LONDON, England — On June 5, 2025, a historical marker was erected in London for Lt. Leonard M. Keysor. It was the first marker ever to identify Keysor as a Jew.
Keysor had won Britain’s highest military honor for heroism, the Victoria Cross, as a bomb thrower (hand grenade) during the Battle of Lone Pine, Gallipoli, August 1915.
War is insanity on steroids, two armies trying to kill each other by any means possible.
During the First World War, 1914-1918, Winston Churchill, then the First Lord of the Admiralty, was largely responsible for the plan to knock Turkey out of the war. Turkey was Germany’s ally. Churchill envisioned seizing control of the Dardanelles, attacking Turkey’s “Soft Underbelly” through the Gallipoli Peninsula.
The British generals’ and the political leaders’ vision quickly became a nightmare.
Gallipoli devolved into trench warfare. Opposing lines, many times, were a handful of meters apart. The infantry of both sides repeatedly surged “over the top,” attacking each other’s trenches. Rifles were not very effective. In the narrow confines of the man-made defiles of death, knives, hand grenades, fists, teeth, and courage were what mattered. A battle’s victory was measured in feet of taken real estate, only to lose it a few days later.
The dead piled up.
After months of fighting and disease, the British withdrew. Nearly 500,000 men on both sides had been killed or wounded. Whitehall’s view (British High Command) in London, the numbers, the dots on maps, did not convey what the men in the trenches knew. For the men in the trenches, the war was a few feet in front of them and a few feet to their right and left.
They fought their war, or they died.
That was Leonard Keysor’s war. He was a bomber, a highly skilled grenade thrower. He was also extraordinary. When the Turkish grenades flew over the parapet into his section of the trenches, Keysor did not hide. Keysor grabbed the grenade and threw it back into the Turkish trenches or amidst the attacking Turkish men. Keysor did not know if the grenade he picked up, and sometimes even caught with his bare hands in the air, was going to blow up. He only knew that if he did nothing, he and his comrades would be dead.
For more than 50 hours of heavy, seesawing fighting, Keysor continued retrieving the Turkish bombs and throwing them back. Though wounded, he refused to be evacuated. He volunteered for another unit to throw bombs after their bomb throwers were all killed.
What Keysor did was insane. He fought with an adrenaline-filled ferocity that stabilized and saved his section of the trenches. He saved many Australian lives, including those of the soldiers he fought alongside. Keysor had been born in London. When war came, he was in Australia. He volunteered as an Australian.
King George V, in Buckingham Palace, pinned Keysor’s Victoria Cross on his uniform later.
There are a number of markers for Keysor in Australia and one in London recognizing him as a winner of the Victoria Cross. Not one mentions he was a Jew who fought for Britain in an Army that was deeply antisemitic to its core.
British General Hamilton wrote in his diary about the Jewish soldiers under his command, “The Corps may serve as ground bait to entice the big Jew journalists and bankers to our cause; the former will lend us colour, the latter the coin.” It was common practice in the British army that the promised Kosher food was often deliberately not provided; Jewish officers were paid 40 percent less than their British counterparts; had to eat at separate tables; Jewish soldiers were only eligible for low pensions; and were treated with a lack of courtesy by British officers who were junior to them.
Keysor did his duty. Keysor returned to the European front in 1918 and was wounded two more times in combat. He went back to London after the war. He volunteered for service during World War II but was rejected as unfit for military service.
In 1951, Keysor died in London of cancer.
The marker text:
In the 1940s and 1950s, at 83 Rodney Court, lived London-born Jewish WW1 hero
Lt. Leonard M. Keysor V.C.
He earned the U.K.’s highest medal for valour at Lone Pine, Gallipoli, while serving with Australian Forces.
Be Strong and of Good Courage (Joshua 1:9)
הלוא צויתיך חזק ואמץ
Erected 2025 by Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation U.K. Branch, AJEX-UK.
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On October 7, 2023, British Israeli Sgt. Major Aner Shapira was on leave from his Nahal unit. He went with his best friend Hersh Goldberg Polin, an American-Israeli, to the Nova Music Festival.
Despite unusual appearing military activity in Gaza, the IDF’s Women’s electronic surveillance units’ warnings to their higher-ups were ignored. The women soldiers staring at the monitors were regarded with disdain by their male superiors. They were not even allowed to carry weapons when at the border surveillance bases.
Hamas burst through the lightly defended border fence. The Women IDF soldiers were easily slaughtered, raped, and kidnapped by Hamas and supporting Gazans intent on murdering every Jew they could.
The blood lust of the heavily armed Hamas reached the Nova Music Festival. The attendees, unarmed, young and old partygoers, were slaughtered. People scattered, ran for shelters to hide. They had no weapons to fight back.
Aner and Hersh ran to a concrete bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im, squeezing in the tight space with over 20 others. Aner was the last near the door.
As Hamas approached the shelter, they were scared. They feared the Jews might have weapons. They threw a hand grenade into the shelter. Aner grabbed it and threw it back out.
The Terrorists threw another grenade into the crowded shelter. Aner threw it back out. Eight times, the terrorists threw hand grenades into the shelter. Seven times Aner threw them back. On the eighth bomb attack, the grenade blew up in Aner’s hands. He was killed instantly.
Of some 28 people in the shelter, most were killed when Hamas charged in, firing their guns. About 7 lived, taken as hostages back to Gaza. Hersh was taken to Gaza. He was murdered in captivity.
There were many incredible acts of heroism on October 7. Many Jewish and even non-Jewish lives were saved. Hamas did not care who they killed.
Where are their medals?
Maybe someday…the Hamas war is ongoing. Hamas and its fellow Gazan terror supporters are still holding nearly 60 hostages. Twenty are believed alive. Hamas remains committed to killing Jews, even if it means more innocent Gazans are killed in the process.
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Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.