Lou Lenart, ‘man who saved Tel Aviv,’ dies

When Lou Lenart was growing up in a Pennsylvania mining town, he endured beating after beating because he was Jewish.

After he took a Charles Atlas bodybuilding course, he joined the Marines and fought in the Pacific. A few years later, he smuggled warplanes into Israel, helped found the new state’s tiny air force and led an attack on more than 10,000 Egyptian troops who had advanced to a bridge within 16 miles of Israel’s biggest city.

“It was the most important moment of my life, and I was born to be there at that precise moment in history,” he told the Jerusalem Post in 2012. “I was the luckiest man in the world that my destiny brought me to that precise moment to be able to contribute to Israel’s survival.”

Lenart, hailed in Israeli headlines as “the man who saved Tel Aviv,” died Monday at his home in Ra’anana, Israel. He was 94. He had congestive heart failure, his Los Angeles publicist, Edward Lozzi, said.

In a long, swashbuckling career, Lenart airlifted thousands of Jewish refugees from Iraq to Israel, served as a pilot for El Al airline, worked as general manager for basketball’s Clippers when they were in San Diego and helped produce Hollywood films shot in Israel.

Lenart is featured in “Above and Beyond,” Nancy Spielberg’s 2014 documentary about Jewish pilots from the U.S. who established Israel’s air defenses.

Intrigued by stories of their groundbreaking work in Israel, playwright David Mamet likened Lenart and his colleagues to the giants of American history.

“Meeting with guys like Lou Lenart and Al Schwimmer, it’s like sitting down with Abraham Lincoln or George Washington,” he said in a 2012 interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “When the pioneers did what they did, it was basically impossible.”

Lenart kept a home in Los Angeles as well as one in Israel. One of the planes he flew as a Marine fighter pilot is on permanent display near Los Angeles International Airport.

But he is most closely associated with a 40-minute strafing and bombing raid on Egyptian columns that had marched up the Israeli coast from Gaza on May 29, 1948.

With tanks and trucks, the troops were stalled at a bridge that had been blown up by Israeli commandos. In another day, they would have rolled into Tel Aviv.

With only a few hours’ notice, Lenart and three other pilots hopped into Czech Avia S-199s— small, rickety planes that had been pieced together with parts from German Messerschmitts, dismantled before being covertly shipped to Israel and reassembled on a makeshift airstrip.

But, surprised by the attack, the advancing forces ultimately withdrew. The bridge where they had bogged down is still known as Ad Halom— or Up to Here.

Old Lyme— For the past five years, community members have gathered at a race to honor Caroline O’Brien, a little girl who wanted to brighten the lives of others.

Each year at the annual fundraiser for Caroline’s Miracle Foundation, hundreds of participants have lined up in the early morning hours at the starting line and crossed the finish line amid cheers.

One year, runners adorned their hair in silly ways for the “crazy hair” run. Another time, a young boy learned to play “Sweet Caroline” on the drums and passed out lyrics so participants could sing along.

“It’s really quite amazing to see our community go out year after year to support Caroline’s wish,” said Jennifer O’Brien, Caroline’s mother.

Caroline, a happy-go-lucky girl from Old Lyme, helped start the foundation, so children with brain tumors or other serious illnesses could enjoy themselves. Caroline passed away from a brain tumor in 2010 at age 11.

This year’s event, the 5K run, 5K walk and kids K for Caroline’s Miracle Foundation on Saturday will mark the last run. But the foundation’s work— which has so far given 78 children “mini- miracles”