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By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Beverly J. Lesonik
WATERS NEAR GUAM – The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) welcomed aboard a Jewish chaplain to celebrate the Jewish High Holy Days, Sept. 23 - Oct. 5.
Lt. Emily Rosenzweig, a rabbi stationed at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Ill., assisted in leading the ship’s Jewish community in observing Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
“These services are the Christmas and Easter of the Jewish calendar year,” said Rosenzweig. “Traditionally the services are big and impressive, so we did our best to replicate the feeling aboard George Washington.”
Rosh Hashana begins the Jewish New Year with 10 days of repentance. Sailors celebrated the first evening by sharing a traditional meal together in the ship’s wardroom lounge. Sailors also celebrated other days during Rosh Hashana by gathering in the ship’s chapel for prayer and reading scripture.
“These holidays are usually spent with family with huge celebrations,” said Rosenzweig. “We aren’t able to celebrate the same way in the middle of the ocean, but there is something special about sharing the holidays with Sailors who serve with you.”
The last day of Rash Hashana is Yom Kippur, which means “Day of Atonement." Yom Kippur is observed by fasting from sunrise to sunset. Rosenzweig and George Washington Sailors invited Guam’s Jewish community aboard the ship to celebrate the holiday together while anchored in Apra Harbor, Guam.
“In the past, joining the military sometimes meant that you had to give up certain religious practices,” said Rosenzweig. “We are deployed in the middle of the ocean, we just completed Valiant Shield 2014 and we still complete normal ship operations yet today we are able to carve out time to observe our religious holidays.”
Rosenzweig has been a Rabbi for nine years and is one of 10 active duty rabbis for the Navy and Marine Corps.
“I have been in the Navy for three years and this is my first time aboard a ship,” said Rosenzweig. “The community aboard the ship sent a request for a rabbi through the chaplain corps and I was able to come to the ship and assist. There are so few rabbi’s in the Navy and we are spread thin, but I am happy to have been invited.”
According to Rosenzweig, it is fitting to be embarked aboard George Washington during these important Jewish holidays. It draws a parallel to a letter the first president and the ship’s namesake wrote to a Jewish community in New Port, R.I., in 1790.
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the government of the U.S., which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecuting no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
“This is George Washington’s way of saying that the United States was going to be different from other countries who had the power to cast out groups of people based on religion or other qualities,” said Rosenzweig. “This is exactly what we see here on USS George Washington. Sailors are free to practice and celebrate their own holidays and still volunteer their lives to their country that gave them that right.”
Sailors from the Jewish community are continually invited to celebrate future holidays aboard the ship. Five days after Yom Kippur, Oct. 9, Sailors are invited to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot to gather for dinner and give blessings on the ship’s fantail.
| Date Taken: | 10.07.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 10.07.2014 06:20 |
| Story ID: | 144457 |
| Location: | WATERS NEAR GUAM , AT SEA |
| Web Views: | 103 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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