Annual Veterans Day service and celebration honors service to America

by | Nov 5, 2018 | What’s Happening

Monday, November 12, 9:30 am | Sandler Family Campus

In addition to honoring veterans who have served in America’s armed forces, Tidewater Jewish Foundation’s 9th Annual Veterans Day service and celebration honors those who continue to do so with dedication and bravery.

This year’s speaker, Captain Marcus Friedman, was born into a military family just two weeks after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. After graduating from Norfolk’s Granby High School, Friedman received an NROTC scholarship, and was appointed to the Naval Academy. Selected to train for the Navy Nuclear Power Program in 1965, Friedman was later assigned to a ship that returned he and his wife Ronnie Lynn to Norfolk. Over the next 26 years, the Navy took the couple and their two children, Robert and Leslie Jo, to 17 towns and numerous Jewish communities across America…and around the world for Captain Friedman. Finally, as a Commanding Officer at the Naval Guided Missiles School at Dam Neck, the Navy brought the Friedman family back to Tidewater. Captain Friedman retired from the Navy in 1990, and began a career at ECPI University.

In addition to Captain Friedman, clergy from across the region will participate in the Veterans Day service. Recently departed veterans from the past year will be remembered and a Quilt of Valor, made by Ohef Sholom Temple’s Quilting Group will be presented to a veteran by Quilts of Valor.

Following the service, When the Smoke Clears: A Story of Brotherhood, Resilience, and Hope will be screened. Presented by the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Federation of Tidewater and the Virginia Festival of Jewish Film presented by Alma and Howard Laderberg and Patricia and Avraham Ashkenazi, the film shares the accounts of Gil, Ofer, and Elad—young war veterans whose unthinkable battle experiences leave them with life-altering mental and physical scars. Returning to society, their trauma disconnects them from all they once valued, turning their lives upside down. When all seems lost, a revolutionary idea gives them the hope, courage, tools, and community to survive, as well as to embrace their identities as heroes both on and off the battlefield.

The event is open to the community.

The opportunity to honor a veteran with a Jewish War Veterans monument paver is available before and during the event. For more information on the Jewish War Veterans monument, or to RSVP for the Veterans Day Service, contact Ann Swindell at aswindell@ujft.org or 965-6106.