ARLINGTON, Va. (JTA) — Jewish and veterans’ groups dedicated a memorial to U.S. Jewish chaplains who died in service.
The ceremony Monday at Arlington National Cemetery unveiled a tablet listing the 14 Jewish chaplains who died while in active service since World War II. Speakers included Gen. Norton Schwartz, the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, who is Jewish; Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Veterans Affairs Committee; and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
Chaplains Hill at Arlington National Cemetery for decades has commemorated chaplains who died in World War I, and Protestant and Roman Catholic chaplains who have died since World War II.
In recent years there has been an effort to add a marker for Jewish chaplains, inspired in part by the absence of a memorial for Rabbi Alexander Goode, a chaplain who joined three colleagues — two Protestant ministers and a Catholic priest — in sacrificing their lives to save troops when the USS Dorchester was hit in 1943 by a German U-boat.
Monday’s event was organized by the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, the Jewish Chaplains Council, the Jewish Federations of North America and the American Legion.
