The Purest Democracy

Eloquently Voiced by a Rabbi’s Sermon on Iwo Jima

Memorial Day Weekend in DC was a holiday filled with flags, wreaths, speeches, and concerts. This past Sunday and Monday, veterans came wearing caps, T-shirts and parts of uniforms from “their wars.” At the Nurse’s Memorial, a special sisterhood collected. Women in their 60’s wearing floppy hats covered with pins and badges greeted each other with warm and knowing hugs. The line to file by names on the Vietnam Memorial snaked slowly. At the Korean memorial hulking figures slogged through a bitter Korean winter and walls of faces stared back from the granite, faces as young as the day they served. Vets of the “Greatest Generation” visited the WWII Memorial: its two 43-foot tall pavilions proclaimed American victory on the Atlantic and Pacific fronts—on land, at sea, and in the air. And all the while, reverberating through DC was the sound of Rolling Thunder’s 6,000 motorcyclists; here to remember the M.I.A.s and POW’s, and this year, to protest care in VA hospitals.

Across the bridge lies Arlington National Cemetery and adjacent to it stands the Marine Corps Memorial, aka the Iwo Jima Memorial, with its iconic image of Marines raising the American flag. Inscribed at its base is Admiral Nimitz’s tribute to the men who fought there:   "Uncommon Valor Was A Common Virtue."

Iwo Jima was one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific Theater, and a young rabbi from New York, Lieutenant Roland Bertram Gittelsohn, was the only Jewish Navy chaplain to land there with the Fifth Division. Charged with ministering to Jewish (approximately 1,500) and Gentile (approximately 70,000) troops, he leapt from foxhole to foxhole in the heat of battle, earning three ribbons for bravery. After five torturous weeks, and 26,000 Marine casualties, the fighting ended.

There was to be a non-denominational ceremony to dedicate the Marine Cemetery. Division Chaplain Warren Cuthriell, a Protestant minister, asked Rabbi Gittelsohn to deliver the memorial sermon. Chaplin Cuthriell wanted all the fallen Marines, black and white, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish honored in a single ceremony.  That was not to be. The majority of Christian chaplains objected to having a rabbi preach over predominantly Christian graves and threatened to boycott the ceremony.  The Catholic Chaplains could not participate with non-Catholics, be they Jewish or Christian. 

Not wanting the service boycotted, and not wanting to tarnish Chaplain Cuthriell’s reputation, Rabbi Gittelsohn declined the invitation. So, instead of one unifying ceremony, there were three. Even in death, there was division.

Rabbi Gittelsohn gave the address that he had written for the non-denominational service to a gathering of Jewish servicemen.  Two Protestant ministers attended.  They were so moved by Rabbi Gittelsohn’s words, that they asked for the onionskin copy of the original speech that they reproduced in the thousands and gave to the troops.  Many of these Marines, in turn, mailed the sermon home, where it was picked up by the wire services and subsequently read and heard around the world.  It has been said that this poignant speech is second only to Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, as a eulogy to the fallen. 

I have chosen several of the most moving passages to share with you and hope that you will find time to read the complete address at some later date.  Here are the words of 35-year-old Rabbi Ronald Bertram Gittelsohn, spoken at Iwo Jima.

 “THIS IS PERHAPS THE GRIMMEST, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D-Day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the sides with us, as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island. Men who fought with us and feared with us. Somewhere in this plot of ground there may lie the individual who could have discovered the cure for cancer. Under one of these Christian crosses, or beneath a Jewish Star of David, there may rest now an individual who was destined to be a great prophet to find the way, perhaps, for all to live in plenty, with poverty and hardship for none. Now they lie here silently in this sacred soil, and we gather to consecrate this earth in their memory.

Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors’ generations ago helped in her founding. And other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and Whites, rich men and poor, together. Here are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.

Whosoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or who thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this then, as our solemn sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: To the right of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of White men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price...

We here solemnly swear this shall not be in vain. Out of this and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere.”

I wish these words were carved on a monument in Washington or be found at every memorial that honors military service.  I wish it could be posted at the gates of every U.S. military cemetery. Rabbi Gittelsohn’s words should be part of every civics class, and memorized by generations along with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” speech, and perhaps, be part of the swearing in of each new American Citizen.

Sometimes, we just need to be reminded of what the sacrifice was for.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Rose