Hoping Peace Will Follow Charity

Julius Korn feared that what his father and uncles had done all those years ago in Israel might not matter anymore. And he had a point: What they did isn’t exactly hot off the presses.

But with this week’s headlines suggesting the chance for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, why not tell an old story and give some credit to a group of men who had a vision in the 1940s?

Korn, of Huntington Beach, is a mere lad of 67, so his knowledge is based on recollections from childhood. What he remembers is that his father and the others in 1945 formed a group to raise money to build houses for Jewish survivors of the Nazi concentration camps.

The founding members were Korn’s father, Joseph, and his three brothers -- Sam, David and Abe. Joining them were their great-uncle Max and brother-in-law Benjamin Bendat. They did it, Korn says, to honor the memory of their late brother, Nathan, and named the group the United Nashelsker Relief Society, a tribute to the city in Poland from which all had emigrated.

Over the years, the society members raised money any way they could and kicked in some of their own. Eventually the housing project of two-story apartments grew to include a community center with a nursery, gymnasium, band room and dental clinic. Later, they added scholarships.

Living in San Pedro in the mid-1940s, Korn remembers his father, who had a hardware business, taking him to the Sunday night planning sessions at a hall on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. Young Julius wasn’t yet 10 and remembers being bored as he sat in the back of the room as the society hashed things out.

At such a tender age, did he realize what his elders were trying to do? “They had heard about these families coming from Europe,” he says, “who had no place to stay in what was Palestine at the time. I knew what they were trying to do, but I probably at the time couldn’t comprehend how big this thing could have gotten.”

Hearing Korn tell the story today, two things strike me: First, it’s touching that Korn wants members of the group to get credit for what they’d done so long ago and far away, and, second, how the lapsed time since their involvement underscores the protracted nature of the tension in that part of the world.

There is one other detail to connect past and present.

That would be Benjamin Bendat, a brother-in-law of the original Korn brothers who, still sharp at 99 and living in Laguna Woods, is the last surviving member of the United Nashelsker Relief Fund.

Bendat says they built 100 residences in the little town of Kiryat-Ono outside Tel Aviv and raised a couple hundred thousand dollars to do it -- quite a large sum in those days. Bendat plays down the extraordinary efforts of the group. When I ask why, he says it’s because it happened so long ago and was just one of many memorable involvements with charities and good causes during his lifetime.

Fair enough, but I ask Bendat, who says he’s made 37 trips to Israel since 1950, if he’s hopeful that the peaceful, charitable vision his group had in mind in 1945 will take root in current peace talks.

“I do hope and pray that Bush’s plan is going to stick,” Bendat says. “I really do.”

But will it? Yes, he says, but only if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, make it happen. “I believe the people themselves are sick and tired of killings constantly and would like to have peace.”

Half a century after Bendat’s band of brothers left their mark, the elusive peace is still out there, waiting to be captured.

“I hope I’ll see it in my lifetime,” Bendat says, “and I know I don’t have very much longer. “On July 19, I’ll be 100 years old.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.