Fighting for His People

A Jewish Soldier’s Mission to Save His Jewish Nation from Hitler and from the Arabs

By M A lkie Sc H ul MAN

Abba’s crusade to avenge his people began when he went off as a young American Jew to fight the Nazis in World War II. Unfortunately, for him, he was assigned to the Pacific theater, so he didn’t get to realize his goal of personally taking down Nazis. However, when it came to the Israeli Independence War, he did have his dream fulfilled of directly partaking in the destroying of the Jewish enemy in Palestine – the British and the Arabs.

Even as a young child, growing up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in the ‘20s and ‘30s, my father, Eli Freundlich (or Eli Yedidya as he was known in Israel in the Independence War years), was aware of antisemitism, both personally through his own and his parents’ experiences and that of the Jewish people throughout history. Abba never accepted the situation cavalierly, which explains why he was always a Zionist. So, when the war came around, he was anxious to join. As soon as he was of age, 18, he left yeshiva Torah V’daas where he was studying and signed up for the draft.

Most mothers are not keen on having their sons join the army, and my grandmother was like most mothers. At first, Abba was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for basic training. There was no danger of being killed in a war zone down there but there was antisemitism from his fellow barrack mates to be reckoned with. My father put on tefillin every day which must’ve looked strange to the Southern hicks. He had a protector, though, that he liked to tell us about, a big, husky fellow who was a devout Christian. This fellow soldier threatened anybody who dared to touch one of the “People of the Book.”

After about six months in North Carolina, my father was called up to active duty in the South Pacific. To ease his mother’s anxiety, he wrote a year’s worth of letters and asked a soldier pal to send them to her every few weeks. This way ,she would never have to know that he’d been sent overseas. He deliberately kept the letters vague regarding times of the year so it wouldn’t look suspicious if she was to receive a letter, for example, discussing Purim when it was already Shavuos. At the end, though, that was Abba’s undoing. Because they were so vague, Mama eventually caught on that they weren’t being posted by him.

My father was sent to fight the Japanese in the jungles of New Guinea. He’d tell us about the intense heat. It got so hot, he said, that his tefillin simply disintegrated from the humidity. As the only Orthodox Jew in his unit, there was no tefillin to borrow from anybody else. So, he figured out that the closest Jewish community to the Philippines where he was stationed was Brisbane, Australia. He wrote a letter, addressing it to the rabbi of Brisbane (he had no idea of the name of the rabbi or even if there was a rabbi in Brisbane) and explained that he was an American soldier whose tefillin had disintegrated in the jungle and could he please send him a new pair. Remarkably, he received his new pair!

One of the more humorous war stories Abba would share but always with an eye to Hashem’s miraculous salvations and clear plan for his survival was the time his heavy artillery unit was totally surrounded by the Japanese. The American army was flying overhead dropping food packages for the soldiers. Abba didn’t eat anything with meat in it, so his diet was seriously curtailed. However, he did eat Hershey bars, which were also in the food packages. As the packages were raining from the sky, Abba ran from soldier to soldier to trade his unkosher food for the chocolate. As he was doing that, the enemy was closing in on them, but Abba was too busy trying to get his chocolate to notice. Thankfully, his captain realized Pvt. Freundlich was missing and sent someone in his unit to find him.

Another story he’d share many times about his time in the U.S. Army was the one about his obsession with getting a clean, fresh new pair of socks. He’d fantasize about what he would do if he had a pair of clean, white socks. I assume he mentioned it in a letter home because one day his dream socks arrived. He carefully and excitedly put them, luxuriating in the cottony, soft feel. That night, when they were in the trenches in the pouring rain, trying to keep the enemy at bay, the wa- ter seeping into his newly donned socks, Abba’s fantasy of how great life would be if only he had clean white socks was laid to rest.

Though others would disagree, Abba would always be grateful that the atom bombs were dropped. If not for that, he would tell us, none of our family would be here today. He was in the infantry and would’ve been one of the first units sent in to fight on the mainland. Almost all the estimates at the time were that had the invasion not been preempted by the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the campaign (known as Operation Downfall) would have stood as the bloodiest chapter of World War II, adding as many as 10 million additional dead (including civilian and military) to the war’s already mind-boggling final body count of 50 million. Abba was sure that if they had invaded, he would’ve been one of the final body count.

The Journey to Palestine

After the war’s end in 1945, Abba returned to the United States, but his efforts on behalf of the Jewish people, were far from over. Since his teen years, he’d been active in various Jewish Zionist youth movements, fervently believing in the idea of a Jewish homeland. As the Jews in Palestine were fighting for their freedom against the British, Abba began to make his plans to join Etzel – Irgun Tzvai Leumi (also known as the Irgun) headed by Menachem Begin.

At that time, there were three military organizations in pre-state Israel: the Palmach, Etzel and Lechi. Each group had the same goal, to drive the occupying force out of Palestine. Each, however, had a different philosophy on how to accomplish that goal. The Lechi approach was terrorism; the Palmach believed in cooperating with the British; and the Etzel in fighting by attacking military objectives. My father felt most aligned with the Etzel. However, in order to get to Palestine to sign up, he first had to join Beitar, the revisionist organization based in New York that was closely affiliated with the Irgun. He also had to figure out how to get his mother on board with his plans. It’s funny – Abba had no fear when it came to fighting the Nazis, the Japanese, the Brits or the Arabs, yet the fear of “Mama” was something to behold. In the end, he decided not to tell his mother he was planning on joining the Irgun. He didn’t even tell her of his plans to volunteer as a crew member on a ship setting sail for Palestine. So, very early one morning in

December 1946, without telling anybody except for his sister (and she had promised not to say anything), Abba packed his bags and left for the port.

When he was at shipside ready to board, he decided it was safe to call his mother. This, as it turns out, was a mistake because, when his sister handed her mother the phone saying, “It’s for you, Ma. Eli’s on the line. He’s at the dock leaving for Palestine and he wants to say goodbye,” my grandmother, I am told, was so upset, she refused to get on the

Nevertheless, besides for many of the crewmembers including my father, suffering from violent seasickness, the boat did make it to its first rendezvous, Port de-Bouc, France, to pick up 600 war refugees anxious to leave Europe and settle in Palestine. The DPs were crammed into the boat, and despite its few rough starts, like running aground shortly after leaving the French port, no further incidents occurred until they were ten miles from the Palestine coastline. At that point, three British destroyers confronted their ship and ordered them to turn back. When with the refugees. Quickly tossing the only proof of his American citizenship overboard, his American passport, Abba mingled with the refugees instead of with his crew. When spoken to in English, he pretended he did not understand the language and responded in Yiddish. His ruse worked, and he was sent with the DPs to Cyprus where he spent the next nine months.

A Cyprus Stopover

phone. (Thankfully, they did eventually reconcile.)

The Aliya Bet ship, the SS Ben Hecht, was not much of a ship. It was only the size of a small yacht and a quite rickety one at that. Its name originated from a famous Jewish American actor of the time, Ben Hecht, who had over the years become more and more actively Zionistic. In fact, Ben Hecht had produced several plays and movies starring famous actors like Marlon Brando to publicize the plight of the Jewish refugees in Europe trying to reach British-controlled Palestine.

the SS Ben Hecht refused to comply, the destroyers rammed the sides of the boat, allowing the English soldiers to jump aboard and overpower the smaller boat. As Abba would tell it, in those few chaotic moments, he had a split decision to make: to stay with the other captured American sailors and risk being deported back to America or pretend he was a Holocaust refugee and be sent to Cyprus detention camp. Reasoning that Cyprus, an island off Greece, was a lot closer to Palestine, his intended destination, than the U.S., he decided to throw his lot in

Growing up as I did with Abba, I had witnessed on many occasions one of his less healthy attributes – his inability to throw anything out. But at least in one instance, I appreciate this tendency to hold on to everything because I now retain dozens of stamped and postmarked envelopes from friends and relatives from as far back as 1932. The majority of the envelopes no longer contain any letters but just seeing a postmark dated 1938 from my great-grandfather from Dej, Romania, to his daughter, my grandmother (Abba’s mother), on Throop Ave in Williamsburg is thrilling for me. It gives me a sense of continuity as it validates and reinforces the stories of the forbears that I grew up with. For me, though the postmarked stamps have no monetary value, the stories they tell are priceless.

Of course, the envelopes with actual letters in them are even more precious. In my possession is one such envelope postmarked Cyprus from a Mordechai Yefune, a Russian Jewish Holocaust refugee who was a fellow detention camp inmate with Abba. The letter, written in Hebrew, begins, “Le’yedidi ha’yakar v’l’mori Eli ” – to my precious friend and my teacher,

Eli, and is dated Rosh Chodesh Adar 5708 - 1948 . Mordechai thanks Abba for sending pictures, asks for all the latest news, tells him nothing is doing in Cyprus except the Sochnut is sending 2,000 children “l’Aretz ” from Cyprus and wonders when his family’s turn will come to be released to the land of their birthright.

He sounds frustrated, yet excited as he writes, “Ulam mah lasot? Sha’ah historit achshav v’mimena ain l’himalet” -– but what’s there to do? It’s a historic moment which we cannot escape from.

He then admonishes my father to write back quickly because it could be that by the time his letters get back to him, the hoped-for day will already have arrived.

We now know that two months later Mordechai Yefune’s longed-for day did indeed arrive. Israel became a Jewish state in Iyar of that year.

Joining Etzel

After my father was released from Cyprus, he was sent to Palestine where he was interned once again in a detention camp on the outskirts of Haifa. Six weeks later, sometime at the end of 1947, he obtained his final release and was at last able to join the Irgun.

Abba’s story of how he was inducted into Etzel is gripping. On occasion, he would share with us the spy-like story details. The first thing he did, he would tell us, after leaving Atlit was to reach out to a Betar group contact that he knew from the U.S. Through the contact, he was sent to Beit Jabotinsky in Tel Aviv where he shared a brief history of his background to the few Etzel members there. Not long afterwards, he received instructions to appear on a certain street at a certain time and date with a book in his left hand. He was to relay a password and receive further instructions. Abba followed the directions, and at the appointed place and time, a young man appeared. After exchanging passwords, Abba was instructed to proceed to a house that appeared to be in the middle of construction down the street and wait inside. Stepping over debris, building material and holes, my father entered the dark house. After what answer was, “No.”

A few days later, my father was ordered to report to a broken-down home in a poor section of Tel Aviv where, together with other new Etzel recruits, he was to begin an orientation course. The course covered the philosophy, goals, and methods of Etzel. The only trouble, my father would ruefully say, was that the course was in Hebrew and given at the end of a working day. This combination put him to sleep but, in the end, it didn’t matter because he knew why he was there and

As a chaver of Etzel, Abba was on call all the time, any time, day or night for a “p’oola” (an action). He only knew the name of the person above him instructing him regarding the p’oola and the person or persons he was engaging with on the action. Other than that, it was a completely secret organization.

At first, Abba stayed at home, waiting for his call but after a while, he was instructed to spend several weeks living in a pardes (orchard) for further training and to be more readily available for a p’oola. His first p’oola came shortly after that when he was called out one morning to catch a transport that was to take him and a few others to the town of Binyomina. Their job (which they carried out) was to derail a British train that was transporting ammunition.

War Miracles and More Miracles

Abba would often talk about the string of miracles Hashem wrought for him while with the Etzel. They began in June of 1948 when the British occupation was pretty much over but the Arab invasion had just begun. Abba’s unit was assigned the former Beit Kitzinim that was used as a base by the British during World War II to train Iraqis situated in the city of Ramle. Their mission was to overtake the base, and then move on with reinforcements to occupy the city.

The truth of the matter was, Etzel was a ragtag group of passionate individuals ready to sacrifice for their cause, but they were not an organized army in any sense. My father would often say that except for him and perhaps a few others, nobody had any training in the use of weapons. He had training, of course, because he’d been in the American army.

seemed to be a long time, another young man entered and led him into another darkened, uninhabited house. However, Abba did not get a chance to take in his surroundings because as soon as he arrived, a spotlight was shone directly into his face preventing him from seeing his questioner (or anything else). A voice began asking him many questions: “Why do you want to join Etzel? What is your background?” Then, the voice asked Abba if he had any questions. Abba’s only question was, “Once I’m accepted, can I resign if I’m not happy with the conditions?” The he was ready for whatever would come.

A few weeks later, Abba graduated. The ceremony took place in the courtyard of a school late at night, lit only by the light of the moon. The building was locked so they had to climb over the fence to the yard behind. In the middle of the yard was a table covered with an Israeli flag, a Chumash, and a pistol. Each recruit stepped up to the table placing his right hand on the Chumash, his left on the pistol, and took an oath. Then they climbed back over the fence – proud chaverim of Etzel.

In this particular action, since my father was the only one who knew how to use weapons, he was assigned to the only machine gun. The trouble was, the machine gun didn’t work. It had been taken from the British along with the bullets. Unfortunately, they were the wrong bullets. This piece of information took Abba the whole night to figure out which leads us to his first reported miracle.

“My buddy and I sat in a windowless bunker,” my father would share, “about 10-feet by 10-feet, constructed of brick walls. We were sitting in such a way that the gun end lay across his legs with the front end past the side of his stomach. We were trying to fit each bullet into the gun for an accurate fit. Occasionally, when the gun was empty of bullets, I would pull the trigger. Only one time when I pulled the trigger, I didn’t realize that the gun wasn’t empty. The gun fired, and we could hear the bullet bounce off the walls, ricocheting several times around the room, from wall to wall until it stopped. Neither of us were hit.”

The next miracle occurred the following day when unexpectedly the Arabs invaded the area and captured the position. Abba quickly saw that they were outnumbered (it was just him and three other Etzelniks) and realized it was time to skedaddle. But in order to plan their escape route, he needed to determine the Arabs’ exact position. That meant he had to leave the relative safety of his bunker and crouch unseen along its side to get to the corner so he could look around it and see how close the Arabs were.

When he reached the corner, he saw the muzzle of a rifle sticking out and pointing upward at the fourth floor of a tall building 20 feet away.

“In that moment,” my father recounted, “I froze in my tracks as I waited for the Arab to stick his head around the corner and see me. But, baruch Hashem, he fired first at the building — which I knew was empty — and only then looked around the corner.”

At that point, Abba allowed himself to breathe. He knew the Arab had no more bullets in his rifle and would have to reload before firing again. My father, on the other hand, did still have a bullet in his rifle…. And so, though it was one Arab down, there were many more pouring in from behind. Abba scooted back to the bunker and told the others it was now or never.

Truthfully, Abba couldn’t imagine how any of them would make it without getting shot in the back since the only way to safety was through reaching a pardes 100 yards away and that included jumping over a four-foot-high pile of rubble in broad daylight to get to it. So, while rethinking his plan to make a run for it and getting, as he put it, “a bad case of cold feet, the Ribbono Shel Olam demonstrated for me that there is such a phenomenon as hashgocha pratis. He shot me in order to save my life.”

What happened then was, still deliberating, Abba stepped out of the bunker once more to size up the situation. Just then, one of his buddies ran into the room, wounded. With one foot and half his body already out the door, my father turned to see two Arabs facing him with their rifles. Simultaneously, they fired. Abba saw two chips of brick fall away from the edge of the doorpost and felt an impact in his chest. Having been shot at point-blank range, my father expected to see his chest blown away, or at least blood gushing in torrents. In those milliseconds, he wondered when the excruciating pain would begin. But he also knew that if they didn’t run immediately, he would certainly bleed to death.

Meanwhile, the two Arabs had ducked into the next-door bunker. My father quickly dropped a hand grenade into their room, effectively incapacitating them. He ran back into his bunker and said, “Chevreh, we have to go.” (The “chevreh,” by the way, consisted of two wounded men, a 17-year-old female medic, and one scared teenager who threw away his rifle and the rifles of the wounded as they ran.)

In full view of the enemy and defenseless as they were, the four of them hurtled over the four-foot rubble heap to the orchard beyond. In fact, though they knew the Arabs were attacking from the east, how did they know there weren’t Arabs lying in wait for them in the opposite direction as well? They also had no idea where they’d find their own forces. With not much of an option, they decided to head in the direction of the setting sun. Miraculously, they did not meet even one armed Arab and eventually bumped into friendly forces.

If you have been following this story closely, you may still be wondering how Abba survived being shot at by two bullets at such close range. Through another miracle, of course. Abba didn’t realize it at the time, but both the Arabs missed their target (him) and hit the doorpost instead. The actual wound my father did sustain was from exploding shrapnel from the grenade his friend accidentally dropped shortly before he ran into the bunker at the precise moment my father stepped out of it. Believing he was about to bleed to death, however, was what gave my father and his group the courage to overcome their fear and attempt the run to safety.

Thus ends the story of my father’s wartime exploits. He returned to the United States at the end of 1949 and came back to Israel again for a year in 1956 to teach immigrant children. His intention was to make aliyah, but he would say the red tape was insurmountable (note – the Arab enemy wasn’t insurmountable for him but the Israeli bureaucracy was) – he’d go to one office only to be told that he needed to be in another office, only to be told that he had brought the wrong papers, only to be told he really did need to be in the first (or second or third) office but on a different day. At that point, in great frustration, in front of the clerk, he ripped up whatever papers he had brought and left. He was also by that time disenchanted with (what he believed to be) the government’s leftist policies of “let’s get along and make peace with all our enemies” whom he was convinced wanted nothing more than to drive us into the sea at the first opportunity (as indeed they did).

But Abba never lost his passion and idealism to do what he could to protect and defend the Jewish people. Years later, he encouraged my brother to join Meir Kahane’s (Hy”d) Jewish Defense League (JDL), and he was very proud, in his later years, when some of his grandchildren joined the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), continuing his legacy as proud defenders of the Jewish people.