Jewish Veterans Send Packages Overseas

From the Lower Hudson Journal News

WEST NYACK – As a combat infantry soldier in Gen. George Patton’s 3rd Army, Alan Moskin wasn’t even aware that Passover had come and gone.

There was no matzo, no gefilte fish, no bitter herbs, no Haggadah. Fighting in towns across Europe in the spring of 1945, Moskin, then 18, was just happy to be alive at the end of each day.

“I was on the front line, fighting during Passover,” recalled Moskin, of Nanuet, now 81. “We didn’t have time to stop and celebrate.”

Six decades later, Alan and other Jewish veterans in Rockland are making up for what they didn’t have by trying to make religious holidays more celebratory for Jewish soldiers deployed overseas.

Although combat on the ground dictates whether soldiers can take a break to celebrate Passover, the Rockland/Orange District of the Jewish War Veterans of the U.S.A. are making sure they have the religious items required to celebrate their faith.

Passover commemorates the flight of Jews from bondage in Egypt several thousand years ago. It also celebrates the coming of spring and is a reminder of the desire for freedom and people’s willingness to fight for it.

During the eight days of Passover, observant Jews shun chametz, all leavened bread and fermented grains, and recall the hardships of the Jews under Egyptian rule, during the Passover seder. They also enumerate the 10 plagues that Jews believe God brought upon the Egyptians.

This year, the Rockland/Orange District of the Jewish War Veterans, or JWV, have sent 122 care packages filled with Passover essentials as part of Operation Matzoh Meal.

The packages containing matzo; macaroons; canned gefilte fish; grape juice; Passover Haggadah, or guide to the seder; snacks and toiletries have made it to Jewish soldiers stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guam, Japan, Singapore and Korea.

“If you did get a package, it was from your parents,” Al Zeilberger, 79, of Airmont, said, recalling the time when he fought in the Korean War. Zeilberger is now co-commander of the Fred Hecht Post 425, the most active of the JWV posts in Rockland/Orange, along with Aaron Kramer, also a Korean War veteran who lives in Monsey.

“Since the wars of Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, we as soldiers are more appreciative of what soldiers out there would like,” he said.

Soldiers across the world who have been beneficiaries of Operation Matzoh Meal have sent back letters of appreciation. Among them was Roy Marokus, a doctor posted at Contingency Operating Base Speicher, near Tikrit, in northern Iraq.

“I am a Jewish soldier in the Regular Army, serving my second tour in Iraq,” Marokus wrote in an e-mail. “Yesterday, I received a most wonderful and unexpected package of Passover supplies from the Fred Hecht JWV Post 425, in Spring Valley, N.Y. As an old bar mitzvah and … a (young torah school student) a graduate of SUNY Downstate Brooklyn School of Medicine, I am greatly touched by the generosity and the mitzvah shown by my fellow Jewish American war veterans.”

Raphael Berdugo, an Air Force chaplain posted in Southwest Asia wrote on behalf of Jewish soldiers in his care: We are especially grateful for the kosher Lepesach items which are rare in this remote location … Your contribution has helped improve the morale of deployed military personnel and provided a reminder of home.”

The idea of sending Passover packages came to Bill Farber, the chairman of the Rockland/Orange District of JWV, soon after the war in Iraq began. He contacted the national JWV for names of military posts that had Jewish soldiers.

Those posts and their chaplains were in turn contacted and Passover packages were shipped to them. This process has been repeated every year during Passover.

Once a month, members of the Fred Hecht Post 425 meet in a room in the cavernous basement of the Palisades Center. Filled with cardboard boxes and supplies, the room serves as a place to meet and put together packages.

Every year, they hold about five fundraisers to buy supplies for the packages and to meet shipping costs. Once the packages are ready, members carry them to the U.S. Postal Service store on the third floor of the mall.

The post also sends care packages to soldiers across the world, irrespective of their religious affiliation. Over the last five years, it has shipped 6,000 general care packages to service members around the world.

This time of the year, though, the focus is Passover.

Upon request, the post sent bulk packages to several rabbis stationed overseas, containing cartons of matzo, canned gefilte fish, macaroons and snack packs. This was in addition to individual Passover packages sent to soldiers in those areas.

Rabbi Avi Weiss in Seoul, South Korea, was among those who received bulk packages. Earlier this week, the post heard from him.

“Thank you for your wonderful support of soldiers and family members in Korea,” Weiss wrote in an e-mail. “We expect about 100 people to our first Seder as part of the Passover retreat, and probably 70 to the second seder.”

Such responses are gratifying, said Kramer, the post’s co-commander, who served in a submarine during the Korean War and didn’t get to celebrate Passover.

“We don’t really expect letters back,” Kramer said. “When we get one back, it gives us a little more incentive to keep going.”