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A rabbi went down with his torpedoed warship in 1943. Today, his cousin ensures his story is not forgotten.
(JTA) — Mark Auerbach was not yet 5 years old when he noticed an unusual stamp in his father’s dresser. The well-worn three-cent stamp featured a drawing of a small group of men and a sinking ship, with the words “The Immortal Chaplains… Interfaith in action.” It piqued his interest, so he asked his father about it.
“Our cousin is on that,” Auerbach, who grew up in Brooklyn, recalls him saying, searching for an age-appropriate explanation. “He said he was a rabbi who died during World War II when his boat was torpedoed by the Germans. He made me promise to make sure that the story is never forgotten.”
It’s a promise that Auerbach, 75, who now lives in Passaic, New Jersey, has taken to heart. He’s made it his life’s mission to keep alive the story of the “Four Chaplains” — who included Auerbach’s third cousin, Rabbi Alexander D. Goode, along with Rev. George Fox, Rev. Clark Poling and Father John Washington. Eighty years ago today, they made the ultimate sacrifice when their ship, U.S.A.T. Dorchester, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the North Atlantic in the pre-dawn hours.
Over the decades, Auerbach has amassed a trove of photos, clippings and memorabilia dedicated to the bravery and faith of these four clergymen — including preserving countless copies of that three-cent stamp, which was issued in May 1948. “It’s an amazing story,” said Auerbach of the chaplains’ heroism. “It just happens to be my family.”
The sinking of the Dorchester is considered one of the country’s worst World War II-era sea disasters: Of the 902 men on board, only 203 survived. As survivors and historians attest, the four clergy — all relatively new soldiers who had befriended one another at the Army Chaplains School at Harvard University — stood out for their calming presence throughout the pandemonium that occurred during the 18 minutes it took for the ship to go under. As the tragedy rapidly unfolded, survivors reported that the chaplains offered prayers, helped distribute lifejackets and, once those ran out, they selflessly gave up their own.
The three-cent stamp dedicated to the Four Chaplains was issued in 1948 and sparked Auerbach’s interest in the story. (Courtesy Mark Auerbach)
“The altruistic action of the four chaplains constitutes one of the purest spiritual and ethical acts a person can make,” reads materials from Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation, whose mission is “to promote Interfaith Cooperation and Selfless Service,” according to their web site. “When giving their life jackets, Rabbi Goode did not call out for a Jew; Father Washington did not call out for a Catholic; nor did the Reverends Fox and Poling call out for a Protestant. They simply gave their life jackets to the next man in line.”
But that’s not all they did. As the ship went down, survivors have said that they saw the four chaplains on deck, linked arm in arm together in prayer. “I could hear men crying, pleading, praying,” Private William B. Bednar, who was floating among the bodies of his shipmates in the freezing water, is quoted as saying in foundation reports. “I could also hear the chaplains preaching courage. Their voices were the only thing that kept me going.”
The four men became friends at chaplains school at Harvard. (Courtesy Mark Auerbach)
According to Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins, the author of “Rabbi Alexander Goode: The Story of the Rabbi and His Three Fellow Chaplains Who Went Down with the USAT Dorchester” in November 2022, the clergy were heard saying their respective prayers as the ship sank: Goode said the Shema; the Catholic priest the Ave Maria, while the two ministers said the Lord’s Prayer. (Exactly how survivors might have heard this is unclear, though Elkins confirmed that the Shema is the last thing a Jew is supposed to say before death.)
Goode was born in Brooklyn in 1911; his father, Hyman Goodekowitz, was also a rabbi. When his parents divorced, he moved to Washington, D.C. with his mother and siblings. Goode was a good student and excellent athlete, and “believed that it was God’s plan for him to pursue a religious calling,” Elkins said.
Goode graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1934 and Hebrew Union College in 1937; in 1940, he got a PhD from Johns Hopkins University. “Education was very important to him,” said Auerbach. In 1935, he married Teresa Flax, who happened to be a niece of Al Jolson; the couple had a daughter, Rosalie, in 1939.
As a rabbi, his first assignment was at a synagogue in Marion, Indiana in 1936; in 1937, he transferred to Beth Israel in York, Pennsylvania, where he remained until he enlisted in July 1942. “He excelled in ecumenicalism — his congregation really praised him and loved him specifically for that,” Elkins said. “He had a wonderful reputation as a scholar, a beloved rabbi and ecumenical person.”
As Elkins writes in his book: “In his new community, Alex made great efforts to spread interfaith understanding. He presented a regular radio program on religious matters. When one of the local churches burned down, he offered to host the congregation’s religious services.”
“He was an extraordinary person, [in addition to] what he did on the Dorchester,” Elkins added.
According to an account from a Dorchester survivor, Petty Officer John J. Mahoney, courtesy the Four Chaplains Foundation, Goode acted selflessly at least one more time that awful morning: He thwarted Mahoney from a foolhardy attempt to return to his cabin for his gloves. Instead, Goode gave Mahoney his gloves, assuring him he had two pairs.
In retrospect, “Mahoney realized that Rabbi Goode was not conveniently carrying two pairs of gloves, and that the rabbi had decided not to leave the Dorchester.”
For a time in the postwar era, the story of the chaplains’ bravery was a popular one, including among children. (Courtesy Mark Auerbach)
During the postwar era, for a while, at least, the story of the Four Chaplains was a popular one. In addition to laudatory articles and the commemorative stamp — plus assorted memorabilia designed to draw the attention of children — memorials were constructed “in nearly every state,” according to Elkins; stained-glass tributes can be found at the Pentagon, the National Cathedral and elsewhere. In Philadelphia, President Harry Truman dedicated a memorial chapel to the Four Chaplains on Feb. 4, 1951. According to a JTA report at the time, some 10,000 “Americans of all faiths” raised $300,000 for the chapel’s construction and furnishings; at the ceremony, Goode’s father read Psalm 96 in Hebrew.
On Dec. 19, 1944, each of the chaplains was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Service Cross. In 1998, the 55th anniversary of the Dorchester disaster, Feb. 3 was deemed Four Chaplains Day by Congress. And yet, as World War II fades into distant memory, few people today seem to be familiar with the heroism of these men.
“It’s such an important story, such an inspiring story, it needs to be better known,” said Elkins on the impetus for his book.
“This guy certainly was a great role model,” Elkins said of Goode in particular. “We need more Alexander Goode type of people for our youth to look up to, to say, ‘I can be honest, intellectual, committed to my faith and my people, the heritage of Judaism, and I can do honorable things.’”
On Sunday, as he does every year on the Sunday closest to Feb. 3, Auerbach and other chaplains’ family members will attend a memorial mass at St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church in Kearny, New Jersey, where he’ll also display his collection of photographs and memorabilia. “The story is so ecumenical that it crosses all kinds of barriers,” he said. “It’s the ‘Golden Rule’ in reality. Every clergy person worth their salt — whatever day their religious observance is, whether its Saturday or Sunday — every one of them is preaching be kind to your brother, your sister. Everyone talks about it, few know about it. This is something for people to grab onto.”
Elkins concurs. “These guys are role models for all of us,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you have to give up your life. There are all kinds of ways people can do great things.”
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University of Michigan will have a leader who defended pro-Palestinian protesters in court
A civil rights attorney who defended pro-Palestinian protesters in court and made social media posts viewed as pro-Hezbollah and antisemitic, has won his bid for the University of Michigan Board of Regents.
Michigan is one of a few states in which voters play a direct role in choosing university overseers. As a regent, Amir Makled (D) will help oversee expenditures at the university where his clients, the student protesters, were arrested. The position is unpaid and carries an eight-year term. Democrat Paul Brown won the other seat up for election, maintaining the board’s 6-2 Democratic majority.
Makled beat out Republican challenger Lena Epstein, who is Jewish and previously identified as a “Jewish Messianic believer of Christ,” but recanted the statement and later said she was “100% Jewish.” Mainstream Judaism does not accept Messianic Jews because they believe in the divinity of Christ and try to convert Jews to Jesus.
Epstein told the Forward in an April interview that the Democrats had handed her an opportunity to win the seat by endorsing Makled, who was facing intense scrutiny. In one of his controversial posts, Makled called Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a “martyr” after he was killed by Israeli strikes in 2024. He lost an endorsement from Service Employees International Union for the posts and later deleted them.
In the regents race, voters picked up to two of six candidates, with the top two winning. Makled received 25.6% of the vote while Brown received 27.2%. Epstein received 22.2% while her fellow Republican Michael Schostak received 22.6%.
Makled’s election comes as part of a wave of Democratic Party wins, including in Michigan, which elected as Senator Abdul El-Sayed (D), who also faced severe backlash for statements related to Israel and Gaza and for appearing alongside streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric.
Israel played a major role in the rhetoric surrounding Michigan’s midterms. But voters, including 60% of Jewish voters that voted for El-Sayed according to early exit polls, favored sharp critics of the Jewish state to candidates in support of it.
The post University of Michigan will have a leader who defended pro-Palestinian protesters in court appeared first on The Forward.
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This grandson of Holocaust survivors is headed to Congress. The ADL has concerns about his antisemitism record.
The election of Daniel Biss, a Jewish critic of Israel, to an Illinois congressional seat Tuesday has sparked a public feud between the Anti-Defamation League and the liberal Zionist group J Street over whether the ADL remains a credible voice in the fight against antisemitism.
After Biss, the former Jewish mayor of Evanston, Ill., won his seat Tuesday night, the ADL Midwest took to social media to express “serious concerns” about Biss’ “approach to antisemitism.”
J Street, which had endorsed Biss, hit back, noting that Biss is the grandson of Holocaust survivors and calling the ADL’s statement “a shanda,” the Yiddish word for disgrace.
“It is hard to read this statement without wondering how far the ADL has drifted from the organization it once was – a gold standard in our community for standing up against bigotry, hatred and discrimination,” J street wrote on X.
Biss, who speaks Hebrew and spent childhood summers in Israel, was elected with 75% of the vote in a district where 11% of the electorate is Jewish.
“It saddens me to watch the ADL, once a preeminent civil rights organization, devolve into an entity that traffics in fear, intimidation and extremism,” Biss wrote in a statement to the Forward. “This kind of rhetoric does nothing to keep the Jewish people safe—in fact, it undermines that very cause.”
The ADL has long faced scrutiny from critics who view the watchdog group as labeling too broad a swath of Israel criticism as antisemitic, while less forcefully condemning antisemitism when it comes from the political right.
“Our statement speaks for itself,” an ADL spokesperson wrote in an email to the Forward.
In its statement, the ADL pointed to a specific set of concerns involving Biss’ record as mayor of Evanston, Illinois, the college town home to Northwestern University.
Biss did not provide Evanston police support that Northwestern requested after reported “antisemitic conduct” at the Gaza war encampment on campus in April 2024, the ADL said, “raising serious questions about whether the safety, dignity, and equal access of Jewish students were treated with the urgency they required.”
Biss has defended his decision not to dispatch police to the encampment, writing in response to a congressional inquiry that forcibly clearing the protest would have gone against police department advice and suppressed “constitutionally protected speech.”
The ADL also said that Biss “dismissed scrutiny of his response as a politically motivated attack fueled by AIPAC, rather than substantively addressing the concerns raised by Jewish students and community members.”
Biss made opposition to AIPAC a central theme of his primary campaign for Congress after the hardline pro-Israel lobbying group spent millions opposing him and supporting another candidate, state Sen. Laura Fine.
In an interview with the Forward in March, Biss said it was “absurd” that AIPAC opposes imposing any conditions on U.S. military aid to Israel. “And then try to enforce it with millions of dollars of dark money, is certainly bad for democracy and bad for our politics here in America,” Biss added.
At the same time, Biss faced pressure to his left on Israel in the primary, defeating Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American who has characterized Israel’s conduct in Gaza as a genocide. Biss, who has described himself as a progressive Zionist, declined to use the word genocide, despite repeated calls from Abughazaleh to do so.
In a March op-ed in The Nation, Biss wrote that he believed he was one of AIPAC’s top targets partly because “I’m the grandson of Holocaust survivors. My mother is Israeli. My extended family lives in Israel. AIPAC knew that they couldn’t dismiss me as anti-Israel or antisemitic.”
The ADL also criticized Biss for supporting the repeal of an anti-BDS law, which bars Illinois from investing public pension funds in companies that boycott Israel. That position, the ADL said, “raises additional concerns about his willingness to stand against efforts to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state.”
In an April Substack post explaining his position, Biss said that he personally opposes the global movement to boycott Israel, but he does not believe the government should “stop people from using their economic agency to advocate for their values.”
Biss will succeed Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Jewish lawmaker who represented the district for nearly three decades and was also an outspoken critic of AIPAC.
The post This grandson of Holocaust survivors is headed to Congress. The ADL has concerns about his antisemitism record. appeared first on The Forward.
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At the Vatican, two elderly men — one Jewish, one Catholic — exchange gifts and mutual admiration
On Wednesday, two senior citizens, Robert Zimmerman, 85, a Jew originally from Minnesota, and Robert Prevost, 71, a Catholic of Chicago, had a brief meeting at the younger man’s office in central Italy.
Sources on the scene report that Zimmerman was in town for business and Prevost, who goes professionally by Leo, had recently cited Zimmerman’s work in the preface to a book about nuclear disarmament.
Both men dressed in uniform, looking a bit Spy Vs. Spy, with Zimmerman in a black hoodie and Prevost in white with a small white skull cap. The confab was brief, a bulletin from Prevost’s workplace reported, consisting of “greetings and a few lighthearted exchanges.”
Prevost gifted Zimmerman with prayer beads, and Zimmerman presented Prevost with a copy of his memoir, published under his pen name, Bob Dylan.
While Zimmerman was raised in a Jewish home, he had, for a time in the late 1970s to early 1980s, converted to born-again Christianity, confounding many.
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