The Jewish War Veterans of the USA (JWV) Inc. is celebrating its 125th anniversary with a contest. It is holding a logo design competition with a reward of $500 and a feature in the next issue of its publication, “Jewish Veteran.” Submissions, welcome from any individual over 18, must be emailed to Christy Turner at [email protected] by January.
JWV is the longest running veteran’s service organization, according to their website.
“We are the only consistently running veteran’s service organization, so it is a very exciting milestone,” JWV Public Relations Coordinator Cara Rinkoff said.
The website explains: “JWV was founded in 1896 by a group of 63 Jewish veterans from the Civil War after a series of anti-Semitic comments about the lack of Jewish service in the Civil War.” Since then, JWV has fought for Jewish recognition in the veteran community.
They have fought for things like the Star of David on gravestones, religious protections in the 1944 GI Bill, the recognition of Jewish veterans and the establishment of the National Museum of American Jewish Military History.
As Rinkoff explained, the JWV is a military coalition, but is also particularly invested in justice for the Jewish community as a whole.
Just this past month, the JWV called on Chancellor Timothy White of San Francisco State University to respond to some online comments made by a professor about Zionism.
“We have three things other vet organizations don’t: We are close to Israel, we fight anti-Semitism and we publicize that Jews have fought for this nation since the Revolutionary War,” said JWV National Commander Harvey Weiner. He wants Jews to be proud of the fact that they have served in every war in a greater proportion than the general public.
The winning logo will be used for the JWV anniversary in 2021. Guests of the 2020 February Executive Meeting will vote upon the contest submissions.
CORRECTION (10/16/19 11:41 p.m.): This article originally reported that the 2020 Agenda will hold a health fair. This information was in reference to a separate document. The JWV do not have an agenda for this event. The editorial staff of the JT apologize for the error.
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