Step inside the Museum of American Jewish Military History

So Washington, D.C. is a town known for a lot of things. There's politics and government, of course

but there's also museums and displays about military history. Right at the nexus of those

two things is the place I'm standing now, the National Museum of American Jewish Military

History, a little bit of a lesser known spot here in town. So we're going to go inside and

see what it's got to offer. I'm Michael Rugal. I am the Director of Programs and Content at the

National Museum of American Jewish Military History. Here at the museum, we tell the story of Jews serving in the American military

going back from before the Revolution up through the present. The museum traces its roots back to the 1950s

when the Jewish War Veterans Organization created what was initially called the Shrine to the Jewish War Dead, and it existed as a pure memorial

to memorialize the Jewish Americans who were killed in service. In the 80s, they decided they wanted to go beyond memorializing and have a museum that

really explores the history, tells the stories, and they opened up this building here in 1984

Some of the highlights here, these readings from the Holy Scriptures for Jewish members

of the armed forces issued in World War II alongside the World War II era dog tags of

Eli Heimberg. And if you note on the dog tags, the small religious identifier next to our number four

that's labeling the artifact, it's the letter H. So in World War II era, they used H for Hebrew to

identify Jewish soldiers on their dog tags. So World War II era, if you had that religious

identifier on your dog tag, it would have been H, a P, or a C. You were Hebrew, Protestant, a Catholic

Those were the three recognized religions at the time. And for Jews, particularly the ones serving

in Europe knowing some of what was going on in Nazi Germany. You know, something you had to

think about whether you wanted to identify yourself as a Jew if you were heading to service in Europe

And there's lots of stories about, you know, guys carrying two sets of dog tags, one without the

religious identifier when they on missions one for you know whether they in headquarters or people trying to refashion that H into a P after they were captured And the prisoner of war stories

are really some of the fascinating stories of World War II. The Ark here belonged to a chaplain, an army chaplain named Rabbi Morris Gordon. He was one

of about 300 or so rabbis that serve as chaplains in World War II, and Rabbi Gordon was serving in

the China-Burma-India Theater, is driving along the road when a bomb hits the vehicle he's traveling in

and instantly kills the driver and throws Rabbi Gordon into a river alongside the road they're on

And fortunately for him, there's a Chinese officer close by. He sees Rabbi Gordon traveling in the river, pulls him out, saves his life

Now, everything he had used for Jewish services in the field was destroyed in that explosion

So as Rabbi Gordon's recovering, that Chinese officer who saves his life gets some wood

builds him this ark, and Robert Gordon's able to get a tour carried in this ark

to conduct Jewish services along the Burma Trail throughout the China-Burma-India Theater

for the rest of the war. So we're in the section of our core exhibit we call Conviction, which covers the World War II

stories when over half a million American Jews are in service around the world

in the home front, in the Pacific, and in Europe. This photo here is from 1944, fall of 1944, in Aachen, Germany

It shows Jewish services being held along the Siegfried Line near tank barriers

And this is the first city, Aachen, occupied by the U.S. Army

So as the U.S. is beginning to march in occupied German soil, there's a real intentional message that things are changing

They hold Jewish services along this line. And not only do they hold Jewish services

you can see the chaplain there speaking into a microphone, a radio broadcast microphone

So they broadcast this Jewish service over the German radio airwaves, and it's actually relayed to New York

and broadcasts here on NBC radio. So the idea that things are changing rapidly in Germany where Jewish service had been illegal for many years at this point they show that with the U Army now in charge and occupying Germany it a different world

My name is Sheldon Goldberg. I'm a 30-year Air Force veteran, enlisted in 1956. Spent five years

enlisted both with the SAAC command band and the USEFI command band. Finally in 1969 wound up in

Southeast Asia flying F-4s with the only night dedicated squadron in the Air Force

That's my flight suit, right? Black because of the Night Owl squadron, like I said, the only

night dedicated fighter squadron in the Air Force at the time. Flew 214 missions total

three of them in North Vietnam, including an authorized attack on a SAM site in North Vietnam

We are downstairs in the second floor of the museum, under, at the entrance to the Hall of Heroes

which is my favorite place to be, because if anything shows that Jews fight

of the pictures and the stories of the 19 Jewish personnel that are in here, Army, Air Force

We don't have any Navy people in here. And from 1862, from when the Medal of Honor was first authorized

up until the most recent wars in Southwest Asia. As you can tell, we've got one living Jewish Medal of Honor

still, Colonel Jack Jacobs, who is a correspondent, I think, for CBS and CNN

You may have seen him on television. We have John Lee Leviteau, the first airman

to receive the Medal of Honor in Vietnam. But the story that rings most about Judaism and Medals of Honor and Heroism is that of Tiber Rubin who was a Hungarian refugee was taken put Nazi concentration camps where he

learned how to steal food and medicine and things like that in order to survive

and when he was liberated he said if I ever get to go to America I'm gonna

become a GI Joe and that's exactly what happened he came from America he finally

was able to enlist in the army after he mastered English language pretty much, got in there

in time to go to Korea. And he was put in a platoon that had perhaps the most anti-Semitic

sergeant in the army. And whenever there was some dirty job to be done, he would also

the sergeant would also call for this SOB Rubin and get him to come and do the job

Ruben would do the job, he would come back. He'd call him again, Ruben would go out

do the job and come back, and it was only happening because he was Jewish

A little bit later he wound up actually in battle, was wounded, was taken prisoner by the Chinese

or the North Koreans who volunteered to send him back, repatriate him back to Hungary

which he did not want to go. While in the POW camp, he took the skills

he had learned in the concentration camp to save over 28 POWs in that barracks that he was in

noted for taking lice off one man for 24 hours. He stood there picking lice off a wounded soldier

When the war ended, he was repatriated and it wasn't until a friend finally got

up and went to courage to go to Congress to go wherever he could go and say this

man deserves the Medal of Honor and he got the other POWs that were still alive

to come and testify for him he was finally awarded Medal of Honor for what

he had done 50 years after the Korean War ended