Memorial Day

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Friday, May 23, 2008

I don’t remember too many of my Bat Mitzvah gifts, but there is one that stands out- a tape recorder. I’ll date myself by letting you know that it was reel-to-reel. None of my friends had a tape recorder yet so it was a very special gift and we spent hours fooling around with it.

The special present came from my uncle, because he wouldn’t be able to come to my Bat Mitzvah. The reason he couldn’t come? Well this will date me too, he was an American soldier in Vietnam.

While my uncle was parachuting in the jungles, his sister, my mother wore the “Another Mother For Peace” pin that was so popular at that time. It made for interesting Passover seder discussions. At my high school there were anti-Vietnam protests and teach-ins and we were as opposed to the war as any other progressive Jewish family of that era, and yet my perception of the war, was shaded just slightly by my uncle’s first hand experience both of the war and of the military.

Jews have served in the American Military since the Revolutionary War with a significant number -- perhaps 8-10,000 -- serving in the Union army during the Civil War. The oldest veteran’s organization in the United States is the Jewish War Veterans of the USA founded in 1896 and perennially answering the accusation that Jews don’t do their fair share in fighting for this country.

The appointment of Jewish chaplains was a struggle. The military chaplaincy of the United States, established in 1861, required that all chaplains be “regularly ordained ministers of some Christian denomination”. Interestingly the law in the Confederacy was more lenient, accepting chaplains who were a “minister of religion”. Abraham Lincoln supported changing the law, but others argued that if standards were lowered, Mormons, Buddhists and Hindus, referred to in much less PC language, would be next in line for government recognition. The struggle continued for a year until the law was revised in 1862 to read, “of some religious denomination.”

The first Jewish woman chaplain was a Reconstructionist Rabbi, who joined the reserves in 1979. Rabbi Bonnie Kopell served in Desert Storm in 1991, and in Iraq again more recently in 2005.

In general, the number of Jews in the military right now is rather low. They must be particularly short of chaplains, as I received an invitation just this week to join the Navy Chaplaincy Corps. A recent estimate placed the number of Jews in the US Army as about 1,500, self-identified out of one half million active Army personal. The number of American soldiers who were Jewish in World War II by contrast was much higher, both in absolute terms, often put at close to half a million, and as a percentage, about 11% of the Jews in America at the time, more than 22% of the men. Many believe that the “real” number of Jews in the military today is larger than 1,500, there being many Jewish soldiers who don’t self-identify for a variety of reasons.

Soldier’s reports on their experiences of being Jewish in the military vary. Officially the Army has a zero tolerance policy for any form of racism or prejudice. Many soldiers report having really good experiences with non-Jewish chaplains going out of their way to learn about Judaism and to provide for their Jewish soldiers. Others say that in the military context, being Jewish doesn’t matter that much. One wrote about his experience in the Middle East: “To tell you the truth, we already stood out as Americans, so there wasn’t room to feel anything distinct about being Jewish.”

Some military personnel report on feeling pressure because of the large numbers of Evangelical Christians in the military. In some places, there is a sense that this religious practice is endorsed by military leadership. Jews also report, perhaps because of being just a minority, on feeling responsible in their actions for the reputation of all Jews and Judaism. One soldier reported feeling the need to “really put a good face forward for Jews in uniform.”

I was able to find biographies of some of the Jews who have been killed in the fighting in Iraq. They are a varied group, male and female, older and younger, heroes with Bronze stars, like Marc Seiden, who gave his life to save others when his convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device, and individuals lost in what should have been routine operations, like Jeffrey M Wershow of the Florida Army National Guard, who was going to get a soft drink while guarding a detail of civilian Americans meeting with Iraqi University officials and was killed by a sniper.

One of the first deaths in the war was Mark Asher Evnin, a young Jewish Marine, who was among the first two dozen casualties back in 2003. His Jewish funeral attracted 1,000 mourners including the governor of his home state of Vermont. Motivations for joining the service varied. One Jewish soldier joined the military because of what America had given to his family. Another young soldier had joined the Army, despite his family’s disapproval, in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Nathan Bruckenthal was buried, at his request, with his tallit, and David Bernstein, had been fifth in his class at West Point. There is an interesting story about that. The Bernstein’s had notes at graduation that there was a prize of the top four students graduating, but none for the 5th. Now there is an award in perpetuity in David’s memory, to the 5th.

One of the more interesting individuals to me was Elijah Tai Wah Wong, the son of a Chinese father and Jewish mother, who had moved to Israel as a teenager and gone to high school there. He had served in the Israeli army before enlisting in the Air Force in the United States. At 42 he was a little older than most and left behind three children as well as a wife and sister.

Reading about the Jewish soldiers who died in the war in Iraq, really brought home to me the difference between Memorial Day in Israel and in the United States. Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day in Israel, is one of the high holidays, as it were, a day of real significance to Israelis. All theaters, bars, and movies are closed for a full 24 hours. The siren is sounded twice, once at 8pm to mark the beginning of the commemoration, and once at 11am when the public ceremony at the military cemeteries begins. Almost every high school in Israel has a memorial corner and the radio and television focus all day on stories of individual soldiers who gave their lives.

What does it mean that many of us don’t know a single person in uniform? How does that effect our decision making as citizens as we vote for politicians who choose war to put forward national security objectives? And as Memorial Day approaches, how do we reconcile our ability to go on with our lives as usual, with the tremendous sacrifices a small number of families are making daily?

My uncle returned safely from Vietnam and continued his military career at Ft Bragg and at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC. He’s retired now and I shared this sermon with my him. I thought I might give him the last word. After reading my sermon he wrote me:

“We celebrate Memorial Day not for one soldier or for one religion, but for all Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen and Coast Guard Service personnel, of any and all Religious and Non Religious backgrounds, for all the individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country over the span of our Countries existence. It is because of them that we are able to sit here tonight, in the relative security and peace of our nation at home.”