How to Summarize Your Life?

A Marker in a Jerusalem Cemetery Perfectly Sums Up an Evangelist!

Many thanks to my Orthodox Jewish friend Gidon Ariel, who styles himself as a “friendship facilitator” with Christians, for going to Jerusalem’s Alliance Church International Cemetery for the burial of our great friend Irene Levy, of blessed memory. Irene died this week at age 103. She was a precious friend of our ministry and had studied Hebrew with the daughter of the famous resurrector of Hebrew, Eliezer Ben Yehuda.

Gidon also sent me this photo from the cemetery of the grave marker of a famous Christian Zionist with a Cross and two large stars of David carved at the top with the symbol of the Israel Defense Forces and a Menorah. At the bottom, on either side are two naval anchors. John Stanley Grauel (December 12, 1917 – September 6, 1986, also nicknamed "John the Priest") with the Talmudic dictum- "He who saves a single life is as if he has saved the entire world." In Hebrew below the name, a special designation – Yohanan the Priest, 1917-1986; Exodus '47. John was a Methodist minister and American Christian Zionist leader, a crew member of the Aliyah Bet ship Exodus 1947 and a secret Haganah operative.

In my research, I learned that Grauel is credited with being the key individual who persuaded the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine to recommend for the Partition Resolution of November 1947, creating the State of Israel. In a speech to the Jewish Agency, Golda Meir, referred to his testimony as the first appeal by a “priest, a perfectly worthy gentile, a priori, no Jewish witness was to be believed.”

Other profiles are found at this link https://www.machal.org.il/.../reverend-john-stanley-grauel/

Early life and education (Wikipedia)

John Stanley Grauel was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1917. His mother was deeply religious and impressed her son with her beliefs. The family became a migrant family during the Great Depression until settling in Virginia. Grauel studied at the Randolph–Macon College as a pre theological student. His father died from cancer in 1936 and Grauel supported the family doing various jobs. In 1941, he completed his education, graduating from the Theological Seminary, in Bangor, Maine, as a Methodist minister. During his final year he got married, but his wife and son died due to complications at childbirth.

Grauel became very aware of the European Holocaust and the Zionist movement in 1942 through his close friendship with Judge Joseph Goldberg of Worcester. Also in 1942, he joined the American Palestine Committee, which was dedicated to the establishment of a Jewish state. In 1943 he gave up the local ministry to assume a position as a director of the committee's Philadelphia office. In 1944, attending his first Zionist meeting he met David Ben-Gurion, the Zionist leader and future prime minister of Israel. Grauel learned of the Haganah, the Jewish underground army in Palestine, and the longtime humanitarian efforts of Haganah to save Jewish lives from the Holocaust by smuggling Jews into Palestine. Reverend Grauel enlisted in the effort immediately, leading a double life working for the America Palestine Committee and the Jewish underground.

Grauel became part of the Mossad LeAliyah Bet and sailed aboard the illegal refugee ship Exodus 1947 on March 23, 1947. Haganah put him aboard as a secret operative, under the cover of a foreign correspondent for the Episcopal journal, The Churchman. Grauel's mission was to get the story of Exodus 1947 out to the World. In Europe he organized and transferred refugees from the displaced persons camps to the ship. Filling multiple roles, he acted as an administrative executive, quartermaster, cook, and a liaison for the crew and the refugees. Exodus 1947, heavily overburdened with 4,515 refugees, was intercepted and captured by Royal Navy destroyers off the coast of Haifa, Palestine, in a brief violent boarding that left two refugees and one crew member dead. Grauel was arrested by the British. He was put under house arrest at the Savoy Hotel. Learning that the hotel lobby was filled with journalists from around the world, he got in to tell them about Exodus 1947 and answer all their questions. With help from Haganah, he escaped before the police arrived.

Testimony to UNSCOP

After his escape, Haganah helped bring Grauel to meet Jorge García Granados, a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine and give firsthand testimony, emphatically declaring that there were no weapons aboard Exodus 1947 during the violent boarding. He was brought later to give a direct testimony before the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. His firsthand testimony was extremely effective in eliciting sympathy and understanding for the cause of unrestricted Jewish refugee immigration to Palestine.

I have never seen the Talmudic dictum on any gravestone—i.e. he who saves a single life saves an entire world—but what a grand epitaph!

What a holy and superb summary of a single well-spent life!

Amen and Amen!