The Jewish Chaplains Memorial that will join the others at Chaplain’s Hill in Arlington will be dedicated in a ceremony next Monday, 24 October.

The memorial is a bronze plaque with the names of the 14 Jewish Chaplains who died while on duty from 1943 to 1974; at the top are two lions bracketing the Jewish chaplains’ insignia, which is two tablets with a Star of David on top.

As a point of trivia, none of the chaplains memorialized on the plaque actually wore that insignia.  From 1917 to 1981, the tablets had Roman numerals; Jewish chaplains successfully changed their insignia in the early 1980s to use Hebrew letters.

The history of chaplain insignia, including the Shepherd’s crook and even a Messianic controversy, is an interesting one for another time.