Additional Group To Recruit Jewish Military Chaplains

The Jewish Welfare Board's Jewish Chaplains Council-- an organization that works with all streams of Judaism-- is about to lose its monopoly on endorsing chaplains for the U.S. military. Only 29 of the military's 2850 chaplains are rabbis. The Forward reports that the Aleph Institute, an organization known for helping Jewish prisoners, was approved last month by the Department of Defense as an additional body that can recruit rabbis for the chaplains' corps. Aleph is affiliated with the ultra-Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Currently Chabad rabbis generally are unable to become chaplains because of the military's ban on wearing of beards. It is expected that Aleph will work to change the military's grooming rule. In the meantime, it is likely to reach out to rabbis in other parts of the Orthodox movement.