A rabbi from Brooklyn is challenging the Army’s “no-beard” policy after his application to become a chaplain was rejected because of military rules against facial hair. The rabbi says the service is discriminating against religious Jews because it has waived the rule for other religions:
Menachem M. Stern’s lawsuit argues the Army is discriminating against him because it has waived the “no-beard” rule for several Sikhs and a Muslim, but not for him. Advocates hope the case, if successful, will pave the way for more bearded rabbis to become chaplains and minister to historically underserved Jewish soldiers.
“While they’re stalling me, they’re taking in other religions, for instance, Sikhs and Muslims with beards and turbans at the same time,” Stern said. “At that point, my question became, ‘Who says yes and who says no?’ It shows how in a great institution such as the Army, the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”
I can understand a general military rule against beards, but it’s surprising that the rules don’t carry an exception for chaplains, as Stern’s attorney points out:
“Even if the military thinks regular servicemen should be clean-shaven, clearly chaplains who are teaching religion are in a different category,” said Stern’s Washington attorney, Nathan Lewin. “If a rabbi wears a beard and a beard is after all traditionally associated with the Jewish faith, nobody’s going to take it as being some violation of military discipline. It just means the rabbi, like he puts a yarmulke on his head, is wearing a beard because that’s what’s religiously required of him.”
According to the article, there is only one Jewish chaplain with a beard in the Army. His beard was approved before 1986, so it’s apparently not subject to the current rules. The Army has also waived the no-beard rule at least four times over the past two years, for two Sikh officers, a Muslim intern at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and a Sikh enlisted soldier.
I suppose the Army might have had an urgent need to fill these four positions and granted facial-hair exceptions under those circumstances. And perhaps there isn’t a similar need for Jewish chaplains. Unless the Army is committing a blatant act of religious discrimination, those seem to be the most likely explanations.
God protect us against misguided or self hating Jews, or those too willing to sell ISrael out to win favor or acceptance with what they view as mainstream society.
Cohen missed a perfectly good opportunity to STFU.
Correct.
If the Muslim world were to disarm along its borders with Israel, nothing would happen except increased trade.
If Israel were to disarm along its borders with the Muslim world, there would be a bloodbath from one end of the country to the other.
Fools never even notice this point.
Mr. Cohen, Beg Obama to pressure the Israeli’s to give up strategic territories to their enemies.
Beg Obama to extend a hand of cooperation to Syria that will no doubt convince the Syrians that their years of hostile and murderous behavior….worked for them.
Beg Obama to cut military assistance to Israel as a sign of evenhandedness while Israel’s enemies continue to stockpile both light and heavy weaponry.
Mr. Cohen, do you have any idea what Israel would look like if they made decisions that leads to a military loss?
How could you EVER ask for any Country to freely give up basic survival needs, in exchange for “words” to a people who have never been held accountable for “anything” they have ever done?
Imagine if you can, Israel being over run buy their enemies….It would be Nanking 1937 on a much larger scale and what would you do Mr. Cohen, lose a nights sleep or maybe lose your appetite for one nights dinner…How would you justify the new Nanking event, what would you insist be done to those responsible, who have never been responsible for anything and lastly, at that point, what would it matter.
After all, it would be yet another crisis that some people would view as an opportunity….an opportunity to finally consider what some feel as a problem… solved.
Tom Paine – “If Israel were to disarm along its borders with the Muslim world, there would be a bloodbath from one end of the country to the other.”
But then Roger Cohen could write a column regretting the bloodshed and pointing to U.S. policy history as the cause.
Roger Cohen is of the school that believes that spilling Jewish blood is perfectly acceptable, sad perhaps, lamentable even, but if it requires the inconvenience of Palestinians, careful scrutiny of their militants, arrest and detention of their hotheads and so forth–in sum the expression of Jewish power–better Jewish blood should spill. So long as Jews are victims, Cohen can sleep content at night.
Yes, for ass%^&*s like Cohen, Jewish blood is what lubricates the inner workings of the refined conscience.
“I am fiercely attached to Israel’s security.” Wow! Israel hasn’t had such a good “friend” in house at The Times since Anthony Lewis was put out to pasture. With friends like these…