final veterans

HHaammooddiiaa November 8 , 201218

F E AT U R E

IInnyyaann MMaaggaazz iinnee 23 Cheshvan 5773 19

In honor of Veterans Day, Hamodia salutes this beneficent country of ours, the

United States of America, and the Orthodox servicemen who served their

country along with so many other Jews. With full civic and religious rights,

Jews in this country have been free of systemic persecution, civil limitations,

and official discrimination since its establishment. Not only have we been able

to build our families and our communities without fear, we also have the

opportunity to take advantage of a plethora of government programs and

projects that benefit our religious institutions.

We will focus here on the military personnel who served during the Vietnam

War era, when the United States became involved in an anticolonial uprising

against the French government in Vietnam, Southeast Asia, to prevent the

takeover of South Vietnam by the Communist-led North Vietnamese. Join us as

we learn about the experiences of Orthodox servicemen in the U.S. armed

forces at that time, and how they dealt with the challenges they faced.

Our Boys at

BY REBBETZIN FAIGIE HOROWITZ

Boot Camp


A Third-Generation Soldier“I didn’t mind serving my country,”

says Mr. Michoel Silberberg, a Boro Parkresident who was working in 1963 whenhe was drafted. “My father had served inthe United States Army when he wasdrafted in early 1945, despite being thefather of three children. This country wasgood to us, and when I told my maternalgrandmother that I had been called up,she reminded me that her father, who hadbeen born in Yerushalayim in 1898, hadbeen drafted by the Turkish government tofight in World War I.”

Mr. Silberberg’s grandfather, RabbiAvraham Binyamin B. Auerbach, z”l,who was later known as theYerushalayimer Rebbe, served as a captainin the Turkish cavalry when he was abachur. Posted to Romania, he foundhimself in Iasi (Jassi) after the war ended,where he married Devorah Gottesman.After their first child was born, theyimmigrated to Brooklyn.

“When I was drafted, I took along my

hotplate, my tefillin, my Chumash, and myCode of Jewish Law to Fort Jackson, SouthCarolina. I was determined to maintainmy observance at all costs. And thechallenges came quickly.

“I had no beard, but I did have peyos.When you arrive at the induction center,the army gives you a crewcut, basicallyshaving off all your hair to take away yourcivilian identity, so they could establish

your identity as a soldier. I refused to letthem cut off my peyos. I arrived Thursdaybefore Thanksgiving, and I spent theweekend in the brig [military jail].

“Monday morning, I was taken to the

general’s office. I took along my Code ofJewish Law in English and showed him theplaces where peyos, kashrus, and Shabbosare detailed. General Gaines-Pérez was adevout member of the Greek Orthodox

Church. He had a lot of respect forJudaism, and he was a good shaliach forthe rest of my stay. He saw that I wasadamant about keeping halachah. He toldme, ‘I cannot send you home,’ so he put

MR. YISOCHER M. SILBERBERG MR. MICHOEL SILBERBERG

A postcard showing the entrance to the Fort Jackson army base.


me in the tent city and I served out basictraining without any problems. I am alsothankful to this day for the chizuk I got onthe base from Dr. Yehuda Sorscher” (seebelow).

Mr. Silberberg existed on fruits andvegetables from the mess hall, along withbeer, which the army supplied in excess,and he lost forty-six pounds. He says hewent out of his way to fulfill everyhalachah and custom. He washed negelvasser and davened daily before doingwhatever job he was assigned. After basictraining he drove a bread truck.

“In the army, they gave you a job untilthey shipped you out. In my case, thegenerals saw that my Yiddishkeit was goingto interfere with my service as a soldier. Sothey gave me an honorable dischargeafter the requisite number of days. Hadthere been a real war, this would not havehappened.”

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�� U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War.

He Finished Shas Four TimesMr. Joseph Aufrichtig’s experience was

similar to Mr. Silberberg’s in terms ofbeing able to keep Shabbos andhalachah, although it involved a weeklyrequest to be relieved of duty on Shabbos.He always received permission in theend, but he was extremely tense while hewaited for the weekly approval.

Joseph enlisted in the reserves in 1962,the day after he dropped out of medicalschool. This was a calculated act,since he knew that had he waitedto be drafted after leaving school,he would be sent to active dutyabroad. As an enlistee, he wouldundergo the usual two-monthbasic training, and then become areservist.

“Fort Dix, New Jersey, had noaccommodations for frum soldiers, butthe Young Israel prepared usbeforehand,” he states. “They explainedto us how to manage kashrus, how to usethe mess kit, and more. Out of 35,000trainees at Fort Dix, there were twelveKBs, ‘kosher boys.’ One Norwegian-American fellow would follow mearound and eat the food I wouldn’t eat. Ilost a lot of weight.

“I never had to be mechallel Shabbosand always tried to make a kiddushHashem wherever I went. I knew who Iwas. I was a strong person and couldstand up for my beliefs. I am glad Iserved. At the time I felt it was the right

thing to do. I’m alive and mygrandparents remained alive becausethis country took them in,” continues thisproud Flatbush retiree who hascompleted Shas four times.

The KB boys were told to stay out ofsight on Shabbos since they were going tobe off duty and would not be in uniform.They spent all of Shabbos in the chapel,walking back to their barrack after theseudah on Friday night and returning

again on Shabbos morning,staying there for the rest of the day.

“That’s when we saw eachother. The chaplain was aConservative rabbi, but he sent hisassistant to New York regularly to


MR. JOSEPH AUFRICHTIG

(Above) A postcard showing rifle practice at the army base in Fort Dix, N.J.

(Below) Recruits stand in the chow line during basic training at Fort Dix, circa 1960.


get us kosher food. On Shabbos we hadthree full kosher meals. During the weekwe subsisted on cereal and milk, for themost part. No one gave us trouble withYom Tov either.”

After basic training, Joseph wasassigned for four months to a hospitalunit, where his responsibilities includedtransporting wounded soldiers whereverthey needed to go. Later he spent one daya week training as a reservist, and thenevery summer for six years he served atCamp Drum in Watertown, New York, fortwo weeks.

Dental Care and KiruvPopular Boro Park dentist Dr. Yehuda

Sorscher was in dental school at the timeof the Vietnam War. Many dentists weredrafted during that period because theU.S. Army wanted to make sure itssoldiers received good dental care before

they were sent into combat. Manydraftees from the South and West had notreceived dental care until they enteredthe service. Simple reparative dentistrywas the order of the day. Many Jewishphysicians also served during this timeand were made officers, like the dentists.

“I decided to enlist following mycompletion of NYU Dental School so Iwould get the mandatory two years inthe army over with before starting mypractice. I was married at the time, withtwo small children, and was told that Iwould have to report to Fort Sill,Oklahoma, after basic training. I wasadvised to travel down to Washington tonegotiate a change in orders so that wecould be near a Jewish community with amikveh. I was then reassigned to FortJackson, South Carolina, about 120 milesfrom the small, warm Jewishcongregation Brith Sholom Beth Israel of

Charleston, South Carolina, led by RabbiHersh Galinsky, brother of the well-known Rabbi Mallen Galinsky ofYeshivas Shaalvim.”

Dr. Sorscher first spent some weeks inbasic training at Fort Sam Houston inSan Antonio, Texas, learning to shoot,read maps, and march, as all soldiers do,even though the dentists were bumpedup to the rank of captain. There were twofrum groups on base, and the officerswere able to make their own livingarrangements. Dr. Sorscher chose to liveon Lackland Air Force Base with RabbiYehuda Samet, who later became asenior instructor at Yeshivas OhrSomayach in Yerushalayim.

In Columbia, South Carolina, wherethe sprawling Fort Jackson Base dwarfedthe town, the family was reunited afterhis basic training, and at first they livedoff the post. Dr. Sorscher worked in the

Congregation Brith

Sholom Beth Israel of

Charleston, S.C.


dental clinic all day, getting excellentprofessional experience. He was able toswitch duty with others so that he was offon Shabbosos and Yamim Tovim. Once ina while he was pulled in by his colonel,who checked to see if he was properlyfulfilling his duties. “There was a mesorahamong the frum military men on how tohandle such situations, so I was okay,” hesays.

Then, when the Sorschers moved ontothe post, they helped to develop a sense ofcommunity with the other Jewishprofessionals, as well as the draftees. Thechallenge was how to find frum draftees inwhat was actually a mini-city. The Jewishchaplain’s assistant helped identifyOrthodox men even though he wasn’tOrthodox himself. The message wasspread that anyone who found anOrthodox Jew should inform him that hecould find other Orthodox Jews at thechapel on Shabbos. The multipurposechapel became the shul on Shabbos and aplace of worship for Christians onSundays.

“If a soldier didn’t identify himself asSabbath-observant at the outset, he wasn’tallowed to change,” recalls Dr. Sorscher’swife, Esther. “The pressures on the youngrecruits not to be Shabbos observant werehard and heavy. If you were wavering inYiddishkeit, you could fall, and thepresence of a Reform chaplain was of nohelp. We felt we were there for a purpose,to take care of the frum boys and givethem chizuk.”

Many of the boys were marginallyobservant. Most draftees did not have astrong yeshivah background and werevulnerable, but some became more frum.“Those who did faced a moral testsuccessfully, and they took a stand,” sherecalls.

The army experience was a challengefor the Jewish soldiers on other levels too.Its goal was (and is) to toughen up therecruits physically and emotionally duringbasic training, and the army used allmeans to do it. Mrs. Sorscher says thatmany of the soldiers who joined them forShabbos meals were shell-shocked by theirtraining. She remembers David

Schonbrun’s “humorous” comments.“This week I learned to kill,” he wouldannounce. “This week I learned to getthrough the mud,” he reported anothertime. For him, Shabbosos with theSorschers were enjoyable and full ofcamaraderie.

David was completely unprepared forcall-up. He was finished with college and

working in 1964 when suddenly, at theage of twenty-three, he was drafted. “I gotthe shock of my life. My father went to theSkverer Rebbe for a brachah, and we triedgetting me into the National Guard.” Butthey did not succeed, so he had no choicebut to serve. He spent twenty-one months

Continued after Kinyan Magazine

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U. S. Jewish war veterans

pose for photos next to

the Jewish Chaplains’

Memorial on October

24, 2011, at Arlington

National Cemetery in

Arlington, Virginia.


in the army, ultimately receiving an earlydischarge because he served overseas.

All Jewish soldiers were welcome at theSorschers’ Shabbos table on post, and theywere allowed to help themselves to thefood that Mrs. Sorscher cooked. Dr.Sorscher had prepared a young boy fromthe Columbia, South Carolina, Jewishcommunity for his bar mitzvah, and hisgrateful father sent huge ice cream freezersfor the chapel. Mrs. Sorscher used them tofreeze the chicken and burger dishes sheprepared, which were accessible to the KBsall week. She was the only frum womanthere and considered it her duty toencourage the Jewish boys. One officer’swife said to her, “You spend as muchmoney as we spend on all kinds of thingsat the Post Exchange, only you put it allon the table.”

Food was only part of the kiruv effort.Mrs. Sorscher taught in the Talmud Torah,and Dr. Sorscher gave Torah classes once aweek to the doctors and dentists.

The Sorscher home was the oasisof warmth and love for the youngboys struggling to keep their Jewishidentity during basic training, andmany still recall how much thismeant to them.

Soul in SeoulDavid Schonbrun trained as a

chaplain’s assistant. He was shipped toKorea from San Francisco in 1964. Uponhis arrival in Seoul, Korea’s capital andthe U.S. army’s main staging base, hefound that there were no openings forchaplains’ assistants, and he was due tobe sent to the DMZ, the demilitarized zonein the Vietnamese jungle. Seoul had akosher kitchen, a Shabbos minyan, and astrong Jewish presence.

“I wasn’t interested in leaving,” hesays. “I met a priest named Father Joe. He

saw that I was religious andwanted to stay near Jews and akosher kitchen. He changed mywork orders and gave me a job inthe post office so that I was able tostay.

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Continued from page 24 in Inyan Magazine

MR. DAVID SCHONBRUN

The famous U.S. recruiting poster.


“We had beautiful Shabbosos in Seoulwith minyanim, seudos, shalosh seudos, andmelaveh malkahs together. We were offfrom work from Friday afternoon untilMonday. We had plenty of kosher suppliesfrom the Jewish Welfare Board. Tenthousand pounds of kosher meatcame in every six months.Someone had taught a Koreanwoman a few years back tomake cholent, challah,and other traditionalJewish foods so we hadeverything we needed.”

One Shabbos the group had a surprisevisitor from New York, a Skverer chassid inthe shirt business who was traveling in theFar East. He was told that in Seoul onecould enjoy a real Shabbos — and he did,complete with his shtreimel and bekeshe.Later, he told his Rebbe about theexperience. The Skverer Rebbe, zy”a, sentDavid Schonbrun, whose father went to

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(Above) A Jewish Welfare Board uniform and hat.

(Center) Jewish Welfare Board stationery.

(Below) A Jewish Welfare Board postcard, 1919.


the Rebbe for brachos, a handwritten letterstating that the zechus of hostingYiddishkeit in Southeast Asia was theKorean nation’s sole purpose in this world.

“For me, the army was a worldlyexperience,” Mr. Schonbrun says. “I wasalways frum. It was key to who I was. Iwas an adult when I was drafted, and Ihad to live up to being a frum Yid. I wasthe only Jew in my unit, and I was tenthousand miles from home. I wasconscious of mitzvos and my obligation tobe Jewish for myself, but also to helpothers. They say that there are no atheistsin foxholes, and it’s true. Other Jewishguys were interested in Yiddishkeit if weshowed them. All in all, it wasn’t hard tobe a shomer mitzvos in Seoul. We had allthe tools; we did all right.”

(Above) A Jewish Welfare Board Passover for American soldiers in Dijon, France, 1919.

(Right) A Jewish Welfare Board poster, New York, 1918.

“They say that thereare no atheists infoxholes, and it’s true.Other Jewish guyswere interested inYiddishkeit if weshowed them. ... Itwasn’t hard to be ashomer mitzvos inSeoul.”


A Stranger in a Strange PlaceDr. Mordechai Benenstock’s story of

his army experience started almost likeDr. Sorscher’s. They were in the sameshomer Shabbos group at NYU DentalSchool, and he signed up for the reservesduring the first year for the same reasonshis colleague did — for the officer’s payand excellent professional experience,and in order to finish his military servicebefore starting a practice.

“I didn’t even know that the UnitedStates had a military presence inVietnam when I signed up. I was told itwas a practical thing to do once I finishedschool and that I shouldn’t defer it toolong because student deferments [ofmilitary service] kept you eligible for thedraft until the age of thirty-five.”

He deferred service for a year longerthan his friends, and that made all thedifference. After a year, during the bigAmerican military push against theVietcong in 1966, he found himself on aplane headed to Vietnam. Although hewas a new father with a three-week-oldbaby, he was sent off to an army camp inSaigon in a really dangerous zone.

“There was no kosher food, nothing.There were no shomrei mitzvos,” herecalls. “They thought I was taking myblood pressure every morning when I puton tefillin. I was a yeshivah boy who grewup in Brooklyn, went to YeshivaUniversity and then to New YorkUniversity [Dental School]; I had neverassociated with non-Jews. It was a majoreye-opener to witness the preoccupationof my fellow soldiers and officers withphysical pleasures and immorality. I wasshocked.”

Captain Benenstock’s request to be offon Shabbos in exchange for covering forother dentists so they could have time offwas moved up the chain of command.His commanding officer spoke to thegeneral in charge of all the dentists inVietnam, who in turn conferred with aJewish chaplain. The result was a transferto Nha Trang, a magnificent touristlocation on the banks of the South ChinaSea in the south–central part of thecountry. Although he was unaware of it

at the time, Benenstock had been labeleda religious fanatic by his superiors. Sowhen he made his request not to work onShabbos, his new commanding officeranswered in the affirmative. In NhaTrang he did have company — a YUmusmach, who was the chaplain there,

and two other shomer Shabbos soldiers,with whom he spent Shabbosos.

“It was a very frightening and lonelytime,” recalls the Brooklyn dentist. “Iworked in the clinic and tried to stay nearAmericans only. It was dangerous. Welived with constant uncertainty. It wasnot a matter of good guys versus badguys. You couldn’t trust that the SouthVietnamese weren’t Vietcong [enemy]sympathizers. The Vietcong spoke andacted like all other South Vietnamese.The grocery man, the porter, and theman in town could shoot you.”

For one Purim, he arranged to spendhis R&R (rest and recuperation furlough)in Tokyo, where he would meet his wife.He got a lift on a military plane that washeaded to the United States, with alayover in Tokyo. As an officer, he wasinvited to sit in the cockpit with the pilot.

“He told me there were one hundredsoldiers in body bags on the plane. Everyweek he flew back to the States with anaverage of a hundred KIA [men killed inaction]. I was very grateful to be flying[alive] to meet my wife for Purim.”

DR. MARTIN BENENSTOCK

Dr. Benenstock (L) on a dental mission with an assistant.

“He told me there were

one hundred soldiers in

body bags on the plane.

Every week he flew back

to the States with an

average of a hundred

KIA. I was very grateful

to be flying [alive] to

meet my wife for Purim.”


The waste of human life in that warhas not left Dr. Benenstock’sconsciousness. He speaks at length aboutthe tragedy of Vietnam — the idealism ofthe American troops and the unfoundedbelief of its leaders, President LyndonJohnson and General WilliamWestmoreland, that the SouthVietnamese were interested in thefriendship of the United States. Militaryintelligence reported to the generals andthe government that the United States

was doing well, but it was not so. Furthermore, the U.S. did not

recognize the fact that the SouthVietnamese were interested inbeing reunited with theirNorth Vietnamese brethren.Dr. Benenstock remembers

that American doctors, dentists,and others were dispatched to the

countryside to dispense medicaland dental care and distribute clothing todemonstrate the friendship of theAmerican people.

The proof of this naiveté becameincontrovertible, in his opinion, later onwhen President Richard Nixon gave theSouth Vietnamese America’s mostsophisticated tanks, armored cars, andartillery so that it could overpower itsenemy before the Paris Peace Accordswere signed. The president was forced totake American forces out of SoutheastAsia due to the war’s increasingunpopularity, but the certainty of a NorthVietnamese victory was clear. Our tragicmisunderstanding of the war-wearySouth Vietnamese and their mentality, inhis opinion, and the endurance of theNorth Vietnamese resulted in astaggering human cost, with three timesthe number of wounded on top of thefifty thousand dead.

Dr. Benenstock feels that our country’sleaders have gone on to repeat the samemistake by fighting abroad with poorintelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq attremendous human cost. Happy to servehis country, as were the other Jewishveterans, he is hurt by the waste of thateffort because he lived through thetragedy of Vietnam. zII

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The National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington, D.C.

final veterans

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