David Dattner
ACHARISMATIC AND decorated squadron leader whose knowledge of Yiddish helped him catch a German spy during the Second World War, David Dattner combined a spirit of adventure with deep religious altruism. He developed a particular desire to help disadvantaged youth which often led him into the city’s mean streets where he changed many lives.
David’s nominally observant father and very Orthodox mother belonged to the Adath Yisrael ultra-orthodox synagogue in Finsbury Park, North London, and sent David to the Avigdor school. There he met Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld, who deeply impressed him with his sincerity and realism. At the outbreak of the Second World War Dattner joined the RAF, where he remained for 25 years.
He started as a gunner, then became Gunnery Leader and eventually Squadron Leader, gaining the Air Force Cross. His war experience included flying adventures in Europe and in North Africa, but he was captured and tortured by the anti-semitic Ustashi in wartime Croatia.
At the start of the 1948 War of Inde- pendence, despite dreams of joining the Israel Defence Forces he remained a professional officer in the RAF, now focusing on air-electronics. In the dignified officers’ mess, while others ate gourmet food he maintained a kosher diet of vegetables, praying three times a day and observing Shabbat.
Based in Malta during the Suez Crisis of 1956, he and other Jewish airmen faced the dilemma of being asked to attack Israel. But the order came to attack Egypt instead. Unknown to him, then the British High Command had decided to excuse Jewish personnel in the event of ordering an attack on Israel.
In the 1950s, while stationed in Aldergrove, Northern Ireland, Dattner helped launch a mountain rescue team to locate missing airplanes and their often badly injured crew. He headed the Kinloss Mountain Rescue team covering the Cairngorms, and became Inspector of RAF Mountain Rescue for the UK and further afield, receiving the OBE in 1954. Visiting his mother in Westcliffe, he trained the local Bnei Akiva in a Jewish component of the recently launched Duke of Edinburgh Award. He would take a group up the Pyrenees, and at the summit ask them to put on Tefilin. But he was equally concerned for the most troubled youth in the country. He visited them in approved schools and developed a remarkable bond both with them and their families. At the age of 14 I travelled with him around the country, visiting young offenders in the city slums who invariably turned to butter when David was around. He was never attacked or robbed. He never needed to lock his doors or his car.
In 1965 David left the RAF, realising that, as a Jew he could rise no higher than Wing Commander. A Jew with relatives abroad could make him a risk. Perhaps Israel was the unspoken reason. David now began working formally in UK approved schools. He gained a diploma in education, writing a long dissertation on the history of Anglo-jewry. He soon became Principal of St Leonard’s Childrens’ Home in Hornchurch, Essex, with 150 children. His goal was “to inculcate mutual respect”. In 1976 David became head of Finnart House in Weybridge, the only Jewish approved s c hool i n t he country (only two of the 50 inmates were Jewish). When this closed down, David made aliyah and in the 1980s was appointed English teacher at the new SOS Childrens’ Village in Arad, where he took charge of 100 traumatised nine to 14 year olds, many of them orphaned by suicide bombers, or from deprived homes. David counselled each child individually, often describing the way mountain rescue personnel coped with their fears. At his funeral, former pupils recalled how he made them believe in themselves. He is survived by his niece Andy, her husband Roy Abrahams and their four children Ben, Sasha, Lauren and Tanya.