Jerry Benjamin
Jerry Benjamin was born in 1934 in Memel, Lithuania, a city once part of East Prussia and among the first places seized by the Nazis. Recognizing the danger to Jews, his family left in 1937 and sailed to New York City aboard the Queen Mary, joining his grandparents who had arrived a year earlier. His grandfather had once farmed in New Jersey before returning to Europe and later held properties there. Jerry grew up in Brooklyn and then on Manhattan's Upper West Side, with Central Park as his playground. He attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and went on to Brooklyn College, where he majored in psychology and joined the Air Force ROTC program.
After graduating and marrying his first wife, Naomi, Jerry entered the Air Force, where he served three years. He trained as a navigator and electronic warfare officer, with assignments that took him to Lackland, Ellington, and Keesler Air Force Bases before he was stationed in Japan with the 11th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron. Flying the RB-66 jet, he carried out reconnaissance missions off the coasts of Russia, Vietnam, Korea, and through the Taiwan Straits, including tense encounters with Soviet MiGs and a harrowing night when his aircraft lost an engine over cold seas. After leaving the service, he worked briefly at Macy's before finding a long career in the wholesale women's apparel industry.
Seeking a better place to raise a family than New York, Jerry and Naomi moved to Dallas over the Fourth of July weekend in 1963, and he remained there ever after. He and Naomi had three sons, and after her death he was widowed for five years before marrying Diane, a rabbi's widow with four sons of her own, giving them seven sons and twelve grandchildren between them. Jerry became active in the Dallas Jewish community, sending his son to the newly founded day school, helping start a Cub Scout pack for Jewish children, and later serving on his synagogue board and overseeing its cemeteries. He became deeply involved in the Jewish War Veterans, serving as post commander three times, as department commander, and on national committees.
Full Transcript
Mar Benjamin 1934 born in mammal Lithuania that's right tell me what was it like growing up and moving to the United States we left Lithuania because of what was coming and that was the Holocaust and as a Jew in Lithuania especially in maymo which was originally part of East Prussia was one of the first places that the Nazis took over so we left in 37 to New York City where my grandparents had gotten to uh the year before we had a nice trip over there I mean we went on to Queen Mary and uh oh wow it was uh whatever I can remember about it
the only thing I remember the elevators believe it or not and grew up in uh Brooklyn Brooklyn was the first place we lived and I lived there till 87 and then we moved into Manhattan and that's where I lived until I finished college and uh went into service and eventually came back and then left so uh so tell me about your grandparents when they moved to New York City do you recall what they did at for a living I don't ever remember my grandfather working and yet he always had money he had come over in uh the 20s and had a farm in New Jersey
MH and didn't like it here wow and went back to Europe so I don't know I know in Europe he had properties uh there were settlements made by the Russian government later on because they confiscated these properties after the war but he uh he was retired he was retired but we always live in close proximity so uh both my grandfather and grandmother were very close to me that's great um as a young child so as a young child in New York City tell me about what it was like growing up in New York City oh it was very nice we lived uh in a great
spot on the Upper West Side Manhattan mhm Central Park was my playground and a lot of people when I think of you grow up in New York City and the concrete and all that they think it's a hardship situation when actually Central Park was Disney World before it was the Disney World you know see what I mean yeah uh we play in the park we found caves that people never knew about existed you know uh we even skated on the lake if it froze over once in a while uh it was a we played on the street you know Street games well what do you
remember about school high school what do you remember about going to high school well I went to a very special High School I I peaked early mentally and uh I went to the Bronx High School of Science which is that time certainly was the most prestigious High School in the city public school uh that high school right now I think has over eight Nobel Prize winners who attended it wow and uh you had to be tested for it and you went to school with people of that type you know so uh it was at that time was a predominantly Jewish high school so where did
you uh it's in college uh stayed in the city and went to Brooklyn College which is part of the city college system and here again it was a very fine liberal arts College small school 7,000 and uh what exactly did you study well that was a problem because I really didn't know what to study and I wasn't a great student I felt I needed college and at the time Korean draft was on and I couldn't see myself being drafted so by going to college I delayed that and they had an Air Force Roc program and that appealed to me appealed to me a lot and
that ended up being my motivation I finally major in Psychology but I got my commission in the Air Force when I graduated and I was thinking seriously of making it a career and uh I did well in school and the program and uh went on and when I graduated U Got Married a month later and month after that went in the service uh let's talk about how you met your uh wife yeah uh Naomi that was her name uh she was 2 years behind me in school so I met her about a year and a half before I graduated and uh we got married married
about a month after I graduated you know and did you have any children uh yeah my three boys are with my first wife I have three sons okay now let's talk about when you went off to the Air Force tell me about that whole experience what you do what was your missions where you stationed well it was a great experience totally uh as a air force uh RC lieutenant everybody goes to Lackland the Air Force Base which is in San Antonio for like four weeks a month of in processing orientation uh from there I became a navigator I went to navigation school at Ellington Air
Force Base which was just south of Houston so great you're in the city and you're had all the amenities of being in a big City and that was a 13-month program then that was a long school so I got my navigator Wings there from there the next assignment was to kler Air Force Base in buy Mississippi to go to electronic warfare school so that was 6 months 7 months and then finally after casler and that's where our first child was born in Mississippi went to Japan to yakota Air Force Base and I was in the 11 tactical reconnaissance Squadron we flew a two engine jet
called the RB 66 was a twin engine Jet top speed .9 Mark a ceiling of maybe 48 49,000 ft and was was an excellent reconnaissance aircraft and it was used for different Recon missions weather photo and I was in the electronic version and uh that was exciting work for quote peace time because we flew off of the uh coast of Russia in the Far East we flew off of Vietnam before there was an act of Vietnam uh we still flew Korea even though that conflict was theoretically over with and in 1958 there was a very serious uh conflict going on that a lot of people
in the states didn't realize how strongly we were committed to backing Shanghai Sheek and the Nationalist Chinese versus the communist Mainland and the Communists were threatening to invade some of the Nationalist possessions so we would fly Recon through the Straits of Formosa well Straits of Formosa are the Straits of Taiwan that was called for M earlier in and if they were going to invade we were committed to shankai shk in the defense of uh that territory so as I say that was exciting there were couple little hazardous things that came up but in general uh you felt like you were doing something worthwhile you know
was there any scary event off the coast of Formosa yeah and then there was one off of vat ofast also International laws which require an aircraft uh fly so many miles off the coast of a foreign country but when we would fly and Patrol Russia in the Pacific and vasu the big city there they would send up a couple of migs to kind of give you an escort and they would wait for you to make a wrong move and if you penetrated that 12 M area they could shoot you down but when it happened to me for the first time and I could look out
and he was so close I could see the Russian pilot course they had oxygen his helmet on but I could wave at him you know and I did wave I never know how I would react to an exciting situation I never knew if I would freeze up or I you know I tend to go hyper I think with exhilaration when that happens because it happened to me again in when we flew through Taiwan Straits and what happened there and that was like 2 3:00 a.m. in the morning you have a mission where you're working for a certain period of time and we were almost through when our pilot announced we have two engine jet that a right engine was creating a problem and he was forced he was shutting it down he said but we can go on the one engine as long as there are no other problems but go through your safety you know measures which means you're in an injection seat to get out of the airplane and you know you kick your feet into the holds your ankles and you have a visor you're supposed to pull down and then
You Yank the seat so I'm going through this mentally you know now keep in mind this is uh the end of January the water is cold down there and the pilot says as soon as we're through with our mission I'll go Mayday I don't want to break radio silence until we're through with the mission by going Mayday he creates an effect that we're always monitored by Ground Control radar so if you're in a Mayday SOS situation you flip the switch I guess and when the signal bounces off of you it's coded SOS and then he talks to you anyway but within no time they were
two they called sa 16s uh two Rescue Planes actually they can even land in the water but there was moonlight so you could see them within maybe 15 minutes these planes showed up and what they were there for was if you went down they would drop big rafts cuz we had little rafts and uh tough Seas it might be tough to just be in a little raft whereas if they were and they drop a real big one you chances of surviving a lot stronger but fortunately fortunately nothing happened the one engine work you know and we landed at Clark in the Philippines and uh we're
there for 4 weeks till they figured out what to do with the Eng they discovered that had he tried to restart it would have blown up and maybe taking a wing with it so he did the right thing you know by leaving it alone and we landed and it ended up where we had a uh a winter vacation the Philippines in February is beautiful best time of a year to go I had to make the decision then whether to stay or not you know and I looked back at it and I said maybe I should have stayed you know well how long were you in
the service three years three years and then uh what did you do after that when I got home I had one child I didn't know what I was going to do but I had saved money we had saved money so we didn't rush into it but to find affordable living we went to Brooklyn went to Brooklyn to live rather Manhattan live near my in-laws and I answered a that the New York Times and it said officer vets preferred so I was come on here I'm the first lieutenant you know and uh it was from Macy's New York and I never thought of retailing is a
career but people told me if you're interested in retailing getting into the Macy's program was like say getting in a har at a few talking universities and by the time they threw testing you and interviewing they offered me a job so I took it long hours very little pay and very political too so I was there for about a year and a half and I had an incident with someone there who gave me my quote Fitness report and I was on the verge of being fired when one of the other people there wanted to give me a promotion cuz he liked what I had done
done so I was ready to stay and then budget created a problem so anyway they let me resign you know with Severance and I was fortunate at that time a job became available in the wholesale women's industry which of course in New York's a big business so I went to work uh for a lady's manufacturer and uh directly indirectly I stayed with that company from 60 to 75 and in 75 hooked up with a California company and I stayed with them to uh 2001 uh the good thing about it is that both my wife and I realiz we could live anywhere based on our military
service you know they're good people wherever you go and we realized there would be better and easier places to raise family than New York city so we kept our eyes open you know for that opportunity and that came along in uh 1963 and we moved to Dallas that 4th of July weekend and I've been here ever since let's talk about how you met Diane well let me just say I was married with my first wife for 25 years uh she passed away I was single for 5 years I thought I'd never be able to replace somebody like I was at a wedding and a friend
of mine who had also been widowed had just gotten married and introduced me to his new wife so we talked and talked and uh she said before we left that evening she said would you mind if I called you with a list of women who I think would love to meet you I said well it's been at a singles club you know that's great so uh yeah Rebecca greenblat thany greenblat uh called me that Monday morning with a list and Diane was the only one on the list who I knew who she was Etc so I put her on the bottom of the list and
over uh I don't know how long it took me to go through the other five names on the list I met them spoke with them semi dat and uh she calls me back Becky calls me back and says are you ready for another list I said yeah right you called everyone I I can't lie to people you know I said well everybody but I says he got a call it I said all right all right I'll call it then I'll call you for the west but see I knew I knew who she was beautiful gorgeous a little on the tall side but that never that
never bothered me though but she had four Sons I had three and she'd been married to a rabbi now I'm proud of my Judaism but I'm not that observant so I didn't know how that would work out so I decided all right I'll call her on the Sabbath she's probably in synagogue and I can tell Becky I called and get a new list right she answered phone and we went out to uh uh gosh that restaurant is closed now on Walnut and Greenville but anyway we had supper there and they closed the place on us you know and that was that and then I'd say
within the year we were married and we're now married 27 years so you have a total of seven sons three of your own and four step terrific and then you said 12 grandchildren yeah so what advice would you want to leave with your grandchildren uh honestly sense of Duty doing the right thing rather than the easy thing what I've told them as adults and I still believe it is that the important thing in their lives is their relationship with their spouses they live with their spouses and their children it's a full-time thing once they're gone from my home you know it's once in a while
so I know that parents can get in the way you know of a happy marriage at times and they're all good kids they're all good kids and uh I think they live productive lives tell me about your involvement in the Jewish community in New York I wasn't very other than attending a synagogue that my parents belonged to New York being Jewish is a very easy thing you know in all places Jewish you move to Dallas or you go to a buuy or you go to a San Anton you're definitely a minority and the association to me was important in retaining your identity and and growing
with it so when we moved here we heard that they had started a uh a day school Parochial School Jewish bokia school a keep Academy and uh we sent our child there and that's a keepit trivia Andy Benjamin was the first graduate ever of that school and became involved they needed young parents on the board there so I got involved there we wanted a uh little scouting program for the Jewish kids that wouldn't conflict with keeping Sabbath so I was along a couple of the other parents uh I started a Cub Scout Pack for those kids and then joined my sinagogue but I traveled a
lot my my career I was sales rep sales manager did a lot of traveling went to a lot of places weekends so I couldn't really belong to anything and feel as if I'm doing something not that I didn't want to but uh I would say when I retired uh I got on the board of directors of my synagogue I volunteered to become the champ of the cemeteries there so I very involved in that and then my wife enlisted me the Jewish War veterans to get me out of the house I've served as our post commander on three occasions I've been the department Commander I'm on
the national executive committee and uh I've just been promoted into the Coordinating Committee of the National Organization which is big step I'm sorry I didn't get involved in it earlier I'd have higher aspirations but uh it's something that I feel is an extremely worthwhile organization it's the oldest veterans organization in the country older than the legion older than the BFW started in 1895 by uh Civil War veterans to fight the uh well to fight anti-semitism the assertion made by anti-semites that Jews did not fight for country and Jews have been in every war in this country since the since Peter thyon days so uh it's
a good program I think Dallas is a great community and it's a great place to live and I think there are a lot of people in our community who are involved in the community right very different from New York right yeah yeah definitely thank you for sharing all of your all of your stories good thanks you did great thanks for having me