When the US was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, I was the same age as the current cadets at West Point are now. After graduating from college, I assumed I would leave the dangers of Afghanistan to our military and focus on studying for the Jewish clergy. Growing up on the Upper East Side, Judaism…
A U.S. Marine chaplain’s summary of a New Testament passage that appeared on military websites blamed the “Men of Israel” for killing Christ. The remarks, written for Easter, were part of a post by the chaplain published on both Camp Lejeune and Department of Defense websites. The post stayed up for weeks before complaints to…
Max Bendich, a 29-year-old American soldier, arrived in Paris just after its liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944, determined to find whatever Jews were left in the city. He took the metro to the historically Jewish neighborhood of Le Marais and, wandering through eerily empty streets, stumbled upon an empty German barracks with people staring…
President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination of Retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to be defense secretary is raising hackles among Democrats concerned that Austin would erode civilian control of the military. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, praised Austin’s experience in a Tuesday statement, but said that the nomination of a retired general for the traditionally civilian role…
(JTA) — U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff David Goldfein, the highest-ranking Jewish officer in the American military, called the death of George Floyd a “national tragedy.” In a memo distributed late Monday asking commanders to “ensure wide distribution of this message,” Goldfein, a general, said that “every American should be outraged that the conduct…
(JTA) — A U.S. Army commander of a recruiting company in Houston was suspended after he distributed a memo in which he used the phrase “Arbeit Macht Frie.” The phrase, which means “Work Will Set You Free,” was displayed on the gate of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. The commander, whose name and unit have…
(JTA) — A rabbi accused of sending sexually inappropriate text and voice messages to a woman living on a Tacoma-area military base is resigning his position. “I write to notify you that I am resigning my position as Rabbi of Chabad of Pierce County effective Sunday, August 11, 2019,” Rabbi Zalman Heber said in a…
A Jewish woman living on a U.S. Army installation in Washington state confided with the only rabbi on the base that another rabbi was sexually harassing her – but the chaplain worked with the other rabbi to ostracize her and her husband from the local Jewish community, an Army investigation found. After Army Staff Sergeant…
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