Aron Heller is an American-Israeli journalist, author, and broadcaster. Born in Boston, he was a child when his Canadian parents immigrated to Israel. He is an alumnus of Tel Aviv University and Columbia University in New York. His journalism career began in Israel at Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. He then spent 20 years as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, working out of Jerusalem.
Heller’s new book, Zaidy’s Band: The Untold Stories of a Jewish Band of Brothers in World War II, brings into the public arena the little-publicized history of the contribution in World War II of the Canadian Armed Forces in general, its Jewish components in particular, and how their service was finally recognized by Israel.
The Chaim Herzog Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II is located in Latrun, roughly halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The museum commemorates the 1.5 million Jews who fought in Allied, partisan, and resistance forces during World War II. Heller played a key role in ensuring that the contribution of the Jews who served in the Canadian Armed Forces is fully represented.
Early on in Zaidy’s Band, Heller recounts the personal reasons behind his quest to unearth the stories of Canadian combatants in WW II. The whole enterprise stemmed from the reluctance of his grandfather, Mickey Heller (“Zaidy” to Aron), to talk about his wartime experiences. The family knew he had spent two years in Europe as a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) – he posed in uniform for his 1944 wedding photographs – but they all learned that any probing into the subject was strictly taboo. Mickey never spoke of it and always clammed up when questioned.
Heller, a journalist, was particularly keen to discover the facts and write about them, but he would always stop short when Zaidy brushed the subject aside. He felt obligated to respect his grandfather’s privacy.
In 2011, with Zaidy approaching his 90th birthday, Heller writes that he felt he “deserved another chance to tell his story and I, as his devoted, World War II-obsessed, journalist grandson, was just the one to nudge him there.”
The truth is that Heller had long harbored suspicions that there was “a deep, dark secret to uncover.” He had tried on many occasions to extract information from his grandfather, although nothing Zaidy had ever said supported his suspicions.
It was an uncharacteristic email from Zaidy that set Heller off on his decade-long journey of uncovering the individual stories of Jewish Canadian fighters in WW II.
Uncovering the stories of Jewish Canadians who fought in World War II
On November 11, 2011, Canadian Remembrance Day, Zaidy attended the dedication of a war memorial by the Toronto branch of the Jewish War Veterans of Canada. The front of the monument featured the names of “the Jewish boys who died” in WW II. On the back were listed the names of all who came back and signed up to be included. Zaidy searched for the name of a particularly close friend of his on that list but could not find it. Knowing that his friend had gone to Israel in 1948, during the War of Independence, he emailed Heller asking if he could discover what had happened to him.
That was the trigger for the quest that was to occupy much of Heller’s time in the next 10 years and more – a quest that unearthed a succession of thrilling, amazing, sometimes astonishing wartime adventures experienced by Jewish Canadian fighting men, many of whom had met Zaidy when he was serving in the RCAF.
When, woefully short of military equipment and fighters, the newborn State of Israel was attacked in 1948 by the forces of five Arab nations, many Canadian ex-servicemen answered the call. Heller traces the story of several, including that of Zaidy’s close friend, who was killed in 1948, aged 27, while flying a decrepit Dakota aircraft.
Heller finds a resonance between the contribution Jewish Canadian servicemen made to the fight against Nazism and the way young Israeli men and women fought recently to defend their country and its people against a new iteration of the Holocaust.
Throughout the course of his research, all of which is set out meticulously in the 10 pages of notes appended to the text, Heller made several more attempts to get Zaidy to open up, even a trifle, about his wartime experiences. Every effort was, as usual, more or less fruitless.
As the years passed, and Zaidy’s excellent health began to deteriorate (he contracted COVID in his late 90s), Heller began to lose his inhibitions. On November 3, 2021, Zaidy reached his 100th birthday, which he celebrated in Toronto with much of his large family around him.
Then, at last, came the breakthrough.
For several years, Scott Masters, a history teacher in Toronto, had been building a vast database of the testimonies of hundreds of World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors. Together with his students, Masters digitized their photos, mementos, and video interviews to create an impressive collection of personalized historical documents.
In conducting his research, Masters discovered, from an article that Heller had published, a connection between his latest subject, Ralph Goldman, and Zaidy. Goldman had been a great pal of Zaidy’s during the war and actually attended his 100th birthday party. Masters contacted Zaidy. With Heller acting as matchmaker, Zaidy displayed a newfound openness and agreed to participate in the research project. Perhaps it was reaching his centenary that induced a change of heart.
“They met in May 2022,” writes Heller, “and the result, I soon discovered from video clips Masters shared with me, was the most candid account I believe Zaidy had ever given about his life and service.”
Zaidy sat before the camera, accessed his memories, and shared them for posterity. He did not appear to hold anything back.
In one sense, what emerged was underwhelming. There was no dark secret, nor any thrilling but hidden exploits. Zaidy was your common or garden variety Canadian serviceman, who enlisted in March 1941, did his duty, followed orders, grumbled at the inconveniences of service life, was thankful to be demobilized, and did not feel the call to continue his service life in Israel.
After Zaidy’s death later that year, at age 100, Heller discovered some heartfelt and moving love letters that his grandfather, who had been posted to England in 1942, had written to his sweetheart, Eunice, whom he later married.
“The great reveal,” writes Heller, “was ultimately simple and poignant: Mickey Heller was one of millions who wanted out of World War II and to return to his beloved.”
The sweep of Heller’s story is made all the more vivid by his inclusion of more than 50 photographs to illustrate his text.
Zaidy’s Band is a wonderful read. Heller gives us twin narratives, inextricably linked – his persistent search for a factual account of his grandfather’s service in WW II, and, in the course of his search, the unveiling of the long-neglected story of Canada’s service men and women, and especially of the Jewish contribution. In unearthing that, he also brings to light some truly amazing and heartwarming stories of adventure, courage, endurance, and heroism.
This is a story that needed to be told, and Aron Heller more than does it justice.
Follow the writer at www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com
- ZAIDY’S BAND: THE UNTOLD STORIES OF A JEWISH BAND OF BROTHERSIN WORLD WAR II
- By Aron Heller
- New Jewish Press
- 326 pages; $28