A frum army chaplain eases the path for Jewish recruits, and anyone with religious needs

Jewish recruits to the US military are often caught off guard if their sergeant has never met a Jew, halal meat is interchanged with kosher, and someone calls the bomb squad when he puts on tefillin. US Army Chaplain Dovid Egert is there to ease the path of Jewish soldiers, but not only – he’s there to provide for any soldier’s religious needs

Private Weiss was finishing his first day in basic training, and he was hungry. Heading into the commissary, he requested a kosher MRE — military parlance for “meal, ready to eat,” the shelf-stable packaged food served to troops in the field — only to be told that there were none. He was directed toward the nearest chaplain for assistance.

The chaplain — who wasn’t Jewish — asked him, “Did you request kosher MREs? Did you note that you’re Jewish on your registration paperwork?”

The private sheepishly responded that he hadn’t — he’d just assumed that it would be obvious from his name and yarmulke that he was Jewish, and everyone would understand that he needed religious accommodations. The chaplain helped him amend his paperwork and request kosher MREs, but it took about two weeks until they were delivered.

Military life can be tricky to navigate for the uninitiated, even more so for those, like observant Jews, who require extra accommodation. Mishpacha met with US Army Chaplain Dovid Egert, a frum captain and rabbi currently based in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, for a personal guide to the Jewish experience in the military.

Primed to Serve

Chaplain Egert, originally from Lakewood, New Jersey, was not a little boy who grew up dreaming of being a soldier and shooting the bad guy. “I grew up in a home where public service was part of our DNA, so I knew that I wanted my future job to be something dedicated to public good.”

After witnessing his mother spend 40 years as part of Hatzalah, Chaplain Egert became an EMT. However, he didn’t feel he had found his niche — so when Pirchei Shoshanim approached him about applying to their chaplain certification program, he jumped at the offer. Since the military doesn’t know what semichah is, nor does it even have the capacity to determine what it is, anyone who would like to apply to become a Jewish chaplain first needs to be endorsed by one of the three certifying agencies that work with the military. The Aleph Institute primarily works with Chabad; the Jewish Welfare Board works with all denominations ranging from Orthodox to Reconstructionist, and Pirchei Shoshanim — based in Lakewood, New Jersey — certifies those who are frum.

While each organization has its own list of standards and qualifications — Aleph Institute requires all graduates to have a Chabad beard, Jewish Welfare Board requires completion of its theological training course, and Pirchei Shoshanim requires semichah — they all expect the applicant to have a master’s degree. Most candidates choose theology. Completing the program takes about three years, after which the endorsing agency has to sign a Form-2088 certifying that the candidate is an ordained minister of his respective religious group.

The experience of Private Weiss (name was changed) is fairly typical for a religious soldier who did not adequately prepare for his enlistment, says the chaplain. Many of these men come from the East Coast, where Jewish people are ubiquitous and kosher food is easily obtainable. But the US Army recruits personnel from all over the country, and the vast majority of them have never met a Jew in their life.

“That trainee from Idaho?” Chaplain Egert says, smiling. “He thinks your yarmulke is to cover up a bald spot.” (A new soldier is called a trainee, until they graduate the ten-week basic training. Only then will they have the honor of being called a “Soldier,” which is capitalized in Army usage.)

And although the Army is very respectful about fulfilling the religious needs of its troops, it runs on deeply ingrained rules and protocols necessary to maintain a fighting force… the majority of which is not Jewish. In fact, according to a 2019 Department of Defense study, only 0.4 percent of all military personnel identify as Jewish. So while accommodations could be made for kosher food and Yom Tov observance, these tend to be the exception, not the rule, and need to be approved on a case-by-case basis. There are no extra kosher meals waiting in the freezer.

The go-to address for assistance on any religious issue would be one’s unit’s chaplain. While the number of chaplains on any base is proportional to the number of personnel stationed there, not every religion is necessarily represented by an affiliated chaplain. The Army deploys chaplains strictly on an as-needed basis, irrespective of specific religious denominations — so a Jewish chaplain cannot count on being assigned to a unit with a lot of Jews.

“It’s more of a, ‘hey, we need a chaplain, we’ll just send you’ situation,” explains Chaplain Egert.

So the chances of a Jewish soldier having access to a Jewish chaplain isn’t incredibly likely (although the larger bases tend to have Jewish chaplains). According to Egert, the US Army has only about 11 Jewish chaplains (male and female) on active duty worldwide. Of those 11, only around eight identify as shomer Shabbos.

Every chaplain’s uniform has an insignia indicating religious affiliation — Jews have a Luchos symbol, Christians have a cross, Muslims have a moon, and Buddhists have a wheel — but a chaplain is not limited to only helping members of his or her own religion. A chaplain’s primary job is to provide religious assistance to whoever needs his help. At the start of his first deployment, Chaplain Egert was under the impression that he was only responsible for administering to the needs of the Jewish soldiers.

“I thought I would have the easiest job at the place,” he recounts with a chuckle. “There were maybe 30 Jews, tops, so I could check in on them once for a few minutes, and be done for the week.”

That was not the case. Chaplain Egert has been the only Jew on base many times throughout his career, but he always assists all of the roughly 500 to 2,000 soldiers of various religious affiliations under his responsibility — like helping a Muslim soldier obtain clearance to wear a hijab, for example.