Air Force

Lt. General, U.S. Air Force

Lt. General Schwartz, a 1973 graduate of the Air Force Academy, is Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C.  In that role, he assists the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by supervising, coordinating and providing support for and administering the work of the Joint Staff.  He also functions as the Chairman’s point of contact for the National Defense University, and with the Secretary of Defence and other U.S. Government agencies.

General Schwartz is a command pilot with more than 4200 flying hours in a variety of aircraft.  He participated as a crewmember in the 1975 airlift evacuation of Saigon and, in 1991, served as Chief of Staff of the Joint OPerations Task Force for Northern Iraq in operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.  In 1997, he led the Joint Task Force that prepared for the noncombatant evacuation of U.S. citizens in Cambodia.

When the JCC (Jewish Community Centers) Armed Forces & Veterans Committe presented its Military Leadership Award to air force Lt. General Norton Schwartz in 2004, the general said he was “Proud to be identified as a Jewish as well as an American military leader.”

2nd Lt., U.S. Army Air Corps

In October 1942, at the age of 19, Paul Canin enlisted in the Army Air Corps and attended basic training at Randolph Field in San Antonio, Texas.  At his gunnery school, Canin learned how to shoot .50 caliber machine guns from various types of gun turrets.  Following his gunnery training he attended tech school at Ellington Field in Houston and navigation school in Austin.  After this training he received his wings and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant.  Lt Canin was later selected for additional training as a radar navigator at Langley Field, Virginia where he honed his flight crew skills before shipping off to Europe.

Lt Canin started his combat tour at Cerignola Airfield, Italy as a radar navigator in the 485th Bomb Group - 828th Bomb Squadron - 15th Air Force.

In the bombing missions over Europe, a “lead” plane, with the most experienced crew, would be flanked on each side by equally experienced “deputy lead” planes.  These three planes were responsible for leading an entire armada of bombers to their specific target and determining when they would drop their bombs.  As a radar navigator, Canin would fly with one of the lead planes and play a major role in the missions.

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First Lieutenant, U.S. Air Force

Lt Dan Minkow is a logistics readiness officer and currently serves as the flight commander for his unit’s Management and Systems Flight.  He has served at his current duty station at Travis Air Force Base in California for 2 1/2 years.  Service in the Air Force is a family tradition for the Minkows.  Both of his parents are retired Air Force officers.

His other job in the Air Force (which he proudly declares is his most important) is serving as the Jewish lay leader on base.  As the lay leader, he assists other Jewish airmen with their religious needs.  He leads Friday night Shabbat services, “Lunch’n learns” and even planned a Travis Sukkah Project.

One of Lt Minkow’s proudest moments as the lay leader at Travis is when he and reserve Chaplain Jon Sommer were asked to be keynote speakers for the Holocaust Center of Northern California.

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Technical Sergeant, U.S. Air Force

Mikhail Ekshtut was born in Kiev, Ukraine. In 1976, when he was 5, his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Seattle. He grew up mostly nonobservant, but maintained some connection to Judaism during the summers when he would attend a Chabad day camp.

As a child, I always wanted to serve my country. By nature I was machmir (strict) and never did anything in a half-hearted way, so I decided that I would join the best fighting force in the world, the U.S. Marine Corps.  My parents, who escaped the USSR to keep me from having to serve in the Soviet military, thought I was crazy. On Feb. 8, 1989, four days after my 18th birthday, I shipped off to Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego.

TSgt. Ekshtut went on to serve overseas in Okinawa, Korea, the Philippines and Bangladesh. During the first Gulf War, he was deployed for seven months on a Navy ship in the Middle East. That winter, he lit Chanukah candles in the middle of the Persian Gulf.

After four years of active duty, he continued to serve in the Marine Reserves. After graduating college as a civil engineer, he spent a few months in Israel where he decided he needed to learn more about what it means to be a Jew.

After several years of learning, I was going to synagogue every Shabbat, putting on tefillin every morning and trying to keep kosher. The only time I could not keep the Sabbath was when I was doing my monthly weekend duty in the Reserves. It was not that I wasnt allowed on the contrary, the more observant I became, the more supportive everyone was. I lit candles and made “Kiddush” in the barracks on Friday night, and my friends would even do the “labors” that were prohibited for me on the Sabbath. But in the Reserves, Saturday is the main training day. 

It was time for me to make a decision: leave my beloved Marine Corps or stay in the Marines and not be so machmir one weekend a month. After nearly 13 years of service, I left the military to keep Shabbat.

But it wasn’t long before he came back…

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Sergeant, U.S. Air Force
from Sgt. Levitow’s Medal of Honor citation:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his own life above and beyond the call of duty.  Sergeant John L. Levitow (then Airman First Class), U.S. Air Force, distinguished himself by exceptional heroism on 24 February, 1969, while assigned as a loadmaster aboard a AC-47 aircraft flying a night mission.  On that date, Sgt. Levitow’s aircraft was struck by a hostile mortar round.  The resulting explosion ripped a hole through the wing and fragments mad over 3,500 holes in the fuselage.  All occupants of the cargo compartment were helplessly slammed against the floor and fuselage.  The explosion tore an activated flare from the grasp of a crewmember, who had been launching flares to provide illumination for Army ground troops engaged in combat.

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