May 06, 2008
Among those celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary, Werner Sherry is in a privileged group who can proudly say he was there at the founding. Sherry, now 85, is a native of Danzig, Poland, who fought with both the Jewish Brigade of the British Army and later went on to defend Israel in its 1948 War of Independence.
The brigade, which included some 5,000 Palestinian Jews and fought under the Zionist flag, was established in 1944 and disbanded in 1946.
“Even before the war started I went on duty on the border between Yaffa and Bat Yam every night,” recalled Sherry. “We all had to go on night duty and in the morning when we came back — we were all newlyweds at the time — the wives were all waiting outside to see if everybody came back.”
He remembered being stopped by the British in 1947 as he and his wife were coming home from their wedding.
“We were in a taxi stopped by a British patrol,” said Sherry. “I was lucky I spoke English and said we just got married, so they let us go. My wife was still wearing a white dress.”
Sherry first moved with his family to Palestine in 1932 where they were farmers. However, in 1935 his parents decided to go back to Europe and Sherry celebrated his bar mitzva in Vienna.
The family tried to reenter Palestine in 1940 aboard an illegal transport, but were caught and deported to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. He volunteered for British military duty as a way of getting back to Palestine.
Sherry’s memories of that time remain vivid, including the scene outside the Tel Aviv Museum as David Ben-Gurion declared Israel’s independence. However, he didn’t have time to stop and listen because he was on his way to work.
“I worked in a shoe store when I came out of the army,” recalled Sherry. “I grabbed anything I could. I used to sell shoes to Golda Meir.”
Later on a trip to Eilat with Ben-Gurion she recognized Sherry and asked, “What are you doing in Eilat? You’re supposed to be selling shoes in Tel Aviv.”
Sherry was never a big fan of Ben-Gurion and didn’t agree with his politics, adding, “He was Labor and I don’t believe in socialism.”
Even after the war the economic and security threats were palpable, recalled Sherry.
“There was a saying, ‘Everybody is a soldier and the whole country is a frontline,’” he said. “At that time anybody up to 45 was enlisted. Everything was rationed. We got one egg per week. We had two daughters, both sabras born in 1951 and 1953, so we got four eggs per week. But we gave them all to the girls.”
Sherry and his wife, Yocheved, an Eastern European Holocaust survivor, came to Newark when those daughters were five and three. Yocheved became Jody because “no one could pronounce Yocheved” and the family moved to Irvington and then Union.
Sherry became a barber in Irvington and then for many years in Millburn retiring at age 75 when he moved to Monroe.
But, Sherry’s heart still remains with the Israeli military and four or five years ago, he went back with the Volunteers for Israel to do civilian work on a military base.
“I was the only one who spoke Hebrew,” he recalled with pride.
myisrael
Glued to the radio
My memories of Israel Independence Day 60 years ago are quite vivid in my mind even today.
May 1948 was only a few weeks after my bar mitzva in a small Lower East Side shul, in which neighborhood I was born, grew up, and educated at the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Schools, and later at New York University at Washington Square.
My grandparents who lived less than a mile north of us were visiting with us that historic week and I remember that we all had our ears glued to the radio and followed the progress of the United Nations debate on the question of partition and subsequent declaration of independence.
Hyman C. Grossman
Monroe Township
myisrael
Battle sacrifices
The author during his days of fighting.
In 1948, I was 18, and volunteered to travel from a German DP camp to Israel. I served in the Palmach. We didn’t have our own airplanes, but we had volunteers from all over the world. They transferred us from Tel Nof to Beer Sheba, which was still under Egyptian control. We landed in Beer Sheba in the desert sand, then discovered a rebel fighter had shot a bullet into our plane and had missed the gas tank by only two inches.
We liberated Beer Sheba in five hours. Yitzhak Sadeh was our general. After capturing Beer Sheba, we fought in Uja al-Rafiah. In the desert, British fighters attacked us. I lost many friends.
Every time I return to Beer Sheba to visit my brother-in-law, I am reminded of friends who were killed; a monument stands on a nearby mountain. I eventually immigrated to the United States and have lived here for many years with my wife, three children, and five grandchildren.
Itzhak Szteinberg
Monroe Township