The day before Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, Israel observes Yom Hazikaron, its memorial day for fallen soldiers and victims of terror.
No JTA writer had a better grasp on the price of freedom like columnist Philip S. Bernstein a veteran and a rabbi in Rochester N.Y. who published a magazine for Jewish military chaplains during WWII and was appointed advisor on Jewish affairs to the U.S. Army in Germany in 1946.
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In October 1934, Bernstein presciently predicted that "another World War infinitely more horrible than the last would ravage the world before the children in my audience are grown to manhood."
Not that Bernstein was fond of war. To the contrary, his 1935 Memorial Day column published in the Jewish Daily Bulletin made clear his opposition:
Perhaps the Unknown Soldier is the lad whom my friend, Emil Oppenheimer, killed at Sedan. Emil is a Berlin lawyer, who fought in the German army from September 1914, until November, 1918. In the last great battle of the war, he met a young American in hand-to-hand combat. Being stronger and more experienced, he swiftly ran his bayonet through the other’s heart. As he watched the boy die, he heard him moan "Shma Yisroel."
"Why did I kill him?" Emil has since asked a thousand times. "What quarrel did I have with him? He was my brother Jew and I killed him!"
And now Hitler has decided that Emil, despite his splendid war record and his readiness to kill even Jews in the service of the Father-land, is disqualified from military service because he is a Jew. I do not know how Emil regards this decision, for he has not written recently. Perhaps he is in a concentration camp. But I have read that many of his compatriots are protesting against the decree and are insisting on their right to serve in the German army. This is an attitude I cannot comprehend. For myself, I would rather languish in jail, I would rather even die than render military service to Hitlerism.
If my voice could reach them, I would say, "Embrace your fate, my German brothers. The evils that have come upon you are the bitter fruits of war. For you to support war is to make a mockery of your suffering. Your mission and your destiny, your crown and your cross, are peace."
They are mine, too, I am convinced, as I commune with the spirit of the Unknown Soldier this Memorial Day.
As an aside, Bernstein touched upon the topic of Jewish national aspirations in a 1947 report about the state of Jews in DP camps:
"The overwhelming majority of the displaced Jews desire to settle in Palestine," the report added. "Facing closed doors everywhere else, at least 90 percent at this time would migrate to Palestine if given the opportunity. If the U.S. should liberalize its immigration laws about 25 percent of the Jewish DP’s would choose to come here and about 75 percent would continue to prefer Palestine. Even if Palestine should remain officially closed most of the Jews will still be determined to go there and will brave hardships and dangers to reach their goal."
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