Ira Feinberg

Biography

Ira A. Feinberg (born 1930) volunteered from New York for Israel’s War of Independence and served in the Palmach as a machine gunner. He later became a filmmaker and made the documentary My Brother’s Keeper (2010) about his fellow Machal volunteers.

Feinberg grew up in the Bronx and Brooklyn and graduated from James Madison High School in early 1948. Land & Labor, the organization that administered the American and Canadian volunteers, sent him first to displaced persons camps in southern France, and he reached Israel in April 1948. With four Canadian comrades he joined the First Battalion of the Palmach at Rosh Pinah in the north. His biography describes him as the first American from that group of volunteers to enlist in the Palmach. He later served as a machine gunner with the Palmach’s Fourth Battalion, Haportzim, on the Jerusalem front along the “Burma Road,” and in his account helped relieve the besieged city.

Back in the United States he studied at Brandeis for two years, was drafted in 1950 during the Korean War, and then enlisted for a three-year tour. At the Army Language School in Monterey he became fluent in Arabic and Hebrew. After graduating from Queens College in speech and theatre, he toured Jewish communities across the country in support of Israel Bonds and the United Jewish Appeal. In 1960 he travelled to the Soviet Union to report on conditions facing Soviet Jews, and he also visited Tunisia and Morocco and covered the Algerian War. He went on to earn an MBA at the Stern School of Business and worked as a Wall Street stockbroker.

Feinberg studied film production at NYU and the School of Visual Arts. His company, Cinema Angels, produced My Brother’s Keeper, for which he wrote the screenplay, worked on the editing, and recorded the narration. He shot it at the 2008 reunion of Machal veterans in Israel, expecting it to be one of the last such gatherings, and the film preserves their recollections. Feinberg has called his 1948 service “the pinnacle of my life’s experiences.”

Works

• My Brother’s Keeper (2010): 40-minute documentary written, produced and directed by Ira Feinberg (Cinema Angels). Official Selection, Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival. Available from 7th Art Releasing.

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Sources: 7th Art Releasing biography of Ira A. Feinberg; Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Jewish Journal coverage of My Brother’s Keeper (May 2011).

Source: American Veterans of Israel Legacy Corporation (AVILC) volunteer records.