The Fighting Rabbis: Jewish Military Chaplains and American by Albert I. Slomovitz

Rabbi Elkan Voorsanger bought the crimson center for his activities in the course of the conflict of Argonne. Chaplain Edgar Siskin, serving with the Marines on Pelilu Island, carried out Yom Kippur prone in the middle of a barrage of artillery fireplace. Rabbi Alexander Goode and 3 fellow chaplains gave their very own lifejackets to panicked squaddies aboard a sinking delivery torpedoed by way of a German submarine, after which went down with the ship.

American Jews aren't often linked to conflict. Nor, for that topic, are their rabbis. And but, Jewish chaplains have performed an important and occasionally heroic position in our nation's defense.

The combating Rabbis provides the compelling background of Jewish army chaplains from their first provider throughout the Civil struggle to the 1st woman Jewish chaplain and the rabbinic position in Korea, Vietnam, and wilderness hurricane. Rabbi Slomovitz, himself a army chaplain, opens a window onto the fieldwork, spiritual providers, counseling, and dramatic battlefield studies of Jewish army chaplains all through our nation's history.

From George Washington's early help for a religiously tolerant army to a Seder held within the wilderness sands of Kuwait, those rabbis have had a profound effect on Jewish existence in the USA. additionally amazing are unique files which chronicle the continuing care and obstacle through the Jewish group during the last a hundred and forty years for his or her keep on with Jews, together with many new immigrants who entered the militia. Slomovitz refutes the typical trust that the U.S. army itself has been a opposed position for Jews, within the approach delivering a special viewpoint on American spiritual history.