Rabbi brings Torah to Marines in Babylon

marinelink ^ | 7-1-03

[SJackson]

Rabbi brings Torah to Marines in Babylon
Submitted by: I Marine Expeditionary Force
Story Identification Number: 200363010124
Story by Sgt. Michael Sweet



CAMP BABYLON, Iraq(June 28, 2003) -- On the banks of the Euphrates River, a region that was once the center of Jewish culture and study, Jewish Marines and soldiers got a rare chance to celebrate the Sabbath with one of only three military Rabbis' in theater.

Army Capt. Avrohom Horovitz a chaplain with 3rd Battalion 27th Artillery Regiment of Ft. Bragg, NC., was invited up to Camp Babylon in Al Hillah from Camp Commando in Kuwait during the last week of June to minister to the Marines.

"I cannot believe I made it here," said Pfc. Jon B. Levine, an infantryman with L company 3rd Battalion 5th Marines. "The last time I got to go to services was back in March when I was at Commando."

While Horovitz began to unpack a cardboard box containing his pray books, Yarmulkes and miniature Torah, Levine recalled the challenges of traveling to the Babylon service from his base in Ad Diwaniyah, which takes hours to drive.

"I was supposed to get here on Friday, but I got bumped off a couple of helicopters," said Levine of Garland, Texas. "I finally got here after they put together a three vehicle convoy just to get me here."

The Torah is a parchment scroll written by hand in Hebrew and contains the five books of Moses from the Bible

Being the only Jewish Marine in a unit is not uncommon for most Jews that serve in the military. Unlike Christian Marines, who can attend services weekly without much effort, Jewish servicemembers may find out that they have missed entire holidays because rabbis aren't as plentiful.

"I was pulling security in Baghdad in April," said Levine, a former Texas A & M student who chose Marine infantry after rejecting the Army's proposal to make him a medic. "I did not even know it was Passover."

Horovitz said since he cannot visit the troops as often as he would like, many times he will keep in contact with his flock through e-mail.

"I get questions all the time," said the rabbi, who grew up and studied in Jerusalem.

He gets questions on wearing of the Yarmulke. He tells his Marines and soldiers that they are authorized to wear the religious scull cap.

Those wanting to obey the Jewish dietary laws find it difficult in the field. He explains that you can get kosher meals through the supply system.

He also works with unit commanders so Marines can keep the Sabbath. Horovitz said that one way is to work with the chain of command to allow soldiers or Marines to trade guard duty shifts so it will not conflict with the holy day.

Being one of the few rabbis in theater also gives Horovitz an opportunity not only to represent the military, but also act as an envoy for his faith. Since coming to Iraq, he has met an Islamic cleric who is a caretaker for an ancient synagogue that is now being used by Muslims for prayer.

"You can still see the Hebrew writing on the walls," said Horovitz. "It was an amazing experience to go there."

Years of persecution in Iraq have driven almost all the Jews from Iraq, according to Horovitz. The region of Babylon was once the center of Jewish study. The Babylon Talmud, a Jewish book of commentary was written near here.

He, along with other chaplains visited the tomb of the profit Ezekiel, who Horovitz described as the source of hope for Jews when they were taken out of Israel during the height of the Babylonian empire.

"Fifty years ago, Kiffel was a Jewish Market," said Horovitz, describing village around the tomb of Ezekiel. "After the state of Israel was created, many were forced to leave here."

Though he is the only Jewish chaplain for Marines serving in both Iraq and Kuwait, he is a globetrotting man of the cloth. Horovitz is a unit chaplain first as well as a rabbi, and spends most of his time taking care of his unit, he said. However, like the profit Ezekiel, he brings hope not only to the troops in his battalion, but to everyone serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom

Carrying some kosher rations and a new prayer book that their Rabbi gave to them, Levine and some other Marines smile as they walk into the darkness of night at Babylon.

" I am just glad I got to go to services," said Levine. "This is one of the few stories I can tell people when I go home."

-30-

Photos included with story:

As the sun sets down the western bank of the Euphrates River, Army Capt. Avrohom Horovitz, a Jewish chaplain with the 3rd Battalion 27 Artillery Regiment prepares for a Shabbat service for Marines and soldiers stationed at Camp Babylon, Iraq. Horovitz is one of only three military Rabbis in theater supporting the troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Photo by: Sgt. Michael Sweet
		While most soldiers bring guns and grenades into battle, Army Capt. Avrohom Horovitz, a Jewish chaplain with the 3rd Battalion 27 Artillery Regiment, Ft. Bragg, NC. carries his Torah to the front lines in order for him to celebrate Shabbat with Jewish Marines and soldiers at Camp Babylon, Iraq. Horovitz is one of only three military Rabbis in theater supporting the troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Photo by: Sgt. Michael Sweet
		On the western bank of the Euphrates River, Army Capt. Avrohom Horovitz, a Jewish chaplain with the 3rd Battalion 27 Artillery Regiment, says the kiddush, or prayer over wine during a Shabbat service he conducted for Marines and soldiers stationed at Camp Babylon, Iraq. His makeshift alter includes the use of cans of sprite with arabic lables to keep items from blowing away. Horovitz is one of only three military Rabbis in theater supporting the troops in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Photo by: Sgt. Michael Sweet

Text version of story is attached below:

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[mvpel]

I wonder if you have to inscribe two of those mini-Torahs in order to fulfill the mitzvah? :-D

[SJackson]

An interesting story, only tangentally related.

Rabbi's camouflage yarmulke woven with tragedy, heroism

By Larry Bonko
Ledger-Star Columnist

Arnold E. Resnicoff

Catholic colleague made the yarmulke for him in Beirut

On that terrible day in Lebanon last October, when a terrorist took the lives of 241 U.S. Marines, Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff was among the first to reach the dead and dying in the devastated barracks.

The memories of that day burn within the Navy chaplain like a violent fire.

"We pushed to pull men from the smoke and fire," he remembers. "We comforted those who were pinned down or partially buried until help could reach them. Later we would comfort those who continued to dig for their dead and wounded comrades."

Somewhere in all that destruction, in all that smoke, sweat and tears, Resnicoff lost his yarmulke, or kippa, a skullcap worn by Jewish men. When his companion, the Roman Catholic chaplain, Father George Pucciarelli, noticed that the yarmulke was gone, he made another for his colleague.

Pucciarelli created one out of the camouflage cloth worn by the Marines in Lebanon. The cloth became their badge of honor. There and then a legend was born.

The story of the chaplain in the "camouflage kippa" spread through the U.S. 6th Fleet.

"I promised to wear the kippa whenever I serve with the Marines," the rabbi wrote to me from the Mediterranean, where he is one of three Navy chaplains who look after the needs of the troops stationed on 6th Fleet ships and with the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon.

The rabbi refers to himself as a seagoing circuit rider.

Resnicoff, who had lived with his wife, Barbara Ann, in Norfolk for almost four years before he was assigned to the Office of the Fleet Chaplain in the Mediterranean, had been in Beirut on the day of the bombing for a somber event. He led services in memory of a Jewish Marine gunned down by a sniper.

Because he did not travel on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, Resnicoff found himself near the Marines' sleeping quarters at the Beirut airport when the terrorist struck. The rabbi was waiting for a lift back to the fleet.

"The delay put me on the scene when the explosion occurred," he writes.

"I truly felt I as meant to be there, that it was God's will.

"One of the chaplains was in the building and was buried in the explosion. It took almost four hours. But we found him alive. We had been sleeping in a building nearby. The blast shattered windows in our building and tore the doors off the hinges. As we ran to where the Marines slept, we thought in terms of a rocket or mortar attack and hoped that no one had been hurt," he recalls.

"Then I saw the building. The rubble. I could not believe my eyes."

"It took only a few seconds for the screams to start." Finally, the screams ended. But the dying goes on in Lebanon.

The three 6th Fleet chaplains move from ship to ship, from sea to shore, sharing what Resnicoff calls the good and the bad times. In the 6th Fleet, the church pennant and the Jewish pennant fly above the Stars and Stripes.

Resnicoff has been in the bunkers 12 times when rockets and shells fell on the Marines. He has felt the fingers of death touch the bunkers. Since Oct 23, the rabbi has been wearing the famous camouflage kippa.

"Between shellings, we fill and pile up sandbags," he writes.

Lt. Cmdr. A.E.Resnicoff needs no introduction to us here in South Hampton Roads. We know him from his presidency of the Tidewater Board of Rabbis, from his service to the Jewish Community Center here, the Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, and the United Jewish Federation.

We know him as the chaplain who once served the fleet as an officer of the line, taking part in the early fighting in Vietnam in and around the Mekong Delta with the navy's Game Wardens. Today he is one of 13 Jewish Chaplains in the fleet and the first to be part of the seagoing circuit riders.

"Whether during a meal on a ship, in the passageway, in a private meeting, or in a foxhole or bunker in Beirut, the people in uniform are happy to have a chance to speak of fears and of dreams. I have had many hours in the bunkers of Beirut," the rabbi writes.

Many with the combat yarmulke on his head.

[Credo]

Although I am not Jewish, I did have the opportunity to participate in a Seder in Saudi Arabia.

Of course there wasn't a Saudi for miles, but it felt good.

[VOA]

Being the only Jewish Marine in a unit is not uncommon for most Jews that serve in the military.

LOL! My father almost got the chance for that position...and he's definitely
NOT Jewish.
One day when he was doing his two years service in the US Army, he got a call
to go to a base office. He got there and was informed that because he was Jewish,
he'd been selected to work with the base rabbi.
My father (who is just about bereft of prejudice as a backwoods Okie can be) said
"Well, that's very nice, but maybe it would be a better idea to get someone
who actually is Jewish for this assignment?"

He was dismissed when the clerical error was uncovered...
But he does get a little smile and says that it might have been a chance "to learn
a lot" if he'd kept his mouth shut.

[Fiddlstix]

Ping

[dennisw]

good one!!!

[SJackson]

most American jews tend to be military hating communist sympathizers

Yes, tailback, you must be right. Most Jews are military hating communist sympathizers, including the Marines mentioned in the thread.

I can't think of any other explanation.

Clearly you're not an anti-semitic, Nazi, or any other form of Jew hater, as you noted. It's well know that, as you stated Jews are military hating communist sympathizers.

Thanks for reminding us all.

[Tailback]

I stand by my comments and challenge you to prove me wrong. Except for a very few groups like JPFO most American Jewish groups lean towards the left. I asked a sincere question, why is this, given what the Jews experienced from the Fascist (national SOCIALIST) Nazis, and the USSR (Communist, same as socialist) purges. To me looking from the outside, it makes no sense whatsoever. This phenomenon is similar to the African Americans being loyal to the Democratic party that continues to oppress them and not put them in party leadership.

[SJackson]

Naah, save your breath.

most American jews tend to be military hating communist sympathizers

Let it stand. Wear it with pride. Use it as a tagline. Try caps next time.

*hit all over Capt. Horovitz (that's what the thread was about, bigot). *hit all over Pfc. Levine. *hit all over *ol Resnicoff.

I won't waste my time with refuse like you. Have a nice time in the septic tank.

[Tailback]

Maybe I'm not an eloquent writer but I believe my questions have merit. I truly did not wish to insult anyone, and in fact I will ping the admins to remove my first post. However, I still believe that this is an issue for conservatives to look into. Just as trying to bring African Americans to the conservative fold, I believe the same should happen with the American Jewish community. How can this happen without asking candid questions and looking at issues long considered un-touchable?

[SJackson]

Save the bandwidth troll, you bore me.

[rmlew]

I am not an anti-semitic, Nazi, or any other form of Jew hater

Nice start. I'm not racist, but...

but maybe the reason that there are so few Jewish chaplains in the military is because for some reason most American jews tend to be military hating communist sympathizers (aka Hillary voters)?

1. Most Jews are liberal, not communist. Radicals and commies may claim to be Jewish, but they regularly attack Judaism. (Hitler claimed to be a Christian, that didn't make all Christians Nazi.)
2. Hillary barely won the Jewish vote by 6%. Given the huge turnout for Lieberman (Gore was an afterthought), this is rather dramatic.
3. Rudy Giulliani, no conservative but Hillary's opponent for a time, won the Jewish vote in 2 elections after losing it by a small margin in 1989. In fact, in the last 2 elections, NYC Jews have voted for Republicans over Jewish Democrats.
4. Bush won the under 35 vote. Jewish demographics are changing.

I have never figured out why American jews, many of whom's parents or grandparents narrowly escaped the holocaust, have embraced the Democrat party and the socialism they represent. Didn't they learn from Hitler and the USSR?
Actually those Jews who immgrated after 1945 tend to vote Republican. (They started to do so in 1972).
Most American Jews are decended from the "Great Wave" of 1880-1921. These Jews are married to the Democrats. They revere FDR. For them to admit the failures of FDR in the Holocaust would be to admit the complicity or inaction of themselves or their parents and grandparents, who did little for European Jews.
Ironically, this is part of the reason for the cult of the Holocaust among American Jews who never met a survivor. They then universalize thiz to anti-racism adn pacifism, becoming leftists.
As for learning from the USSR, how many Americans know about
1. The full extent of mass murder in the USSR including the artificial Famine in 1933?
2. The "Doctor's Plot", the pretext for Stalin's planned "final Solution for Jews, aveted only by his death?
3. The rampant anti-Semitism in all communist countries, inherently based on Marx's anti-Semitism?

[farmfriend]

ping

[Tailback]

Whatever. Typical response from someone not willing to talk about tough issues.

[SJackson]

Whatever. Typical response from someone not willing to talk about tough issues.

Yo, Bozo, I agreed with you. You win. Nothing more to be said. You words of wisdom stand for all to see.

Most American jews tend to be military hating communist sympathizers

[Tailback]

Now that's the type of response I was after. Just skimming over your post it looks as if the information (slim as it is) that I have read has been pretty misleading.