Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Jewish World War I Hero Could Get Medal of Honor

A Jewish World War I hero is eligible for the nation’s highest military honor.

A congressional spending bill passed last week includes a provision extending redress for soldiers deserving the Medal of Honor to Sgt. William Shemin.

Elsie Shemin-Roth, now 85, from suburban St. Louis, Mo., sought to have her father included under a law that mandated a review of troops who might have been denied the highest service medal because of discrimination.

President Obama earlier this year awarded the medal to a number of soldiers believed to have faced discrimination, but Shemin was not considered because the law did not extend back to World War I.

The massive spending bill passed last week by both houses of Congress and now awaiting Obama’s signature redresses the oversight.

Shemin had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second highest honor, although at least one of his superiors had recommended the Medal of Honor, the Associated Press reported.

At 19, on a French battlefield, Shemin crossed through gunfire three times to pull comrades to safety, taking a bullet in his head.

He started a family after the war and died in 1973.

Shemin-Roth believes her father was denied the highest honor because of anti-Semitism. “Now a wrong has been made right and all is forgiven,” she told the AP.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.