There are 500 Catholic priests.
Not nearly enough.
And there are only seven — count them — seven
Jewish chaplains in the active-duty Army. Not enough by a
long shot.
The beauty of the Army’s chaplaincy program is its inclusive,
nondenominational philosophy of ministry, said Chaplain (Maj.)
Avrohom Horovitz, an ordained Orthodox Jewish rabbi who serves
more than 1,000 basic trainees in Fort Benning, Georgia.
More than 90 percent of those Soldiers make it through basic
training just fine, Horovitz said. The others struggle with
any number of problems, mostly the kinds of problems one might
expect of young men away from home for the first time. Homesickness
is common.
Other problems they bring with them, Horovitz said —
family problems, girlfriend issues, that sort of thing.
And some, a very small percent, will face a very real crisis,
like the Soldier who recently sought counsel after his father
died.
“Everybody needs a chaplain, someone to talk to, at
some point,” Horovitz said. “When that happens,
they rarely care if I’m Jewish and they’re Catholic
or what have you. It’s very rare that we have a real
problem with the issue of denomination. In that respect, we’re
doing better in the Army than the rest of the world. We are
an Army of one.”
Perhaps Horovitz recognizes “spiritual integration”
better than most because he knows prejudice better than most.
His grandfather was an attorney in Germany until 1935, when
the Nuremburg Laws were enacted, prohibiting Jews from practicing
law. He moved his family to England, where Horovitz’
father grew in his faith.
He became a rabbi and moved his family from Manchester to
Israel, where he started a school, the Jerusalem Academy of
Jewish Studies, for adults who want to learn more about the
faith.
Horovitz was 12 in 1973, when Syria bombed Jerusalem and launched
the nation into the war. He vividly remembers that prayer
service, on the traditional Day of Atonement, the holiest
day of the year. Planes flew overhead, and the congregation
flocked to the basement. The lights were doused. Women cried
for their husbands and sons — Soldiers sent out to fight
the Yom Kippur War.
Terrible times followed, Horovitz said. But they didn’t
last. They seldom do.
“My philosophy — the reason I became a chaplain,
really — is because I believe as they say, that the
only way evil can grow is if good people stand by and do nothing,”
he said. “Evil won’t last unless people ignore
it. If the world hadn’t ignored Hitler for so long,
he never would have gotten away with so much evil.”
Horovitz married an American girl, Malkie, and moved to the
States in 1990, where he began teaching at a Jewish school
in New York. Malkie stayed home to raise the couple’s
six children.
It was during a trip to a museum with his students that the
“seed of service” was planted, Horovitz said.
He met a Jewish chaplain — a rarity even then —
who had served in the Gulf War. Horovitz was intrigued. He
figured to join the Reserves.
It was the tantalizing promise of “three years anywhere”
he wanted to be stationed that convinced him to join the active
Army. He liked the idea of living in Savannah. The Horovitz
family spent three years there, while he served as a chaplain
with a Fort Stewart unit that saw plenty of field time.
Since then, with stops in Fort Bragg, N.C., and Korea, Horovitz
has deployed to Egypt, twice to Afghanistan, and once to Kuwait
and Iraq. He delights in the memory of performing a Jewish
service in Saddam’s palace. He visited the prophet Ezekiel’s
grave, an occasion he found “very, very significant.”
He worshiped with one of only two Jews left in Kabul, and
led a service in the country’s only synagogue.
And he and Malkie celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary
in Babylon. He was in Babylon, Iraq. She was in Babylon, N.Y.
Horovitz has been stationed in Fort Benning since July. He
commutes back and forth from his home in Atlanta, where the
children study at a Jewish school.
For now, he said, Fort Benning is his mission field.
“We don’t try to get any one to convert to Judaism,”
he said. “We believe we’re supposed to try to
get people to love God and be better human beings —
to help one another and show love. As chaplains, that is our
mission.”
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