Jerry Klinger

Jerry Klinger

Jerry Klinger is the founding president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, which has placed monuments and plaques across the United States and in other countries detailing the history of Jewish individuals and communities.

The Rosenwald Schools in Palm Beach County: Keeping Open the Door of Freedom

By Jerry Klinger BOYNTON BEACH, Florida — Every Julius Rosenwald marker has a backstory. The Rosenwald marker story in Boynton Beach had a shocking twist. The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) recently donated and dedicated with its partners, the Boynton Beach Historical Society and the Boynton Beach Historic Resources Preservation Board, its newest […]

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Long-Overdue Recognition for British-Jewish War Hero Jack Nissenthall

By Jerry Klinger The BBC called Jack Nissenthall “The VC (Victoria Cross) Hero Who Never Was.” Eighty years on from the 1942 British raid on Nazi coastal facilities and radar installations in Dieppe, Nissenthall’s extraordinary, courageous actions remain hidden by the British Secrecy Acts. What he did, what he learned, what he saw, remain British

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International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion

Touching the Past, for Today: Louisiana’s Rosenwald Schools

By Jerry Klinger Julius Rosenwald was a first-generation Jewish American. He was born in 1862 in Springfield, Illinois, just a few blocks from where Abraham Lincoln lived. Rosenwald grew up and achieved the American dream. He became very wealthy through hard work, skill, and luck. He was a modest man with a philanthropic bent shaped

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

The Crocus Project and the Meaning of the Holocaust

By Jerry Klinger In March 2022, Martin Sugarman, the Chairman of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation’s U.K. branch, shared with me a contact he had received. Susan Soyinka, from Penzance, Cornwall, had contacted him about possibly funding a Remembering Stone for Albert and Rosa Reuss. The Reusses were Austrian Jewish refugees who escaped

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Holocaust, International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion

Cape St. George Island Lighthouse and the Jews

By Jerry Klinger Touristing — better known as cultural travel, especially historical travel to see the places of events, and meaning to the American experience, preferably without resentful teenagers — is great. A fun thing to do in Florida is to visit historical lighthouses. There are big ones, short one, white ones, red ones, and

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

Woke Intolerance and the Canceling of the Father of the Georgia Peach Industry

By Jerry Klinger National Public Radio reported a story that was frankly, flabbergasting, a big word meaning — you have got to be kidding. An office within the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work says it is removing the term “field” from its curriculum because it may have racist connotations related to slavery.

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

Philip Freeman, Volunteer Firewatcher: Recognizing Jewish Heroism and Honor

By Jerry Klinger Philip Freeman was too old to enlist in the regular British Armed Forces during World War II. 67. Yet, he felt compelled to do what he could. Freeman or Friedman, his is spelled both ways in records, lived in very modest housing at 131 Magdalan Road in Exeter. He father was Hyman

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International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History

Plaque Memorializes Jewish Poet and Spy

S.O.E. was tasked to train agents to operate behind enemy lines, support resistance groups, becoming deadly spies for the British. The agents transmitted vital information back to London using codes. An agent’s life was about six weeks before the Abwehr, the Nazi counter-espionage unit discovered them. The Nazis cracked their codes and liquidated the spies. [Jerry Klinger]

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International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History

Jews, the Indianapolis 500, and the Story of a Brick

By Jerry Klinger Passing through Indianapolis in early August, I had to stop at the Greatest Car Racing Track in the World, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I wanted to see “it.” The “it” was more than the dedicatory paver/brick I had placed for the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation outside the Museum. The big

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Opinion, USA

Whitechapel: ‘Centre of Jewish Immigrant Life’

By Jerry Klinger Recently, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation’s U.K. branch placed a new historical, interpretive marker in Whitechapel, London. The marker was placed on a building that replaced the Adler House. The Adler House was named in honor of the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Hermann Adler, 1891-1911. The text of the

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International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History

King George VI Personally Pinned Medal on Jewish Air Raid Warden

September 23, 1940, German bombs smashed into a residential pub in Manor Park, Newham, a few blocks from where Lewis was stationed.  Beneath the pub was a bomb shelter with 60 people trapped inside. The building burning, collapsing. A water main burst. The basement shelter was flooding, threatening to drown any survivors. 
Lewis and a colleague ran to the site. [Jerry Klinger]

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International, Jerry Klinger, Jewish History

Searching for Stanley Stein

Sidney’s life changed in the theater of New York. The specialist, Dr. Emil Loch, a renowned dermatologist, reported him to the authorities as a leper. The police swept up Sidney, almost overnight. With a small suitcase that contained his life, he was sent secretly, swiftly and with as little human contact as possible to vanish into the interior of America. He was shipped to the very isolated world of Carville, Louisiana on the banks of the Mississippi River. Carville was the continental United States’ concentration camp for victims of Leprosy. Standing naked before a board of medical examiners in Carville, Sidney Maurice Levyson was assigned a number that he was to be known forever more as, patient #746. [Jerry Klinger]

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, Science, Medicine, & Education, Travel and Food, USA