A school will be started in the fall in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America to provide military chaplains for the armed forces in a program to replace a prior system of compulsory military chaplaincy for Conservative rabbinic graduates which was suspended last month, it was announced here today.
The new school for chaplains will be part of the Seminary’s rabbinical training program but a student who enrolls in the new school will do so under a requirement that he must enroll as a reserve officer in a branch of the armed forces, Seminary officials said at a press conference.
The new school for chaplains will have an accelerated program requiring candidates to take 90 credits of graduate work plus ordination in 27 calendar months. Candidates for the new school will be sought among present students but not among the beginning students. Students who choose to enter the new military chaplaincy school will be tested physically and psychologically to determine whether they are qualified, Rabbi David C, Kogan, administrative vice chancellor, said. He added there was no way of determining what the membership of the new school would be in the fall.
He said a significant element of the new chaplaincy program will be a requirement that all candidates for the Conservative rabbinate, who choose not to agree to military duty, must serve a minimum of two years as a civilian chaplain through assignment by a joint Seminary-Assembly community service commission.
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