(Courtesy of JWV) The Jewish War Veterans Department of New Jersey elected its first female department commander, Selina S. Kanowitz, an Air Force veteran from Voorhees, New Jersey. Kanowitz served for over 21 years in the Air Force, attaining the rank of master sergeant (E7). She was the non-commissioned officer in charge of radiology with the 913th Combat Support Squadron in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
Kanowitz comes from a long line of Jewish veterans who served during World War II. Her father was an Army medic; her father-in-law was in the Army infantry; numerous uncles also served, including one who was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. A cousin, a Marine, was killed in action at Iwo Jima.
Selina is now a staff nuclear medicine technologist at Temple University hospital in Philadelphia. She and her husband Howard have been married for over 42 years and have two children, Faryn and Jason.4
Founded in 1896, the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America is the oldest continuously active veterans organization in the nation.
