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A Few Clouds and Breezy Honoring veterans at Rambam Mesivta
Students adopt an overseas service unit and commemorate a chaplain paratrooper
Rambam Mesivta students and faculty honored military service people during the Lawrence-based school’s annual Veterans Day assembly that had Avrohom Horovitz, a chaplain and paratrooper of the 82nd Airborne from Atlanta, Ga. as their keynote speaker on Nov. 11.
Every year, Rambam pays tribute to armed forces members serving overseas that liberated concentration camps or served in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.
In addition to honoring the veterans, the school also adopts an armed services unit. This year Rambam plans to adopt the 82nd Airborne, Horovitz's unit.
Horovitz joined the military in 1998 as a paratrooper, then a chaplain. "In the beginning of my service, I was just in the Reserves," he said. "I realized that, living in America, the Israeli armed forces have lots of Rabbis while the American force doesn't. It was a man crying while telling me his story about how he had been at Buchenwald, the concentration camp, and how he lost his family and upon his release, a Jewish soldier speaking Yiddish to him helped him. I decided then to go into active duty."
The Rambam students watched a brief video about the meaning of Veterans Day, then as Horovitz spoke, he showed them photo slides of his tours: one in Iraq in 2003 and the other in Afghanistan in June earlier this year. Horovitz was invited to speak to the students by Rabbi Zev Friedman, who met him a few weeks ago at a different engagement.
"Our main goal is to show recognition to the troops and enable people of allfaiths to live safely in this country," Friedman said. "We have several different ways to honor our veterans. We have raised money to send packages to men and women in Afghanistan. We have commanding officers speaking at our school. We want our students to be good citizens who contribute to the community at large."
Yisroel Sandler, a Rambam student from Lawrence, was grateful for Horovitz's visit. "Hearing him speak was an inspirational experience," he said. "He's Jewish and of a high rank. He's showed me that if he can do it, anyone can."
