{"id":3825,"date":"2010-02-15T00:25:56","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T08:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=3825"},"modified":"2010-02-14T23:10:33","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T07:10:33","slug":"generals-speak-at-religious-military-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/15\/generals-speak-at-religious-military-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Generals Speak at Religious Military Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

In order to help “Jewish men and women in the US armed forces maintain their religious connection,” the Aleph Insitute hosted a Military Shabbaton and Training Conference<\/a> in Florida.\u00a0 The event brought<\/p>\n

together more than 300 service personnel, lay leaders and congregants for presentations by military leaders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Key military speakers included Fort Bliss commander Maj Gen Howard Bromberg; Rear Adm Robert\u00a0Burt, Navy Chief of Chaplains; and Maj Gen Douglas Carver, Chief of Chaplains for the Army.<\/p>\n

The Aleph Institute noted the importance of the Chaplaincy in the military:<\/p>\n

According to Rabbi Sanford Dresin, Aleph\u2019s director of military programs, military chaplaincy has its roots in the First Amendment and its guarantees of religious freedom for all citizens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the same time, the institute seemed to misunderstand the role of Chaplaincy.\u00a0 For example, the article notes that\u00a0 <\/p>\n

an Army Captain in Baghdad who was the lone Jew on his base [had] his repeated requests for materials such as prayer books and Shabbat candles…ignored by the chain of command.<\/p>\n

A chaplain in Kuwait referred the officer to…the Aleph Institute, who put him in contact with other Jewish soldiers in the area and shipped out a package containing Shabbat candles, tefillin, a Kiddush cup and prayer books.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The problem with that anecdote is that the Chaplain, not the chain of command, is responsible for meeting the Soldier’s request for religious materials.\u00a0 While it is possible that the Soldier had no access to any Chaplains in Baghdad, the Chaplain he contacted in Kuwait should still have arranged to provide for his spiritual needs, rather than simply passing him off to a civilian support\u00a0organization.<\/p>\n

The Aleph Institute also says<\/p>\n

Because of all the red tape involved, the lone soldier stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan has almost no chance of getting these things through the regular channels.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

which, quite honestly, is a misrepresentation.\u00a0 “Red tape” is a reference to a bureaucratic road block, and there is no indication that there are any institutional barriers to any<\/em> Soldier’s religious exercise in the combat theatre.\u00a0 In fact, the opposite is true, with Chaplains going out of their way to ensure the institutional support<\/em> of Soldiers’ religious freedoms.\u00a0 In addition, any “red tape” faced by a Jewish Soldier would be no different than that faced by a Soldier of any other faith.<\/p>\n

While there are many remote outposts with limited access, the Aleph Institute paints an inaccurate picture of the religious support provided by the military.\u00a0 Contrary to their implications, Chaplains in Iraq and Afghanistan stand both ready and willing to provide for the needs of US military members regardless of their faith.\u00a0 Chaplains even make efforts to serve those in extremely remote locations, FOB-hopping<\/a> in helicopters and convoys to serve the spiritual needs of every<\/em> US military member.<\/p>\n

The Aleph Institute has provided valuable resources for US military members around the world.\u00a0\u00a0It is an official endorsing agency for Jewish US military Chaplains, and given the presence of the service head Chaplains, appears to be have a close and\u00a0positive relationship with the military Chaplaincy.\u00a0 It is disappointing to see it apparently speak inaccurately and poorly of efforts by the US military to support religious free exercise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In order to help “Jewish men and women in the US armed forces maintain their religious connection,” the Aleph Insitute hosted a Military Shabbaton and Training Conference in Florida.\u00a0 The event brought together more than 300 service personnel, lay leaders and congregants for presentations by military leaders. Key military speakers included Fort Bliss commander Maj Gen Howard Bromberg; Rear Adm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[58,88,4,52,39,2,10],"class_list":["post-3825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-afghanistan","tag-army","tag-churchandstate","tag-iraq","tag-jewish","tag-military","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3825","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=3825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}