Jewish firefighters honor a champion of memorials

Sol Moglen, the Caldwell resident who spearheaded a campaign to honor heroes of 9/11, was honored himself May 20 by the Ner Tamid Society, an organization of Jewish members of the New York Fire Department.

Moglen was presented with two plaques for his contributions to the firefighters and efforts to pay tribute to their heroism during the World Trade Center attacks.

One was a mahogany plaque in the shape of the Fire Department’s Maltese Cross insignia for his “support and dedication to the Ner Tamid Society.”

The second was the Physicians’ Service Award — “an award of valor for outstanding and exemplary service to the public.”

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The ceremony was held at Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn.

A Brooklynite by birth, Moglen felt a need to recognize 137 Brooklyn residents among the 343 firefighters who died battling the flames at the Twin Towers. He raised $500,000 to erect three memorial walls at MCU Park in Coney Island, the home field of the minor league Brooklyn Cyclones.

Since 2004, Moglen has been an honorary FDNY battalion chief.

Moglen, a member of Congregation Agudath Israel in Caldwell, was also instrumental in crusading for a memorial to the Jewish chaplains who died during their military service in the American armed forces. That memorial was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington on Oct. 26, 2011.

“Sol is a guy who gets involved with those who are forgotten, like the Jewish chaplains and the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance,” said Stephen Klein, a retired supervising fire alarm dispatcher and chair of the Ner Tamid Society board. “Sol took it upon himself to do these things, and we are very proud of him.”