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Murray S. Greenfield is an American-born Israeli writer and publisher.
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Murray S. Greenfield is an American-born Israeli writer and publisher.
In Israel, Greenfield began working in Haifa, seeking foreign investors to deposit capital in the Palestinian Economic Cooperation. In the early days of Israel’s existence, most philanthropists only thought of donating charity to poverty-stricken immigrants.
Greenfield later settled in Tel Aviv with his bride, Hana Lustigova. He was one of the founding members of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI), wherein he later served as executive director. Under his directorship, the AACI flourished; Greenfield pioneered and established loan funds, a mortgage company, and a variety of housing projects in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and kibbutzim.
Greenfield was always involved in public service, but the cause to which he dedicated the most time was rescuing Ethiopian Jewry; he was volunteer director for seven years of the American Association for Ethiopian Jewry (AAEJ).
In 1981, Greenfield founded Gefen Publishing House, later taken over by his sons, Dror and Ilan. After Dror’s death in 2003, Ilan continued to run the company. Today, Gefen publishes up to 35 titles a year and is the main English language publisher in Israel.
Hana and Murray Greenfield had three children. Hana Greenfield died in January 2014.
In 2010 his best-known book, which he spent more than a decade researching, The Jews' Secret Fleet, [1] was published, about the participation of North American sailors in Aliyah Bet . He was himself was just such a volunteer participant. The then-illegal vessels brought more than half of the Holocaust survivors from displaced persons camps to Palestine, over which the British gave up the British Mandate of Palestine, after which the United Nations voted to establish Israel.
In 1973, Greenfield published a book along with his wife titled How to be an Oleh, or Things the Jewish Agency Never Told You. He founded and contributed editorially to Israel's first-ever English language magazine, FrontPage, and later a monthly titled Rossvet, aimed at Russian immigrants. Hana, a Holocaust survivor, wrote Fragments of Memory, which has been published in six languages. They founded the Czech Torah Network.
In 2008 a documentary film directed by Alan Rosenthal was released, Waves of Freedom, which features Murray Greenfield. Rosenthal was inspired to create the documentary after reading Greenfield's book The Jews’ Secret Fleet, which has an introduction by Martin Gilbert. A new edition of The Jews’ Secret Fleet was published in 2010.
Haganah was the main Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the region, and was formally disbanded in 1948, when it became the core force integrated into the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
The Jewish Agency for Israel, formerly known as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization (WZO).
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the State of Israel. Traditionally described as "the act of going up", moving to the Land of Israel or "making aliyah" is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism. The opposite action — emigration by Jews from the Land of Israel — is referred to in the Hebrew language as yerida. The Law of Return that was passed by the Israeli parliament in 1950 gives all diaspora Jews, as well as their children and grandchildren, the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship on the basis of connecting to their Jewish identity.
Operation Moses was the covert evacuation of Ethiopian Jews from Sudan during a civil war that caused a famine in 1984. Originally called Gur Aryeh Yehuda by Israelis, the United Jewish Appeal changed the name to "Operation Moses".
Exodus is a historical novel by American novelist Leon Uris about the founding of the State of Israel beginning with a compressed retelling of the voyages of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus and describing the histories of the various main characters and the ties of their personal lives to the birth of the new Jewish state.
Aliyah Bet was the code name given to illegal immigration by Jews, many of whom were refugees escaping from Nazi Germany, and later Holocaust survivors, to Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948, in violation of the restrictions laid out in the British White Paper of 1939, which dramatically increased between 1939 and 1948. With the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Jewish displaced persons and refugees from Europe began streaming into the new state in the midst of the 1948 Palestine war.
Habonim Dror is the evolution of two Jewish Labour Zionist youth movements that merged in 1982.
The Bernadotte plan officially known as Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine submitted to the Secretary-General for transmission to the members of the United Nations was a plan submitted by the United Nations Mediator on Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte to the Third Session of the United Nations General Assembly. It was published on September 16, 1948, one day before Bernadotte was assassinated by members of Lehi.
Exodus 1947 was a packet steamship that was built in the United States in 1928 as President Warfield for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. From her completion in 1928 until 1942 she carried passengers and freight across Chesapeake Bay between Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland.
Mahal, more often spelled Machal, refers to the group of overseas volunteers who fought alongside Israeli forces during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Some 4,000 volunteers, mostly Jews but also non-Jews, arrived from all over the world. Mahal is an acronym of מתנדבי חוץ לארץ.
Hana Greenfield was born in Kolín, Czechoslovakia, from where she was deported to the concentration camps of Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen.
Nehemiah Levanon was an Israeli intelligence agent, diplomat, head of the aliyah program Nativ, and a founder of kibbutz Kfar Blum. Originally a native of Latvia, he immigrated to the Mandatory Palestine in 1938. After Israel's independence in 1948, Levanon served in a variety of roles to encourage the well-being and emigration of Soviet Jewry. Due to the covert nature of his work, Levanon's decades of service were largely unknown until after his retirement, during the last days of the Soviet Union.
USS Paducah (PG-18) was a Dubuque-class gunboat acquired by the US Navy prior to World War I. Her task was to patrol, escort, and protect Navy ships.
Gefen Publishing House is an English language publishing firm located in Jerusalem, which also has a department in New York City.
John Stanley Grauel was a Methodist minister and American Christian Zionist leader. He was a crew member of the Aliyah Bet ship Exodus1947 and a secret Haganah operative. Grauel is credited with being the key individual who persuaded the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine to recommend for the Partition Resolution of November 1947, creating the State of Israel. In a speech to the Jewish Agency, Golda Meir, referred to his testimony as the first appeal by a “priest, a perfectly worthy gentile, a priori, no Jewish witness was to be believed.”
Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel (AACI) is a non-profit organization of American and Canadian Jews who have made Aliyah to Israel. AACI is a resource center for Israel's English-speaking population. AACI assists its members with all facets of Aliyah and absorption into Israeli society. AACI has 5 branches throughout the country that offer absorption counseling services and social and cultural programs. AACI is funded mainly by program and membership fees along with donations.
Uriel Lubrani was an Israeli diplomat and military official. In 1964, he joined the diplomatic corps of the Foreign Ministry, and was appointed ambassador to Uganda and non-resident ambassador to Burundi and Rwanda, serving until 1967. From 1967 to 1971, he was ambassador to Ethiopia. From 1973 to 1978, he was ambassador to the Imperial State of Iran.
Miguel Buiza Fernández-Palacios was a Spanish Navy officer best known for being the commander of the Spanish Republican Navy during the Spanish Civil War. He died in exile in Marseille in 1963.
The history of the Jews in Guam, a territory of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean, dates back to at least 1899. A high point in Jewish activity in Guam was during the time of World War II. Jews have continued to live there since, although as a small presence. As of 2009, there are approximately 150 Jews in Guam, of which about a third are religiously active.
Samuel Herschel Schulman was the last surviving American crew member of the ship Exodus1947, which tried to bring thousands of Holocaust survivors from Europe to Mandatory Palestine. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, to Jewish immigrants from Poland, he moved to Paris in 1932, surviving the Holocaust in hiding in central France.
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