Private Danny Goldfarb boarded the Higgins boat along with 35 other enlisted men and one Second Lieutenant. He knew, from the announcement made at morning formation, that this was the day. D-Day. They were headed for Normandy. Omaha Beach was the rumor. The sailor steering the boat had a drawing of the coast that had been made by a navy artist who had spent weeks in a small boat off the shore, sketching a landscape drawing that would help the sailors find the right landing spot.
In the distance he could hear the pounding of the naval bombardment that had begun the night before. Some of the men fingered rosaries, some mumbled prayers, some boarded with crossed fingers. Danny had been repeating the Shema for the past hour, the prayer he and other Orthodox Jews recite twice daily, but today was different. He could very well be sailing to his death, and he wanted to be prepared.
“Shema Yisroel, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echod,” Hear O Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One. It’s repetition comforted Danny, knowing that if he was to die he’d be dying a Jewish death. In the back of his mind was the thought what difference does that make, I’ll still be dead, but he pushed it out of his head.
Crossing the Channel the roar of the ships’ guns and the distant explosions and pounding of the shells was deafening; as they sailed past the ships, the relative noise shifted, but was still deafening until they reached the shore, when suddenly the silence was deafening. A few minutes later, more rounds, with shells flying over their heads, some hitting German gun implacements on the high ground above the beach, others landing further inland.
The men had been crouching behind the high front of the boat. When it fell they waded through hip deep water and rushed onto the beach, running in a crouch to avoid German fire, some killed before they even reached the shore. Those who made it dove head first to the sand and crawled forward, rifles in the crooks of their elbows, praying for the continuation of protective fire from the ships’ protective fire and from that of his fellow GIs, but always moving forward, always toward a possible death. When the man next to Danny collapsed, blood spurting from his head wound, Danny’s impulse was to stop to help, but he continued forward, the way he’d been trained.
Somehow, he was certain with God’s help, Danny crossed the beach and reached the low rise, finding temporary shelter in front of the concrete wall of a German bunker. His training kicked in while his mind was still reciting the Shema. He pulled the pin of a grenade, counted, rose to his knees, tossed it through the opening in the bunker and fell to the ground covering his head.
Screams from the bunker. An explosion. Silence. And the horror of having killed. Why was this so different than seeing his fellow Gis killed coming ashore? It felt different but he had no time to ponder it. It was one down and he looked around, saw where he was needed and moved to the next bunker.
By the day’s end they were at a point at which they could rest, though none slept. Re-grouping was more important. Danny’s platoon had begun the day with a full complement of three squads of 12 men each, plus a Second Lieutenant. Ten men were lost, another four wounded, though not badly enough to require evacuation.
The re-grouping consolidated the men into two squads of thirteen men, including two walking wounded in each squad. The new platoons were organized with a sergeant, an assistant squad leader, a machine gunner and his assistant and nine riflemen. With the new grouping, following the losses, several men received battlefield promotions, including Danny’s to corporal. In his new role Danny led a contingent of four other riflemen.
Once the final clean-up of German resistance ended, a week later, Danny realized that he, giving God His due credit for helping, had survived and that the next obstacle was to continue, as he had promised his father, to keep kosher throughout the war.
***
The first problem had occurred before Danny even enlisted. When he announced at Shabbos dinner that he was enlisting, his father took him to the rabbi to convince him to stay out of it. The rabbi, though, sided with Danny and encouraged him to do his duty.
“Irving, let the boy go. He’s doing his duty. He’ll be fine.”
“But, rabbi,” Danny asked, “can I eat K-rations?”
The rabbi had never considered this since he didn’t really know what K-rations were, so he put off answering until he could do some research. He asked other Orthodox rabbis he knew, a couple of the crazy Hassids and even one of the epikoros Reform rabbis, though he would never have taken his word alone. Two days later Danny and his father returned.
“I’m sorry, Danny, but K-rations are a problem. If the box contains chicken, it’s a problem since they won’t have been kosher slaughtered but we can maybe make an exception since it’s exigent circumstances. If there are candy bars we can make an exception, though you should be careful that the candy bar might contain milk, so don’t eat it with the chicken. Crackers are fine. Ham, I don’t have to tell you about.
“But there’s something they call Spam, and it’s tricky. You’ll have to find a way around it.”
“What is it,” Danny asked. He’d never heard of Spam.
“Nobody really knows,” the rabbi answered, “but we need to be safe. It might include ham, by the name, maybe not. We must, as you have learned, build a fence around Torah, so no Spam!”
Danny knew he would find a way to both keep kosher and nourished. He’d wanted to be a soldier since the 1930’s, when his friend Michael’s older brother Sammy fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Sammy’s volunteering wasn’t very popular with their congregation, which tended toward the conservative. “Damned Commie,” Danny remembered his father muttering, the only time he’d heard the old man swear.
But among the kids, Sammy was a hero. The boys all wanted to be Sammy and the girls all wanted to date Sammy, so they knew they would all go fight if the war continued for another six years, when they’d turn 18.
That war only lasted until 1939 but Sammy didn’t last as long. He was killed in action in 1937 and Danny and Michael swore again that they would live a life honoring their local hero. And when, in 1943, Danny turned 18 the first thing he announced was that he would fight for his country.
***
So Danny made do. He hadn’t had the problem before as this was his first experience in combat. In basic training he ate in the mess hall, carefully avoiding any questionable meat (most of which, even if safely kosher, was questionable for other reasons). From basic he went to England, spending several months at a base just south of London and visiting the city as often as he could.
England was at war, but it was a not-at-war type of situation, for the GI’s if not for the Brits. Danny and his fellow soldiers trained daily, some days by daylight, some at night, occasionally both. But there was plenty of time off. He was even able to get into London on several occasions on Friday, giving him a chance to attend services and have Shabbos dinner with a family who had befriended him.
And in London. You wouldn’t think of a New Yorker as provincial, but Danny was an Orthodox Jewish New Yorker, not a walled-in Hassid who only knew life in the shtetl of Brooklyn, but he had still not had what one could call a free wheeling life. It’s one thing to sneak off on shabbos to see the Dodgers – in itself a form of religious observance – and yet another to prowl the haunts of the war-time London nightlife. Even the blitz hadn’t stopped Londoners from partying but nothing like they were doing now.
Keeping kosher in the field might be a problem for the future, but keeping chaste in London was another story entirely. And the girls weren’t even Jewish! I wonder if God will still give me credit for keeping kosher?
But in May word began spreading that something was up and the carefree life of soldiers stationed near London was coming to an end. The daily exercises increased in frequency, length and intensity, as did the growing excitement of finally doing his part, off-set by the growing dread of what was to come.
***
From June 6, 1944 onward he faced the reality of the rabbi’s restrictions on his war-time diet. Three times a day (when the fighting permitted) they would hand out boxes of K-rations. Each box contained some assortment of meat (tinned beef, chicken, pork or Spam), crackers, candy bars, soap and cigarettes, generally Old Gold, Camels or Lucky Strikes.
Danny was convinced that the beef and chicken were kosher. (If I really believe it, it must be true) but the pork was for sure a no-no. The Spam was one that Danny thought he might believe into kosher-ness, but the name, not to mention the rabbi’s admonition, stood in the way. Too close to ham, so out it went. I guess the rabbi was right.
As Danny thought through the contents – and potential contents – of his K-rations he realized that the war would probably last longer than he could survive on crackers and candy bars, even if he could count on their being his favorites, Baby Ruths. This led to yet another theological conundrum, one from Danny’s secular life. Why couldn’t they name a candy bar after Pee Wee Reese, or maybe Roy Campanella or some other Dodger? Why just that Yankee demon Babe Ruth?
That didn’t mean that Danny went hungry. He was popular enough within the squad that he could always trade his tref meat for chicken or beef or occasionally even a couple of candy bars to get him through to the next meal.
The hassles of eating kosher were diminished by the fact that there was plenty of action to distract Danny and, especially, the fact that they had the Germans on the run. From Omaha Beach they marched south, through Formigny, where there was resistance from the Germans, Aignerville, where there was less, Bricqueville, where there was a significant fight and eventually to St. Lo.
The ground attack began that day, with troops moving along small country roads, hidden by the hedgerows. Danny’s squad was part of a battalion ordered to avoid weapon-fire and rely solely on their bayonets to maintain the element of surprise. Danny and his men took a German guard post, killing three soldiers with bayonets. They weren’t the first Germans Danny had killed, but the first in hand-to-hand combat, an experience that would haunt him for years.
By the 19th St. Lo was in Allied hands but with over 3,000 GI’s killed including the sargeant of Danny’s platoon. This led to Danny’s second battlefield promotion. Sgt. Danny Goldfarb now led a squad of a dozen men as they marched victoriously into the town.
They were given several days to rest before moving out again, heading south. On the way to Mortain they had been marching for six hours when the lieutenant ordered them to halt, take a break and K-rations were distributed. Danny and his squad settled into the comfort of a small grove of trees and opened their boxes. Pork and beans.
As he stood up to find someone with whom to swap the lieutenant stopped him.
“Goldfarb, we’re planning on bivouacing in the town around the bend in the road. Take your men in and make sure it’s clean before the whole company goes in.”
Danny put his rations in his pockets, took his rifle and ammunition, and called his men to attention.
They set out in scouting formation: half the men on the left-hand side of the road and half on the right, all spaced safely apart and all with weapons at the ready, on full alert and with Danny in front.
The march was quiet until they rounded the last bend and entered the town, when a shot rang out from the bell tower and Danny fell back, feeling the pain of the bullet hitting his chest. He looked down and saw the sticky blood pouring from his chest and muttered the words of the shema with his final breath, or so he thought.
His men quickly neutralized the danger, a lone German sniper hidden in the bel tower and ran to Danny’s aid. One of the men touched Danny’s chest, sniffed at his hand, and broke out laughing. Pork and beans!
The German’s shot had hit the tin of K-rations in Danny’s breast pocket, bruising his chest but saving his life. And giving the company a good night’s entertainment.
The battle of Mortain lasted days that seemed like years, but the Allies finally cleared the Germans out and were given a week to rest. On the third day a reporter from Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper, entered the town asking “Who’s the soldier who was saved by his K-rations?”
Two days after that the article ran: GI SAVED BY HIS K-RATIONS: PORK AND BEANS TO THE RESCUE!
The Army hasn’t always been the best PR agency in the US, but even the densest Second Lieutenant could see the value of this. Papers from the East Coast to the West were sent press releases and most jumped at the story, though not always front page.
A wire reporter at one of the more liberal New York Jewish newspaper, The American Hebrew, saw the press release and took it to the editor.
“Saul, here’s a great story. A Jewish GI’s life was saved when the sniper’s bullet hit his tin of pork and beans!”
“Good story, kid, but our readers don’t want to hear about pork and beans. Cut it down to a tin of beans.”
And so the story began its evolution.
A week later a reporter at an Orthodox Yiddish paper in Brooklyn saw the Hebrew’s article and took it to his editor.
“Abe, those Commies at The Hebrew beat us to this, but it’s a good story.”
“Hmm,” the editor said, rubbing his beard. “It’s okay, our readers don’t read that rag.”
Truth be told, their readers mostly read their paper, and only theirs, because it was written in Yiddish, the only language they could read.
“But this is a problem. Our readers are kosher and they want a really Jewish story. Let’s take this to the group.”
The editor, his sub-editors, most of the paper’s reporters and Sarah, the editor’s secretary (and sister-in-law) met daily for a week pondering the problem. Is it proper to discuss trefe food in a Jewish paper? Will it lead readers astray? What would Rabbi Hillel say? What about Shamai? “Yossi,” the editor shouted to the assistant editor, “see what Rashi says!”
On the first day of meetings, Sarah raised an issue., “Has anyone asked the Lubavichers?” leaving the men in the room scratching their beards.
“How can the rebbe object? The soldier’s Jewish.” Chaim gave the publisher a side-wise look, indicating that he wasn’t fully convinced by his own argument.
“And he’s a good Jew. He’s keeping kosher. At war, even,” Abe chimed in, a nod of consent, if not agreement.
But then one of the reporters found the original Stars and Stripes article, and the reference to pork sent the meetings into the following week, missing that week’s edition but the war was still raging so the story was deemed fresh.
The research, as it often does, led them in circles, then back again and into yet another circle. “If we can’t find settled Jewish law on this, what’s the custom in the community?” the editor shouted at no one in particular.
Finally, after several weeks’ agony, the editors made a decision and the following week’s edition ran the headline: JEWISH GI SAVED BY CHICKEN SOUP!
Stephan Cotton is a researcher in the healthcare field who has spent years studying how people and their families deal with illness. He’s made several documentaries on the subject and is currently working on a novel.