Orthodox Seminary Suspends Participation in Voluntary Chaplaincy Draft

Yeshiva University has agreed to a request from rabbinical students in its Rabbi Isaac Elchanon Seminary to suspend for one year the Orthodox seminary’s participation in the Jewish community’s self-imposed draft of newly-ordained rabbis for military chaplaincy duty because of student opposition to the Viet Nam war, it was learned today. The students will instead have the option of volunteering for such duty.

At the same time, a spokesman for the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly disclosed that, because of similar opposition to the Viet Nam war among some rabbinical students at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the issue of ending Conservative participation in the chaplaincy draft program will be debated at the Assembly’s 68th annual convention this month at Kiamesha Lake, N.Y. The spokesman added that the issue as viewed in the Conservative rabbinate is not one of hawks versus doves on the war, but rather the proposition that if Jewish men are on duty in a war, however unpopular, the Jewish community has a responsibility to provide them with spiritual support through provision of military chaplains.

Opposition to United States involvement in Viet Nam has been particularly sharp in Reform Judaism. However, Rabbi Sidney Regner, executive vice-president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, said there was no similar situation of widespread student debate on the war in the Reform seminary, the Jewish Institute of Religion-Hebrew Union College, and that the CCAR was continuing its participation in the Jewish chaplaincy draft program without change.

Under long-established procedures, when a rabbinical student is ordained at each of the three seminaries, he is required to take a physical examination for possible chaplaincy duty before he can take a pulpit. Assuming he is physically fit, he is then available for assignment, through the Jewish Welfare Board’s Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy, for military duty.

The Yeshiva University spokesman said that the one-year suspension became effective in January and that the issue will be reviewed at the end of that period.