Not too long ago I ran across a documentary movie made by Spielberg, not the guy you are familiar with—Steven—but his sister, Nancy. It was called Above and Beyond. Most American Jews were interested in what was going on in the founding of modern Israel in 1948. Some, as Above and Beyond tells it, did more.
The problem with Israel’s creation by U. N. mandate in 1948 was twofold: it was attacked almost immediately by five Arab-Islamic states bent on destroying it quickly, and, secondly, it had no planes and pilots to defend itself.
The fantastic and heroic story of how American pilots helped keep Israel from destruction is told by Spielberg. All of the young pilots had experience in the flying world through their service during World War II.
Stan Andrews and Gideon Vickman for example had been stationed in the Pacific with the U.S. Air Force. They arrived in Israel in June 1948. In a Tel Aviv bar, they created the logo for the 101st Squadron of the Israeli Air Force, scribbling the Angel of Death on a cocktail napkin. Their design is still on Israeli F-16 jets today. Both men were killed when their planes were shot down in separate incidents in July and October 1948.
With the exception of Lou Lenart, whose family members were recent immigrants to the U.S. at the time, the pilots were all second-generation Americans. They were part of the immigrant Jews who had come from Eastern Europe and other places in the first quarter of the 20th century.
“They were very Americanized and patriotic,” Director Roberta Grossman said. “The thrust of that time had been for assimilation. People were still changing their names and distancing themselves from their grandparents. The grandparents’ generation spoke Yiddish, the parents’ generation spoke some, and then they didn’t teach it to their children. By the time we get to our pilots’ generation, they were pretty acculturated, and it was also a time of anti-Semitism, so they were standing apart in most cases from their Jewish identity.”
American and Israeli Pilots and Crews
Leon Frankel was a bomber pilot in the Pacific in World War II and received the Navy Cross for his heroism in the Battle of Okinawa. He flew 25 missions for the Israeli Air Force as a member of the 101 Squadron before returning to Minnesota.
“I just made up my mind that I was going to do it,” he says in the film regarding his decision to volunteer for Israel. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do it.”
Lenart served in the Marines in the Pacific Theater, then volunteered to fly for Israel and led the Air Force’s first combat mission on May 29, 1948, stopping the Egyptians less than 30 miles from Tel Aviv.
“I was born to be there at that moment in history,” he says in the film. “It’s the most important thing I did in my life.” Lenart later helped airlift Iraqi Jews to Israel.
Paul Reubens was a former stunt pilot who flew for the British Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force. He was one of the first volunteer pilots in Israel, narrowly missing out on the Israeli Air Force’s first combat mission when there were five pilots, but only four planes to fly. He flew the next day — May 30, 1948 — on a critical mission that stopped the Iraqi Army.
Israeli Fighter Plane of the Era
And in recounting the personal stories of the American Jewish pilots, whose experiences in Israel were life-altering, the film is a story of Jewish identity.
“The tremendous historical, unbearable clash of the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel, and the loud cacophony that happened between those two events, shook these pilots into a Jewish identity that they might not have otherwise had,” Grossman says.
“The pilots felt it was their duty to help, that it was the right thing to do,” says Spielberg.
“It’s the most important thing I did in my life.” Lenart later became a
pilot for El Al Airlines.
Pilots Lou Lenart, Gideon Lichman, and Midi Alon
“The tremendous historical, unbearable clash of the Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel, and the loud cacophony that happened between those two events, shook these pilots into a Jewish identity that they might not have otherwise had,” Grossman remembered.
“The pilots felt it was their duty to help, that it was the right thing to do,” says Spielberg. “They found their Jewishness through this process.”
We tend to be rather parochial when studying history, what little studying we do today all the way from K-12 through colleges and universities. The Woke generation is generally asleep when it comes to our past, or they simply remember the parts that support their thinking. True history is not only instructive but also fascinating.
We are not alone in our own universe here in America. We are in fact a nation of immigrants, from the Puritans escaping persecution in England in the seventeenth century to the newest immigrants trying to make it to the land of liberty and opportunity. As you read above, remember that the making of modern Israel, with American pilots and planes, is also part of our history and heritage, all the way from Guadalcanal to Tel Aviv.
Published in the Northport Gazette July 12, 2023
Posted on July 5, 2023
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