New Crop of Lay Leaders in Theater

Editor’s note: It’s important for Jewish soldiers to consider lay leadership, especially if they are indeed strong as leaders and are capable of coordinating services (or even leading them). If you have a rabbinical chaplain, your capabilities may be of great use for that chaplain as he leverages his duties to his unit against his duties to Jewish personnel. If there is no Jewish chaplain, you can enrich your fellow Jewish service member’s lives. Both the Jewish Welfare Board and Aleph Institute offer endorsement and resources for lay leaders.

American Soldiers in Iraq Enlist in a Different Kind of Service

By Richard Tenorio of the Forward

Thu. Jul 10, 2008

A Jewish chapel at the Al Asad airbase in western Iraq was the site of an unusual Jewish gathering that began on July 4.

Seven members of the American military had flown in from across Iraq for a precedent-setting training for Jewish leaders in that country. Iraq does not have much in the way of an indigenous Jewish population anymore, but the American military has brought scores of Jews to the region, most of them with little spiritual guidance.

To supplement the lack of rabbis in Iraq, one of the few Jewish chaplains in the country, Rabbi Jon Cutler, came up with the idea of training ordinary Jewish servicemen and -women to be lay leaders for other soldiers.

“People claim to be Jewish, and show up for High Holidays and leave it at that,” said 25-year-old Ari Jacobs, one of the participants in the event. “I kind of regret it. Now I can do services,” said Jacobs, who is a field medic at Al Taqaddum, in central Iraq.

Read more at the Forward.