Yehuda Lev, a journalist and veteran of World War II and Israel’s War of Independence who established a European underground route to smuggle Holocaust survivors to Palestine, has died.Lev died August 3 in Providence, Rhode Island, after a prolonged illness. He was 86.
MY E-PAL DR. ALEX GROBMAN WAS HIS FRIEND AND SENT ME THIS COLUMN ON YEHUDA LEV:
The Frankfurt Jewish GI Council
Alex Grobman, Ph.D.
From the Allied invasion of Europe in June 1944 until the early 1950′s, the surviving remnant of European Jewry received aid from various sources. The American Army, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the International Relief Organization (IRO) and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) provided the majority of the assistance to these Displaced Persons (DPs) during this period. The Vaad Hatzala, representing most American Orthodox Jews, helped in establishing yeshivas and kosher kitchens and providing religious texts and ritual items. The Vaad, the JDC, HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), aided Jews in emigrating to Palestine and the United States. Since there was an ongoing need for additional supplies, many American Jewish chaplains and American Jewish soldiers stationed in the American zones of occupation in Germany and Austria offered their assistance. Most of the Jewish GIs who helped the survivors did so as individuals or in small groups. Their activities were rarely publicized. The major exception was the Frankfurt Jewish GI Council that was established in June 1946.