mitnadvei Chutz Le’aretz, or overseas volunteers. “I find that Beit Hatfutsot is the ideal place to tell the remarkable, heroic story of what we did in 1948.” Medicks was born in Nairobi to Polish parents, served in the 72nd Infantry Battalion and later founded a branch of the World Machal organization for UK and Scandinavian veterans. He told Ha’aretz that he petitioned the museum for years to recognize Machal and, after finally getting approval for an exhibit, raised the NIS 120,000 necessary to mount it from donors around the world, including the American Veterans of Israel.
Approximately 4,500 Machalniks – men and women, Jews and non-Jews – served in the Israel Defense Forces and its forerunners (the Haganah, Palmach and other underground organizations ) between 1947 and 1949. Most of them were recently discharged World War II veterans who put their lives on hold to travel to Israel and offer their desperately needed military expertise. Some, like Murray Greenfield, participated mainly out of Zionist fervor and a sense of Jewish solidarity, especially in the wake of the Holocaust. “We failed our fellow Jews during the Holocaust,” said Greenfield, 85, who was recruited at a synagogue in New York for the clandestine mission to resettle European Jews in Mandate Palestine known as “Aliyah Bet.” “You cannot sit back and think things are going to happen,” Greenfield said. “You’ve got to make them happen.”
While Machalniks served in all branches of the Israeli military and held key positions of command, often despite speaking little Hebrew, they may have had the greatest impact as members of the Israel Air Force. Nearly all of the IAF’s aircrew and technical personnel were overseas volunteers who helped buy and smuggle planes, train Israeli pilots and lead bombing missions. Harold “Smoky” Simon, a veteran of the South African Air Force, served as the IAF’s chief of air operations and flew 24 missions in 1948. His logbook, which is on display in the exhibit, contains details of raids on Arab cities. “When we really wanted to start showing our muscle, we attacked Damascus,” recalled Simon, 92, who is the chairman of World Machal. “We flew in a DC-3 Dakota aircraft and we loaded her with 16 80-kilogram bombs, boxes of incendiaries and crates of empty bottles, which created a terrifying noise when they fell to the ground. The planes didn’t have bomb racks in the early days, so we had a category of ‘bomb-chucker,’ young Israelis who carried the bombs on their laps and pitched them when we were over the target.”
The exhibit features handmade models of the planes flown by Simon and his comrades, as well as black-and-white photographs from the war and line drawings of Machalniks by celebrated Israeli artist Nachum Gutman. A short documentary plays on one wall of the exhibit, which is located in the “Return to Zion” section of the core exhibit. A number of the Machalniks interviewed expressed muted disappointment with how the exhibit turned out, though they said they took pride in the fact that future visitors to the museum, including newly enlisted IDF soldiers, will know something of Machal’s history.
“What is missing that you will get from talking to every single one of us is the passion, the determination, the spirit of mission, the understanding of our place in this moment of history,” said Zipporah Porath, 88, a New Yorker who arrived in Israel in 1947, intending to study at the Hebrew University, but who joined the Haganah instead and served as a medic during the Siege of Jerusalem. “This exhibition is only the beginning,” said Medicks.
Shira Friedman, the exhibit’s curator, explained that her goal was to incorporate the Machal experience into the larger narrative of Jewish volunteerism and heroism. She commended the Machalniks for pursuing their ambitious vision for the exhibit, even when it clashed with her own. “If they have one thing in common, it’s that personality: I have a target and I’m going to conquer the target,” said Friedman, who is part of the team that is completely redesigning the core exhibit at Beit Hatfutsot. (A museum spokesperson said the new exhibit is expected to open in 2014. )
As Friedman came to learn, the Machalniks are proud of their service and protective of their legacy. Their website, www.machal.org.il, contains exhaustive Machal archives and more than 200 personal narratives. They have organized smaller exhibits around the world, including at the American Jewish Historical Society in New York City and on Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. In addition, they erected a Machal Memorial monument near Sha’ar Hagai in the Judean Hills to commemorate the 123 fallen volunteers and gather there every year on Israel’s Memorial Day to honor their memory.
At the dedication of the memorial in 1993, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said of the volunteers: “You came when we needed you most, during those dark and uncertain days in our War of Independence. You gave us not only your experience, but your lives as well. The People of Israel and the State of Israel will never forget.” Brig. Gen. Eli Shermeister, the IDF’s chief education officer, said in remarks at the opening of the exhibit that the Machalniks left a powerful legacy that continues to be felt today. “The foundation that you laid in spirit and action brings to Israel hundreds of volunteers each year to serve in the IDF and participate in the critically important defense mission,” said Shermeister. Simon, of World Machal, said he frequently gives “pep talks” to groups of volunteers from the United States, England, South Africa, Australia and many other places. “It’s wonderful,” he said, “that we’re able to maintain the spirit and the tradition of Machal.”
George Frederick “Buzz” Beurling was born in Montreal in December 1921 to an observant Christian family. By age 14 he was already flying and wanted to join the Canadian army but was rejected on the grounds that he didn’t yet know enough about flying. As World War II broke out, a desperate need arose for brave and talented pilots. The Royal British Air Force agreed to enlist Buzz and he crossed the ocean to enlist as a Spitfire pilot. He was an excellent pilot, a fact reflected in his many accomplishments during the war: he shot down 32 Italian and German enemy aircraft, 27 of them in combat above the island of Malta. He is remembered as the Canadian pilot who shot down the most enemy planes ever.
He was considered a ‘lone wolf’ and developed fighting methods that he later taught the Israeli Air Force. For example, Beurling found that by shooting cannon on the approximated flight path of an enemy plane, one could attack the plane without straightening one’s tail, utilizing a side angle. Pilots that flew with Beurling said that he would be able to notice approaching planes before anyone else, and was capable of counting them. As others were unable to see what he was talking about, they thought that he was simply nervous or tense, but in the end he was always accurate.
He ejected from two planes and was awarded four citations, making him the most decorated Canadian pilot in history. He was severely wounded but recovered and returned to fly. Towards the end of the war he returned to Canada as a national hero whose exploits and adventures were documented in detail in the book “Spitfires over Malta”, co-written with Leslie Roberts.
George and Rick’s father studied Holy Scriptures and the education that the brothers received at home and their worldview about Israel and the Jewish people was very much influenced by faith. “We very much identified with the history of the people of Israel. Our father always said that one day Israel would become an independent state and we always waited for it to happen”, remembers Rick. “I think that after Buzz’s experience in World War II, together with the fact that Israel was about to become a nation, he ran to help. Even though he wasn’t Jewish, he had a Jewish heart”.
George Beurling was offered a large sum of money to join and fly in one of the air forces that fought during the Israeli War of Independence, but he, of course, rejected the offer. He turned to the Jewish community in Montréal and offered himself as a volunteer to serve in the young air force, but he was turned down due to suspicion that he was a spy or was working for an enemy country’s military. He did not give up and turned to Sydney Solomon, a Jewish community leader who was involved in joint activities between Canada and Israel, and tried to convince him. “Sydney sat with us in the kitchen and told us that it was very difficult for them to believe my brother, because they thought that it was a trick or a type of bait”, recalls Rick. Sydney was skeptical of George’s motivations, asking why he would want to come to fly for the State of Israel and George, whose allegiance was unmatched, was insistent and answered Sydney’s questions with passages from the bible. “He wanted to be part of creation of Israel, re-establishing the State of Israel”, says Rick.
At the outbreak of the War of Independence, Leonard Yehudah Cohen, a British pilot that also fought in Malta and George Beurling volunteered in the Mach”al (volunteers from abroad) group in the young IAF. Both of them were supposed to join Squadron A, today known as “Flying Camel” squadron, which was at the time practically the entirety of the IAF. “I didn’t have a chance to speak with him then”, explained Rick with sadness. “Sydney told us that he explained to George not to let us know when the time came. One day someone picked him up off the street, he got into their car, and got on a plane and left. There wasn’t a chance for him to speak with anyone”.
Their first task was to bring a Norseman plane from Italy to Israel. On May 20th, 1948, Buzz and Leonard went on a test flight on the plane that was to be brought to Israel. During the test flight, the plane caught fire and they crashed in the Rome airport. Maj. Gen. Motti Hod, formerly commander of the IAF, was then a young pilot named Mordechai Fein. He too was supposed to be on the plane. The circumstances of the accident are still unknown, but the conventional wisdom is that someone sabotaged the plane before the flight took off, knowing that it was bound for Israel. In the beginning, Beurling was buried in a Catholic cemetery in Rome.
“My father replied to the telegram that the “Hagannah” sent as follows: Your request touches us in our hearts. George, who devoted his last days to fight for the establishment of the State of Israel needs to be laid to rest in the holy land”. On November 9, 1950, George was laid to eternal rest with full military honors in a Christian cemetery in Haifa. “At a later time, they said that maybe it was a mistake to request to hold his body in Israel and that they would check the possibility of returning him to Canada, but my family insisted that he would stay in Israel because that is where he wanted to be”, explained Rick proudly.
This wasn’t the first time that the Beurling family had visited Israel, but it was the first time that they fit it together with Buzz’s story through the IAF. “60 years might seem like a long time”, said Rick, “but it did not seem that way from a wider perspective”. Buzz, considered today a member of the “Flying Camel” squadron, is honored in the memorial room of the squadron. 60 years after his burial in Israel, the Fallen Soldiers Department of the IAF renewed its connection with his family and invited the Beurlings to come to Israel for an official visit on Israel’s National Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism Remembrance Day. During the IAF ceremony on “Mountain of Pilots”, Rick served as a representative of bereaved families from abroad. “This is an opportunity for me to remember my big brother as a brother, not necessarily as a hero”, said Rick. “It is very gratifying to see how much care the Israelis demonstrated in honoring his memory. I think that he was a bigger hero here than he was in Canada. In Montreal, he has a street named after him and in the last few years it was decided to name a school after him – Beurling High School”.
“On our wall at home hangs a certificate from Israel, on which it is written that 300 trees were planted in Israel in memory of George a few years ago”, continued Rick. “Every year, the Consulate General of Israel to Toronto invites us to celebrate Israeli Independence Day with them. One time I received a ‘Legion of Honor’ in the name of General Wingate from the Canadian Legion. I was very proud to wear the uniform and a hat with the Star of David on it. Three years ago, the Canadian Air Force Attaché to Israel presented golden wings to me in Buzz’s name in the presence of the IAF. My family and I are very appreciative of the treatment that we receive here in Israel, still after so many years. We always said that there was no way the Jews would forget my brother”. [To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
CIJR wishes all its friends and supporters: Shabbat Shalom!
Tibi Ram: The Holocaust Survivor Who Fought in Every Israeli War (Video): IDF, Apr. 27, 2014 —During the Holocaust Ze’ev Tibi Ram lost his whole family. He survived Auschwitz, a labour camp, and Bergen-Belsen. After being separated from his mother and eventually finding her at the end of the war, she disappeared and Tibi never saw her again. His brother survived until the end of the war, but died shortly after. Now, Tibi gives lectures to soldiers about the holocaust and his extensive military experience. He is also the proud grandfather of an IDF soldier
The Spirit of Mahal Lives On: Smoky Simon, Jerusalem Post, Feb. 27, 2014—For me, at the age of almost 94, this evening presents an outstanding opportunity to express my profound gratitude for the many blessings that have been bestowed upon me along my life’s journey.
The Last Descendant – The Story of Those Who Can’t Speak: IDF Blog, May. 2, 2014 —The Last Descendants are those who came alone to Israel – the only place where they could live their lives without fear – because the rest of their family perished in the Holocaust. Later, these individuals lost their lives defending the State of Israel and the Jewish people, leaving behind no family and effectively ending their family legacy.
With New Films, Hollywood Finally Telling Story of Fledgling Israeli Air Force: Tom Tugend, JTA, Apr. 3, 2013—Some 65 years after a band of foreign volunteers took to the skies to ensure Israel’s birth and survival, filmmakers are racing to bring their exploits to the screen before the last of the breed passes away.
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