From Palestine to Prosperity

By Leonard Sherman

In 1947, the United Nations in New York was debating whether a Jewish state should be re-established in Palestine. I was a young, former U.S. soldier who had served my country in the South Pacific during World War II. I heard an appeal for experienced former army men to go to Palestine to volunteer and assist the Haganah.

While waiting in New York for the freighter ship that would take me to Palestine, I went to the United Nations to hear the debates on the issue. It was there that I met Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first president. I introduced myself and told Mr. Weizmann that I was going to Palestine to help the Jews. Weizmann asked me if I was Jewish, and then looked up at all 6’ 5” of me and said that I was the tallest Jewish man he had ever met. Weizmann wished me luck and shalom.

I was outside of the Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem on November 29, 1947, when the United Nations declared Israel a state. I remember David Ben Gurion, who came out on the balcony of the building and announced in Hebrew that, after 2,000 years, once again we had a Jewish state and never again would there be a homeless or defenseless Jew.

In early 1947, I was sent to Haifa and told to go to a school building in the center of Haifa called the Technion. I was given a cot to sleep on, for which I paid nothing at that time. Since 1947, I’ve been repaying for the cot by my support of the university.

During the War of Independence, I was fighting alongside a small group of Israeli soldiers. The Jordanians were firing mortar shells from inside the walls of the old city of Jerusalem. I was hit in the head by a shrapnel fragment; unfortunately, my injury was serious enough that I had to return to Chicago for treatment.

In 1948, I resolved to support Israel and Jews anywhere who needed a helping hand. And I vowed to return to Israel. In June of 2007 I made my 87th trip there, with, as always, the Technion as the focus of my energies.

Today we have a university of dimensions that few in those early days could have imagined. The Technion was built and sustained by courageous people who believed that Israel must be a light unto the nations. Continuing to fulfill that prophecy is the mission of the ATS.”