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Archive for the ‘Heroes and Inspiring Figures’ Category

Actor Jon Voight continues to be a beacon of light in the darkness that is Hollywood.

Oscar winner Jon Voight is coming to Israel next week for his first solidarity visit to salute the Jewish state in honor of its 60th birthday.

World-renowned for his roles in “Midnight Cowboy,” “Coming Home,” “Deliverance,” “Mission Impossible,” “Ali and National Treasure,” among others, Voight will welcome Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl’s (CCOC) 80th rescue mission airlifting children from irradiated regions in Ukraine, Belarus and Western Russia to Israel; visit Sderot, which has endured 7,000 Hamas missiles and numerous casualties; comfort terror victims; and, go to Yad Vashem.

“I’m coming to salute, encourage and strengthen the people of Israel on this joyous 60th birthday,” said Voight. “This week is about highlighting Israel as a moral beacon. At a time when its enemies threaten nuclear destruction, Israel heals.

“Israel is a haven from nuclear horrors for thousands of Chernobyl survivors who suffer the consequences of the worst environmental disaster in history. I personally want to welcome the youngsters aboard Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl’s 80th Rescue Mission—it is a great honor to help save a child’s life.”

Giving back to society has long been a priority for Voight, having volunteered with and contributed to numerous charities and causes at home and abroad. His deep humanitarian values direct him to Sderot and to Chabad’s Terror Victims Project (CTVP).

“I want to meet the people of Sderot,” said Voight. “I want to tell them: ‘Every day you have rockets falling on your city. We care about you. We have not forgotten you!’ And I want to underscore Israel’s magnificent contributions to mankind.”

Voight will also attend President Shimon Peres’ Presidential Conference: “Facing Tomorrow.”

CCOC, a non-profit organization established by the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1990, has airlifted 2,500 children to Israel. The children live in Kfar Chabad, Israel, where they receive medical care, education, and support. Most CCOC alumni settle in Israel following the eventual aliyah of their parents.

And let’s not forget what he said a few months ago:

“There would be peace on Earth if all people would appreciate the Jewish people.”

If only the Jews in Hollywood had even half of Jon Voight’s love for Israel and the Jewish people.

Lazer Brody brings us the inspirational story of Doron Mahareta, one of the 8 Yeshiva students murdered in cold blood over a week ago (hat tip: Israel Matzav).

One of the rabbis from Mercaz HaRav told me the most amazing story you’ll ever hear about Doron’s dedication to learning Torah, a story that competes with the Gemara’s account of Hillel’s near freezing on the roof of Shmaya and Avtalion’s Yeshiva (see tractate Yoma, 35b).

Doron wanted to learn Torah in Mercaz HaRav, one of the best of Israel’s yeshivas. But, since his early schooling was in Ethiopia, he lacked a strong background in Gemara. The Yeshiva rejected him. He wasn’t discouraged. He asked, “If you won’t let me learn Torah, will you let me wash the dishes in the mess hall?” For a year and a half, Doron washed dishes. But, he spent every spare minute in the study hall. He inquired what the yeshiva boys were learning, and spent most of the nights and all of his Shabbatot with his head in the Gemara learning what they learned. One day, the “dish washer” asked the Rosh Yeshiva to test him. The Rosh Yeshiva politely smiled and tried to gently dismiss Doron, but Doron wouldn’t budge. He forced the Rosh Yeshiva into a Torah discussion; the next day, he was no longer a dish washer but a full-fledged “yeshiva bachur”.

On weekends, when Doron would come home to visit his family in Ashdod, he’d spend the entire Shabbat either in the Melitzer Shul or the neighboring Gerrer shtiebel learning Shulchan Aruch and its commentaries. Three weeks ago, he finished the entire Shulchan Aruch and principle commentaries. Doron achieved in his tender 26 years what others don’t attain in 88 years. He truly was an unblemished sacrifice, who gave his life for all of us.

This is the type of person people should try to emulate, instead of the likes of Paris Hilton and the usual bunch of knuckleheads that today’s youth seem to adore.

The world is a worse place without Doron.

Good news for a good man.

Cuban doctors volunteering in Bolivia performed a free cataract surgery for Mario Teran, the Bolivian army sergeant who killed the legendary guerilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara in captivity, the daily Granma newspaper reported.

“Four decades after Mario Teran attempted to destroy a dream and an idea, Che returns to win yet another battle, and continues on in the struggle,” the Communist Party of Cuba’s official newspaper said.

On October 9, 1967, Teran killed Guevara while he was being held prisoner and suffering from combat wounds in La Higuera, the paper recounted. It said he acted on orders from generals Rene Barrientos and Alfredo Ovando, as well as the White House and the US Central Intelligence Agency, to execute the Argentine-Cuban rebel leader.

Nearly forty years to the day later, Teran underwent eye surgery in a Santa Cruz hospital that was donated by the Cuban government and recently inaugurated by Bolivian President Evo Morales.

“Now an old man, he (Teran) can once again appreciate the colours of the sky and the forest, to enjoy the smiles of his grandchildren, and to watch football games,” the article said.

“But surely he will never be capable of seeing the difference between the ideas that drove him to murder a man in cold blood, and the ideas of that very man.”

Ideas that led to the cold-blooded murder of much more than one man.

Soldier. Hero. Proud Jew.

In a standing-room-only crowd that snaked outside the chapel, Pfc. Daniel Agami was memorialized Tuesday by hundreds of friends – and even some strangers from the local chapter of Jewish War Veterans – as a happy-go-lucky man who was profoundly patriotic.

Agami, 25, who grew up in Broward County, was killed in Baghdad on Thursday.

Rabbi Yossi Denburg of Coral Springs Chabad Lubavitch remembered him as a young man who had “not been given a chance to grow old” and had joined the Army not for a paycheck, but because he found his calling.

After the tearful memorial service at the Star of David Memorial Gardens in North Lauderdale, Agami’s family and friends walked to his burial spot. There were too many people in too many cars to drive to his grave, so they formed a procession and waited until his parents came to take the front row. His mother, Beth Agami, walked while supported in her husband Itzhak’s arms. The sight of them made some of his friends wail.

An Army officer gave his mother a folded flag and a handful of awards including the Purple Heart for being wounded in action, the Bronze Star for his dedication and a gold star lapel pin.

His friends first saw hints of his pending military career after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when he consoled them.

“He said, ‘America is going to fix the problem,’” said Rachel Kenner, 24, of Boynton Beach, his friend since childhood. “When he puts his mind to something, that’s it.”

Agami enlisted in the Army two years ago and was assigned to a station in Germany. He had been in Iraq for about a year and was often sent on raids to scope out bombs and other weapons.

He died when an improvised device detonated near his Humvee. The other men in the vehicle were also killed: Alphonso Montenegro II, 22, of Far Rockaway, N.Y.; Ryan M. Wood, 22, of Oklahoma City; Anthony D. Hebert, 19, of Lake City, Minn., and Thomas R. Leemhuis, 23, of Binger, Okla.

Brian Gross, 24, of West Palm Beach, his friend of five years said: “He loved to party. I close my eyes and I remember that.” He said he tries to block the attack on Agami’s Humvee from his mind.

Sandra Becker, Daniel Agami’s grandmother, said the family was moved by the outpouring of hundreds of friends who came to share their tears.

She said she’ll remember him by the nickname that his non-Jewish comrades affectionately gave him: “G.I. Jew.”

“How can you put it in the words? He was the best of the best,” she said.

Agami was well-known for taking pride in teaching his fellow soldiers, many of whom told him they were unfamiliar with his people, about Judaism.

In the Army “Jewish kids often hide the fact they are Jewish,” Rabbi Denburg said. “He was the only Jew on base that was openly proud to say he was a Jew.”

Agami is survived by his parents, Beth and Itzhak, of Parkland, who are known in the Jewish community for their philanthropy.

He is also survived by his sister Shaina, 7, and a brother Ilan, 23, who married just two weeks ago.

Erik Cilen, 25, of Coral Springs, was Agami’s best friend for almost 20 years. Cilen said they spoke the day before his death.

“He told me he was going on a mission and he was scared,” Cilen said. “He had said that if, God forbid, anything happened to him, this is where he belonged.

“I can’t forget him,” he said. Then he started to cry.

Memory-of.com have started this memorial site for Daniel.

G-d bless Daniel, as well as his fallen comrades, and indeed all of those fighting so you and I can enjoy our freedom.

Update: Here’s is Bill O’Reilly on Daniel, who appeared on the O’Reilly Factor in December of last year.

British sailors are one thing, but Iranian naval forces discovered that you don’t f*** with Australian naval officers.

The Defence Department has confirmed a report Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf tried to capture an Australian navy boarding team but were repelled in the face of machine guns and “highly colourful language”.

According to the BBC, the incident took place months before Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized 15 British sailors and marines in March., setting off a tense two-week diplomatic stand-off that might have been avoided if Britain had learned from the Australian encounter.

The Britons were captured over a boundary dispute while they were searching a cargo boat.

Quoting a “military source”, BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner reports Iranian forces made a concerted attempt to seize a boarding party from the Royal Australian Navy and that the Australians “were having none of it”.

“The BBC has been told the Australians re-boarded the vessel they had just searched,” Gardner reports, “aimed their machine guns at the approaching Iranians, and warned them to back off, using what was said to be ‘highly colourful language’.”

“The Iranians withdrew, and the Australians were reportedly lifted off the ship by one of their own helicopters.”

Speaking to the ABC today, Gardner said the Australian encounter was similar to that in which the 15 British were captured.

“What I’ve been told by several sources, military sources, (is that) there was a similar encounter, in this case between the Royal Australian Navy and Iranian gunboats, some months ago, or at least some months prior to the seizing of the British sailors,” Gardner told ABC radio.

“The Australians escaped capture by climbing back on board the ship they’d just searched. I’m told that they set up their weapons.

“No shots were exchanged but the Iranians backed off and the Australians were able to get helicoptered off that ship and they didn’t get captured.”

He did not mention the name of the Australian ship. Australians ships rotate through duties in the Gulf, chiefly searching ships.

“What I’m hearing is that it was a pretty robust attitude by the Australians,” Gardner told the ABC.

“The words that somebody said to me was that they used pretty colourful language but I’m sure that alone didn’t make the Iranians back off.

“They reacted, I’m told, incredibly quickly, whereas the Brits were caught at their most vulnerable moment, climbing down off the ship (and) getting into their boats.”

Gardner said the British should be embarrassed about the incident but the issue was whether military intelligence had been passed on.

“The point of this story is not that the Aussies were fantastically brave and the Brits were a bunch of cowards, although I’m sure some people will interpret (it that way),” he said.

“Lessons should have been drawn from what happened to the Australian crew.”

Kudos to the Aussies for showing everyone the kind of fighting spirit that is needed if we are going to win this war against global Jihad.

He may be responsible for what is likely the worst (and most dangerous) olympic logos ever, but former British Olympic athlete Sebastian Coe is a champion in every sense of the word.

Sebastian Coe, the British Olympic champion and chief organizer of the 2012 games in London, chastised efforts of a British professors’ union to shun Israeli colleagues in protest of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians.

“The fact that I’m here at this time shows what I think about the academic boycott,” Coe said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the University of Haifa, according to a release issued by the university.

Last week, delegates of Britain’s largest union of university and college teachers asked local branches to discuss a boycott. If approved, the measure would prevent Israeli and British professors and university staff members from collaborating on projects.

—-

Coe’s statement came during a sports discussion panel at the University of Haifa, itself the subject of a 2005 boycott effort in Britain for alleged maltreatment of a pro-Palestinian history professor.

The panel also included Alex Gilady, an Israeli member of the International Olympic Committee, and Yael Arad, whose silver medal in 1992 made her the first Israeli to capture an Olympic medal.

Coe, a decorated middle distance runner, won gold in the 1,500 meters and silver in the 800 meters at both the 1980 and 1984 Olympics.

He subsequently served in the British Parliament and now heads the organizing committee for the London games. He also is considered a potential future head of the IOC.

Coe has previously proposed holding a ceremony to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the deadly attacks on Israeli athletes at the 1972 games in Munich.

While the palestinians are promising to honor Jacques Chirac, we are set to honor a real leader, and not just with a street name.

Prime Minister John Howard will be honoured with a Jewish National Fund (JNF) forest in his name at a gala dinner in Melbourne next month.

To be named the John Howard Negev Forest, the forest will be located in Israel’s Negev region, the focus of the JNF’s Negev Now campaign.

Howard is expected to personally accept the honour at the fundraiser for JNF’s Victorian branch at Crown Palladium on May 20, which will also feature Lebanese-born Middle East commentator Brigitte Gabriel.

JNF Victorian president Tom Borsky praised the Howard Government for its “genuine commitment and friendship towards the Jewish community”.

“We are privileged to create a perpetual tribute to him [John Howard] through the establishment of this forest.”

The Howard forest will become the third such tribute paid to an Australian PM. Forests have also recognised Sir Robert Menzies and Bob Hawke, as well as former governor-general Sir Zelman Cowen.

Ever since watching The Odessa File, I’ve liked Hollywood actor Jon Voight as an actor. My admiration for him as a human being probably began when I heard of his contributions to many noble causes, including efforts to commute the life sentence of Jonathan Pollard, and the annual Chabad Telethon.

[Many would also list among his contributions to humanity the fruit of his loins - his daughter Angelina Jolie. But if you get past the superficial, I would contend that she isn’t “all that.”]

Now he has been interviewed by Radar, and I have even more reason to admire him as a person.

For instance, here’s Jon..

On the troops:

I was deeply impressed by them. Most I spoke to were young people, around 20 years old. And they were really very eloquent, very positive, very respectful. You have to be proud of the children we’re turning out from looking at this group of people. For me, I would much rather hear from these guys than the people who are presenting the news on television on a daily basis.

On the Iraq War:

Here’s what I think: this is a real war, extended beyond the borders of Iraq.

—-

My view of it is this: they say our president lied to us. Well, he didn’t lie to us, everybody else had the information he had, and they voted for that tactic. And the idea of weapons of mass destruction, whether they were in fact removed to other places, to Lebanon, to Syria, that’s still in play, we don’t know the full answer of where all that stuff went, because they had it, they have the pieces.

On the war on terror:

The war on terror is real. People would have you believe it’s not real. This is not Vietnam. This particular situation is not the same wherein we can walk away and just leave destruction behind us. No, we can’t. Anyone who has paid attention to what [Iranian President] Ahmadinejad is saying, what all the mullahs are saying in this country and in England, and in all of the Arab world, this is serious‚ they’re calling for the destruction of America and all democracy and that’s what’s going on. We could lose this war.

On the Patriot Act:

Yes, I’m a supporter of the Patriot Act. I support protecting us and investigating anyone who indicates they’re going to be dangerous to our country. … I certainly hope we’re paying close attention to all those people crossing our borders who might be dangerous to us. We know for sure there are cells in the United States that are ready to erupt. We know that Hezbollah is here; we know there are cells from different terrorist organization that are here and operational and that there are others waiting too. So listen, it’s a serious business. It’s wartime, guys. .

On Islamic Fundamentalism:

When we look around and see the evidence of what is being done and the preparations that are being made to disrupt our country and to destroy it. This growing cancer of fanaticism, it’s like 1938‚Äîit’s very, very similar….We’re debating things instead of recognizing that the real fundamental aspect is that we’re at war with a very vicious, very clever enemy.…And it’s interesting that we have the same problem facing us now with the Islamic fanatics calling for the destruction of America and all of democracy. It seems there’s always a face of evil putting on a mask of God-like beliefs to destroy true believers of innocence and good…..because of what we’re going through with religious fanaticism and the form it’s taken‚ÄîIslamic fundamentalists… How programming can so distort a person that they strap a bomb onto their back and go onto a bus and kill innocent people. How can that be?

Of course, you can read the whole interview here.

Things are taking a turn for the worse for Ariel Sharon:

Ariel Sharon’s condition has deteriorated, according to the hospital where the ailing former Israeli prime minister is being treated. Anat Dolev, spokeswoman for the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, wouldn’t say whether Sharon’s life was in danger.

 

A new scan showed a deterioration in his brain function, his urine output has decreased significantly and a chest scan showed that he had a new infection, Dolev said.

 

Sharon, 78, has been in a coma since suffering a massive stroke Jan. 4. He underwent several extensive brain surgeries to stop cerebral hemorrhaging, in addition to more minor procedures.

Simon Wiesenthal was an architectural engineer by training. He received his degree from the Technical University of Prague in 1932 after being declined admission to the Polytechnic University of Lwow as a result of quota restrictions on Jewish students. In 1936, he married Cyla Mueller. Wiesenthal was living in Lwow, Poland, at the outbreak of World War II. As a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Lwow was occupied by the Soviet Union. Wiesenthal’s stepfather and stepbrother were killed at the hands of the NKVD, the Soviet Secret Police, and Wiesenthal himself was forced to close his firm and work in a factory. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Wiesenthal and his family became caught up in the Nazi Final Solution.

 

Wiesenthal’s wife was able to hide her Jewish identity from the Nazis because of her blonde hair and the false papers provided to her by the Polish Underground in exchange for diagrams of railroad junctions drawn by Wiesenthal. However, Simon was not so fortunate. He was interned in several concentration camps, where he barely escaped execution on a number of occasions.

Wiesenthal starts his career as a Nazi hunter

Wiesenthal was liberated by American forces in 1945. When the Americans found him he weighed less than 100 pounds (45 kg) and was helpless. As soon as his health improved, Wiesenthal went to work for the U.S. Army gathering documentation for the Nazi war crimes trials. In 1947 he and thirty other volunteers founded the Jewish Documentation Center in Linz, Austria in order to gather information for future trials. However, as the United States and the Soviet Union lost interest in further war crimes trials, the group drifted apart. Wiesenthal himself continued to gather information in his spare time while working full time to help those affected by World War II. During this time, Wiesenthal was instrumental in the capture and conviction of the main engineer of the Endlosung, Adolf Eichmann. After Eichmann was executed in Israel in 1962, Wiesenthal reopened the Jewish Documentation Center, which went to work on other cases. Among his most high-profile successes was Karl Silberbauer, the Gestapo officer responsible for the arrest of Anne Frank. Silberbauer’s confession helped discredit claims that The Diary of Anne Frank was a forgery. During this period Wiesenthal also located nine of the sixteen Nazis put on trial in West Germany for the murder of the Jewish population of Lwow, Wiesenthal’s home town, Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka and Sobibor concentration camps, and Hermine Braunsteiner-Ryan, a housewife living on Long Island, New York who had supervised the murder of hundreds of children during the war.

The Wiesenthal Center

In 1977, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Holocaust memorial agency was named in his honor. The Simon Wiesenthal Center promotes awareness of antisemitism, monitors neo-Nazi groups, operates Museums of Tolerance in Los Angeles and Jerusalem and helps bring surviving Nazi war criminals to justice.

 

Austrian politics and later life

In the 1970s he got caught up in Austrian politics when he pointed out that several ministers in Bruno Kreisky’s newly formed Socialist government had been Nazis while Austria was part of the Third Reich. Kreisky, himself Jewish, bizarrely attacked Wiesenthal as a Nestbeschmutzer (someone who dirties their own nest).

 

Over the years Wiesenthal received many death threats and, in 1982, a bomb placed by German and Austrian neo-Nazis exploded outside his house in Vienna, Austria.

 

In April 2003, Wiesenthal announced his retirement, saying that he had found the mass murderers he had been looking for: “I have survived them all. If there were any left, they’d be too old and weak to stand trial today. My work is done.” According to Wiesenthal, the last major Austrian war criminal still alive is Alois Brunner, Eichmann’s right-hand man, who is believed to be hiding in Syria under the protection of the Assad regime.

“I think he’ll be remembered as the conscience of the Holocaust. In a way he became the permanent representative of the victims of the Holocaust, determined to bring the perpetrators of the greatest crime to justice”

“He acted on behalf of 6 million people who could no longer defend themselves..The state of Israel, the Jewish people and all those who oppose racism recognized Simon Wiesenthal’s unique contribution to making our planet a better place.”

“He acted with determination and stubbornness…until his last days”

“One of the giants of the Jewish world has died in ripe old age. Wiesenthal was a man who got out of the horrors of the concentration camps to look for justice”

“Simon Wiesenthal was the biggest fighter of our generation. He represented the morality of humanity; he represented the free world, the democratic world. He devoted his life to fighting racism, anti-Semitism, Nazism and he really contributed to making a better world for the next generation..The Holocaust was the industry of bloodshed. I believe that, if we do not teach the lesson of the Holocaust, it could happen to the next generation. We have to do as much as possible to prevent it happening again.”

“Wiesenthal was one of the greats who contributed to clearing up the crimes of the Nazis. He also made it easier for Germany to look to the future.”

“In my mind I had built up the image of a demonic superman. Instead I saw a frail, nondescript, shabby fellow in a glass cell between two Israeli policemen; they looked more colorful and interesting than he did..There was nothing demonic about him; he looked like a bookkeeper who was afraid to ask for a raise.”

“When history looks back, I want people to know the Nazis weren’t able to kill millions of people and get away with it.”

“If we pardon this genocide, it will be repeated, and not only on Jews. If we don’t learn this lesson, then millions died for nothing.”

“I believe that the most important thing I was able to contribute to the search for Eichmann was destroying the legend of his alleged death.”

“[Eichmann’s testimony] destroyed the fairy tale that Auschwitz was just a lie..Since then, the world has been familiar with the concept of the ‘murderer at his desk.’ We know that fanatical, near-pathological sadism is not necessary for millions of people to be murdered; that all that is needed is dutiful obedience to some leader.”

Ted found himself in the Pukchin POW camp, also known as “Death Valley,” and later at Pyoktong, along with hundreds of Americans, Turks, and others. The camps were at first run by the North Koreans, then by the Chinese, whom Ted said treated them slightly better. Nevertheless, life was nightmarish for the prisoners. They were cold and hungry, and disease was rampant. “Healthy men became like babies, helpless,” Ted said. “Everything was stink, death, it was terrible, terrible.” Thirty to forty a day were dying. “It was hardest on the Americans who were not used to this,” Ted said. “But I had a heck of a basic training from the Germans.”

When the White House called Corporal Tibor “Ted” Rubin to tell him he was to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor he thought it was one of his friends playing a joke. President Bush has called the 76-year-old Korean War veteran “one of the greatest Jewish soldiers America has ever known.” But Ted is characteristically modest. “I was just a country boy,” he told me, “but next week I’ll be honored with the country’s highest award. This is unbelievable.”

 

Being awarded the Medal of Honor is another of a series of adventures in Ted Rubin’s remarkable life. He was born in Hungary in 1929, and at age 15 was sent to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. His first day there an SS captain told the assembled, “None of you will get out of here alive.” Ted turned to the man next to him and said, “Nice fellow.” Ted survived the next 14 brutal months of captivity, but most of his family perished. His father died in Buchenwald. His ten-year-old sister Elonja was sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and his mother Rosa, who was slated for forced labor, chose instead to face death with her daughter. Mauthausen was liberated by the U.S. 11th Armored Division on May 5, 1945. With nothing left for him in Hungary Ted emigrated to the United States. He promised himself that he would show his appreciation to the country that gave him his freedom, and saved his life.

 

Ted joined the Army in February 1950, and five months later landed in Korea with the 3rd battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, one of the first American units sent to help repel North Korean invasion forces. Ted was soon involved in the fighting withdrawal to the Pusan perimeter. In one engagement near Chirye, Ted’s company was redeploying from one hill to another, and he volunteered to stay behind to keep the enemy guessing until the movement was completed. As Corporal Leonard Hamm relates, “the North Koreans, thinking the hill was still occupied by a whole company, made an all out offensive with all their available troops. PFC Tibor Rubin had stocked each foxhole with grenades, and during the attack the following morning made his way running from foxhole to foxhole, lobbing, one after the other, grenades down upon the enemy, he became almost hysterical in his actions but he held the hill.”

 

For this and other actions, Ted’s immediate superiors recommended him for the Medal of Honor. However, before the paperwork could be processed these officers were killed, and a sergeant who might have sent the papers up refused to do so because Ted was Jewish. “Not on my watch,” he said. After the Inchon invasion, the 8th Cavalry Regiment moved north towards the Chinese border, and was at the forward edge of the U.N. offensive when the Chinese Red Army entered the conflict. Ted’s battalion was destroyed at the Battle of Unsan in early November 1950, while fighting a delaying action against Chinese forces swarming south from the Yalu. Hundreds of Americans were captured, among them Ted, who had manned a machine gun to hold off the enemy as the rest of the unit attempted to withdraw.

 

Ted found himself in the Pukchin POW camp, also known as “Death Valley,” and later at Pyoktong, along with hundreds of Americans, Turks, and others. The camps were at first run by the North Koreans, then by the Chinese, whom Ted said treated them slightly better. Nevertheless, life was nightmarish for the prisoners. They were cold and hungry, and disease was rampant. “Healthy men became like babies, helpless,” Ted said. “Everything was stink, death, it was terrible, terrible.” Thirty to forty a day were dying. “It was hardest on the Americans who were not used to this,” Ted said. “But I had a heck of a basic training from the Germans.”

 

Ted used all the experience he had gained as a Holocaust survivor in helping keep himself and other prisoners alive. “I did it because I was an American,” Ted told me, “and because it was a mitzvah. Regardless of color or nationality, they were my brothers.” Food was vital for survival, so he began to steal rations from the enemy, who had little enough themselves. Fellow POW Sergeant Carl McClendon stated, “every day, when it got dark, and we went to sleep, Rubin was on his way, crawling on his stomach, jumping over fences, breaking in supply houses, while the guns were looking down on him. He tied the bottom of his fatigue pants and filled up anything he could get ahold of. He crawled back and distributed the food that he had stolen and risked his life.”

 

Ted also did what he could to treat the sick and injured. But many were beyond saving, and diseases such as dysentery could strike anyone. “No one knew when they would die,” Ted noted, “It was all random.” When prisoners passed away, Ted would bury them, and recite the Kaddish. “I buried my friends, my comrades, American soldiers,” Ted said, “and asked the Good Lord to let them rest in peace.”

 

When the Chinese learned that Ted was originally from Hungary they offered to let him return to his home country, which at the time was a Soviet satellite. They promised him a job, good clothes, all the food he could want. But Ted refused to be a pawn for Chinese propaganda and turned them down. “I stood by my oath,” he said. Ted stayed in the camp until the end of the war when he was released. The Army credits him with saving over 40 lives during his two and a half years of imprisonment.

 

When Ted returned to the United States, he finally received his U.S. citizenship. “I was the happiest man in the world,” he said. He left the Army and worked at his brother Emery’s store. Ted married, and he and his wife Yvonne had two children. By this time there was no talk of medals; the country was moving on, and anyway many men in Ted’s original unit thought he was dead. He created a wonder at a 1980 Korean War veterans’ reunion simply by showing up.

 

Ted’s case was brought to the Army’s attention in 1985, but he was ineligible to receive the award until statutory language was amended in 1996. His is one of many cases being reviewed under section 552 of the 2002 National Defense Authorization Act, which requires the military to “review the records of certain Jewish American and Hispanic American war veterans to determine if any of these veterans should be awarded the Medal of Honor.” Most such awards will unfortunately be posthumous. But on September 23, President Bush will give Corporal Ted Rubin long overdue recognition for his many acts of valor in the Korean conflict. Ted will receive, in his own words, “the highest honor of the best country in the world.” How does he feel about it? “It still hasn’t sunk in,” he said. “I’m just a country boy. It’s a dream come true.”

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