Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II Fort Marcy and Jorge Velasquez winning the 1970 Washington DC International from Arc third Miss Dan and a field that included other top EuropeansAs much fun as they have in the dirt races of the Breeders’ Cup American owners and trainers must get tired of being knocked around by a variety of Europeans on the grass The Breeders’ Cup Turf has been an especially dry hole for domestic runners who ran true to recent history in the 2020 renewal at Keeneland on November 7 when the best the U.S team could do was Channel Maker’s third-place finish to Tarnawa and Magical when Kalanisi won the Turf for the Aga Khan fillies and mares have won 17 versions of the Turf (recall there were two winners in 2003 when Ireland’s High Chaparral finished in a dead-heat with the California-trained Johar).  Europeans also managed ten seconds and ten thirds in this century leaving enough tempting crumbs for the domestics to keep coming back to the Turf for more abuse only three American trainers in this century have had what could be generously defined as consistent success in the Turf Chad Brown won the race with Bricks And Mortar in 2019 and hit the board with three others who celebrated that 2003 dead-heat with Johar had two seconds and a third in recent years who won the Turf in 2004 with Better Talk Now and again in 2014 with Main Sequence and spent his formative years in Newmarket before the family moved to Virginia After apprenticeships with Jonathan Sheppard In addition to Kentucky Derby and Dubai World Cup winner Animal Kingdom he prepared both of his Turf winners at the Fair Hill Training Center in northern Maryland and he sees no mystery in their success being the exception to the European rule “I don’t think it’s that complicated,” Motion said I’m not likely to try and take them on at a mile and a half Wesley Ward will take his 2-year-olds there Even going over there with Animal Kingdom to run a mile and a quarter because you’re taking them on at their own game And because most horses travel well these days they bring their game quite successfully over here.” home-grown American turf horses like Round Table Kitten’s Joy and English Channel established respectable reputations over a route of ground and took on a variety of Europeans at their own game.  who was bred and raced for the American financier and philanthropist Army fortress built in 1862 on a Virginia hilltop that served as a tactical vantage point for Union troops defending nearby Washington DC The fort itself was named for Captain Randolph Barnes Marcy chief-of-staff to General George McClellan and author of the popular guidebook According to historian William H P Robertson Amerigo came to the States from his native England with a reputation as “an arrant rogue a horse so temperamentally unsatisfactory as to be practically worthless for racing purposes” Trainer Harris Brown got to the bottom of Amerigo by running him as often as possible he came within a nose and a head of winning the Santa Anita Handicap and then 12 days later won the San Juan Capistrano by a nose That’s three miles of real estate between the two Amerigo was a gorgeous chestnut with three stockings and a stylish star vulgar looking brute at three” who struggled through the allowance ranks well into 1967 This explains why Mellon put him through a paddock sale at Belmont Park which was good luck for an owner who didn’t need any.  Elliott Burch gave a maturing Fort Marcy a fresh start in stakes competition on the grass and by the end of 1967 all the cylinders were firing when he defeated fellow 3-year-old  Damascus who was already assured of Horse of the Year by a nose in the Washington DC International and if you beat him you knew you were in a battle.  Fort Marcy’s hallmark 1970 campaign began quietly in the East then shifted West for the narrowest possible losses in the San Juan Capistrano and Century Handicaps There followed wins at Pimlico and Belmont and then a banner fall during which Fort Marcy won the United Nations by five and the Man o’ War by a measured length and three-quarters over Travers winner Loud Jorge Velasquez had become Fort Marcy’s regular companion Their 1970 record through the Man o’ War read 4-4-1 in nine stakes on the grass “He was definitely one of the best grass horses I ever rode,” said Velasquez looking back on a Hall of Fame career that included turf champions Hawaii and Bowl Game “I remember winning a race with him going a mile on the dirt once at Aqueduct When he switched from the dirt to the grass it was like going from driving a Datsun to a Cadillac I bought a new Cadillac every year.” Velasquez brought up Fort Marcy’s performance in the 1970 Washington DC International as perhaps their finest hour the Veterans Day feature was the richest grass race offered that year in North America.  by Laurel Racecourse president John D Shapiro International fields were every bit as star-studded as those that have gathered for the Breeders’ Cup Turf since the starting berths were by coveted invitation only and the selection committee had the known racing world from which to choose.  The group of ten that gathered half a century ago for the 19th running of the International was typically deep Shapiro could not get the two top European stars – Nijinsky and Sassafras – but he attracted most of the next bests who defeated Triple Crown winner Nijinsky in the Champion Stakes at Ascot; Beaugency the Prix Hocquart winner who was second to Lorenzaccio in the Prix Foy; and Bucuco the Italian star who suffered a rare defeat when second to Beaugency in the Gran Premio di Milano Also accepting Laurel’s invitation was Canadian darling Fanfreluche winner of the Alabama Stakes; German star Cortez winner of the Preis von Europa; and Miss Dan the 3-year-old French filly who finished a rousing third in the Arc de Triomphe behind Sassafras and Nijinsky In the name of maintaining goodwill in the Western Hemisphere there also were representatives from Venezuela (Senador) and Uruguay (Sol de Noche) A stormy November softened the Laurel ground lending some comfort to the Europeans but guaranteeing no advantage over Fort Marcy who never needed to carry his track when he traveled the real challenge was getting his jockey there on time “When I got to the airport that day in New York it started snowing so hard that I thought they were going to cancel the flight,” Velazquez began I called the track to tell them what was happening and the clerk of scales said he would wait as long as possible and I got there,” Velasquez continued with their saddles on and Vince Bracciale there ready to ride Fort Marcy.” Clearly a place-holder while officials sweated out the arrival of Velasquez Bracciale was an apprentice at the time who had won his first race just two months before if that cab had missed a few stoplights … “I ran into the jocks room and changed as fast as I could then ran to the paddock,” Velasquez said I’m here.’ He took off the colors and gave them to me right there in the paddock.” the race itself was in jeopardy of being anticlimactic but Fort Marcy gave the holiday fans a good show Beaugency never handled the ground and was eased by Freddy Head Bill Shoemaker had his hands full keeping the big turf-pounding Fiddle Isle from losing his balance Lorenzaccio and Lester Piggott stayed with Fanfreluche and Ron Turcotte for the first mile at which point they both were passed by the nimble Fort Marcy.  running fourth or fifth,” Velasquez recalled He just went by them and won as he pleased.” The white-faced Miss Dan gave valiant pursuit but at the merciful end of 12 tiring furlongs in 2:42⅘ it was Fort Marcy by a length over the filly and Alfred Gibert while Bacuco galloped past exhausted horses to finish third Fort Marcy’s victory in the 1970 International was only his fifth of the season from 13 starts Those five all were important stakes – including the United Nations and the Bowling Green – in which the gelding usually carried topweight.  Stir in four other significant stakes placings and career earnings that crested $1 million and the case was convincing enough to bestow Horse of the Year honors upon Fort Marcy by the voters of Daily Racing Form the representatives of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations chose Preakness and Woodward Stakes winner Personality as their Horse of the Year (he was 8-for-18 on the season) The result of the family squabble was the creation of the unified Eclipse Awards in 1971 The 1970 International was Fort Marcy’s last great hurrah His 1971 campaign was pockmarked by another cluster of near misses and a disqualification from an otherwise easy win in the Dixie Handicap Fort Marcy was retired to a life of leisure at his owner’s Virginia farm and died there in August of 1991 Seven years later he joined Velasquez in the Thoroughbred racing Hall of Fame never forgot Fort Marcy’s International Asked if he offered young Bracciale a token of consolation for his part in the drama “It was my mount,” Velasquez said This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page SubscriptionOffers Give a Gift Subscribe Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of a royal marriage forceful and determined people could hardly have been matched had already been queen of France for fifteen years through her first marriage and by her second she would soon be queen of England highly intelligent and accustomed to having her own way She had inherited her father’s enormous estates in her teens on his death in 1137 and her first husband went on crusade with him and ordered him about until her infidelities and her failure to produce an heir proved too much The marriage was annulled in March 1152 on grounds of consanguinity The annulment gave Eleanor back Aquitaine and Poitou which she took with her eight weeks later to Henry she was just as closely related as she had been to Louis a man of electric energy and ferocious impatience compelling charm and an ungovernable temper He was ruthless when crossed and some of his contemporaries uneasily credited the story that his family were descended from the Devil – a tale that the Plantagenets themselves delighted to encourage It was rumoured that the bride and groom had anticipated the ceremony and there was also a story that she had known the groom’s late father considerably better than she should have done As soon as the French archbishops had formally annulled her marriage on March 21st Eleanor left the royal castle at Beaugency on the Loire dodged an attempt to seize her by the Count of Blois and took a barge along the river towards Tours with an escort of her own men she avoided an ambush set by Henry’s young brother Geoffrey who hoped to advance his ambitions by marrying her himself and arrived safely at her own capital of Poitiers She immediately sent word to Henry to come promptly and marry her and meanwhile summoned her principal vassals to renew their allegiance to her as Duchess of Aquitaine Henry joined her in Poitiers and they were married in the cathedral on Whit Sunday in a simple ceremony with none of the pomp and splendour that might have been expected Among those startled by this development was King Louis who was furious that neither party had asked his consent confessed himself uncertain whether the marriage was a matter of sudden impulse or careful premeditation suspects that Eleanor and Henry had been plotting since they met in Paris the previous summer and that Eleanor had deliberately encouraged the annulment of her marriage to Louis when Henry succeeded to the throne of England in 1154 the effect was to give the rulers of England a domain in France stretching from the English Channel to the Pyrenees and covering ten times as much of the country as the French kings themselves possessed The consequences for the subsequent history of English ambitions in France were profound Over the next twelve years Eleanor bore Henry five sons and three daughters She played a prominent part in government and a patron’s role in the development of both troubadour poetry and the Arthurian legends She may well have encouraged her sons to rebel against their father in 1173 and after that he kept her penned up as a prisoner in England until he died in 1189 Under both Richard and John she was active in matters of state and she died eventually in a nunnery at Fontrevault in Anjou in her early eighties in 1204 having been for much of a lifetime probably the most powerful woman in Europe By submitting the above I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use of JTA.org A new PBS documentary digs into the stories of some of the 550,000 or so American Jews who served in the war (JTA) — “GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II” begins as many Holocaust documentaries do with a history of the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany mixed with what is now standard archival footage of Brownshirts and Kristallnacht Throw in interviews with some Jewish celebrities — in this case Carl Reiner and his friend Mel Brooks wearing his old Army jacket — and it has all the workings of a typical PBS documentary weren’t only fighting Nazis during the war — they had to battle the anti-Semitic prejudice of many of their fellow soldiers A few had experienced anti-Semitism at home already in the form of “Gentiles Only” signs which were found at some public facilities across the country one of the 10,000 Jewish women who enlisted recalled a more personal incident in public school: “Suddenly kids weren’t playing with me ‘The teacher told us you’re a Jew and we’re not supposed to play with you.’” these soldiers were immigrants or the children of immigrants who lived in largely Jewish urban areas and it was a major culture shock for them to suddenly hear anti-Semitic slurs from their peers a Jewish Marine chaplain assigned to accompany combat units was asked to conduct an interfaith service following the battle of Iwo Jima — until his fellow chaplains objected forcing the military to conduct three separate services Jewish soldiers of the 329th Infantry at Rosh Hashanah services (Courtesy of the National Museum of American Jewish Military History) Some friendships formed across religious lines a senior noncommissioned officer in a German prisoner of war camp When the camp commander ordered all the Jews to step forward and when the war comes to an end you will be tried as a war criminal.” and Edmonds was subsequently the first American soldier recognized at Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations The documentary is timely as anti-Semitism is on the rise throughout the world Roddie Edmonds was honored by Yad Vashem for sticking up for Jews in a German POW camp “I was actually working on another documentary [where] I had interviewed Jewish veterans and I started to hear stories about the anti-Semitism they’d experienced in barracks when they went [to Army camps] down south and what it was like to serve in the war as Jews,” Jewish filmmaker Lisa Ades told JTA “I felt this was a story that had never been told by historian Deborah Dash Moore (a senior adviser on the film) in her 2004 book also titled “GI Jews,” but Ades saw an opportunity to bring it to a larger audience “We had to get these stories on tape while the veterans were still alive,” Ades said They never had a chance to tell their stories before JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent I accept the Privacy Policy EL PAÍS rode with a veteran Spanish truck driver for four days through France and the UK and found that driving a truck is not only unromantic Lázaro Bermejo arrives with his refrigerator truck at the Beaugency-Messas service area near Blois This service area is no different from any other Lázaro left the southeastern Spanish region of Murcia two days ago with 24,000 kilograms of grapes that must be delivered undamaged by Friday near Cambridge in the United Kingdom He parks behind the gas station next to another huge truck that has its cabin curtain drawn The routine is the same tonight as every other night It’s the second time he’s watched the series Lázaro is 51 and has been traveling roads and highways like this one for 24 years During his career as a truck driver, there have been a few incidents: once, years ago, near a French gas station, an immigrant hid under his vehicle in a bid to enter the UK and was spotted by French police; another time his diesel and heater pipes froze and he had to spend the whole night in the freezing cold without the option of moving from the parking lot; and once he had an accident – his only one – hitting a car while changing lanes The car was dragged for around 10 meters but the driver was unhurt Time is measured by the boring passage of kilometers and hours; by the cups of coffee drunk alone in gas station cafeterias and by visits to industrial parks to drop off or pick up freight always sitting up here?’ You dwell on things like that.” The harsh reality of this profession explains the lack of international truck drivers. It is a shortage that is exacerbated when the economy grows An August report by the British consultancy Transport Intelligence puts European demand for truck drivers over the next few years at 400,000 The UK will need between 60,000 and 76,000 due to circumstance brought about by Brexit; Germany will require between 45,000 and 60,000 and France Spain is going to have to recruit more than 15,000 Lázaro washes his face in the service area washrooms He gets a coffee from the gas station cafeteria but has nothing to eat – he doesn’t like to eat in the morning He looks tired and has dark circles under his eyes There are other times when he falls asleep in the driver’s seat with his legs up and the computer playing episodes of Breaking Bad in a loop deputy secretary general of the General Confederation of Freight Transportation (CGTM) blames the nature of the profession for the lack of drivers prefer to earn less and drive delivery vans around town so they can sleep at home “International truck drivers can earn about €3,000,” he says “Those delivering local packages in vans may earn €1,500 or less Long-distance truckers also have to deal with the lack of security at service areas drivers are forced to unload the goods themselves after nine hours of driving.” sometimes singer- songwriters like Raphael or else he turns on the radio to listen to sports news Alternatively he talks on the phone with his wife listening only to the voice of his navigator that guides him north driving through Paris is taking longer than expected they spray you through the gap in the window My colleague saw them come in but he was dazed And he couldn’t do anything about it.” Since hearing about that incident Lázaro has been thinking about installing a special lock But he says there are others who earn less the average salary is €50,000 a year and in the UK it is €59,000 Lázaro is reasonably satisfied with his salary That’s why he signed up all those years ago and is still doing the job I had the choice of either picking lemons and earning €1,000 or driving a truck and earning more At first I thought I would stay on for a few years and quit Lázaro goes through Calais and the Channel Tunnel, passing the new customs checks before entering the UK He pushes his mileage quota to the limit to reach a parking area for trucks located within the Cambridge Services rest area There are about 200 trucks lined up in two rows One of the parking lot attendants speaks some Spanish and Lázaro There is a shower service and a 24-hour Burger King Lázaro has already taken his load to a depot on the outskirts of Huntingdon but Lázaro has only seen the ugly industrial part of it – the part that looks like all the ugly parts of all the cities in the world a company named Fuentes Group that owns 500 trucks orders him to return quickly to Calais to meet a truck coming from the Netherlands with a load of flowers that must arrive in the Spanish city of Valencia by Sunday Meeting this delivery schedule requires a relay race for three refrigerator trucks coordinated from company headquarters in Murcia Antonio Fuentes is director of logistics and operations at Grupo Fuentes He is also one of the five siblings now running a company that was established by their father Antonio is ultimately responsible for coordinating these 500 trucks which are almost constantly on the road in Europe This is why Lázaro receives an instant order to drive down to Calais “Anyone who spends several days in a truck can understand the shortage of drivers,” he says Again Lázaro has to contend with the hated UK roads before crossing the border again in the opposite direction He eats a hamburger at the Channel Tunnel that costs €1 thanks to a discount for truck drivers the two Fuentes Group truckers meet up at 3pm Sergio León brings the flowers from the Dutch city of Aalsmeer León returns to the Netherlands with an empty trailer for more flowers He pushes the permitted nine hours so hard that he can’t find a service area with a gas station and a cafeteria and is forced to stop at a lay-by at kilometer 27.7 of the N-10 road 19 kilometers from Chartres; he is literally in the middle of nowhere there is a tourist show underway consisting of lights projected on the imposing facade of the cathedral Lázaro tries to sleep despite the trucks that rock his cabin as they pass by Lázaro washes himself with water from a container He drinks coffee that he has made himself in a coffee pot and sets off into the fog at 7am on an empty stomach He has to get as far south as possible to swap trailers again with another Fuentes Group trucker coming from Spain who will head back to Valencia Having completed six consecutive days of work Lázaro will then have to stop to rest for 24 hours in a service area when night falls Juan José Gil, secretary general of the National Federation of Spanish Transportation Associations (Fenadismer), says that the profession no longer appeals so much to those with a sense of adventure and an urge to see the world. “Now young people can do that in a different way with cheap flights,” he says “We have to look for other incentives to make this profession attractive again.” Michael Clover adds that measures should be taken to increase safety in the service areas raise bonuses for truckers and rely more on technology to make each trip more profitable But Lázaro hasn’t revealed the whole story As he drives along a French highway at his usual 90 kilometers per hour he admits that living on the road has certain advantages When you’re driving alone – and I do like to go alone in spite of everything – it’s like you have a different life besides the life you have with your wife and daughters at home He parks at 6pm at a service area on the A-10 and waits for the third trucker in the relay Lázaro will stay put for the 24 mandatory hours maybe cook something on a stove by the side of the truck He might even find a Spaniard to chat with and Then he’ll get word of his next job at another destination and the whole process will start all over again