New Memorial Honors Valor of Jewish Chaplains

ARLINGTON, Va. – A memorial to 14 Jewish chaplains who died during active military service was dedicated Monday at Arlington National Cemetery, joining memorials to Protestant and Roman Catholic chaplains…

Monday’s dedication service at the cemetery corrects an oversight that had more or less gone unnoticed until a few years ago, according to those who sponsored the memorial.

Before Monday’s dedication, three plaques stood on the cemetery’s “Chaplain Hill.” The first was dedicated in 1926 to all chaplains who died in World War I. A second memorial was built in 1981 to honor 134 Protestant chaplains who died in World Wars I and II. And a third was built in 1989 to memorialize 83 Catholic chaplains who died in in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

The Jewish memorial lists the names of 14 Jewish chaplains who died while on active duty between 1943 and 1974.

Rabbi Alexander Goode died on the torpedoed USAT Dorchester in 1943. A total of 14 chaplains were honored at the Jewish Chaplains Memorial dedication ceremony on Monday in Arlington National Cemetery.

A World War II episode was the driving force behind the memorial. Ken Kraetzler [of White Plains, NY] had grown up hearing the story of the four chaplains of the USAT Dorchester. The four men were aboard the Army transport with 900 other soldiers crossing the North Atlantic when German torpedoes smashed into the ship in February 1943.

The four chaplains — two Protestant [ministers], a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi — strove to keep soldiers calm and helped to pass out life jackets. When they ran out of jackets, they gave their own away. They were last seen as the ship was going down, arm-in-arm, praying together.

“This is a group of veterans that deserve recognition,” he said.

He began to ask around about why there was no memorial and what it would take to get one erected.

One of the men he contacted was Rear Adm. Harold L. Robinson, [a retired member of the U.S.Navy Chaplain Corps and director of the Jewish Welfare Board’s Jewish Chaplains Council] who said “we did a little research and discovered all the monuments there were created by religious groups whose chaplains they were commemorating. Why the Jewish community had not done that, we really don’t know.”

Sol Moglen, founder of the 9/11 memorial the Brooklyn Wall of Remembrance, spearheaded the fundraising for the Arlington memorial, and he chalked up the oversight to life moving on after the war.

“What happened was everyone was back in their own world. Chaplains came home from the military, they went into their own synagogues, practiced, and no one thought about it,” Mr. Moglen said. “It fell through the cracks. At the end of the day, I’m not sour grapes. More people got to know about it now.”

As Mr. Kraetzer’s idea took hold throughout the Jewish community, supporters researched how and when the monument could become a reality.

They initially thought they could erect the memorial as part of the existing Chaplains Hill display by securing administrative approval from the cemetery’s leadership. By June 2010, the group had completed fundraising for the memorial and developed project designs.

But after submitting the proposal, they were told by officials at Arlington that the monument would be considered a new memorial and would require a joint resolution by Congress.

In January, organizers began gathering congressional support, and by Memorial Day the monument had full backing from Capitol Hill…

In the meantime, they contacted Jewish communities and outlets across the country in order to collect the names of chaplains who died while on active duty in past wars. They found four chaplains who died during military service in Vietnam or Southeast Asia, two from the Cold War era and eight who served in World War II, including Goode.

Chaplain (Maj. Gen.) Cecil Richardson, the Air Force Chief of Chaplains, lauded the 14 rabbis during his talk at the Memorial Amphitheater. “They were 14 men who stepped forward as volunteers to provide spiritual care for the men and women in uniform,” he said. “They comforted the wounded, they buried the dead; they supported the faith of all of our troops…”

Chaplain Richardson added “Right now there are over 800 chaplains — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine — deployed at locations throughout the world in dangerous places. At this moment, chaplains and chaplain assistants are transforming places in the harshest environments into sacred places of worship and hope.”

The West Point Jewish Chapel Cadet Choir sang throughout the event and had the last word in the ceremony, singing “God Bless America” with the audience joining in.

The memorial was dedicated to the following chaplains: Army Capt. Nachman S. Arnoff, Army Lt. Col. Meir Engel, Army 1st Lt. Frank Goldenberg, Army 1st Lt. Alexander D. Goode, Army 1st Lt. Henry Goody, Air Force Capt. Joseph I. Hoenig, Army Maj. Samuel Dodkin Hurwitz, Army 1st Lt. Herman L. Rosen, Army Capt. Morton Harold Singer, Air Force Capt. David M. Sobel, Army Capt. Irving Tepper and Army 1st Lt. Louis Werfe.

According to the cemetery, this year marks the 150th anniversary of service by rabbis in the U.S. Armed Forces.

This article is excerpted from WashingtonTimes.com, WashingtonPost.com and army.mil.  Posted here for educational purposes only.