The Case of the Missing Matzoh

 

© Jeff Goldfinger, 2021

ASHBURN, Virginia — “So, what’s a nice Jewish boy like you going to do in the Navy anyway?” asked my disappointed mom, Thelma Goldfinger, just after I told her I signed the papers committing me to an initial four-year tour of duty after college. It was 1979 and I had volunteered for the Navy’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program at Northwestern University two years earlier when arriving on campus as a Freshman. Like dating a goye in high school, mom thought I’d eventually outgrow it.

According to my DNA profile, I’m 99.7% Ashkenazi. My mom blamed the other 0.3% for driving me into the arms of the Navy.

But this is not about my military career. Rather, it’s the true story of how one mother’s devotion to her son and her faith changed the military supply system forever.

In 1984, after graduating from Naval Flight Officer training, I was assigned to my first squadron aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). Heading out to sea for a seven-month deployment with a complement of nearly 6,000 sailors onboard, I discovered the barest of minyans was regularly welcoming the Sabbath every Friday in the ship’s Chapel.

Two months into our “cruise” (sans spas and umbrella drinks), it’s January 1985, when we start planning for a battlegroup-wide Passover seder for thirty when we discovered the ship’s supply system was ill-equipped for the task.

Thus commenced Operation Gefilte Fish.

Knowing how enthralled mom was with my Navy service, I figured she’d enjoy the opportunity to share in the experience. So, I asked mom to lead a project with our congregation (Ahavas Achim B’Nai Jacob & David of West Orange, NJ) in having thirty families each “adopt” one sailor and send a care package suitable for a seder.

My (pre-email) snail-mail request was answered three weeks later.

“Dear Jeff. I took care of everything. I’ve sent you three 40lb boxes to get you through the holiday.”

“120 pounds!!!,” I screamed in my head.

Timely delivery of mail to ships at sea is a complex endeavor with periodic misrouting not only to the wrong ship, but occasionally the wrong ocean! While small care packages can successfully navigate the maze, large ones are almost always staged ashore ahead of wherever our next port visit is likely to be.

We had little hope mom’s matzoh (and all the rest) would arrive on time.

Thus, a few days before Passover, when the last letter mom received informed her of the wayward packages, she commenced Operation Mother’s Fury.

Phase 1: Attack the Messenger

Mom called the Post Office, her congressman, and the White House, finally landing in the front office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Personnel Affairs.

“I don’t know what happened Mrs. Goldfinger but trust me, I’m on it.”

Phase 2: Shock and Awe

I walked into the Squadron Ready Room[1] after a mission flight and the first words out of the Duty Officer’s mouth were “Goldy, go see the Skipper.”

At this point in my career, there are three layers in the chain-of-command between me and the commanding officer of my squadron – the Skipper. This can’t be good.

Commander Tom Broadhurst proceeds to show me an official Naval teletype:

UNCLAS //N05730//

SUBJ: CONGRINT/SECNAVINT ICO LTJG JEFFREY GOLDFINGER USN (NMPC 0311H)

1. SNO PARENTS SENT THREE PACKAGES VIA PARCEL POST CONTAINING MATERIAL FOR OBSERVANCE OF PASSOVER. ADMSG IF SNO HAS RCVD THE SHIPMENT.
2. USE SAME SUBJ LINE IN RESPONSE.

END

That may not look too damaging but to my Skipper it was a career killer. “CONGRINT / SECNAVINT” is Navy-ese for Congressional Interest, Secretary of the Navy Interest.

Paragraph 1: “SNO PARENTS” = subject naval officer’s parents. At this point I should make it clear that this was a singular act. My father was the epitome of savlanut (patience). This whole idea was my mom’s. She deserves both the blame, and as you’ll soon read, 100% of the credit.

Skipper: “Why does the SECNAV care about your packages? Did you [expletive] write your Congressman before telling me??!!!”

I knew Skipper Broadhurst to be a relatively even-keeled guy, but I saw the veins in his forehead starting to bulge.

Me: “No Sir. I have no idea why Congress is now involved. But my mother is capable of just about anything.”

Skipper: “Ok. Well, have the packages arrived yet?”

“No, Sir.”

“Then draft the response and send it out.”

Whew. Got off light.

Phase 3 – The “hearts and minds” campaign.

Back home, this story has taken on a life of its own. The Associated Press found out and interviewed mom. This led to reprints around the country with headlines such as:

• “Case of the missing matzo” – Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh
• “Mother’s Matzoh Goes AWOL” – Washington Post
• “Parents hope Navy didn’t sink son’s Seder” – Bergen Record
• “Missing Matzoh Miffs Mother” – Scottsdale, AZ

Ultimately, the Pacific edition of the Stars and Stripes newspaper ran with it, which, naturally, made its way to the carrier with copies delivered to nearly all the workspaces.

Not to be outdone, Channel 7, WABC-TV, New York City, recorded an interview with mom at my childhood home which aired in the nightly news, April 5^th, 1985, the first night of Passover.

This was not how I imagined my “fifteen minutes of fame” turning out.

Mom had suddenly become the Erin Brockovich of military motherhood.

With phone calls from eager local reporters to military Public Affairs Officers around the country, the pressure on the Navy’s flanks was too great to bear. Thus, the next teletype that went out mobilized the entire Pacific Theater’s logistics supply chain in what can only be characterized as the military’s nightmare of an afikomen search.

The packages were eventually found in a warehouse at Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines ostensibly waiting to be walked aboard during our final port visit before heading home in late April.

Not anymore.

The packages were immediately couriered to Clark Air Base, then airlifted on a C-141 Starlifter to a logistics base in the North Arabian Sea, followed by a CH-46 helicopter ride to the USS Kansas City (AOR-3), our battle group’s supply ship, whereupon two days later they were highlined[2] over to the carrier.

From discovery to delivery took about ten days, thus missing the holiday entirely. However, we did get to observe a faithful, fruitful, and food-full seder thanks to one of our other tribe members, Ben Schneider, an F-14 Tomcat pilot (he too must have had 0.3% something else in his DNA). When I showed him my mom’s letter, he immediately penned one to his mom with supplemental instructions hoping to avoid collateral damage: “P.S. Please send small packages.”

This story continued to follow me the remaining seventeen years of my Navy career where I’d occasionally run into another sailor, admiral, or, amazingly, a civilian who remembered me as “Matzoh Man.”

As to the conclusion of Operation Mother’s Fury, here’s where mom truly made her mark.

The military supply system uses something called National Stock Numbers (NSN) to order everything from a pen, a desk, a can of tasteless green beans, a laser-guided bomb, or a jet aircraft.

Serious stuff, these NSNs.

Yes, you guessed it. A few years after this incident, the military, with the assistance of the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) created an NSN for a Passover Seder Kit. Actually, two kits – one for a participant and one for a rabbi / leader. For the truly authentic wargaming experience, check out:

• Rabbi/Leader Version: NSN 9925-01-526-3373
• Participant Version: NSN 9925-01-526-3364

Epilogue

My mom was diagnosed with a slow growing form of throat cancer in 1995 that by 2000 had spread to her lungs. She thus began planning and executing Operation Stay Alive.

It was a long campaign lasting more than fourteen years, but she finally succumbed to enemy fire on January 14, 2010, having spent a grand total of three days in the hospital. On a chilly Thursday afternoon, at Community Memorial Hospital in Hamilton, New Jersey, she was surrounded by her husband and all three of her sons after having had the opportunity to coherently bid her farewells to us all.

Instead of merely mourning her death, my family and I take great comfort knowing that among her many other achievements in life, Thelma Goldfinger, my mom, was “piped ashore” having single-handedly changed the largest military supply system in the world . . . forever.

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[1] Every squadron onboard an aircraft carrier has a dedicated space for the flight crew to “ready” themselves for an upcoming mission. This is where they receive their mission brief beforehand and debrief the flight afterwards. When not flying, the Ready Room also serves as a conference room and lounge for the officers of the squadron.

[2] Highlining (aka “underway replenishment”) is a 120-year-old practice of resupplying ships at sea while continuing to maintain forward motion towards their objective. Two ships (sometimes three) pull alongside each other measured by half a football field and run a system of wires, hoses and pulleys to pass fuel, food, parts and even people.

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Jeff Goldfinger is the founder of  Xtramile, which provides training and development for customer relationships.