The Aleph Institute, a Chabad-affiliated group became the second Jewish agency empowered to endorse U.S. military chaplains.  Aleph was designated in March by the DOD as an endorsing agency and is authorized to recruit and approve Jewish military chaplains.

The first endorsing agency is the Jewish Welfare Board’s Jewish Chaplains Council, an agency of the Jewish Community Centers Association, which has been approving military chaplains since 1917.

Unlike the JWB, which endorses rabbis from all streams, the Aleph Institute will recruit and endorse Orthodox rabbis only. But Rabbi Sanford Dresin, a retired Army colonel and longtime military chaplain who is now Aleph’s director of military programs, pledged to “work cooperatively with other Jewish agencies.”

There are currently 28 rabbis serving as active duty military chaplains — 15 Orthodox, nine Conservative and four Reform.

Excerpted from the JTA.

A more in-depth story can be found at The Forward.

We are quite familiar with their work in regard to the military.  They are a good organization with the interest of the Jewish soldier (no matter affiliation) at heart.

Dee
Jewish Prime Vendor

This is such wonderful news! There are too few Rabbis to go around and we need more. Active recruiting has not been taking place and I know Chabad will not shy away from this challenge!

I’ve spoken about this in other threads, but this question has really been bothering me:

Kosher food can be taken care of, Shabbos can be dealt with, even shatnez (mixing wool and linen) isn’t a problem. But how do all of these Orthodox Chaplains get around the problem of cutting off their payos?

If anyone knows, please let me know, as that’s one of the key issues keeping me from enlisting.

According to strict halacha the payos don’t need to be very long at all. As long as I don’t completely shave that area then I, technically, have payos. Anything else is a chumra. A #2 on the clippers is about as short as you can cut and still have payos, and that is well within the hair regulation.

So the buzz they give you during Red Phase is within Halacha?

I don’t know anything about the buzz during Red Phase. I don’t even know what Red Phase is. The only training I have experience with is AFROTC basic training, and the haircut we had there was within halacha (not that I cared then) and within regulations.

Red phase is the beginning of Army Basic Combat Training. But AFROTC is within Regs… that’s good to know, especially since I’ve been told the AF is the most laid-back about these things overall.