Ken Spetner
Sepia portrait of two young men in uniform side by side: on the left an Army officer with glasses, a mustache and a garrison cap; on the right a Navy officer in a peaked cap, khaki shirt and dark tie.
1944Ken with Rabbi Herschel Schacter, an Army Jewish chaplain stationed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, who visited the naval base at Guantánamo Bay in 1944. Ken's note calls him the only Orthodox Jewish chaplain to visit during Ken's three years there, and a friend from then on.

On the reverse

The handwritten inscription on the back of the photograph.

In 1944 Rabbi Herschel Schecter (sic) visited Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay Cuba. He was an Army Jewish Chaplain stationed in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was a most welcome guest, being the only Orthodox Jewish Chaplain to visit the base during Ken Spetner's three year tour of duty at Gtmo. Rabbi Schecter (sic) and Ken Spetner remained friends from that time to this day. He later was transferred to Europe and was active with concentration camp inmates as they were freed by the U.S. Army at the end of the war. Rabbi Schecter (sic) became Rav of a Bronx synagogue and is presently Rav Emeritus of this same synagogue. He served as president of several national Zionist and rabbinical bodies.

Cited on this site as: “Ken Spetner with Rabbi Herschel Schacter at Guantánamo Bay, 1944 (photograph, with inscription on the reverse)”, Spetner family collection, 1944.