JCC Association’s JWB Jewish Chaplains
Council Readies Seder Kits For Troops In Remote And Battle-Torn
Regions
Connection To Home Fostered Through Passover Rituals &
Free Hour-Long Phone Cards
NEW YORK, NY, MARCH 15, 2006 –
Passover, the most widely celebrated of all festivals on the
Jewish calendar, begins this year at sundown on Wednesday,
April 12. While Jews worldwide gather around Seder tables,
the holiday can be a trying time for thousands of U.S. soldiers,
sailors and airmen and women unable to join their families
and loved ones. Reaching out to these isolated Jews stationed
at bases at home and overseas, JCC Association, through the
JWB Jewish Chaplains Council, is preparing its annual spring
shipment of individual Seder kits and finalizing travel arrangements
for the military chaplains who will spend an entire month
abroad, leading communal Seders and alleviating the loneliness,
particularly acute during holiday seasons, that accompanies
active combat duty.
JCC Association is the U.S. government agency accredited to
serve the religious and social needs of Jewish military personnel,
their families, and patients in VA hospitals. Kits will soon
be on their way to Iraq; Afghanistan; Kuwait; Qatar; Bahrain;
ships in the Atlantic and the Persian Gulf in the Middle East;
Kosovo, Germany, Bosnia, Italy and England in the European
Theater of Operations; and to Okinawa, Japan, and South Korea
in the Pacific. They are designed to enable servicemen and
women deployed on ships and in remote areas of the world to
have "a taste of Pesach" when the challenges of
life in combat prevent attendance at family or communal services.
For the second year running, JCC Association has also included
in each kit a phone card with an hour’s worth of free
calling time, along with a suede yarmulke; a box of matzah;
two cans of kosher-for-Passover chicken soup with matzah balls;
two cans of tuna fish; a bottle of kosher grape juice; a Haggadah;
and a pamphlet explaining the eight-day festival’s rituals
and restrictions. Manischewitz, the kosher food purveyor,
donated $4,000 worth of supplies. According to Rabbi David
Lapp, JWB Chaplains Council director, these supplies are unavailable
in many remote or hostile locales where armed service personnel
are stationed.
“Many of those who are serving in the armed services,
in Iraq, for instance, can’t even come to a communal
Seder because the roads are unsafe,” Lapp noted. “What
are they doing?” he asked, continuing, “They are
depending on these Seder kits. At least, they will be able
to make a motzi, which is so important to these young men
and women.” Each year, Lapp receives correspondence
from field commanders thanking JCC Association on behalf of
the troops for sending the kits, saying how much it means
to them to be remembered by those back home.
Earlier this year, Lapp received the following missive from
Brig. General Kathleen M. Gainey, a deputy chief of staff
of the multi-national force serving in Baghdad:
Serving in Iraq is not an easy assignment, but our young
men and women are doing a magnificent job. Our morale and
spirits are uplifted by just knowing we have the support of
people like you…We are all deeply, deeply touched by
the gift packages you sent for the holidays. The love you
put into each box was evident…Please keep us in your
thoughts and pray for us, that our men and women will be able
to return home safely to their loved ones, and that peace
will soon come to the people of Iraq.
Others who are able to make it to a communal
gathering will be fortunate to have the spiritual leadership
of JWB chaplains who will be fanning out across Europe, the
Middle East and the Far East. Stationed in Mosul, Iraq for
Passover in 2003 at the height of the invasion, Chaplain Major
Carlos Huerta witnessed firsthand how the Seder boosted everyone’s
spirits.
As if the fierce fighting wasn’t enough of a challenge,
a sandstorm that struck the base that day made the event even
more precarious, Huerta recalled. As the winds died down in
the late afternoon, Huerta saw through the haze one, then
another serviceman, firearms in hand, approach the tent where
he had laid out the matzah and grape juice that had been sent
over by the Jewish Chaplains Council. A bottle of Tabasco
sufficed for bitter herbs. He continued:
Our dirty little tent started to fill up, and we cleaned
out the sand and set up tables and as if by magic, became
a family. Passover made us a family because we were Jews coming
together, filled by thoughts of home, and grateful that the
JWB had remembered [to take care of] us. Aside from [the risk
of] dying, what scares us the most about being in combat is
that we will be forgotten .The Passover story was particularly
poignant for us because it’s about freedom, and we were
fighting to give people freedom that didn’t have it
under Saddam [Hussein].
Representing the spectrum of Jewish denominations,
those deployed this year include both reservists and active
duty officers throughout the branches of the U.S. armed services:
• In Afghanistan: Chaplain Colonel
Bonnie Koppell (Army reservist: Reconstructionist); Chaplain
Colonel Ira Kronenberg (Army, deployed from Fort Dix, NJ;
Orthodox)
• In the Middle East: Chaplain Commander
Joel Newman, in Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (Navy, deployed
from Marine Camp Pendelton, CA; Conservative); Chaplain Captain
Mordecai Schwab in Mosul, Iraq (Army; Orthodox); Chaplain
Commander Mitchell Schranz in Baghdad, Iraq (Senior chaplain
of multi-national force; Navy; Conservative); Chaplain Commander
Seth Phillips in Falluja, Iraq (Navy, deployed from Groton,
CT; Reform); Chaplain Major Barry Baron in Kuwait (Army reservist;
Conservative); Chaplain Captain Donald Levy in Qatar (Air
Force, deployed from Ramstein, Germany; Reform);
• In the U.K.: Chaplain Captain Henry
Soussan in Leeds, England (Army, Conservative)
• In the Far East: Chaplain Captain
Avraham Horowitz in Seoul, South Korea (Army; Orthodox); Chaplain
Lt. Daniella Kolodny in Yokusko, Japan (Navy; Conservative)
Lay leaders will fill in the gaps, conducting
Seders on bases where Jewish professionals can’t be
present, said Lapp, citing, for example, the base in Ramstein,
Germany, among the largest of the U.S. overseas installations.
Huerta, currently at West Point, noted that Jewish cadets
who have graduated in the past year and are now serving in
battlefield posts as second lieutenants told him of their
plans to hold Seders for soldiers under their command.
JCC Association welcomes donations from the public to defray
the costs of the services it provides to Jewish military personnel.
For more information or to make a donation, people may log
onto http://online.jcca.org/soloSederkits or mail contributions
to JWB Jewish Chaplains Council, 15 East 26th Street, New
York, NY 10010.
###
JCC Association
is the leadership network of, and central agency for the Jewish
Community Center Movement, which is comprised of 350 JCC,
YM-YWHA and camp sites in the U. S. and Canada. JCC Association
offers a wide range of services and resources to strengthen
the capacity of its affiliates to provide educational, cultural,
social, Jewish identity-building, and recreational programs
to enhance the lives of North American Jews of all ages and
backgrounds. Additionally, the movement fosters and strengthens
connections between North American Jews and Israel as well
as with world Jewry. JCC Association is also the U.S. government
accredited agency for serving the religious and social needs
of Jewish military personnel, their families, and patients
in VA hospitals through JWB Jewish Chaplains Council.
Miriam
Rinn
Communications Manager
JCC Association
15 E. 26 St., NY, NY 10010
212-786-5092
fax: 212-481-4174
send an e-mail
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