Melbourne – Jeffery Rosenfeld joined illustrious company this month when he was promoted to Major General of the Australian Army.
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Major General Rosenfeld became just the third Jewish Australian to rise to the rank.
He follows in the footsteps of General Sir John Monash and Major General Paul Cullen.
“I’m in pretty august company,” Rosenfeld said. “It is a great honour and a privilege.”
Rosenfeld, 56, is also the head of the Department of Surgery at Melbourne’s Monash University and director of the Department of Neurosurgery at The Alfred Hospital.
He received the promotion at a ceremony in Canberra earlier this month attended by his wife and two of his three children.
“I was absolutely over-the-moon when I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. I thought that was the ultimate, I thought I would never go any further,” he said.
Rosenfeld admitted that his various roles can be a bit of a “juggle” and paid tribute to his wife Debbie, a paediatrician.
“I couldn’t have done what I’ve done without her”, he said. “She deserves part of this rank … she’s a general too.”
When he joined the Army Reserve in 1984, Rosenfeld said he did it to serve his country, rather than to climb to lofty military heights.
“It’s been a very exciting second career,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of new people that I otherwise wouldn’t have met”.
Rosenfeld, who is also the Surgeon General of Defence Health Reserves, has served in Rwanda, East Timor, Bougainville, Solomon Islands and was most recently deployed to Iraq in 2004.
For him, the decision to serve his country was inspired purely by patriotism.
“It’s a very good thing for a Jewish person to aspire to in terms of serving their country,” he said.
“Putting on the uniform of their country is really the highest calling of an Australian citizen, you are there to defend your country, in my case defending the country by looking after the troops who are fighting for our freedom,” he said.
Rosenfeld is the first Jewish Australian to be appointed to the high rank in more than 50 years.
Monash, a cousin of Rosenfeld’s, was the first Jewish Australian of that rank. To this day, Monash is considered one of Australia’s foremost military minds.
Cullen, who died in 2007, was the second Jewish Australian Major General. He served in World War II and was a highly regarded infantry commander.
He fought on the battlefields of the Middle East and was later deployed to Papua New Guinea where he fought against the Japanese.