Iran’s Attack on Israel
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After October 7, skydiver Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld wanted to spread a message of peace and unity. With 51 parachutists, he created a Star of David in the sky.
When Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld heard about what happened in Israel on October 7, he knew he had to take action. As a Jew with a deep love of the Jewish homeland, he wanted to use his talents to spread a message of peace and unity around the world. And as a professional skydiver for the past 43 years, he knew exactly what to do.
“As quickly as things were going bad in Israel, the global community was responding negatively towards Israel,” Dan said. “Hate in every form was exploding. It became very urgent to do something.”
Dan Brodsky-Chenfeld
He sent out an email to friends and told them to meet him in California, where he lives and works at his company P3 Skydiving LLC. He needed to get together a group of 51 people in just 72 hours’ notice. It had to be done swiftly to not only show his support for Israel, but also because he was going into shoulder surgery on November 16 and only had one or two jumps left in him.
The emails started pouring in: “I’ll be there,” they said. “Of course.” “I’m on my way.” Only five of them were Jewish; the rest were not. They flew in from Colorado, Iowa, and Arizona, and drove overnight from San Francisco to partake in the jump.
Their mission? To form a Star of David in the sky.
Though Dan and his friends are expert skydivers, that didn’t mean making the formation would be easy: they’d only have 60 seconds to do it.
“If someone didn’t get to the formation, or the cameraman wasn’t in the right position, it wouldn’t work,” he said. “We collected this group on such short notice and everyone who was there knew it was important in their hearts.”
The weather was perfect. The cameraman found the perfect spot, and when it came time to skydive, they successfully formed the Star of David in the sky.
“We did this really great jump,” Dan said. “The Star of David speaks for itself.”
Dan and his group of friends went by the name Skydivers Against Hate. Since Dan and the Israeli editor Ofer Yakov have posted the video on Instagram and YouTube, it’s received nearly 2 million views and thousands of comments.
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“I didn’t fathom that,” Dan said. “But I am thrilled. I was mostly thrilled to hear it from Israel that people were touched by that level of support. I’ve gotten so many messages from Israel. It was meaningful that so many people – people who were Jewish and not Jewish – showed up to do it.”
Dan was born to a Jewish family in Albany, New York. They moved to Columbus, Ohio, when he was 8 years old, and he dreamed about flying one day.
“Little kids have little kid fantasies all the time, and mine was about flying,” he said. “I watched birds fly, I watched superheroes fly and just thought that was the coolest thing in the world. The fantasy was human flight.”
Back in the 1960s, Dan saw something on TV about skydiving, which there wasn’t much of during that time.
“I said, ‘That’s it! People are flying, unattached to any machine,’” he said. “I fell in love with the idea.”
As soon as Dan turned 18 – the legal age to skydive – he did his first jump.
“Nowadays, there are tandem jumps where you are hooked to an instructor, but we didn’t have that when I started,” he said. “I had to jump by myself. I was absolutely terrified and horrified. It was a fear and adrenaline rush of a lifetime. It’s the same thing for people on their first jump. It gave me enough of a taste of it, and I knew I wanted more.”
After graduating from Ohio State University with a degree in aviation, Dan immediately took over the skydiving center he worked at – and he kept going on that career path. He’s done 30,000 jumps and has become a world-famous competitive skydiver.
photo credit: Craig Obrien
Dan also experienced a miracle: he survived a plane crash from which 16 of the 22 people on board were killed. He was critically injured and spent six weeks in a coma with a broken neck and skull, severe head trauma, a collapsed lung, and several internal injuries.
“I have no actual memory of the crash itself,” he said. “I woke up to this reality. But my spinal cord wasn’t damaged. I had a pretty severe brain injury but I didn’t damage my brain so much that I couldn’t use it. I was lucky I wasn’t hurt worse. It makes you appreciate how fragile life is. It makes you value every day and every moment and the relationships you have. You let the people you love know that you love them. It gives you a new appreciation for life.”
Dan ended up writing a book about his near-death experience called, “Above All Else: A World Champion Skydiver's Story of Survival and What It Taught Him About Fear, Adversity, and Success,” and he became a motivational speaker.
Now that the war in Israel is happening, he is also outspoken about being a proud Jew and supporter of the Jewish state – which he fell in love with during his first and only visit in 1980.
On his Instagram, he posted a photo from that trip, writing, “1980, my best friend Richard Fishman and I on Mount Masada which overlooks the Dead Sea in Israel. Masada is a symbol of the ancient kingdom of Israel, its violent destruction and the last stand of the Jewish patriots in the face of the Roman Army, in 73 A.D. Yeah, the Jewish people have been in Israel for quite a long time.”
That friend, Richard Fishman, of blessed memory, ended up co-CEO of AIPAC. He died this past October, at the age of 62. Dan is determined to carry on his friend’s legacy by continuing to advocate for Israel.
He was supposed to return to Israel this coming summer for the world skydiving championship, where he was going to create the Star of David formation over Israel. But because of the war, it ended up being canceled. So in the meantime, as he recovers from his shoulder surgery, he’s going to keep speaking up – just like his friend Richard would have wanted.
“We need to do everything we can to have peace, which means destroying Hamas,” he said. “No matter how much hate is around us, no matter how many horrific things are done to Israel and to Jews around the world, we need to fight to get towards the end result, which is peace with our neighbors.”
SO TOUCHING!! Thank you for showing the world and Israel how much we love and support their mission to annihilate Hamas and all our enemies.
I am an American Jewish woman and a Child of Holocaust surviving parents who emmigrated after WW2.
Holocaust education MUST be made mandatory in EVERY state in our country in grades K-12 . And become a National tested area just like reading and math. This way the truth will be taught before our children get to Universities and taught by Professors from countries like Quatar who have contribted billions so their Professors will teach Middle Eastern studies. Quatar is the same country Hamas leaders are staying. We MUST make our colleges become more transparent where donations are coming from!!
I am an Israeli-American and want to thank all of the skydivers for the beautiful display. We need all the support we can get. Wonderful that people came from many states and only 5 were Jewish.
Amazing and heartwarming
beautiful, touching and I feel the love.