Rabbis Among Warriors

Chaplain Kenneth J. Leinwand, 33, is married to pretty Bracha (Blessing), an Israeli of Kurdistani descent (third of nine children). The ex-Floridian calls Jerusalem “home.” He keeps a Koran in his Hebrew library for Muslims, and remarks, “I have more freedom, Jewishly, in the Army than in any other form of the rabbinate.”

Chaplain Leinwand is an example of the bright and manyfaceted people who are in the U.S. military chaplaincy overseas, “Rabbis among Warriors” in the “new” Army, Navy, Air Force.

About Chaplain Leinwand and others like him, Brig. Gen. Richard G. Cardillo, 52, of East Orange, N.J., and Denver, chief of staff of the U.S. Seventh Corps, remarks:

“A good commander turns to his chaplains for moral advice.”

GENERAL’S OPERATIONS COVER MOST OF GERMANY

Gen. Cardillo’s area covers “half-to-two-thirds of Germany.” The general is a Catholic of Italian descent who “made it” in an America of opportunity. He notes:

“We are dealing with a new Army of young people; youngsters who often for the first time are away from home. They are freer, their parental bonds are gone. They are eager to explore and exchange ideas. Their philosophical ideas are still forming. And one of the first things they change is their attitude toward religion.”

Gen. Cardillo is a vigorous man with an erect military bearing even when sitting comfortably. As he spoke to us, he was dressed in camouflage uniform. His jet black hair was flecked with a touch of gray, attesting to his heavy responsibilities as commander for in this North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) post.

“We don’t want to sell our people church or synagogue. But our first job is to minister to the young. Once we do get to our men and their farmilies, we want to encourage them to be part of their own religious environment.

“I don’t have enough chaplains, Jewish or Catholic.”

“WE ARE ALL SUCCESS ORIENTED”

“The difficult thing is that we are all success-oriented. We are interested in success with the soldier and with his family–and they are younger now these days. Attendance at religious services in the military overseas is based on the family, but there are only a few teenagers in attendance, and often only about two percent are the soldiers themselves.

“We fail somewhere. Chaplains of all faiths have a heavy duty. It is difficult anywhere today, let alone far from home to take an 18-to-20-year-old man or woman and in 18-to-20 months make a drastic change in his or her whole attitude toward life. But we do it. We focus on success.”

Chaplains of Christian faiths often express surprise that even though Jews are few and scattered over the varied command units, they seem to gravitate to their Jewish religious and social institutions in groups disproportionate to their numbers.

One Jewish soldier remarked to us: “We are pretty isolated over here. I don’t see another Jewish person during the whole week.”

Chaplain Leinwand observed that “Jewish identity often seems more important to these soldiers than their religious practices.”

CHAPLAIN LEINWAND RUNS OPEN HOUSE STUDY GROUPS

While there are not enough little children to have a religious school at the Stuttgart base, Chaplain Leinwand holds “open house” and study groups in his home for children, youth and adults. His wife Bracha is the “religious studies coordinator.” He also provides individuals with self-study texts, compliments of JWB’s Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy.

Here again, “lay leaders” are needed to keep a Jewish continuity going in remote stations where the chaplain rarely can visit.

Chaplain Leinwand is also administrative funding officer for the chaplains under the jurisdiction of Col. Chandler P. Robbins II, 49, deputy commanding officer, Stuttgart.

“Chaplains are as important as surgeons to the Army.” said Col. Robbins. “The chaplaincy is as American as motherhood and apple pie. We could not imagine our military services without our chaplains and their help.”

The Stuttgart Military Community is “like a large American city within a German city … we are scattered all over the map,” said Col. Robbins, gesturing to a chart on his wall.

“We support 30,000 soldiers, their dependents, and civilian employees in the Stuttgart Military Community, along with the logistical services. The needs of the American population here go very deep, very broad, regardless of religious denomination.

“WE’VE GOT TO WORRY ABOUT AMERICANS 24 HOURS A DAY”

“We have got to worry about our American community 24 hours a day, including families with family problems. This is different from life in the U.S.A. We also have German law to worry about, since ‘status of forces’ agreements regulate relationships between Americans and Germans the host country.”

In fact, most German Jews do not feel or consider themselves West Germans, though they hold West German passports. The legacy of the recent past, Hitler’s murderous legacy, is present, even when people put on their social-blinders.

Therefore, the Stuttgart Jewish community feels a closeness in many respects to American Jewish Chaplain Leinwand. When the local civilian rabbi of the “Stuttgart Gemeinde” community was absent on a day we were there, Chaplain Leinwand was summoned to officiate at an unveiling of a gravestone in the Jewish cernetery. He went routinely, as did we, despite the cold fall rain. The mourner’s kaddish mingled with the thunders above.

Hardly a word was spoken between the two communities of mour?ers. The raindrops hid the tears in a cernetery where there was a gap of a generation-of-years on the gravestone markers!

In central Stuttgart, the Jewish community has a rebuilt, new (1951) “Gerneinde Centrum,” with two synagogues, a school, a library, a kosher restaurant, a mikvah (ritualarium), and communal offices, guarded by sophisticated electronic security services, a precaution against Arab terroritsts.

DINNER AT KOSHER RESTAURANT WITH LEADERS

Several leaders of the Gemeinde waited dinner for us at the kosher restaurant. They were: Roman and Lotte Mandelbaum, he of Crakow, she a Stuttgart native. How did she survive the Nazis? “I was not Jewish then,” she smiled. After the war, she converted to Judaism, married, and became a leader in the community. Roman is an engineer. Arno Fern, a textile manufacturer, who was born in Nuremberg, was with us, too.

They estimate there are about 700 Jews in the Stuttgart area, about 420 in the city itself–with as many as 200 more “unregistered” for a variety of reasons, including social and psychological “escapism.”

The future? “I am not sure that there is a ‘future’ for Jews in Germany,” Mandelbaum insists. “People come back to die.”

“Some are afraid of anti-Semitism, still.” Why do they come? Some because it is more “natural” for them, despite the painful memories; some to qualify for their pensions, which they can only receive if they reside in the country; still others Jewish refugees from Nazi-shattered, post-war Eastern Europe, now Soviet occupied.

The chaplain, a graduate of Hebrew Union College and the University of Manitoba, has been in the Army for seven and half years.

Chaplain Leinwand’s parents have come from Israel, where they had retired, to live near their son in West Germany. Sidney Leinwand is a volunteer lay leader in Heilbronn. He also teaches science in a junior high school; Florence Leinwand, the chaplain’s mother, is the registrar of the City College of Chicago branch connected with the U.S. military overseas.

CHAPLAIN FEELS STRONGLY ABOUT HIS ROLES

Chaplain Leinwand views his roles as:

“1. Opportunity for every Jewish person in the military to express his or her Jewish identity.

“2. The best image of Jews and Judaism within the Army.

“3. Education to non-Jews about Judaism and joining in dialogue between Jews, Christians and other non-Jews.

“4. A patriotic expression of the ideal of religious freedom in America by service in the military.”

He urges more Jewish youngsters to join the military and those who are eligible, the chaplaincy, for unique Jewish service.

One of his duties as chaplain is educational coordinator of religious teachers of various faiths in the U.S. military. We met them, all bright young American wives and mothers.

Now these U.S. civilian teachers are planning with Chaplain Leinwand to visit the Holy Land, a pilgrimage which he will lead to Jerusalem, a place Chaplain Leinwand calls “home.”

Next: The Jumping Chaplain