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Jewish groups ask Pentagon to stop Messianic chaplains from wearing Jewish insignia
(JTA) — For more than a century, U.S. military chaplains have worn insignia identifying their faith — a cross for Christians and tablets with a Star of David for Jews. Now Jewish chaplaincy groups are asking the Pentagon to intervene after chaplains from Messianic Judaism, a Christian movement that blends Jewish practices with belief in Jesus, began wearing the Jewish symbol.
The effort is being led by the Aleph Institute, a Chabad-affiliated organization that endorses Jewish chaplains for the U.S. military.
Aleph asked the military to investigate the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, which endorses Messianic chaplains, and to revoke its endorsement authority if it continues allowing clergy to wear Jewish insignia traditionally reserved for Jewish chaplains.
“It is clear that [the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations] is acting in a manner incompatible with the interfaith cooperation and respect that has defined 150 years of U.S. military chaplaincy,” Aleph wrote in a letter to the Armed Forces Chaplains Board.
In a view shared by many Jews, Aleph suspects that the Messianic movement is a facade — a deceitful tactic aimed at proselytization.
“They have engaged in heavily deceptive behavior, all for the purpose of trapping unsuspecting Jews into the belief that Jesus is part of Jewish theology,” Aleph’s letter said. “Due to persecution, forced conversion, and extreme tactics employed by many Christian countries over the millennia proselytization of Jews is considered an antisemitic tactic.”
Military chaplains serve as clergy and counselors for members of the armed forces, providing worship services, pastoral counseling and religious accommodations for troops and their families. Because chaplains may be the only clergy available in combat zones or remote postings, their insignia — patches and small metal pins worn on their uniforms — function as a quick signal of religious identity.
Aleph and other Jewish chaplaincy groups say the chaplaincy system is being undermined by the Messianic movement, whose adherents may identify as Jews but are not recognized as such by any denomination of Judaism.
Rabbi Sanford Dresin, Aleph’s vice president of military programs and a retired Army chaplain, warned in a separate letter that using Jewish symbols could mislead Jewish troops about who represents Judaism.
“The entire spectrum of American Jewry unequivocally opposes any insignia to be designed for wear by Messianic chaplains other than the cross,” Dresin wrote. “Any insignia containing a traditional Jewish symbol would be misleading to Jewish service members, and would be deceptive in nature.”
Other Jewish chaplaincy organizations have joined Aleph’s effort.
Rabbi Laurence Bazer, who endorses Reform, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis and cantors as military chaplains through the Jewish Chaplains Council, said Jewish groups are working together on the issue.
“In dealing with the Messianic chaplains and insignias, we stand with our partners, Aleph Institute, and others in our position,” Bazer said. “We’re in partnership, and we’re working toward resolving this so they are not using any sort of Jewish symbol.”
Modern Orthodox leaders have also raised concerns.
In a January letter to the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, the Rabbinical Council of America warned that the use of Jewish symbols by non-Jewish clergy could create confusion in the military chaplaincy system.
“In the military setting, insignia are not private expressions of belief,” RCA leaders wrote. “They are government-authorized identifiers that communicate a chaplain’s religious endorsement and pastoral role. The use of Jewish symbols by chaplains not endorsed by recognized Jewish bodies creates a serious risk of confusion and misrepresentation and conveys an appearance of official Jewish authenticity that does not exist.”
Messianic leaders reject the criticism and say their chaplains are simply following existing military policy.
Barney Kasdan, a leader of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations who oversees the group’s military chaplaincy endorsements, said Messianic chaplains identify as Jews and therefore wear the same insignia as other Jewish chaplains.
“The tablets — the Ten Commandments — is the traditional Jewish insignia,” Kasdan said. “We identify as Jews, and as far as the Department of Defense is concerned, if you’re a Jewish denomination you wear the Jewish insignia.”
Kasdan said the organization currently has five Messianic chaplains serving in the military and three candidates in training. The group became an officially recognized chaplaincy endorser with the Department of Defense in 2017, he said.
Kasdan said Messianic leaders would be open to adopting a separate insignia if the Pentagon created a policy allowing one.
“We would be happy with our own distinctive insignia design that is different from the tablets,” he said. “But right now we’re just following the current policy.”
Messianic chaplains also say the Christian cross does not reflect their religious identity.
“A cross does not reflect who we are culturally,” Kasdan said. “If a chaplain wearing a cross is leading a Jewish-style service — reciting the Shema, using a siddur — Christians would say that’s misleading.”
The dispute comes at a moment when the military chaplaincy is under heightened scrutiny amid broader political debates about religious expression in the armed forces. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has signaled support for expanding religious expression protections for service members and chaplains, though the Pentagon has not announced any policy changes related to chaplain insignia.
Asked about the Jewish groups’ concerns, a Pentagon spokesperson said the department had received the correspondence but declined to comment further.
“As with all correspondence, the Department will respond directly to the authors as appropriate,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “At this time, we don’t have anything to provide on this.”
One of the chaplains cited in Aleph’s complaint is James Burling, who serves with a Marine combat training battalion at in North Carolina. His religious training comes from Christian institutions, including a master of divinity from Azusa Pacific University, an evangelical Christian university, and graduate studies in pastoral counseling at Southern California Seminary.
Burling said in an interview that he wears the insignia his endorsing organization directs him to wear.
“I wear the insignia I am directed to by my endorser,” he said. “He directed me to wear the stone tablets with the Star of David on top.”
Burling describes himself as Jewish but says his religious practice takes place in Messianic congregations.
“I identify as Jewish,” he said. “But as far as what I practice, I attend a Messianic synagogue.”
He said he does not attempt to convert Jewish service members and instead focuses on pastoral care.
“If I meet Jewish Marines, I make sure they have what they need,” he said. “I give them Tanakhs. I make sure they have their scriptures. I don’t push anything on them.”
Burling pointed to a San Diego rabbi, Yoram Dahan, as someone familiar with his Jewish learning and involvement in the community. But Dahan said that while Burling had studied Torah with him, he never understood Burling to be Jewish.
“James studied Torah with us and he was very serious about it. He loves Israel. But of course he is Christian,” Dahan said.
“If he says he is Jewish, it is not true and it’s not good,” Dahan added. “The Messianics are a very dangerous group.”
Kasdan said Messianic chaplains hope the issue can be resolved cooperatively.
“We want to work in the spirit of cooperation and peace,” he said. “We’re just trying to serve the military and their families.”
But Aleph and other Jewish chaplaincy groups say the stakes go beyond theology.
Because Jewish service members may rely on insignia to identify clergy who represent their faith, particularly in remote or high-stress military settings, they argue that Jewish symbols should remain reserved for chaplains representing Judaism.
“This is not a theological dispute or an effort to exclude any individual from service,” the RCA letter says. “It is a matter of accuracy in government speech and the protection of religious freedom for a minority faith community that depends on clear institutional signals.”
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Graham Platner, anti-Israel progressive, locks up Democratic Senate nomination in Maine
(JTA) — Graham Platner, the anti-Israel progressive who took Maine’s political establishment by storm this spring, has officially prevailed in his state’s Democratic Senate primary.
Multiple news outlets called the race within 90 minutes of the polls closing, with only a fraction of the votes counted.
The victory was seen as a foregone conclusion after Platner’s primary opponent, Gov. Janet Mills, suspended her candidacy in late April, saying her campaign could not afford to continue.
Still, the final tally suggested that not all Mainers had embraced the political neophyte whose campaign was dogged by controversies, including the revelation that Platner had a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest for nearly two decades until he drew criticism for it on the campaign trail. He denied knowing it was a Nazi symbol.
Mills, who remained on the ballot, drew about one in five votes in the first 10% of ballots counted, according to the tally published by The New York Times.
The result sets Platner up to face off in November against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has received substantial support from pro-Israel donors. The latest polls suggest a tight race.
“I’m humbled and proud to officially be your Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate to take on Susan Collins and the billionaire class she represents. Together, we will win this seat back for working Mainers,” Platner tweeted on Tuesday night. “Thank you, Maine.”
While Democratic leaders officially threw their support behind Platner after Mills halted her campaign, many of them remained circumspect about him. Their balancing act grew more delicate in the final days of the primary race, as Platner drew allegations of antisemitism over his characterization of donations channeled to Collins by the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and as he faced new allegations of misconduct toward women. (He said he had been a “far from perfect boyfriend” during some periods of his life but denied engaging in misconduct.)
Now, top Democrats will have to decide how hard to gun for Platner, who has become a standard-bearer in the party’s anti-Israel shift at a time when the chamber is narrowly divided.
They are already facing pressure to disavow him. “Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in America, and every Senate Democrat propping up Platner’s campaign, should be ashamed,” the Republican Jewish Coalition said in a statement after the polls closed. “Their continued support of Graham Platner, who wore the symbol of Hitler’s SS on his chest for 18 years is an outrage. Schumer must withdraw his support immediately.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel
Given the jackhammer pace of outrageous developments, one might almost think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is trying to give the opposition ammunition in the coming election — most recently by promoting a bill rendering full-time Torah study as a national service equivalent to military service.
The proposed “Basic Law: Torah Study,” which will undergo its first of four Knesset votes on Wednesday, seeks to elevate full-time Torah study within Israel’s Basic Laws framework, a de facto constitution. Under its logic, sustained Torah study will not be merely a protected cultural or religious activity, but a state-recognized form of “meaningful service” to the nation. In effect, it would place long-term yeshiva study on a comparable footing to military service, including in terms of tangible financial benefits and how the state defines civic contribution.
This comes in the context of a conscription crisis, which has seen the country come to a boiling point over a long-standing institutional arrangement by which Haredi yeshiva students are exempted from military service.
Yet even as the rage mounts, the governing coalition is trying to find legislative ways to formalize the draft exemptions to appease Netanyahu’s Haredi coalition partners, without whom he would lose his tenuous majority.
The result may be a disastrous dual-track citizenship model: one in which military service obligations are heavily concentrated among secular and national-religious Israelis, while Haredi communities are structurally insulated both from conscription and from the economic consequences that typically accompany non-participation in the labor force or military.
There are plenty of cultural disagreements between Haredi and secular Israelis, but the central criticism of the proposed law is about how the legislation threatens the structure of the country. It incentivizes behavior that will undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself from its very real enemies by diminishing the number of people serving, and demoralizing those who do.
Torah study as national defense
The draft exemption has contributed to a severe manpower shortfall in the Israel Defense Forces, as tens of thousands of reservists are repeatedly mobilized for extended periods of duty: sometimes hundreds of days per year, even after completing compulsory service. Ordinary Israelis are chafing under this burden, while many thousands of conscription-age Haredim enjoy danger-free and often taxpayer-subsidized lives.
With the Haredim set to make up a third of Israel’s citizenry by 2050, many see the long-term implications of this inequality as dire for Israel.
By classifying Torah study as a form of recognized national service, the Basic Law proposal would provide a legal foundation for aligning the rights of yeshiva students with those of IDF veterans and active soldiers. That would influence their eligibility for a range of state-linked benefits and entitlements that are tied — directly or indirectly — to military service, including housing assistance, childcare subsidies, and other welfare mechanisms that privilege or differentiate based on service status.
In parallel, it strengthens the political and legal argument that full-time Torah learners should not be treated as draft evaders but as a distinct category of service-recognized citizens, thereby reinforcing the broader exemption framework. It would function as a bulwark anchoring existing and future exemption arrangements against judicial or legislative rollback.
Words can hardly express the agitation this prospect has caused in mainstream Israel.
A coherent worldview
Haredi politicians have settled on justifying the draft exemption by arguing that their prayers are more important than the actions of pilots or tank commanders in aiding Israel. Supporters of the exemption frame the arrangement as a necessary accommodation to preserve large-scale Torah study as a core national and religious value.
These arguments are, in my view, wrong but not trivial. They reflect a coherent worldview about identity, community and the meaning of national service.
Actual supporters of this approach outside the Haredi parties — and they are few — argue that Torah study is not merely a private religious activity but a foundational element of Jewish national identity. In their view, it represents a continuous spiritual contribution to the survival and cohesion of the Jewish people — one that cannot be measured in military or economic terms. They also warn that broad coercive conscription risks destabilizing Haredi society, undermining its institutions, and producing a deep cultural rupture.
The law “will be a historic confirmation of the supreme value of the Torah and students of the Torah to the people of Israel and their security,” said Aryeh Deri, head of the Haredi Party Shas, adding “the People of Israel need greater virtues for the success of its campaign against enemies.”
That argument is unlikely to convince anyone not already sold on this worldview. Which raises the question: What is Netanyahu thinking in letting this move forward?
It is all but certain this move will harm him in upcoming elections, and the opposition, should it win, will cancel most of the laws that resulted from the current legislative blitzkrieg — most of which involve weakening of the state’s institutions, primarily those with oversight over the government.
Perhaps the Haredim have conditioned future support for Netanyahu on the effort; but this would be an empty threat, because the center-left opposition is not a viable alternative for them, any more than the MAGA movement might join the U.S. Democratic Party.
The whole thing is a mystery. But one thing is clear, and alarming: Israel’s government is now openly advocating against a single shared system of civic duty, and for a tiered structure in which one group bears the full burden of military service, and another is exempt, on the strength of arguments that most Israelis reject.
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Milei praises ‘Judeo-Christian values’ at Chabad event as Argentina courts European Jews
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES — Argentine President Javier Milei exalted “Judeo-Christian values” on Monday as he spoke to a crowd of 1,800 people celebrating the 32nd anniversary of the death of the last Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi.
Milei was the keynote speaker at the Hasidic Orthodox movement’s event marking the yahrzeit of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, becoming what appears to be the first sitting non-Jewish head of state to make an official tribute to the Lubavitcher Rebbe at a major Chabad event.
“The conclusion I have reached is simple in its formulation and profound in its consequences: When one embraces Judeo-Christian values, spiritual and material life become aligned and resonate on the same wavelength,” Milei said Monday night at the Palacio Libertad cultural center.
It was the latest in a long list of expressions of admiration for Judaism for Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” who was elected in 2023 and since has made support for Israel a cornerstone of his agenda. He has previously visited Schneerson’s grave in New York City, made pilgrimages to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and presented a picture of Schneerson to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a gift. He was also honored at a Chabad synagogue in Miami in 2024, where he revealed that he believed he has Jewish heritage.
Milei has long studied Judaism and has said he wants to convert after leaving office but sees Jewish practice, including the observance of Shabbat, as incompatible with the presidency.
His 40-minute speech at the Chabad event focused almost entirely on Jewish religious texts and thought, quoting passages from the Torah as the basis of his economic view.
Milei also revealed that his address was drawn from the epilogue of his upcoming book, “Morality as State Policy,” in which he argues that capitalism is a system invented by “the Creator” — whom he also referred to as “the One” — to bring paradise to earth through work.
Jews in Argentina have a range of perspectives on Milei’s philosemitism.
“I appreciate that the president chose to attend and speak at the Tribute to the Rebbe,” Rabbi Tzvi Grunblatt, the head of Chabad in Argentina, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “He is doing so from a deeply personal place. I also think it is healthy for him to have this spiritual side.”
But Alicia Osipovich, a sign-language interpreter assisting a deaf attendee at the event, told JTA that Milei’s forceful support for Israel and Judaism made her uneasy, even as she personally appreciated it.
“I’m proud and deeply moved to have a president like him,” Osipovich said. “At the same time, I have some concerns. He speaks extensively about Israel, and you know how support for Israel is sometimes portrayed. He says he is a Zionist, but nowadays the word ‘Zionist’ is often used as a negative label. I have mixed emotions. As a Jew, I am proud, but I also feel some concern about the increased public exposure of Judaism these days.”
Under Milei’s leadership, Argentina has invited European Jews worried about rising antisemitism to consider the country as a destination. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno recently emphasized Argentina’s attractiveness in a message aimed at Jews in Britain and other European countries who are grappling with surging incidents targeting Jewish communities.
“A country on the up with great opportunities. Sunny, with many natural attributes, and home to the largest Jewish community in Latin America. Strong stand against antisemitism. British and European Jews should seriously consider Argentina. You are welcome,” Quirno wrote on X in reply to author Saul Sadka, who had urged British Jews to consider leaving amid growing hostility.
Argentina’s leading Jewish organization, DAIA, has recorded more antisemitic incidents in recent years, mostly taking place online. But the rate of antisemitic incidents reported in the country last year was significantly lower than in many other countries with sizable Jewish populations, according to the 2025 worldwide antisemitism report published in April by Tel Aviv University.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s global director, praised Quirno’s invitation, saying it reflected a significant shift.
“Sign of the times? A country formerly ruled by a Nazi-supporting dictator has morphed over decades into a strong democracy whose president is a philo-Semite,” Cooper wrote in reply to Milei’s foreign minister. “Argentina currently serves as chair of IHRA [the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance]. Foreign minister now beckons embattled British Jews. Incredible.”
Israel’s ambassador to Argentina Eyal Sela told JTA at the Chabad event that he had no difficulty recognizing that Argentina is currently a very good place for Jewish life.
“Yes, I agree with the Argentine foreign minister,” Sela told JTA. “Of course, Israel will always be the best place for Jewish life. But today, Argentina is a much better place for Jews than Europe.”
Monday’s event opened with the testimony of Yosef Chaim Ohana, a survivor of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, who expressed deep gratitude for the support shown by Jews around the world, followed by remarks from his father, Avi Ohana. Milei hosted the Ohanas and Grunblatt on Tuesday morning at Argentina’s presidential palace, the Casa Rosada.
Dozens of Argentine nationals were murdered or taken hostage on Oct. 7. This week, an Israeli who had worked in Buenos Aires at the Israeli embassy in Argentina was killed in an attack on a moshav in central Israel.
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