I wanted to share a story that Rookie Billet told about George Shultz when she spoke at Congregation Beth Aaron over 30 years ago:

World Jewry was worried that Shultz would be anti-Israel because he had been an executive at Bechtel, a corporation that had done much work with Saudi Arabia. Billet explained how Shultz became sympathetic to Israel. The details might not be exactly correct, but this is what I recall her saying. Before his position at Bechtel, Shultz had been in academia. Once he had a student from Israel in a graduate school class; he was a top student. Then a war in Israel broke out. (I don’t recall which one.) The student told Shultz he had to go back to Israel to fight with his unit. Shultz told him: “Don’t worry, I’ll write whatever note you want to excuse you.” The student insisted on returning. The end of the story is that the student was killed in the war. This story greatly influenced Shultz to become sympathetic to Israel.

P.S. I just learned from Wikipedia that Shultz grew up in Englewood.

By Mitchell First