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Jews in America: Jewish Veterans Buried at Arlington National Cemetery

More than 2,000 Jewish military service members are interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 -- which saw brother against brother as well as Jew against Jew -- there were 150,000 Jews in the United States. Three thousand fought on the side of the Confederacy and 6,700 for the Union. In Section 13, five Jewish soldiers are buried who fought for the Union Army and died during the Civil War.

One person who fought for the Confederacy was Moses Ezekiel. At the outbreak of the war, he was a cadet at Virginia Military Institute. The young cadets formed a battalion and fought in a few battles. After the war, and upon graduating from VMI, he went to Europe to study art, and in time he became one of the 19th Century's greater sculptors. Later in his life, he was knighted by the king of Italy and the kaiser of Germany. Upon his death in 1917, his remains were returned to Arlington where they now lay under the sculpture he created to honor his fellow Confederate soldiers. Section 16.

Notable Jewish Veterans Buried at Arlington Include:

Arthur Goldberg: Colonel in the Air Force, was appointed Secretary of Labor during the Kennedy administration and later was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. He became ambassador to the United Nations and Ambassador at Large.

Hyman Rickover: Admiral in the Navy and "Father of the Nuclear Navy."

Judith A. Resnik: Challenger mission specialist and astronaut.

There are two Rabbis who served as chaplains in the military: Capt. Joshua Goldberg and Rear Adm. Bertram W. Korn, the highest-ranking Jewish chaplain ever to serve in the Armed Forces of the United States.

Lieutenant Colonel Rae Landy: Served in World War I and World War II. In 1913, as a young nurse, Landy went to Jerusalem to help start the Hadassah Hospital.

British Army Maj. Gen. Orde Charles Wingate: Although not Jewish, is considered one of the more important people in Israel's history. As a major stationed in Palestine in the 1930s, he took pity on the new settlers, most of whom were from Eastern Europe and knew little of farming and nothing about defending themselves from the Arab bandits. Wingate helped train the early settlers in self-defense. His unconventional military tactics were adopted by the Israeli Defense Forces. Gens. Moshe Dyan and Yigal Allon were two of his prize students. Today in Tel Aviv, athletes train at the Wingate Institute. In March of 1944, Wingate was commander of the British commando units in Burma. He and his staff were aboard a U.S. airplane traveling to attend a meeting. The plane crashed and burned in the jungles of Burma. Their remains were found later and returned to Arlington for burial in a common grave.


Sources: Ken Poch, Arlington National Cemetery