USCJ Review - Spring 2003
Synagogues Wage Campaign to Keep Military Jews' Morale High
Air Force Staff Sergeant Robin Schenker, a Conservative Jew from New Brunswick, New Jersey, hasn't found much Jewishness in military life.
"I have not met many Jewish people in the military at all," says the 28-year-old, who has spent the past 10 years in Biloxi, Mississippi, Tucson, Arizona, and is now stationed at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, just outside Washington D.C.
As a result, Schenker finds it almost impossible to be observant. "In the military, it's really hard to put religion in your life, especially when there are no temples on base."
Schenker's isolation is common for Jews in military service these days. While they share with non-Jewish personnel the loneliness of being stationed far from friends and family, they suffer additional loss of community as a result of low Jewish enlistment and a lack of Jewish military chaplains. In response, congregations try to march to their aid, trying to make their lives a bit more “haimish.”
There are no statistics revealing the number of Jews currently in service, says Rabbi Nathan Landman, a former Air Force chaplain and now the deputy director of the Jewish Welfare Board's Jewish Chaplain's Council, a division of the Jewish Community Centers Association (www.jcca.org) -- but experience tells him the numbers are low.
"Half the percentage of the population level would be optimistic," Landman says.
Jews account for 2.1 percent of the U.S. population, according to the latest census figures. If Landman's estimate is correct, out of an Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps totaling 1.4 million, fewer than 15,000 are Jewish.
According to the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America (www.jwv.org), during World War I, Jews made up 3.3 percent of the population and 5.7 percent of the armed forces. During World War II, 3.3 percent of the population and 4.2 percent of the armed forces were Jewish. Why the about-face in Jewish military service today?
Rabbi Bonnie Koppell of Chandler, Arizona's, Temple Beth Sholom -- a Lieutenant Colonel and the first female rabbi to serve as a chaplain in the armed forces -- has a theory.
"I think in general it's not part of the Jewish culture to be in the military," she says. "You don't have family traditions other than World War II, when there was a massive mobilization draft."
If the numbers of Jewish servicemen and women seem small, the number of Jewish military chaplains is microscopic — 27 active duty Jewish chaplains in all branches of the armed forces, an all-time low, according to Landman. Such a dearth of rabbis makes it impossible for the chaplaincy service to do an adequate job of tending to the spiritual and community needs of far-flung Jewish personnel. Jew s are the spiritual casualties of the current military.
Synagogues can help by mounting a campaign of support. For example, they can donate to the JCC Association's Women's Organization Services, which provides Hanukkah gifts to Jewish soldiers and their families. And they can reach out directly to Jews in uniform by participating in the Chaplain Council's Shana Tova greeting card project.
"The biggest thing for morale for Jewish soldiers is for kids to send greeting cards for the holidays," Landman says. Youth in religious schools, youth groups, and summer camps prepare the cards. Creating a spiritual supply line of sorts, the Chaplain's Council forwards them to military chaplains, who in turn distribute them to soldiers. Often the soldiers write back.
To Jews stationed where they can't attend a community seder, such as those serving on Navy ships, the Chaplain's Council each year sends up to 1000 Solo Seder Kits. The $12 kits contain grape juice, matzah, gefilte fish, tuna, kosher candy, and a Haggadah. Synagogues participate by raising funds, Landman says.
Don Schiller, assistant executive director of the United Synagogue METNY region, says that in his area, congregations have provided hundreds of Solo Seder Kits funded through their donations and through money raised by Hebrew and nursery school tzedakah projects.
Members of congregations located near military bases with no Jewish chaplain can provide a more personal touch by volunteering to serve as lay religious leaders.
Navy Captain (Ret.) Arnold Resnicoff, who until his retirement in 2000 served as the Command Chaplain for the U.S. European Command and was the highest ranked Jewish chaplain, suggests that synagogues near military bases invite Jews in uniform to services and to special events such as Passover sederarim. He also urges synagogues to offer reduced rates for military personnel who participate in congregational programs.
Beth Sholom's Koppell, herself a 24-year military veteran, agrees.
"Some of the lower enlisted ranks are not at all well paid. And letting them know they are loved and remembered is important."
These tactics have been followed to the letter by congregation Shaare Tikvah in Temple Hills, Maryland. Each year, Rabbi Reuven Resnick invites Jewish airmen and women stationed at Andrews Air Force Base to a Hanukkah celebration. Last year, the congregation shared the holiday with three military families.
Shaare Tikvah also offers servicemen free High Holy Day tickets. In addition, Resnick serves as the base's official Jewish representative.
"If there's ever anyone who asks to talk to the rabbi or if there's an interfaith event where they want a rabbi to speak, they turn to me," he says.
Occasionally, rabbis serve in more direct, and unexpected, ways. Shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Koppell, then a reservist, was remobilized and ordered to serve at Fort Huachuca, 300 miles from her pulpit.
"I put 30,000 miles on my car in the last year," Koppell says.
As a brigade chaplain, Koppell was responsible for the spiritual welfare of 1500 soldiers. She was also in a unique position to respond to the needs of two dozen Jewish soldiers on the base.
"When I got to Fort Huachuca there was a tremendous thirst for Jewish learning."
She offered as thirst-quenchers weekly Friday night services and monthly Shabbat morning services, and taught classes in beginning Hebrew, the weekly Torah portion and Pirkei Avot. The rabbi even taught non-Jewish chaplains about Jewish life and customs and consulted with officers about everything from the need for kosher rations to the proper regulations governing Jewish soldiers wearing kippot in the Army.
Thanks to her own military service, Koppell's congregation has always been on the front lines of military outreach. In fact, eight of Temple Beth Sholom's 200 members have gone beyond the call of duty. They joined up themselves.
"I attribute some of that to these kids seeing me once a month in fatigues during Sunday school," she says.
And Temple Beth Sholom's young enlisted men and women never think they are forgotten.
"We publish their names in the synagogue bulletin and encourage the congregation to write to them, e-mail them and send them packages for the holidays."
Further, she encourages b'nai mitzvah candidates to write regularly to people on active duty as part of their tzedakah projects.
As for congregations without armed forces members of their own, Koppell suggests contacting the Chaplain's Council to get names and addresses of Jewish servicemen and women. Synagogues near military installations can contact the local chaplain for information on needed activities and supplies.
Sometimes the troops' needs are surprising, as Former Navy chaplain Rabbi Alvin Berkin, now at the Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh, discovered during the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
"I somewhere read that the Army chaplain needed mahzorim and that was just the time when our synagogue decided to use a different mahzor," recalls Berkin.
He was able to donate 300 Silverman mahzorim so that soldiers could pray on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
"I was bringing yiddishkeit to them and making them know that they were not forgotten."
Resnicoff points out that as important as personal contact is, so too is what he calls, "a congregational mindset," to remember Jewish men and women in uniform.
"No synagogue should have a prayer for Israel without a prayer for our country," he insists. "And no synagogue should have a prayer for the men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces without one for our men and women in uniform here."
He urges synagogues to honor military personnel and their veterans during Veterans Day and Memorial Day.
Koppell, not surprisingly, knows the drill.
"I tend, on Veterans Day and Memorial Day, to make a point of asking all the veterans in the synagogue to rise and read something or say something, to drive home the patriotic nature of the event."
Koppell, who is often briefed by soldiers about their contacts with the Jewish community, is a witness to the morale boost congregations give to those men and women.
"It's so meaningful. One guy told me even though he has listed 'Jewish' as his religious preference for his entire 10-year career, it was the first time there was ever any response to that."
Michael Jackman is a freelance writer based in Louisville, Kentucky who writes frequently on Jewish themes. For more information about the Chaplain's Council, call (212) 532-4958.
