Remembering our fallen heroes
THE New South Wales Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen & Women (NAJEX) held its communal wreath laying and Remembrance Day service on Sunday, which included an address from Major General Jeffrey Rosenfeld.
Among a sizeable list of appointments and accolades, Rosenfeld is Surgeon General Defence Health Reserves, Professor and Head of the Division of Clinical Services and Department of Surgery at Monash University, and Professor and Director of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Alfred Hospital.
He joined the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in 1984 and has had a wide variety of postings in the three decades since, from Rwanda, to East Timor, to Bougainville.
“I have experienced genocide, war, and its aftermath. I have experienced the deepest poverty. I understand hatred, inequality, and the religious intolerances that breed war and genocide,” he told the crowd at the Sydney Jewish Museum (SJM).
“I have provided medical aid to our military personnel, to innocent civilians, and even to our enemies … I have operated on the brains of soldiers with horrendous injuries following bomb blasts. I have been shot at and bombed on these operations,” he continued.
Rosenfeld spoke about visiting the grave sites of fallen Australian soldiers in Myanmar recently, and closer to home, he recalled young reservist Private Gregory Sher, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2009.
“Sometimes we lose those who are amongst our finest and most courageous. They are all in our thoughts, and the thoughts of a grateful nation,” Rosenfeld said.
As for why he is so devoted to this work: “Because I love this country. I abhor tyranny, enslavement, injustice, criminality and terrorism. I realise how fortunate we are to live in this great land. It is the greatest privilege and honour for me to look after our men and women in uniform.”
Sunday’s ceremony also featured the presentation from NAJEX to the SJM of medals, correspondence and documents belonging to a deceased Jewish soldier, acquired earlier this year at auction.
Born in Sydney, Captain John Harris Samuels became a doctor. In October 1942, aged 28, he was killed by a German shell while operating on a soldier during the Second Battle of El Alamein. “This story was at risk of being lost,” noted Shannon Biederman, curator at the SJM.
The ceremony also included a Colour Party made up of the 3rd Rose Bay (Judean) Scout Group, an address from Chaplain to the Royal Australian Air Force Rabbi Yossi Friedman, and psalms and prayers.
PHOEBE ROTH
The New South Wales Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen & Women’s Remembrance Day service. Photo: Noel Kessel
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