Rabbi Hanoch Teller has continued his now long-running series on Jews in the US military whose religious exercise, and their interaction with the military leadership, ultimately set the stage for military religious freedom today.

In Part VIII, Teller expounds on some of the backstory to Rabbi Goldman’s attempt to wear a yarmulke in uniform, highlighting the military’s need to have a “compelling interest” and the way the military created that compelling interest: by saying they yarmulke detracted from the Air Force’s requirement for uniformity and “good order and discipline.”

The timing of Teller’s discussion on this issue is interesting, given the recent Supreme Court appeal in US v Sterling — in which the Marines allegedly failed to cite a compelling interest in restricting a Marine’s religious act.

Read Teller’s prior articles.

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