For more than 80 years, a cross marked the grave of Paul Singer, a young Jewish airman from Shorewood, killed in World War II. In May, the cross was replaced with a Star of David.
“When you see that cross get lifted up and, very respectfully, put on a crate, on a sort of a stand, and then you see them place the Star of David, you feel something right just happened,” said Shalom Lamm, co-founder and chief historian of Operation Benjamin, a nonprofit that corrects mismarked graves.
Singer, the Shorewood native, is buried in Italy. Operation Benjamin, which corrects the headstones of Jewish American servicemen mistakenly buried under crosses, organized the ceremony in Italy. Wisconsin native Jodi Salinsky Reff attended the headstone-changing ceremony in Rome for her relative, Singer, obm.
An only child, Singer lost both parents by the age of 16 and was raised by two aunts in Milwaukee. When his plane was hit over Foggia, Italy, only two crew members were killed – Singer, the navigator, and another Jewish airman, Sheldon Finder. They were buried nine feet apart, but only Finder was buried under a Star of David; Singer was not. His U.S. Army dog tag, possibly marked “H” for Hebrew, was lost in the crash, and he had no immediate family to advocate for his Jewish identity.
That’s where Operation Benjamin stepped in. After an in-depth genealogical and military investigation, the organization reached out to Reff and her extended family. The process of changing a headstone is complex and requires the consent of the soldier’s closest living relatives.
Reff, born and raised in Shorewood, attended Shorewood High School and belonged to Congregation Sinai. Her roots are deeply embedded in the Wisconsin Jewish community, and her brother, Jim Salinsky, still lives in Milwaukee. When her cousin forwarded an unexpected email from Operation Benjamin about a year and a half ago with a detailed family tree, it set in motion a journey that would take her across the Atlantic and into the heart of her family’s legacy.
A graduate of Shorewood High School, like Paul Singer, she contacted the Shorewood Historical Society and obtained Singer’s 1936 yearbook photo. With her husband’s help, she found a 1945 memorial page dedicated to Singer in the school’s yearbook. Through this research, she discovered that Singer played the violin, was a prolific writer, and had joined the Canadian Air Force before his own country had entered the war. These discoveries, along with original family photos and documents kept by her late mother, were shared with Operation Benjamin to piece together Singer’s life.
In May, Reff and her husband traveled to Italy to attend the headstone-changing ceremony. Held at American military cemeteries in Rome and Florence, it was part of a broader effort to honor three fallen Jewish soldiers, including Paul Singer.
At the ceremony, Lamm surprised each family by arranging meetings with descendants of fellow soldiers. For Reff, that meant meeting the relatives of Sheldon Finder, the Jewish bombardier on Singer’s plane, buried directly in front of Singer under a Star of David. The families said Kaddish together. Reff described the ceremony as “a once-in-a-lifetime experience” and “incredibly emotionally impactful.”
Reff and her family remain in close contact with Finder’s descendants, texting almost daily. “They’ve invited us to come visit,” she said.
Reflecting on the broader impact of the experience, Reff added, “I always thought we were from a small family, and as it turned out, Operation Benjamin told us we were the second largest family tree that they had done.”
Lamm said: “Our guys are buried with thousands and thousands of people who are different than them, but they all had a common enemy. They all had a common story. They all fought for the same reason. And to me, that makes us all Americans. And I think Americanism was and ought to be, a very, very special thing.”
“I’ve done this many, many times, and each time I cry, and each time it feels like, wow, that was right.”
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Jodi Salinsky Reff, cousin of Paul Singer, was born and raised in Shorewood, attended Shorewood High School and belonged to Congregation Sinai. Her roots are deeply embedded in the Wisconsin Jewish community, and her brother, Jim Salinsky, still lives in Milwaukee.
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