The little-known but indispensable role of American Jews in the creation of Israel will be described at 1 p.m. Tuesday, November 11, by a University of Florida professor speaking to the Palm Coast Chapter of Hadassah at Temple Beth Shalom in Palm Coast.
Ralph Lowenstein, dean emeritus of the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida in Gainesville, will speak on the topic “Anonymous Ally: The American Jewish role in Israel’s War of Independence.” The public is welcome to attend. There is no charge and no advance arrangements for the hour-long program are necessary. For directions to the synagogue at 40 Wellington Drive in Palm Coast, call 386-445-3006. Additional information is available through Palm Coast Hadassah at 386-446-9353.
Veteran’s Day speaker Lowenstein is a native of Danville, Virginia and fought in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence after he volunteered for the Israeli Army at the age of 18, while a summer exchange student in Europe at the end of his freshman year at Columbia University. He lived in a Displaced Persons camp in Marseilles under an assumed name, then saw combat as a half-track driver with the 79th Armored Battalion, 7th Brigade, 10 days after being smuggled into Israel. He later served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Lowenstein holds two degrees from Columbia and the Ph.D. from the University of Missouri where he served as chairman of the News-Editorial Department of the University’s School of Journalism. An award-winning reporter, he was visiting professor and head of journalistic studies at Tel Aviv University from 1967 to 1968. He is author or co-author of five books, including "Bring my Sons from Far," (World, 1966), a novel about Israel's War of Independence
In 2005, Professor Lowenstein built the Museum of American and Canadian Volunteers in Israel’s War of Independence in the University of Florida’s new Hillel Jewish Student’s Organization building. Since 1982, he has been collecting extensive archives, including questionnaires, memoirs and photos, for the University of Florida Libraries on the 1,250 American and Canadian men and women who worked on American ships rescuing Holocaust survivors from Europe or who served in the Israeli armed forces during the War of Independence.
