By SPC Sidney H. Stein, USA (Ret.)
In the summer of 1990, I was finishing an ulpan (Hebrew language) course at an absorption center for new immigrants at Ulpan Etzion in Baka, Jerusalem, Israel. A year later I was in the U.S. Army, C Company, 5/20 Infantry Regiment at the DMZ in Korea. How did all this transpire?
Like many hyphenated Americans (Jewish-American), you are often torn between the subculture you grew up in, Jewish, and the larger society you live in, America. For me, Israel wasn’t even on the map until I went on the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) Masada Israel tour at age 16 in 1981. I knew I always wanted to be in the military, preferably the infantry. Why did I pick this particular tour from all the other Israel tours I was handed from the booklet at the Bernard Horwich JCC in Chicago? As my mother would later recount, it was because they had a tour of an Israeli army base.
A couple years earlier, I was with her at Uncle Dan’s military surplus store in Skokie, picking out the army fatigues and possibly a helmet that I wanted to wear in my freshman year at Glenbrook North High School. Previous to that, when all the neighborhood boys got together on Forestview Street in Skokie to play sports on the dead end street, I always liked to play war. So I had a definite predilection for the military. Fast forward some years, I finished college with a degree in history and a minor in Hebrew from Spertus College. What next for me?
Well, I needed to finish my black belt training in Gangi’s Kung Fu system, and after that I was already 25 years old, so I felt it’s now or never for the Israeli army. I earned my black belt in December, 1989 and by January, I was on a flight to Israel. I did not really focus on the ideological part of Aliyah, a Jew returning to his homeland, but more on what I needed to do to get into the historic Golani Brigade. This was especially the case after I heard that all the nice Jewish boys go to the Paratroopers, and the rough-and-tumble guys go to the Golani Infantry Brigade. Well Sidney Stein, (originally Goperstein, and named for my late grandfather Shepsel Goperstein, a Polish Jew from the shtetl of Skidel who came to Palestine/Eretz Yisrael in 1920), would shoot for the infantry.
On that beautiful wintry day, I arrived at Ulpan Etzion in the Baka section of Jerusalem. A fascinating mix of olim (immigrants) greeted me in the waiting room: American, Argentinian, French, Moroccan, Russian, Uzbeki, and Ethiopian Jews. The Hebrew classes were excellent, and I was in Jerusalem, one of the most fascinating cities in the world. Things were great.
I also got to meet the Israeli side of the Goperstein family, who came to Palestine/Israel before the war, or in the case of Esther and Yaacov Goperstein, survived the Holocaust by fighting as partisans. And then the bad news broke. I started meeting with army recruiters from Tzahal, and word came back that because I am an only son, I would need my parents’ signature to go into a combat unit.
With my parents being very typical American Jews, it was unclear if I would get their permission. Though my dad had served in the US Army Reserve during the Vietnam War, and did this to get out of being sent overseas. The idea of me entering a combat unit was the equivalent of me becoming a priest for them.
Dejected, I came back to Chicago in the summer of 1990 not sure what to do. I started taking graduate classes in political science at my alma mater and needed time to think. I weighed my options. On one hand, Israel felt like home and family, but I knew that my military career would be limited. But if I joined the US Army, I could always still be Jewish and my opportunities were more open. So with some mixed feelings, I enlisted in the US Army in January 1991 at the start of the air war in Iraq. My dad, who had a short temper, kicked me out of the house for a day, but then the whole family including Tom, my best friend from high school, took me out for a steak dinner before I left for basic training at Fort Benning.
Arriving at Ft. Benning for infantry basic training in February 1991 during the Gulf War, I was intimidated and nervous like most everyone else. Being 25 years old and having a degree, I tended to gravitate to the older, more mature guys, rather than the recent high school graduates. We were all obligated wrongly to go to church services on Sunday. I tried to stay outside, but was eventually forced in, where I ended up being in charge of the money collection plate and passing it around. The guys who I hung out with had some intelligence and knew I was Jewish started cracking up with laughter at this sight.
The first thing I recall about being Jewish, was that there was one soldier who was on a profile and just hanging around the company area during the time his injury healed. He once asked if I was Jewish from my name cloth badge, and I replied, “Yes.”
A short time later, the Jewish chaplain at Ft. Benning, who was a captain, arrived. He spoke to me briefly, and then we went to go see one of my drill sergeants. We had two main drill sergeants: One who was just mean, bordering on sadistic for no military reason, and the other who was more understanding. The chaplain had emphasized that I should be allowed to go to services Friday night if we weren’t training. He went to see the company commander to emphasize this also. Anyways, my chain of command didn’t take too kindly to the Jewish chaplain coming in and interfering in what they viewed as company business. Later on, my drill sergeant called me in alone, and started reading me the riot act, saying that he was Catholic and doesn’t go to church, so I wouldn’t be going to synagogue. Later on, the other drill sergeant asked if I wanted to go to services. However, I don’t recall if I ever went until Passover, and then again the weekend when basic training was over, before AIT (Advanced Individual Training) began.
One of the other recruits acted in a platoon leadership role. When I requested to go to services, he would explain to the drill sergeants that “Stein wants to go to Jewish church.” I thought to myself how ignorant can some people be to have no understanding of other religions, and never heard the word synagogue or temple before?
Later on when it was getting close to Passover, I went to the sanctuary to find out where services were being held at Ft. Benning, and I was trying to track down the Jewish chaplain. A young female African-American soldier arrived. She turned out to be the chaplain assistant. I explained what I wanted and she finally went, “Oh, you want to go to a seder.” It was a breath of fresh air to meet someone who had some knowledge of Judaism and intelligence!
I went to the Pesach seder, and the only thing that I really recall was that there was one soldier who was getting ready to go to the Q course, to be in Special Forces (Green Beret), and he started talking about after he finishes his service that he is going to go to Israel to sell his SF services there. And I started thinking to myself that this is kind of stupid on his part to publicly announce his intention to take his military skills to serve another country, even though it is a close US ally. Also, Israel has its own special forces units.
Toward the end of my time at Ft. Benning, we had a get together with the rabbi. There were some guys returning from the Middle East, or Saudi as it was referred to, and they had mentioned they had on their dog tags under religion “Protestant B” instead of Jewish. I remember also thinking about this, because I had enlisted right at the time the air war in Baghdad started, but I wouldn’t leave for basic training until February 13.
When I graduated from basic training, my parents came down. And then my dad had an idea to go to synagogue early on Saturday morning in Columbus, Georgia. The last thing I wanted to do was wake up early to go to synagogue; I just wanted to sleep. But we all went.
Later, when I arrived in Korea, I came during the QRF (Quick Reaction Force) phase of my unit’s rotation at the DMZ. Eventually we did patrols on the DMZ to stop, capture, or kill North Korean soldiers and agents from infiltrating to the South. We did a recon patrol in the morning, and set up for an ambush along the same route at night using night vision goggles which made everything look green, and a claymore mine put in place. We were stationed at Warrior Base, a couple of clicks south of the southern entrance to the DMZ. I was attached to C Company, 5/20 Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division. We were one of the last American units to have a sector in the DMZ or “The Z” as we called it before it was handed over to the ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers in October 1991. We did a recon patrol in the morning, and we set-up for an ambush patrol at night equipped with NODs (night optical devices) and a claymore mine. We were making sure that infiltrators from the North Korean 25th Special Forces Division did not come into our sector. For me, this was the best part of being in the Army—doing our actual mission. We pulled back to Camp Casey which had regular barracks, as opposed to the tents at Warrior Base. This was in August 1991. Soon, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur rolled around and I went down to Seoul for services. I never met any other Jews in my unit, 5/20 Infantry Regiment. The services and meals were good, and we had English teachers, and people in the foreign service joined us. We had a group of Koreans who showed up in all white and attended services, and I asked the rabbi what the deal was with them, and he said he didn’t know, but they were respectful and just attended.
There was also an Israeli cantor that was flown in from the States by the military, so that was someone with whom I could speak in Hebrew. During Passover when I went back down to Seoul, the Jewish chaplain presented us with kippahs made out of BDU/camouflage fabric, which I still have today. The only other thing in Korea I recall, was that we had a weekend off so we went down to Seoul with some of the guys from CCO 5/20. We went to an outdoor market, perhaps Itaewon, and we sampled food. I had something that tasted familiar and turned to Sgt. Kemp from Austin, Texas. I said to him this was just like a knish, but he didn’t know what a knish was. My Jewish education from my traditional synagogue in Skokie played in the back of my mind, and while other soldiers did typical things that soldiers do while overseas, I did not.
At the end of my 12-month tour of Korea, I PCSed back to Ft. Stewart, Georgia outside of Savannah. I only had 10 months left on my two years-plus training time contract, so I went to services in Savannah, which has one of the oldest Jewish communities in the US. In May the morning when I out-processed from the Army, I drove the 17 hours straight from Savannah to Chicago, getting to my parents’ condo off Michigan Avenue at 3:30 AM. Graduate school to become a teacher would be next for me.
After I got out of the Army, I didn’t think much about Israel or speak much Hebrew because I felt guilty for leaving.
After my first marriage ended, I started studying Hebrew again around 2001 with an Israeli woman named Pazit who was also a psychologist, and started talking to her about my feelings of guilt of leaving Israel in 1990, which was cathartic. So I made peace with myself, and reengaged with the Israeli community. Now I have a 16 year old Israeli-American daughter, Ori, and we live in Skokie, Illinois where she is active in the Israel Club at her high school and helps teach at a local synagogue. Perhaps she will be the one to go to the IDF, and do what her Abba was unable to accomplish.
Unexpected turns in life they may have been, yet I know I served my country and my people.
Originally published in the Pesach 5784 issue of The Jewish American Warrior.
