By David J. Butler
On Monday, March 3, 2025, corresponding to 3 Adar 5785, I observed the 81st Yahrzeit of Sgt. Jack Gilbert. That morning, I attended services at Beth Israel Congregation in Miami Beach, Florida. I got to lead the services and recited the Kaddish along with other mourners in attendance. Following the Torah reading that morning, Beth Israel’s Rabbi Donald Bixon recited the Kel Maleh prayer for the departed in memory of Sgt. Gilbert.
I am not related to Sgt. Gilbert. In fact, I never heard of him until a few years ago.
Jack Gilbert was born as Mendel Silber on Dec. 12, 1906, in the Austrian city of Przemysl. Some time after his family emigrated to New York in 1913, he changed his name to Jack Gilbert. He pursued a career in commercial photography. In late 1941, he married Marsha Levine. Shortly thereafter, he was drafted into the Army.
Two years later, when Jack was 37 and still serving in the Army, he was killed on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea when his unit was targeted by enemy shell fire as they slept. Jack’s comrades gave him a field burial and over the next several years his remains were transferred several times. His final burial was at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines on June 8, 1949. Along the way, the Army lost track of the fact that Jack was Jewish and believed that he was Protestant. As a result, Jack Gilbert was buried with full military honors under a Latin cross.
Jack had no children. His wife remarried. A younger brother wanted to visit Jack’s grave but couldn’t afford the cost of travel to Manila. The brother wrote to the Army asking for financial assistance to visit his brother’s grave but got no response. No members of Gilbert’s immediate family saw his grave marker before they died. So, none of the family knew that he was buried under a Latin cross.
Fast-forward 70 years to 2019. Two of Gilbert’s half-brother’s children wrote a letter to the American Battle Monuments Commission tracing Jack Gilbert’s life story — from his birth in Austria to his death in the Pacific Theatre, complete with family birth certificates, marriage certificates, immigration papers and a lot of other documentation — all to establish that Gilbert was Jewish and that his marker in Manila should have a Star of David.
ABMC agreed. Gilbert’s marker was changed at a formal ceremony held in Manila on Feb. 12, 2020, which was attended by more than a hundred people, including Gilbert’s great-nephew, the United States and Israeli ambassadors to the Philippines, a U.S. Air Force Jewish Chaplain, the COO of the ABMC, family representatives of the four other Jewish soldiers whose headstones were being replaced that same day, and a large contingent of the local Manila Jewish community.
How did that all happen? Two words: Operation Benjamin — an organization devoted to the single purpose of preserving the memories of American Jewish soldiers who were mistakenly buried under Latin crosses and replacing their headstones with a Star of David. The organization is named in memory of Private Benjamin Garadetsky, a Jewish soldier mistakenly buried under a Latin cross at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France, whose case was the first one taken on by the organization.
Operation Benjamin works quietly and with dignity without any cost to the families involved. It also works effectively. In fact, because of the trust and credibility the organization has developed with the ABMC — the U.S. government entity that manages all the U.S. military cemeteries around the world (26 of them) — Operation Benjamin was asked to expand its original, single focus on fallen World War II soldiers to now include World War I soldiers, as well.
I’ve been involved with Operation Benjamin for several years. I have been overwhelmed by the devotion of its volunteers and professionals. I have been impressed by the sensitivity shown to the families of fallen heroes who are first hearing about family members who fell in battle more than 75 years ago. And I have been moved by the appreciative sense of closure shown by families of the soldiers, the respect shown by the military at the marker changes and the sense of fulfillment in being part of the process.
Jewish tradition elevates anonymous acts of kindness, where the beneficiary doesn’t know who provided the kindness and can’t thank anyone for it. It’s called “chesed shel emet,” a genuine kindness. Most commonly, the example of a chesed shel emet is the work done by burial societies — the anonymous and gentle people who respectfully prepare a deceased for ritual burial.
We weren’t able to prepare Sgt. Jack Gilbert for a ritual burial 81 years ago. But through Operation Benjamin we have been able to correct the record that this fallen hero was a Jewish American who answered the call of his nation to help defend the cause of freedom. I feel a connection to Gilbert and to each of the other fallen heroes we have been able to honor by identifying them as Jews and proclaiming to the world that we are proud of their sacrifice and commitment.
So, on the yearly anniversary of death of each fallen hero, I am proud to join with others in paying tribute to them through the Jewish tradition of the Kaddish in an effort to elevate their souls ever higher and to thank them for their brave service. ■
David J. Butler is an attorney. He is president of Dvash Consulting, LLC and a member of the ownership group of Mid-Atlantic Media, which owns and publishes Washington Jewish Week, Baltimore Jewish Times and Philadelphia Jewish Exponent.