DMR: More graves of Jewish military veterans will be marked with an American flag this Memorial Day, thanks to a metro-area campaign to identify those veterans and create a registry.

The campaign is being coordinated by the Des Moines Jewish Federation to carry on and enlarge the work done for years by an aging group of Jewish veterans.

“It is something that has been done silently. Nobody made a big deal about it,” said Jerome Geller, 88, Des Moines’ last living member of a now-defunct local chapter of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States.

“It seems like the ones who had been doing it got old or passed away. I was the one left, so I just got a couple of men who worked along with me,” said Geller, who served in the Army in World War II as a member of the 262 Signal Construction Company.

No central registry for local Jewish veterans existed until now. Each Memorial Day and Veterans Day, Geller and other Jewish veterans walk the cemeteries and place a flag on each headstone bearing a Veterans Administration marker.

Geller and his crew put out close to 200 flags at Glendale Cemetery on Memorial Day last year. But many veterans’ graves are not marked. For lack of documentation, none were decorated in the Jewish section of Woodland Cemetery or on graves in the old Children of Israel cemetery located at the corner of Easton and Delaware avenues, said Ted Block, 82, of West Des Moines. Block is a World War II veteran, inducted into the Army in 1943 at the age of 18.

When the group began gathering information, there were about 150 known veterans buried in the Jewish section of Woodland Cemetery. About 50 more names have been added to the list, with more being discovered daily, according to Block.

“I don’t think people know that it is done or who does it,” Geller said. “Many of those buried in the Des Moines area served with valor, but it doesn’t say it on their stones. I’m not sure that the bulk of the Jewish population knows about it.”

Those who mark and decorate the graves know that an important part of the history of Judaism in Iowa ? the record of military service ? is slipping away. The campaign to research and document the names of all Jews who served in the U.S. military began in January.

“Jews fought in the Revolutionary War,” Block said. “In Des Moines’ Jewish cemeteries there are graves of Jewish war veterans who fought in the Spanish-American War, World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam. We served our country, and the record of that sacrifice should not be lost.”

Barbara Galinsky, 70, and Eli Galinsky, 79, of Urbandale, visited Glendale Cemetery on Wednesday to make sure the plants near the graves of Barbara’s first husband, Jerry Vitebsky, and her son, Michael Vitebsky, had bloomed “and that the flags got put up.”

“I thought they only placed flags on those who served overseas, but when they started making a record of Jewish veterans I asked and they said it was for all veterans,” Barbara Galinsky said. “This is the first time for Michael.”

In addition to preserving history, the Jewish veterans believe they must defend themselves against falsehoods spread by anti-Semites who continue to claim that Jews have not served in the U.S. armed forces, Block said.

“Thousands of Jews have died in combat for their country and thousands more have been wounded,” said Cheryl Waldman, the Washington, D.C., national program coordinator of Jewish War Veterans of the United States. Writing for a 350-year history of Jewish military service in this country, Waldman noted, “During the 20th century, nearly a million Jews served in the armed services. It continues today, with Jews serving and dying for their country in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Ben Shlaes, 79, of Windsor Heights is working to contact families, even those who may have moved away, to identify undocumented veterans. He and Block are contacting funeral homes to search their records for military service. They’re also asking other Jewish vets to identify men or women with whom they may have served. Bronze medallions with flag holders are then obtained from the Department of Veterans Affairs and installed at the grave sites.

“Every day we find more,” Block said.

“Whoever was in the military, they are entitled to have their grave decorated on Memorial Day,” Geller said. “I don’t like to leave anybody out.”