Iraq Stories

Written by Megan Brown

Military Jews Struggle with Observance and Faith in Wartime
Too often the Jewish community is in isolation from those of their members that serve our Nation,” said Rabbi Carlos Huerta. Huerta himself recently served in Iraq, where, as fighting wears on, Jewish soldiers face myriad issues from faith and morale to finding kosher meals.

The difficulties they encounter seem fresh – yet Jews have a long history in the American Armed Forces. “My father was a veteran,” says Deborah Dash Moore, professor of Jewish studies at Vassar College. According to Moore, over half a million Jews – about half of those eligible for the draft – served in the military during World War II. When she discovered their absence from traditional scholarship on the subject, she began investigating their stories, which she explores in her new book, G.I. Jew.

Huerta warned us that today, finding and telling these stories wouldn’t be easy. “Please understand,” he said, “that for those of us who served, it is sometimes hard to talk about our experience over there. The ones we most open up to are those who would understand what it is to stand in 120 degree heat, what it is to be shot at, have explosive devices blow up your vehicles, have your friends die next to you, pick up body parts that used to be attached to people you know. Civilians have a hard time understanding this or relating to it and as a consequence most soldiers find it hard to talk to them about it.” This winter, we asked a few of them, and a few of those supporting them from home, to do so anyway.

Faith Under Fire
“When you’re in a combat situation, you face a lot of questions that you otherwise wouldn’t face,” says Chaplain Irving Elson. “You try to develop different tools. One of those is faith.” Rabbi Elson views religion as a coping mechanism for many servicepeople. “When people are faced with death, they confront their own mortality more. People that never prayed before might consider starting to.”

Elson is a Navy chaplain who ministers to the Marines. He sees his role as vital: “People struggle with what they’re called to do. That’s part of my job, to help them through that,” he says. “I think you’d have to be crazy not to struggle with it.” The majority of Elson’s work is not faith-specific: many people seek out spirituality in wartime, and the appropriate chaplain isn’t always on hand. “We’re dealing with issues of life, not necessarily Jewish issues,” he explains. He can’t preside over baptisms or last rites for those of other faiths, but Elson says he is “aware enough to know what the requirements are for other denominations.”

Elson has already served two tours of duty in Iraq, during which he was the only Jewish chaplain with the Marines there. When asked about his experience, he paused. “It was pretty horrible,” he said. “It’s a war. People are shooting at you. It was a very difficult time but a very meaningful time to be a chaplain in the military. As chaplains, we’ve been training for this all our lives.”

Although Elson hopes he will not be deployed to Iraq for a third time, he thinks he “would be bored as a civilian rabbi.” Being a chaplain is “a very exciting type of work,” Elson explains. “Every day is different. I don’t know any civilian rabbis who get to ride on planes and ships, or camp out in the field. Other rabbis don’t live with their congregation. In combat, I’m with them twenty-four hours a day.”

Operation Religious Freedom
Shortly before press-time, 26-year-old Army Specialist Joe Kashnow’s right leg was amputated below the knee, a procedure necessary due to wounds he sustained during his tour of duty. Iraq “was everything,” Kashnow says. “It was miserable. It was wonderful. You’re away from home. You’re away from every creature comfort of your life, everything that’s been a part of your life. Every day was different.”

On September 17, 2003, Kashnow was driving a Humvee north of Baghdad when a bomb detonated nearby. The explosion broke both bones in his calf and damaged two arteries. Kashnow’s faith is helping him. “I believe very strongly that things are somewhat meant to be, in addition to free will,” he says. “Being Jewish is a big part of who I am. I’ve handled this pretty well, actually. I’ve never really sat around and done the ‘why, oh why has this happened to me?’ thing.”

As Kashnow was preparing for surgery, he was overseeing the Jewish Soldier Foundation (www.jewishsoldier.org). Based in Kashnow’s hometown of Baltimore, the JSF sends Jewish goods to servicepeople overseas, which he says are hard to come by, and advocates for their religious rights in the armed forces. The JSF plans to lobby Congress to give Jews Shabbat off when based in the United States–a goal that resounds on a personal level for Kashnow, who is Shomer Shabbos and has had difficulty maintaining his observance. After his recovery, Kashnow hoped to expand the JSF web site’s Wall of Honor, which currently recognizes four Jewish servicepeople who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Iraq provided a few high points for Kashnow’s Jewish life, though: while stationed in Tikrit, he paid a visit to the palace of Saddam Hussein’s second wife, Samira Shahbandar. “I’m probably the first person to daven and lay tefillin in Saddam’s palace,” he boasts. Kashnow was brought up with what he described as Conservative Judaism, but he is moving toward modern Orthodoxy. “To me, it’s a constant road,” he says. “Anyone who’s truly into their religion never stops growing.”

Hamantaschen and Hope
“It’s very difficult for a kid on the Arabian Sea to get a hamantash,” says Rabbi Menachem Katz, director of military programs at the Miami-based Aleph Institute. But through the Institute’s subset, Operation: Enduring Traditions, Katz makes it easy. “It’s important because these are young men and women putting their lives on the line to protect our freedom,” Katz says of the assistance he provides.

The Aleph Institute, which is affiliated with the Lubavitch movement, ships Jewish soldiers around the world kosher holiday food, books of psalms, and soft-cover Torahs. These shipments are expensive–one case of grape juice costs $60–but Katz says it’s worth it. “People are just floored,” he says. “When you get a Purim package, it’s heartwarming. It shows that people care about you.”

While the JSF and the Aleph Institute were fundraising for Jewish supplies, Americans were learning of a more dire military shortage: soldiers’ lack of sufficient body armor. Katz does not see a problem in raising money for Judaica while others are calling for more safety equipment. “I’m not in the body armor business,” he says. “I’m a rabbi.”

Aleph’s website (http://aleph.galeyisrael.net) reports packages sent to over forty-two international bases, sixty-five bases in the United States and eight ships at sea. It also proudly tallies the gifts sent out, listing 330 yarmulkes, 1,296 Torahs and 1,098 dreidels. The packages have been sent to bases from Afghanistan to Japan, Kosovo to Iraq. The Aleph Institute’s military program began in 1995 but, Rabbi Katz says, “took off after September 11.” Now, “whatever a Jew needs, he gets it, free of charge.”

Digital Deployment
When Second Lieutenant Jason Rubin joined the Marines, he often found himself working on Shabbat. “Boot camp, basic training stuff, officer training, it is basically impossible to get by without working on Shabbat because you are such a minority.” By warning his commanders in advance, he’s been able to score down-time on the high holidays. “I feel like being very observant and serving in the military is kind of a compromise,” says Rubin. “I expect the military to bend to meet my needs, but I bend as well.”

Now at a Naval air station in Kingsville, Texas, Rubin remembers that during the early part of his Marine Corps career, “I felt kind of isolated,” he says. “I felt there weren’t a lot of Jews in the military.” It wasn’t until he enrolled at Virginia Tech that he began to develop his Jewish identity. He realized he was not alone. “There are lots of other Jews serving their country,” Rubin says.

In April 2004, Rubin launched Jews in Green (www.jewsingreen.com), a web log that allows members of the armed services to post stories about their experiences as well as providing resources and community for Jewish soldiers, chaplains, and military families. The site offers military Jews everything from tips on everything from getting kosher food to moral support for spouses. The response to the web site has been positive, Rubin says. “When it takes more of an effort to practice Judaism, you are more determined.”

God and Country
“It doesn’t matter where I am sent,” says First Class Cadet Stephanie King, 22. “I trust my commanders, my peers, and my troops to support me, and my job is to support them as well.” King will graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy in June, and along with the rest of her class, has no idea yet where she will be deployed.

King’s degree certifies her as a Health Physicist–but her long-term goals include rabbinical school and possibly re-entry into the armed forces as a chaplain. Judaism has played an important role in her time at USAFA, despite many difficulties. “Being Jewish at the academy is much more challenging than it would be at a civilian university, with regard to the restrictions Judaism places on us,” she says. Nonetheless, King says that the group of observant Jews there is “small but closely knit.”

King applied to USAFA on a whim, she says, “just to see what would happen.” But the attacks of September 11 happened during her first fall as a cadet, and, she says, “the Academy, along with the rest of the world, was flipped upside down. This was the first time we had to face war. All of a sudden our purpose for choosing the academy and choosing a life of service meant something.”

Even so, King had trouble grappling with the war in Iraq. “Some people do question why we are there, and I had similar questions,” she says. “I spoke with our rabbi here and asked him about seeing purpose in military operations which seem so far away. He was very quiet. Then he asked me if I believe we all have a purpose in life, a reason and a way to serve God. I said, ‘yes, I believe in those things.’ He asked me if serving in the military serves that purpose, if serving my country meant serving God and humanity. I said, ‘yes, it does.’ That’s why I am here.”

Whatever her assignment is, King says she will be ready. “If our commander in chief or our generals say ‘go,’ we go knowing that our profession, our way of life, and what we protect are the most honorable and meaningful things we could ever ask to be a part of.”

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.