Rosh Hashanah
Stateside
.
Local families feel blessed their military sons are back
in the U.S. — even if its only temporarily.
LORI WEISS
Special to the Jewish News
Editor's Note: On March 21, the JN ran a cover
story about three Jewish families with sons in the
U.S. military, all bound for the Middle East as the
war against Iraq heated up. This Rosh Hashanah,
we check in with Allen Zeitlin, who is in the Air
Force, and Kyle Miller, who is in the Navy.
A
lay leaders. I'm sure many smaller gatherings
will also take place throughout the region."
According to Rabbi Menachem Katz, the
Aleph Institute, a nonprofit national organiza-
tion, distributed shofarot, talitot and yarmulkes
to chaplains throughout the region.
To young men like Kyle Miller of Northville,
a Navy petty officer second class, gatherings like
those make all the difference.
"I wasn't able to celebrate Passover this year,"
s Marlene and Garry
Zeitlin prepare for the
High Holidays, they do so
with a sense of peace,
knowing their son Allen, an airman
first class in the Air Force, is back
from the Middle East, safe and sound
on his base in Little Rock, Ark.
"I'm thankful that's he's safe and
he's home," Marlene Zeitlin said. "I
do think about the others though. I
still feel for those parents. So many
don't know when their kids are corn-
ing home. We just pray they all come
home safely — just like Allen did —
and soon."
Allen won't be able to make it
home for the holidays because he's
juggling classes at the University of
Arkansas with his military duties.
But, as his parents attend services at
Congregation B'nai Moshe, he'll be
saying a similar prayer at a congrega- Air Force Airman First Class Allen Zeitlin reunited with his
mother, Marlene, sister Caryn and brother Bryan at a base
tion in Little Rock. A far cry from
the way he spent Passover, isolated in in Little Rock, Ark.
the desert in the United Arab
Emirates.
he said via e-mail from his base in Norfolk, Va.,
This month, according to Deborah Astor,
after returning from a six-month deployment on
founder of TheBrave, a Web list that offers sup-
the USS Harry S. Truman. 'A rabbi did fly onto
port to families of Jewish military members, the
the ship a few times while we were deployed.
New York Board of Rabbis and the Jewish
Although we didn't have enough people for a
Educators Network are ensuring that 1,600
minyan, it was really nice to have a few Mincha
kosher meals will be delivered to Baghdad for
and Maariv services.
the High Holidays. Four to five hundred mili-
"I have a very strong Jewish identity, but
tary personnel are expected, depending on
being
observant is extremely difficult in a situa-
ground conditions and available transportation,
tion where 90 percent of your time is being
to gather in Baghdad for High Holiday services.
managed by someone else," he wrote. "The
"Five hundred and fifty machzorim [High
work schedule I was on while we were out to sea
Holiday prayer books] were donated and
was very strenuous. On average, I worked 18-20
shipped by a congregation in Cincinnati and
hours a day. There's no way I could daven three
Torahs are being hand carried from the U.S.,"
times a day, and keeping kosher on the ship is
Astor said. "They'll be similar gatherings — in
definitely out of the question. You just have to
the north of Iraq, in Kuwait and aboard
deployed ships — led by Jewish chaplains and
STATESIDE on page 80
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9/26
2003
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