By Jerry Klinger
YOKNEAM, Israel — The Wilfrid Israel Memorial was an idea proposed by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) over a year ago. JASHP was going to pay for it. The hard part was getting permission to site it.
JASHP has a message that needed to be said: Jews rescued Jews during the Holocaust.
Yad Vashem honors, with great appropriate dignity, non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem, Israel’s national memorial to the Holocaust, stubbornly, adamantly refuses to honor Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
It is a refusal mired in Israeli politics that goes back to the founding of the State in 1948. Even the name Holocaust Memorial Day had to be changed. It became Yom HaShoah, the Day to Remember the Disaster. That, too, was not enough for the young state fighting to survive against improbable odds.
Yom HaShoah had to have a “relevant” interpretive name — Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah — literally translated as the Day of (remembrance) the Shoah and the Heroism.
Yom Hashoah VeHagevurah was adopted as a painful compromise. The Israeli National Memorial to the Holocaust would Not remember Jews who fought to save Jews within the Nazi Ghettos, within the Concentration Camps and within the Nazi controlled world.
A shanda, a disgrace.
Because a disgrace exists does not mean everyone has to agree to it.
JASHP has been working to do what Yad Vashem refuses to do: honor Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
One incredible story of rescue was Wilfrid Israel. Wilfrid rescued over 20,000 Jews. He was killed trying to save more. Until JASHP resolved to honor his memory, there was no memorial to him.
JASHP reached out to various sites in Israel where Wilfrid’s efforts for Jews had touched. Either they did not respond, or they were not interested. The Jewish Agency suggested we try Yokneam. Mayor Simon Alfassi recognized the significance and enthusiastically supported the project.
A prime corner of land, adjacent to the heavily traveled Highway 70 and many international technology companies, was allocated for the Wilfrid. The corner is in the shadow of a massive, ancient Tel, a Levitical City mentioned in the Bible, Tel Yokneam. Jews have lived here for over 3,000 years.
The design and construction of the Wilfrid Israel memorial was the creative work of the noted Israeli sculptor Sam Philipe. Sam created the biggest menorah in Israel – 14 feet high. On its arms, English on one side, Hebrew on the other, is the message Jew saves Jew.
The step base has another critical message.
“If you can’t save the world, save a life,” in English. In Hebrew, the Talmudic dictum, “If you save a life, you save a world.”
A truncated narrative stone sits in the front.
Wilfrid Israel
Wilfrid Israel (1899-1943), Anglo-German Jewish Holocaust rescuer of ~ 20,000 Jews. Israel was the chief representative of German Jewry. Based upon his experience with Youth Aliyah, initiated the famed Kindertransport. He was killed in 1943 attempting to save more Jews.
Be strong and of good courage (Joshua 1:9)
Donated by the
Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation with support from the City of Yokneam.
The short text does not adequately tell Wilfrid’s story. He was an Anglo-German Jew, born in London, the grandson of the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. He and his family lived in the Germany where they were very wealthy merchandisers.
Wilfrid became the head of German Jewry during the Nazi era. He recognized the writing on the wall and used nearly all his wealth to get Jews out of Germany. One of the incredible efforts he was foundational with was the famed Kindertransport, where 10,000 Jewish children were taken to Britain. Wilfrid did not escape to Britain until he saw the last child had boarded the ship for Britain.
Because he was not 100% British Kosher, for British political/interpretive needs, only 100% Kosher British Jews were recognized and honored for the Kindertransport. Wilfrid was relegated to the dustbin of British history.
Wilfrid saved more Jews, frequently at the risk of his own life, than any Jew had during the Holocaust.
In Britain, he continued working to save Jews. In 1943, Wilfrid had 1,500 precious passports for stateless Jews trapped in Spain to go to Mandate Palestine. He completed the mission.
On the flight back to the U.K., his plane was targeted and shot down by the Luftwaffe. His body was never recovered.
Honoring, recognizing, Wilfrid Israel was the right thing to do.
Construction of the Wilfrid began in August 2023. The Gaza – Hamas genocidal war against Israel and Jews began horrifically on October 7. The War, a war to exterminate Jews, and Hamas killed as many Jews as they possibly could that dark, dark day, is a war no Israeli, no Jew wanted. It is an existential war forced upon Israel. Ain B’rerah – a war of no choice.
Shocked world Jewry has learned the War is not just about Israel. The War is also about their own survival. Latent, festering anti-Semitism slithered out of the sewers, especially from the Universities. Jews everywhere are now threatened and fearful.
The Israeli army, belatedly awakened, is prosecuting the war of Jewish survival vigorously. And… the world calls for Israel to ceasefire. The world calls on Israel to surrender to the embedded terror of Hamas with missiles, a forever future of Hamas attacks on innocent Jews.
Israel refuses to surrender. Israel is fighting for more than just Israel, they are fighting for all Jewry.
As Sam was building the Wilfrid memorial, cars pulled up. People got out and read the words on the Menorah arms, Jew saves Jew. Universally, Sam is asked the same question, is this a memorial to the Gaza War? Is this a memorial to the bloody fight no one wanted but all recognize is because only Jews will save Jews?
The Wilfrid has not been formally dedicated yet. It was never intended to be a Gaza memorial. It has, in fact, become the very first Gaza memorial in Israel for many. The Wilfrid is the basis of Israel’s survival, its motive for Israel’s survival — in the end, only Jews will save Jews.
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Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, www.JASHP.org