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Thread ID: 5956 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2003-04-02
2003-04-02 03:11 | User Profile
From Ha'aretz, available online at: [url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=276037&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=276037]http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.j...Y&itemNo=276037[/url]
The U.S. Army: Kosher for Pesach
By Amiram Barkat April 2, 2003
The American armed forces in the Gulf are taking care of their Jewish soldiers with military rabbis and 'solo Seder kits.'
For the duration of the war in the Persian Gulf, Rabbi Irving Elson - a Jewish chaplain in the U.S. Navy - has been assigned to the First Marine Division. Since his arrival in Kuwait two months ago, his mission has been far from simple. He drives his humvee around the bases and other military encampments along the front, seeking out Jewish soldiers among the division's marines.
Elson's latest report arrived at the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) in New York last Wednesday, and generated a great deal of enthusiasm. "He said he had found many Jews among the troops he visited, in groups of three or four, and at times even 18," said Rabbi David Lapp, director of the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council.
**American soldiers are not required to identify themselves by religion, and so there is no precise data on the number of Jewish soldiers serving in the armed forces. Jews constitute approximately 2.5 percent of the American population, but their representation in the U.S. armed forces is about 1 percent, according to an official estimate of the Jewish Chaplains Council. Based on that assessment, American military forces in the Gulf would include some 1,500-2,000 Jewish soldiers. **
In order to meet the religious needs of these troops, five of the army's 24 Jewish chaplains have been dispatched to the Gulf. Two other chaplains are on high alert at army bases stateside - at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Hood in Texas - and are ready to ship out to the Gulf "should things get complicated."
The "combat ready" five chaplains in the Gulf include Elson, a Conservative rabbi ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and Carlos Huerta, an Orthodox rabbi ordained at the Or Hatorah Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Huerta's regular post is as chaplain at the United States Military Academy at West Point, but he is now serving with the 101st Airborne Division, which was immortalized in Steven Spielberg's "Band of Brothers" television series.
The JWB Jewish Chaplains Council serves as an endorsing body for Jewish military chaplains who serve in the U.S. armed forces. Organizationally, it operates under the aegis of the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America. Most of the Jewish Chaplains Council's work is conducted through chaplains in the field. Once he locates a group of Jewish soldiers, the chaplain has two tasks: First he carries on a personal conversation with each man or woman, ascertaining their needs; then he organizes prayer services for those soldiers who wish to take part.
**Kits for chaplains **
Each chaplain is equipped with a kit that includes a folding Torah scroll, 20-30 prayer books, skullcaps, prayer shawls and other religious items. The "chapel" consists of any tent, in which the chaplain deposits the mobile Torah scroll. While prayers are in progress, the tent flies a flag that features the Ten Commandments and a Star of David above the two tablets. Anything goes inside the makeshift chapel, but the army forbids the wearing of skullcaps or display of any other Jewish symbol, including documents in Hebrew, outside the confines of the bases around the Persian Gulf.
Another important function of the chaplain, which is not often talked about, is conducting religious burial rites.
In the current war - for the first time in the history of the United States armed forces - the army is providing kosher food to its soldiers. Generally, the field units have three types of prepared meals available to them: regular, vegetarian and kosher. Previously, the Jewish Chaplains Council was responsible for supplying the kosher food, but the council's resources are extremely limited, and one conclusion drawn from the first Gulf War was that responsibility for this matter should be transferred to the army's logistics branch.
Muslim soldiers serving in the U.S. Army also benefit from the new arrangement. Religious services for Muslims in the American army have only recently begun to develop. Rabbi Lapp says there are now four or five Muslim chaplains. Meat that has been slaughtered according to the Islamic code is not always available, so religious Muslim troops often opt for kosher food.
One item that remains the responsibility of the Jewish Chaplains Council is provision of kosher-for-Passover food. To that end, the council developed a "solo Seder kit" that includes a box of matzo, gefilte fish, canned chicken soup with matzo balls, grape juice and a Haggadah. A few days ago, the council shipped over 1,000 such kits to soldiers in the Gulf.
"In terms of the American army, kosher-for-Passover food is not exactly at the top of the list of priorities," attests Lapp. "We therefore had to ship all of the `solo Seder kits' four weeks ahead of time, in order for them to reach the soldiers in time."
2003-04-02 04:04 | User Profile
Beyond other obvious comments that could be made about this propaganda puff piece, I'll state my usual pet peeve. It's jews who have told us that they are about 2.5 percent of the US population. If you look at the edicts from various jewish organizations in the early 20th century regarding the census, letting the govt. know one was a jew, etc. (they refused, lest the government become aware of the yahoodi invasion), I would bet they are probably 5 or even pushing to close to being 6 percent of the US population. Which makes their actual numbers in the armed forces - which are probably exaggerated by this article - all the more galling.
2003-04-02 06:35 | User Profile
Roy, for people like us that live in NY and LA it certainly seems like there are more than 2.5 percent jews in the population. However, there are huge areas of country with virtually no jews. Those of us who attended elite universities and have high sallary/high status occupations no doubt have more contact with jews than the average American. I have relatives from the midwest who told me they never met a real life jew until they visited NYC.
One could see how jews would want to fudge their share of the population in the other direction as well. If America were more than 2.5% jewish, it would seem less outrageous that there are more jews than whites at Harvard or that jews own virtually the entire mass media. I think the 2.5% figure is probably accurate. Not wanting to be counted by outsiders has an obviousy motivation. I see no reason why jews would lie to other jews in their internal media.
2003-04-02 15:25 | User Profile
**Huerta's regular post is as chaplain at the United States Military Academy at West Point, but he is now serving with the 101st Airborne Division, which was immortalized in Steven Spielberg's "Band of Brothers" television series. **
The 101st?
This Rabbi is gonna be about as busy as the Maytag repairman.
Did anyone notice that a jewish Chaplain presided over the public services for the downed astronauts? I'm surprised the families didn't object to this.
2003-04-05 20:22 | User Profile
Originally posted by Roy Batty@Apr 1 2003, 22:04 I would bet they are probably 5 or even pushing to close to being 6 percent of the US population. Which makes their actual numbers in the armed forces - which are probably exaggerated by this article - all the more galling.
Jews were up to 6 million in the 1950's - now they claim they are only 5 Million - If you extrapolate the numbers a safe bet is 12 million. As far as serving in the army - they are at .32% ( All rear area and PR )
2003-04-05 20:29 | User Profile
Basic bullshit that Jews push --
We jews served in wars beyond our representive numbers. In WW2 we were 4.3% of the armed forces.
Basic Truth ---
Jews make up .37% of the army today and they aren't front line positions. Jewish doctors were issueing deferments for jewish kids in Vietnam and WW 2.
Portraying Jewish crosses in graveyards by Spielberg or every other soldier as being Jewish is a insult to Real Soldiers.
Stolen Valor is a detailed but incomplete study of phonies and "wannabe" veterans of the Vietnam War, a sad, possibly deadly, book that requires a considerable investment in time, patience, and temper. Not an academic book per se, Burkett does a excellent job in identifying phonies, some of whom are print and television celebrities we know.
Incidentally, recently published statistics from the Vietnam war provide powerful support for the suspicion which always has existed that, though Jews may manipulate the patriotic feelings of the rest of us, they themselves retain their own Jewish patriotism and do not share our patriotism. If one counts Stars of David in military cemeteries from the Second World War, one finds them conspicuously underrepresented in the fields of crosses.
In a book published just last year, Stolen Valor, a study of the Vietnam war and its veterans, B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley cite a 1992 study of Department of Defense records by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Arnold Barnett and West Point's Captain Timothy Stanley which provided much more precise data on the matter of Jewish patriotism.
** Draft age Jews
**
Draft-age Jews in America, it turns out, suffered losses in Vietnam at a rate less than one fifth their proportion of the population. This was not simply a matter of rich boys avoiding service while poor boys got killed: young White men -- that is, White Gentiles -- from high-income families suffered approximately the same overall casualty rate as low-income Whites. Although some high-income Whites avoided the draft as university students, Whites from high-income families made up most of the officer corps, which suffered a disproportionately high casualty rate, and the average death rate for high-income Whites was nearly the same as for low-income Whites.
For Jews, however, the difference is striking: making up slightly over 2.5 per cent of the population, Jews accounted for only 0.46 per cent of the GIs killed in Vietnam. This remarkable difference reflects a remarkable difference in attitudes between Jews and Whites.
The authors show killers who have fooled the most astute prosecutors and gotten away with murder, phony heroes who have become the object of award-winning documentaries on national network television, and liars and fabricators who have flooded major publishing houses with false tales of heroism which have become best-selling biographies.
Stolen Valor provides pages and pages of examples of bogus vets bilking taxpayers out of billions of dollars in false claims for "injuries," sustained in Vietnam. In many cases, these "vets" never served in Vietnam and in some cases, never served in the military at all!
Then there are vile miscreants like Louis Paul Rolofson Jr., who passed himself off as a Vietnam Green Beret in order to gain access to, and molest, young boys. Thanks, in large measure, to Burkettââ¬â¢s research exposing Rolofsonââ¬â¢s bogus military claims, the pervert faker was convicted of aggravated criminal assault and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
** Jewish Radical Robert Mueller**
Stolen Valor is worth its price if only for its chapter exposing the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) the left-wing group that purports to represent the men and women who served in Vietnam. The VVAââ¬â¢s roots trace back to the radical Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), which reliably retailed the Marxist line on most issues and railed against U.S. military and foreign policies. Robert O. Muller, one of the top VVAW activists, later formed the VVA, and with the help of Senator John Kerry (one of his VVAW comrades) obtained a federal charter for his new group.
Muller was soon raising money from the likes of Jane Fonda, Ed Asner, Bruce Springsteen, and porn peddler Bob Guccione (Penthouse). In 1981 Muller led a VVA delegation to Vietnam where he provided the Communist government with a bonanza of propaganda victories. He placed a wreath on the tomb of Ho Chi Minh and then gushed his admiration for the Communist butcher. Muller concluded his pilgrimage with an appeal for the U.S. government to shower Hanoi with foreign aid.
** Jewish draft dodgers - Jerry Rubin and Ira Einhorn
**
David Goff, former president of a VVA chapter in Morrisville, N.Y. near Syracuse, is another imposter that Burkett uncovered. Goff, who claimed combat experience in Vietnam, had been treated for PTSD and had counseled troubled vets. He had belatedly obtained some of the military's highest awards for valor, including the Distinguished Service Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor. Goff had even persuaded Rep. James Walsh (R., N.Y.) to pin on these medals during an April 1989 ceremony for combat vets. Goff was called a "hero" by the Syracuse Herald American.
To Burkett, however, the story of postwar trouble with depression, alcohol, domestic problems and PTSD struck a familiar tone. So did Goff's claim of being a CIA assassin. Goff's recovery from combat trauma was indeed inspiring, but there was a problem. His service record revealed he had been a clerk in Okinawa and had never set foot in Vietnam.
Yet when Burkett revealed Goff's deception to the Herald American, the newspaper stood by its story, though it, too, had by then obtained Goff's offical record. Alerted to Goff's fraud, Walsh has now called for a criminal investigation