Marty Glickman was, in Gurock’s evaluation, one of America’s greatest Jewish athletes. With the patriotic holiday of Thanksgiving approaching, I’d like to direct your attention to another remarkable American and proud Jew, whose life is described here by Dovi Safier:

Paul Schutzer was born into a traditional Jewish family in Boro Park in 1930. When he was ten years old, he started taking pictures with a broken camera he found in the garbage. Years later, after studying to be a painter and a lawyer, he realized that what he really wanted to do was be a photographer. He traveled the world for Life, visiting Israel numerous times and took many photographs in the country.

Schutzer went to the American South in 1961 to accompany and photograph the Freedom Riders. Then, during the Vietnam war, Schutzer embedded with a unit of Marines participating in an amphibious assault on Cape Batangan. His colleague Michael Mok described the scene thus:

Machine-gun fire was hammering away, and while the Marines gave their weapons a final check, Paul took off his steel helmet and put on a funny-looking hat, sort of like sailor cap turned inside out, on which he had stenciled the Star of David. He explained it was a kova tembel (fool’s hat) such as they wear on the kibbutz in Israel. “If I am going to die,” Paul said, “I am going to die under my own colors.” Then, just before the bow doors clanged down, he said, “L’hayyim,” which means “To life.” This was the first Hebrew word Schutzer taught me. Since we survived the landing and what followed, it was not the last.

Schutzer was killed by a landmine while covering the Six-Day War.

In the past few days, difficult-to-confirm reports have emerged of unrest in the Gaza Strip, and of civilians throwing stones at Hamas operatives. A recent video from Al Jazeera showed a Gazan declaring that “God will bring Qatar and Turkey to account” for the suffering of Palestinians in the current war. Being an agent of the Qatari government, the journalist turned away, and then pushed the interviewee with his hand to prevent him from getting near the microphone. Yet this brief exchange contributes much to the ongoing debate about Palestinian support for Hamas, and belies the frequent assertion by experts that the Israeli campaign is only “further radicalizing” the population.

For some time, Joseph Braude has worked with a number of journalists and researchers to interview ordinary Gazans under circumstances where they don’t fear reprisals. He notes that the sorts of opinions they share are rarely heard in Western media, let alone on Al Jazeera or Iran-sponsored outlets:

[A] resident of Khan Younis describes how locals in a bakery spontaneously attacked a Hamas member who had come to buy bread. The incident, hardly imaginable before the present war, reflects a widespread feeling of “disgust,” he says, after Gazan aspirations for “a dignified life and to live in peace” were set back by the Hamas atrocities of October 7.

Fears have grown that this misery will needlessly be prolonged by Westerners who strive, in effect, to perpetuate Hamas rule, according to one Gazan woman. Addressing protesters who have taken to the streets to demand a ceasefire on behalf of Palestinians, she calls on them to make a choice: “Either support the Palestinian people or the Hamas regime that oppresses them.” If protesters harbor a humanitarian motive, she asks, “Why don’t we see them demonstrating against Hamas?”

“Hamas is the destruction of the Palestinian people. We’ve had enough. They need to be wiped out—because if they remain, the people will be wiped out.”

You can watch videos of some of the interviews by clicking the link below.