The only son of Benjamin and Gittel, Mandel Math was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 22nd August 1926. His parents educated him in the tradition of the Torah and in a religious way of life.
He studied at the of Rav Chaim Berlin’s “Life of the Torah Yeshivah,” later completing technical high school and continuing his studies at “Bet-Hamidrash Herzlia” in New York; he also took private lessons from a number of rabbis. He began studies at Brooklyn College, but was compelled to interrupt them when he was mobilized into the U.S. Armed Forces. After completing his training he was sent to Europe in the Transport Corps, where he participated in the invasion and defeat of Germany. During his service he tried to observe a religious way of life as much as possible.
He met oppressed Jewish survivors of the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, but when ordered to clean up the ashes of incinerated Jews, he refused, as he was a Cohen (priest), and according to Jewish law Cohens are forbidden to handle the dead. He was threatened with a charge in the military court, but he stood his ground and eventually they respected his religious beliefs and let him be.
After being discharged, he returned to Brooklyn College and completed two semesters; however, he recalled the suffering of the Jewish people he had seen in Europe. The scenes had seared his soul, and he was disturbed by the inaction of the U.S. Government in opening the gates of Eretz Yisrael to the survivors, which would have helped rehabilitate and restore the spirits of these stricken refugees from the Holocaust.
Following the U.N. Resolution and the battles that followed it, he organized a group of Haganah supporters in the USA as a member of the “Mizrachi” Council, and later formed a group of young volunteers to leave for Eretz Yisrael and participate in the War of Independence.
He himself left the USA on 30th March 1948 and reported to the Givati Combat Brigade of the IDF. Mandel Math fell on 13th May in the Latrun-Hulda battle, the day before the declaration of the State of Israel.
His place of burial was not known. Instead of a gravestone, a memorial plaque was erected at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem.
In June 2005, the section of the Ministry of Defense responsible for identifying missing persons located the combined graves of Mandel Math, Shlomo Brenner and Jerome Kaplan, a Machal volunteer from the USA. Their bodies were re-interred at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in the section for slain soldiers of the 32nd Battalion.
Source: Translated from the Yizkor website by Joe Woolf
Jerusalem Post
Thursday, November 24, 2005
