Jerome Kaplan was born was born in Bayonne in New Jersey to August and Celia on 17th June, 1927. After completing his education at a technical high school, he served for some time as an assistant pharmacist mate in the US Navy during World War II.
Upon his discharge, he began a preparatory course for university entrance, but when he learned that Eretz Israel was struggling for survival and in need of young fighters, he abandoned the course and joined the Haganah.
Sailing from New York on 29th March 1948, he arrived in Haifa on 14th April 1948. From there he reached Tel Aviv and joined the Givati Brigade, and two weeks later he was in the battlefield.
He fell on the Latrun front on 13th May 1948, one day before the Declaration of the State, the very reason for which he had come as a fighting soldier.
His burial place was unknown. A remembrance stone was erected at the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
In June 2005, as a result of investigations by the IDF’s Department for Missing Persons, Jerome Kaplan’s body was discovered in a grave for the fallen of the 32nd Battalion in the Mount Herzl military cemetery, together with the bodies of Shlomo Berber and Mandel Math,
Source: Translated from the Yizkor website by Joe Woolf.
Jerusalem Post
Thursday, November 24, 2005
