The West Point Jewish Chapel Fund mourns the loss of our chairman emeritus, Louis Gross, USMA class of 1954, who left us on August 17, 2024. Lou was the last surviving founder of the Fund, and his many contributions to West Point, the West Point Jewish Chapel and the West Point Jewish community will forever be remembered.
Lou Gross was born in 1930 in Brooklyn, New York. Imbued with a love of country from an early age, he enlisted in the National Guard at 18, achieving the rank of sergeant first class in a mere two years. In 1950, he won a competitive appointment to West Point and graduated in 1954. Commissioned as an engineer officer, he was assigned to the 42nd Engineer Battalion in Alaska. Lou spent the last few months of his three-year Army obligation with the US Army Corps of Engineers in New York City before resigning his commission in 1957.
Lou went to work for his father-in-law in his small business manufacturing television antennas, eventually taking over the business from him and transforming it into a diversified manufacturing and packaging company. He earned a masters degree in industrial engineering from Columbia University and a second masters degree in professional engineering, and was a licensed professional engineer.
In 1965, Lou’s good friend from the West Point Jewish chapel squad, Herb Lichtenberg ’55, invited Lou to lunch in Manhattan to discuss the possibility of constructing a Jewish chapel at West Point. Lou and Herb were two of “twenty assorted dreamers,” as Lou described them, including Jews and non-Jews, West Point grads and non-grads. As Lou explained, “I got involved because I felt that there should be some physical monument to the contribution of the Jewish American to the military exploits of the United States. Right or wrong, it’s my country. And I felt there should also be a haven for Jewish cadets to assist them through what I felt was a rather trying plebe year, and three (kind of) isolated subsequent years.”
Lou was a charter member of the West Point Jewish Chapel Fund when it was incorporated in 1968. The Fund initially set a goal of raising $1 million, but Lou and others quickly realized that would not be enough to construct the chapel. Eventually, the founders raised over $7 million. They pitched their plan to the Army: the Fund would construct a synagogue at West Point and donate it to the government. The Army eventually agreed to the plan, and the chapel was completed in 1984.
Lou was not done contributing to West Point, however. Along with Herb Lichtenberg and a third Jewish graduate, Lewis Zickel ’49, the “three amigos,” as they called themselves, set out to make an even greater impact. Together, they created the infrastructure improvement model that exists at West Point today: raising private funds for construction on West Point that the Army cannot fund. They funded and built homes on post for 18 intercollegiate athletic coaches. The Gross Center (adjacent to the Lichtenberg Tennis Center) is now the home of Army gymnastics. They repaired the floor of the Catholic chapel. Lou was the driving force behind the renovation of Building 147, transforming it into the World Religious Worship Center, which now serves the Muslim community, among others, at West Point. With a wry smile, Lou described the disbelief of foreign Muslim visitors when they found out that the Muslim worship center at West Point was funded by a Jew. And the (now) traditional old grad participation in the plebe march back from Lake Frederick? That was the three amigos’ idea, which they sold to the superintendent.
Lou remained active with the West Point Jewish Chapel Fund until his death. He served as chairman for 15 years, expanding his vision to one of support for Jewish cadets and the West Point Jewish community, and continuing to bring his vision to fruition. And although the Fund will be eternally grateful for his financial contributions, his ideas and his leadership in implementing them were even more valuable.
The Association of Graduates recognized Lou’s many contributions to West Point by naming him a distinguished graduate in 2016. Lou aptly summed up his own legacy: “And that’s what we delighted in—in having a good idea that would benefit the Corps, that would benefit the Academy, that would be adopted.” The West Point Society of New York succinctly described his contributions to West Point: “His record will never be replicated.”
Lou will be buried at West Point in the coming weeks. He is survived by four children and thirteen grandchildren.
Y’hi zichrono l’vracha—May his memory be a blessing. Well done; be thou at peace.
Jeffrey A. Jacobs, Class of 1979
Major General, US Army (Ret.)
Chairman of the Board
