by Avi Goldstein

The Jewish soldier looked down the hill and saw the yarmulke-topped officer, his car stopped by a flat tire. “Shalom, rabbi,” the soldier called out. Chaplain Jacob Goldstein engaged the soldier in conversation and asked if he ever puts on tefillin. No, the soldier did not know what tefillin were. “I told him, I will make you bar mitzvah right here and now,” the chaplain recalls. “He put on tefillin and we said Shema.” And so in the steaming heat of Grenada, during the United States invasion of that Caribbean island country, a Jew from the Midwest reconnected with his roots.

Chaplain Jacob Goldstein clearly is a busy man, and on the morning of Sept. 11, with the attacks on freedom at the World Trade Center, he became even busier. The fifty-four-year-old Brooklyn resident, who is the chief chaplain of the New York Army National Guard, became the focal point for the spiritual needs of soldiers — Jews and non-Jews alike — working feverishly in search and rescue at the World Trade Center.

Since that fateful morning, the chaplain has been on leave from his regular job as Assistant Housing Commissioner for New York State. He is a whirlwind of activity, and even squeezing in time for an interview is a challenge. There is always something: conducting a shloshim service or a funeral, praying with soldiers, traveling to Washington.

Visiting with Rabbi Goldstein in the Armory in mid-Manhattan is an experience in itself. The building oozes American history. It has artwork dating to the Civil War, tattered flags of Old Glory from the same period, even a 200-year-old bust of George Washington made of fabric.

A soldier named Wachtel jokes that he has to get a yarmulke, and the chaplain promises to supply a camouflage version. Upon leaving the chaplain to return to his post, Wachtel wishes us a “Shabbat shalom.” Enthuses the chaplain: “There’s my flock.”

What’s a nice Orthodox Jewish man doing in the army? Service in the armed forces is probably not on your mother’s list of professions for a good Jewish boy. Rabbi Goldstein came to his calling through serendipitous circumstance. Beginning around the time of the 1967 Six-Day War, Chabad embarked upon its famous campaign to have Jews put on tefillin. Goldstein volunteered to go to military centers in New York City, where many Jews, having been drafted or having enlisted due to the Vietnam War, were stationed.

Rescue personnel pause for prayer at Ground Zero. Chaplain Goldstein (unseen in photo) is conducting the impromptu service.

While it is usually single men who participate in these campaigns, Rabbi Goldstein continued to do so after having married. (He and his wife Seema now have five children and seven grandchildren.) He says that one day “a Roman Catholic priest asked me why I didn’t join them. He said, ‘Why don’t you speak to the Jewish bishop?’ ” Rabbi Goldstein smiles as he recollects the priest’s lack of familiarity with Judaism’s non-ecclesiastical nature. Rabbi Goldstein accepted the challenge. He spoke to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt’l, who advised him to go ahead.

Having received rabbinic ordination at the Lubavitcher Yeshiva, he entered army chaplaincy as a second lieutenant, the bottom rung of the officer corps ladder. Today, a quarter century later, having earned his way up the ranks, he is a full colonel.

Chaplaincy in the United States armed forces is fundamentally different from chaplaincy in the services of other democracies. “To the great credit of our country, we don’t have organized religion,” he notes. “The country is religious, but it has no religion.” Translated to the military setting, the armed forces provide for the religious sustenance of our soldiers, at the same time not favoring any particular faith. This is true despite the fact that soldiers are overwhelmingly Christian.

Thus, while for example a Muslim would not become a chief chaplain in Israel’s army, and a non-Anglican could not rise to the top of England’s chaplaincy hierarchy, in the U.S. “you rise on your merits.” And so it has developed that a Jew is responsible for a mostly non-Jewish soldier corps and a mostly non-Jewish chaplaincy corps.

Only two of the sixty-two chaplains under Rabbi Goldstein’s command are Jewish, but it makes no difference. “I happen to be a Jewish chaplain,” he says. “But first and foremost, I am a chaplain of all soldiers.”

As a Jew, Rabbi Goldstein has a specific responsibility toward Jewish soldiers; he is able to provide service that non-Jewish chaplains simply cannot. Chaplains of other faiths serve the same role for their respective faith communities. However, as head chaplain for New York, Goldstein has overall responsibility for soldiers of any faith who seek his aid. He sees this dual stewardship as a remarkable achievement of the United States military.

The chaplain and Israeli troops.

How do his roles play out in practice? He explains: “If a Christian wants to pray with me, I will pray with him generically. My obligation is to make sure each soldier is covered.” He would not, nor is he expected to, invoke Christian prayers. Indeed, by law, “You are encouraged not to do anything against your faith.” For example, if a Catholic soldier were dying and desired the last rites, Rabbi Goldstein could not, by Jewish law, administer these. He would instead refer the situation to a Catholic chaplain.

The chaplain estimates that one percent of the military is Jewish. There are approximately eighty active and reserve Jewish chaplains in the combined forces of the U.S. military. He would encourage Jews to enter the chaplaincy, while noting that to be an enlisted soldier is difficult for one who wants to observe Shabbos.

Still, today kosher food is available, in shelf-stable packaging from a company called My Own Meals. Yet another company has just begun marketing kosher meals that are cooked in the package itself.

Soldiers sorely need the succor that a chaplain brings, says Chaplain Goldstein. “In the eyes of soldiers, when a chaplain comes to see them, it tells them that somebody cares. And if they are religious, it tells them that G-d is looking out for them.” And no, he has never met the proverbial atheist in a foxhole.

Chaplain Goldstein was mobilized during the Persian Gulf War. He debunks a report, often attributed to him, that the Lubavitcher Rebbe had declared that the war would end on Purim.

He arrived in Fort Dix, New Jersey, on the first night of Chanukah in 1990, having received orders to prepare for a half-year deployment. The following Sunday, he was able to get to Brooklyn to see the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He told the Rebbe that he would be prepared for Purim and Pesach in the Persian Gulf. The Rebbe reassured him: “Surely there will be a Megillah, but you won’t have to read it.” During the following week, Chaplain Goldstein received revised orders to prepare for a year’s stay in Saudi Arabia. Upon telling this to the Rebbe the following Sunday, the Rebbe responded that the Mashiach would come before the chaplain would go to Saudi Arabia.

That Tuesday, the war began. He was called by the Pentagon and told he was going to Israel to support American soldiers there, instead of to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. wanted a Jewish senior chaplain to run spiritual matters in the Jewish state. And so “at no time did the Rebbe tell me that the war would end on Purim.” But the Rebbe’s words were confirmed. Chaplain Goldstein did not need a Megillah during the war, because it ended on the day before Purim. And he still has not visited Saudi Arabia, and has no plans to do so prior to the Mashiach’s arrival!

The Grenada theater, in 1983, was a completely different experience. There the chaplain found himself administering spiritual comfort in the stifling tropical heat. He relates that “the Rebbe said to make sure I put tefillin on soldiers. I thought, of course, that’s what I do.” What was the meaning of this seemingly superfluous instruction? He had not yet met the Midwestern soldier.

On the fourth day of Chanukah, soldiers were notified that there would be a menorah-lighting ceremony that evening. Commanding General Jack Ferris had arranged for Jewish servicemen to have leave to attend, and the general himself lit the first candle, after Rabbi Goldstein recited the blessings.

The next day, the chaplain headed out to a boat to light a menorah with the Jewish troops there, only to get a flat tire on his way. He had taken off his helmet to stay cool, so that his yarmulke was exposed. It was then that the soldier, recognizing a fellow Jew, appeared. Rabbi Goldstein noted that the soldier had not been at the menorah-lighting ceremony the previous evening. It turned out he had not been informed about the event, and he also evidently had never seen tefillin before. “It was then that I understood what the Rebbe had meant by making sure I put tefillin on the soldiers. That was the hashgachah pratis. I got a flat so this soldier could see me with my yarmulke on my head.” It is such moments, says Rabbi Goldstein, that make chaplaincy a rewarding vocation.

With soldiers stationed in Israel during the Gulf War.

The chaplain’s duties truly have made him a world traveler. Last year, the High Holidays found him in Bosnia, to direct services for Jewish personnel there. On erev Yom Kippur, he received a call from the deputy United States consul in Macedonia. The man told Rabbi Goldstein that he was a ba’al teshuvah and desired to have a lulav and esrog for Sukkos.

It was two hours before Yom Kippur, but several hours earlier in New York. Goldstein set about trying to find his friend Meir Eichler, owner of a large Judaica store in Brooklyn. He finally succeeded, and told Eichler to send the treasured items via diplomatic pouch.

There were eight other Jews at the American embassy in Macedonia and a minyan in a shul in the city of Skopje. These Macedonian Jews had not seen a lulav or esrog since the Nazis invaded, almost sixty years earlier. The chaplain marvels: “I thought I had gone to Bosnia to blow shofar, but I guess my mission was to insure that people would have a lulav and esrog.”

Chaplain Goldstein was supposed to go back to Bosnia this year, but the attacks on New York intervened. Of the World Trade Center rescue effort, he says, “You have no idea how day and night move very quickly when there’s pressure on you. There are times you want the day to stay and not to move, but it moves very quickly.”

Chaplain Goldstein and an associate distribute food rations in Grenada.

He adds: “It’s a very grim place to be. Even people who deal with this all the time, like firemen, found this situation very different, especially since their friends went to save people and ended up dead.” The first Shabbos found him pulling debris from the pile, hoping to unearth survivors. An act otherwise forbidden on the Sabbath had become obligatory.

Rosh Hashanah was a special time, even in the midst of the gloom. After taking a few soldiers to daven at the Wall Street Synagogue, Rabbi Goldstein blew shofar three times each day at different locations around Ground Zero. Normally calm when blowing shofar, “The first time I blew, my hands were shaking. I was overcome and overwhelmed by the moment.”

A Jewish Red Cross worker cried at the sound of the shofar. “She told me, ‘I’m not religious, but I like to go to shul and listen to the shofar; it’s very important to me. But this year it really meant a lot to me.’ She said this is proof that we are strong and that we are not afraid of the terrorists.”

Non-Jews, seeking spiritual uplift, came as well. “One non-Jew said that he had come simply because he had heard there were religious services. He believes in G-d, and he said it was pretty neat to hear the ram’s horn.”

In front of a Patriot missile launcher during the Gulf War.

Perhaps the most moving moment occurred two days after the attacks, when a non-Jewish chaplain handed Rabbi Goldstein a yarmulke that had been found in the middle of the Ground Zero rubble. “When I opened it, I started shaking, because it was from a wedding reception of September 9th. I have gone to the manufacturer of the yarmulke and he will give me the name of the wedding party so that we can try to find out who it belonged to.” His goal is to return the yarmulke to the family.

How does the chaplain’s family handle his trying schedule? “Without my wife, I could never do this. Not just being away, but being away at a war in Desert Storm.” There are significant sacrifices, including “missing yamim tovim, birthdays, learning with the kids. I’ve been away for long clips of time.” The present mission, while local, has involved missing Shabbos and yom tov at home. And of course military service carries risk. “The natural reaction is to be fearful,” when one’s spouse is in a war theater on foreign soil. “I can’t call on the phone and say everything is fine.” Nonetheless, the reward of quenching the thirst of spiritually parched soldiers is worth the sacrifice.

We discuss Jews and patriotism. He relates that after Desert Storm, American troops came back to the big armory located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “The chassidic community was tremendous,” he says. “They hosted the troops and threw a big party. Ten years later, the troops still talk about the big reception they received from that community.” He hopes that Jews are flying the flag in support of our country.

Chaplain Goldstein and a soldier light a menorah in Grenada.

A quarter century of service to his nation has not hardened Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, but he will not soon forget his Ground Zero experience. Speaking briefly on Rosh Hashanah, he told his listeners that “this is a holy site and we have to treat it as such.” He elaborates: “It is basically a big cemetery. But it is different, because it is a cemetery where people were murdered. It has had a very profound affect on those of us who were there early on, as part of the search and rescue mission. You are dealing with human remains that were not whole, things like that. That was tough, and the pressure was enormous on the people at the site, because you knew every minute counted.”

The chaplain adds: “I have not washed my boots since I have been down there, because the dust is human remains. It’s not right.”