Sinai leads prayers for D-Day’s fallen

Bill San Antonio

When Roslyn Heights resident Alan Weinschel and his wife Barbara visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial for the second time last fall, he began photographing the vast rows of grave markers and reflecting on the carnage that came with the largest amphibious military assault in American history.

When he arrived back in the United States, Weinschel contacted Rabbi Michael White of Temple Sinai in Roslyn Heights about saying Kaddish – a Jewish hymn of praise to God – in memory of the more than 9,000 Allied soldiers who died fighting to overtake Nazi-occupied France as part of the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944.

But that conversation was just the start of Weinschel’s efforts, as he sought to learn the identities of those who died and tell their descendants that their sacrifices have not been forgotten.

“This project as not been all fun, but I felt compelled to see it through,” he said during Friday’s Shabbat services at Sinai, on the 70th anniversary of D-Day. “It taught me a lot of things I didn’t know, made me reflect on that generation, and consider where we are because of them and to contemplate the horror of what might have been if things had gone the other way.” 

Weinschel made contact with the administrators of ReformJudaism.org, who suggested he pen an editorial about his trip to France encouraging other congregations join Sinai in saying Kaddish on D-Day’s anniversary. The editorial was also published in the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America’s monthly newsletter.

He also recruited one of his former law partners, Bob Sugarman, currently the chairman of the Council of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations, who then convinced the conservative and orthodox Jewish groups he represented to support the effort.

Hundreds of congregations throughout North America and in France joined Sinai in saying Kaddish during Shabbat services on Friday, Weinschel said.

“They fought and died to preserve our ability to sit in the sanctuary as we do tonight,” Weinschel said. “Their generation, aptly called the Greatest Generation, is mostly gone now, and our generation, whether we like it or not, is aging. So it is important that the sacrifices made at Normandy and elsewhere be remembered, and that is why we’re adding them to the Kaddish tonight.”

Many of the congregations that responded had a request for Weinschel, he said — they wanted to know the names of the men whose graves are marked at Normandy.

The Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America told Weinschel such a list did not exist, and gathering one would be a difficult endeavor. 

But within a week of contacting the American Battlefield Monument Commission, which oversees American military cemeteries all over the world, Weinschel had one.

The list – which was alphabetized and displayed in Sinai’s lobby – contained the names of teenagers and men in their early 20s, men who “where old enough to have children and others barely old enough to shave,” Weinschel said.  

Before they enlisted in the military to rid the world of Nazi occupation, the men were clerks, salesmen, firemen, taxi drivers, engineers, actors, musicians, farmers, doctors, lawyers, high school graduates and college graduates whose lives were just beginning, Weinschel said.

“None went further,” he said.

Weinschel then began tracing family histories, trying to locate as many descendants of the deceased as he could find and let them know about the Kaddish services.

In the 70 years that have passed since Allied boots touched the sand at Normandy’s beaches, names have changed and bloodlines ended, Weinschel said, but he was able to contact a few relatives.

“I’m still waiting to hear from others,” he said, “but frankly I do not expect there to be many other responses, and the difficulty in finding relatives only highlights the importance of a community effort.”

The driving force behind his efforts, Weinschel said, was to honor his father, who stayed stateside during World War II but joined the Allied effort by training Merchant Marines.

“He was part of the Greatest Generation, and for many years he volunteered for the Jewish War Veterans,” he said. “I took this on for him.”

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