{"id":13512,"date":"2011-10-03T01:34:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T06:34:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=13512"},"modified":"2011-10-03T01:34:40","modified_gmt":"2011-10-03T06:34:40","slug":"us-military-jews-celebrate-high-holy-days-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/03\/us-military-jews-celebrate-high-holy-days-in-afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"US Military Jews Celebrate High Holy Days in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Jewish Daily Forward <\/em>notes that Jewish American military members are able to celebrate their religious holidays<\/a> even while deployed to a combat zone — in a country with an official Islamic constitution, no less.<\/p>\n

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Rabbi Jacob Goldstein will lead Yom Kippur services this year dressed not in the black fedora of his Lubavitch Hasidic sect, but in full battle gear at a Combat Operating Base in eastern Afghanistan.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

And Rabbi Laurence Bazer won\u2019t be delivering the sermon at Temple Beth Sholom, his Conservative synagogue in Framingham, Mass. Instead, he\u2019ll be ministering to the cheekily named Congregation B\u2019nai Kabul in the heart of the Afghan capital.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Four Jewish Chaplains are currently serving US troops in the region, with three on short-term orders specifically to support troops for the holy days.<\/p>\n

While Chaplain Bazer notes the special nature of the holy days, he also reiterates his role in serving all troops.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point I\u2019m specifically taking care of the Jewish community,\u201d Bazer said of his work during the High Holy Days. That marks a departure for the rabbi. \u201cMy real role,\u201d he said, \u201cis to take care of all service members and contractors and the government officials that fall under our command. That\u2019s something I\u2019m very proud of, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m called chaplain.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interestingly, there were near-daily, readily-available military news articles on Ramadan over the period of the month, but this non-military source is currently the first, and only, equivalent\u00a0on the Jewish\u00a0celebrations starting last week.<\/p>\n

Photo: U.S. Army Chaplain (LtCol Avi S. Weiss…now the Installation Management Command Europe deputy chaplain, blows a shofar during a Rosh Hashanah service at Freedom Chapel here Sept. 29, 2011. Weiss will conduct services throughout the 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team’s area of responsibility in observance of the Jewish New Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Jewish Daily Forward notes that Jewish American military members are able to celebrate their religious holidays even while deployed to a combat zone — in a country with an official Islamic constitution, no less. Rabbi Jacob Goldstein will lead Yom Kippur services this year dressed not in the black fedora of his Lubavitch Hasidic sect, but in full battle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[58,5284,2288,44,827,39,2289,2,145,80,10,171,2287,963],"class_list":["post-13512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afghanistan","tag-chaplain","tag-hasidic","tag-islam","tag-jacob-goldstein","tag-jewish","tag-laurence-bazer","tag-military","tag-mission-aviation-fellowship","tag-ramadan","tag-religion","tag-religious-freedom","tag-rosh-hashana","tag-yom-kippur"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}