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Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan
- When the bus doors open, 20 soldiers clamber out, laughing,
reaching for their cameras like college kids on spring break.
Yet they haven't traveled far. Part of the Army's 82nd Airborne,
they've driven 10 minutes across this coalition forces base
from their US camp to the Egyptian-run hospital compound.
Still, in a space bound by blast-walls and
concertina wire, this qualifies as an adventure because, during
the next couple of hours, they will bring together two disparate
worlds: that of Afghan villagers who've suffered the ravages
of consecutive wars and that of Americans who have gathered
in church basements and synagogues, private homes and community
centers from New Jersey to California, filling boxes with
donated items – everything from toys to toiletries.
Directly or indirectly, the boxes wend their
way to the offices of US Army chaplains, who turn the distribution
of donations into a feel-good outing for their soldiers.
At the helm of this base outreach program
is Shmuel Felzenberg, an Army captain who darts around the
grounds as soldiers unload boxes from a truck and set up tables.
Under his military cap he wears a black yarmulke, and on his
uniform the insignia that mark him as a Jewish chaplain –
two tablets topped by a star.
"Ready to go hot," he calls out,
and the soldiers position themselves behind the tables.
Minutes later, Afghan women in dark-colored
head scarves and blue, pleated chadris (full head and body
veils) queue up at the gate. Egyptian soldiers usher them
in, and as the Afghans move from table to table, American
soldiers, semiautomatic rifles slung across their backs, reach
into the boxes and hand them sweaters, shoes, baby clothes,
notebooks, and toys.
Chaplain Felzenberg rummages through a separate
box and extracts woolen caps that one of his daughters knitted
– "Bless her heart, he says, "she put them
in separate bags but didn't mark the sizes." Then he
pulls out a loose-fitting top he last saw on his wife. "It's
going to be emotional to give some of this out," he says,
"but hey...."
While his supplies last, he hands clothing
from his ultra-Orthodox Jewish home to Muslim Afghan children
whose mothers wear the orthodox-Muslim chadri.
The scene says much about Felzenberg and his
duties as brigade chaplain. While remaining faithful to his
own religious convictions, he reaches across faith lines,
both in his work with the Egyptians and in his daily interactions
with his troops. And, even in this ostensibly charitable mission,
the troops are his priority. Coming here gets them out of
their routine, while handing out gifts can make them feel
good about themselves. And it is, as he tells them in his
briefing, "a photo op." For when else do soldiers
confined to the base get the chance to snap photos of women
in sky-blue chadris, men with embroidered caps, and children
with black, kohl-rimmed eyes?
• • •
Felzenberg had been a rabbi for eight years
when, in 1999, he walked into an Army recruiter's office in
Morristown, in his native New Jersey. Aware and grateful,
he says, "of the persecution and hardship that I did
not grow up with," he felt an obligation "as a Jew
living in America, reaping the benefits afforded by the Constitution,
to pay back."
Patriotic fervor, however, cut no ice with
the recruiter, who wondered what to do with this grown man
in the traditional full beard, dark clothes, and hat of a
Chabad rabbi. He enlisted soldiers, he did not handle chaplains.
The recruiter politely showed him the door .
"So I went back in," says Felzenberg,
who is five feet tall and exudes enough energy to power a
city grid. "As a taxpayer, I said, show me what it's
about." In the stirring recruiting video and brochures,
Felzenberg saw both need and legitimacy. The next day, he
called the Army chaplain headquarters.
Now on his second wartime deployment –
his first was in Iraq – Felzenberg is militantly patriotic
and staunchly supports President Bush's policies, with views
that often echo pro-war fundamentalist voices back in the
US.
"To lose the global war on terrorism,"
he says matter-of-factly, "would be the downfall of either
our great nation or the world as we know it." America,
he continues, "leads the way in a fight against evil,"
against an enemy that "has directly given notice that
they mean no good, they mean no benefit, they cannot be negotiated
with. To deal with them with clear effort and extreme prejudice,"
he believes, "is the only way to dispatch the appropriate
message."
Because the majority of chaplains in all branches
of the military are affiliated with fundamentalist Christian
churches, one might expect to hear such views often. But of
some 20 chaplains extensively interviewed over the course
of three months in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rabbi was one
of only two who saw in the war elements of Biblical prophesy.
A few stated point-blank that they disagreed with the decision
to go to war, but most eschewed politics, all the while asserting
that they did not see this as a religious or holy war.
All, however, believed their presence to be
necessary in order to support the troops and help commanding
officers stay the moral course in the conduct of war.
• • •
One of the key ways chaplains communicate
their faith is by living it in public – and for none
is this harder than for Felzenberg.
"I don't know of another faith that is
so full and encumbered with religious observances and requirements,"
he says.
At a Friday Seder with six other soldiers,
Felzenberg passes the gefilte fish and jokes that it's easier
to keep kosher in Afghanistan than it was when he was based
in Hawaii. With no Orthodox community and no kosher stores
there, his wife had to have meat flown in from Seattle. In
Bagram, on the other hand, he gets raw vegetables from the
cafeteria and supplements them with shipments from home and
Army-supplied kosher meals. For holidays like Passover, the
Army provides supplies, right down to Passover-approved wine.
Much more difficult for him was the Army requirement
that all soldiers be clean-shaven. "I put in a request
through military congressional channels" for a dispensation,
he says, one foot tapping lightly on the rug. When it was
denied, "I debated [the issue] with others and, in concert
with the appropriate rabbinic authorities," he cobbled
a compromise he could live with. From the minute he goes on
leave to join his wife and six children until the instant
he returns to duty in uniform, Felzenberg does not shave.
And while on duty, he uses an electric razor, thereby obeying
the prohibition against straight razors. "That was ultimately
a strong, bitter pill to swallow," he says. But the compromise
was worth it: "I was afforded the opportunity to serve."
• • •
As the only Jewish chaplain deployed in Afghanistan
last spring, Felzenberg traveled a fair bit to conduct services
at other bases.
"I've come to agree," he says, "with
the saying 'it is better to minister to one in the field than
500 in garrison.' "
Still, more often than not, he helps Jewish
soldiers come to Bagram, particularly for holidays best celebrated
in fellowship. At Passover this year, 20 soldiers shared a
Seder that stretched well into the night in the unit's chapel.
As brigade chaplain, Felzenberg also makes
sure that the Christian chaplains under him meet the needs
of their communities and that everyone, regardless of denomination,
can participate in morale-building activities like the outreach
program with the local Afghans, or can simply knock on his
door if they need to talk.
In fact, Felzenberg's rigorous prayer schedule
and dietary restrictions make it easy for soldiers to track
him down, especially at mealtime, when they can simply follow
the smell of latkes or eggs back to the long, narrow room
where he ricochets like a pinball between a one-eyed burner,
a minifridge, and the microwave.
While he cooks, he talks. "Pain is just
weakness leaving the body," he says, at one point, echoing
a Marine recruiting slogan, "and though nobody likes
to be deployed for an extended period of time, it's ultimately
a job and a mission that must be done, and if we don't do
it those who come after us will either have to do it or not
even be afforded the opportunity to do it."
His unwavering certainty appeals to many of
the soldiers, including some, like Staff Sgt. Greg Dean, who
are neither in his brigade nor Jewish yet attend services
and Bible study with Felzenberg because his firm beliefs enrich
rather than stifle a conversation with people who hold other
views. When he returns stateside, Sergeant Dean doubts he'll
have this kind of ready access to a rabbi. Fond of puzzling
out the intricacies of the Old Testament, Dean will miss the
intellectual contact.
"I enjoy talking with him," Dean
says over a hasty dinner in the cafeteria. "Lots of Orthodox
rabbis are very brittle – he's not. I like his mind."
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