History (personal, national) drives IDF chaplain

Cpt. Rabbi Joshua Gerstein, chaplain of the Israel Defense Forces Artillery Corps 282 Fire Brigade, has dedicated his life to a spiritual and national mission.

Having immigrated to Israel from the United States to fulfill his Zionist dream, he went on to become the fourth generation in his family to serve in the military, as well as the second member of his family to serve in an artillery unit.

“It’s really coming full circle,” said Gerstein. “My grandfather, Charlie Fletcher, served in artillery in World War Two. [From] September of 1944 to the end of the war, they went from France all the way to the Elz River in Germany.”

Gerstein’s family recently published a book containing some of the 600 letters he wrote home from the front, “Love and Kisses, Charlie: World War 2 Letters from a Jewish American serviceman.” One of the letters recounts a meeting with Polish Jewish survivors in a small German town on May 16, 1945, said Gerstein.

“He writes that he doesn’t know what will be with them, that the Poles hate them, the Germans hate them, that they all speak Yiddish just like we do back at home, and have cousins in New York. And he writes that he now understands why Palestine was such a grand place for the Jews.”

His grandfather’s letters formed a core aspect of his family’s world view, said Gerstein. Conveying something of this world view to IDF soldiers is something he views as one of his core responsibilities, to encourage them to “look at their service as one of the most incredible things that we’ve been able to do in the last 2,000 years, and see the meaning in what they’re doing.”

But being a chaplain brigade rabbi is also about the day to day, said Gerstein, who likened it to being a “community rabbi, on steroids.”

The brigade incorporates both male and female soldiers, as well as Druze and Christians. It isn’t only the Jewish soldiers who look to Gerstein to gain spiritual and historical perspectives, he said, explaining that tailors his message to the variety of backgrounds that he encounters.

“The rabbinate is there for everybody. For people who are religious, I talk about religious concepts. For the non-religious, I talk to them about non-religious concepts. Wherever you fall in the religious spectrum, this is the history, this is where it happened. As the saying goes, we’re the next chapter in the Tanach.”

He first arrived in Israel in 2007, from Lancashire, Pennsylvania, to study at a yeshiva. But his routine was rattled by the deadly terrorist attack on Jerusalem’s Merkaz Harav yeshiva in 2008.

“I felt like the yeshiva I was in didn’t really talk about that much at all, and I felt like I was living in an American bubble. I felt a dissonance. I’m living here for the year, I want to feel connected and like I belong to this place. From there I went over to an Israeli yeshiva, where there was more of a cultural Israeli-ness, while still being ultra-Orthodox,” he recalled.

He married in 2010 and in 2014, after completing a BA in psychology at Touro College in Jerusalem, decided with his wife to live full time in Israel.

“I think service in the IDF is one of the baselines, so to speak, of being part of Israeli society,” he continued, “to become part of protecting the land and the people of Israel.”

So in 2015, at age 26, a month after his son was born, Gerstein found himself in basic training. In Israel, soldiers typically begin their service at age 18, and this gave him a unique vantage point.

“During my entire service in the army, from then to now, being older than almost everyone in my peer group, and all the officers in my unit, has given me a totally different perspective on service in the IDF,” he reflected.

“I always tell the soldiers I meet that if you went to a Jew, no matter where he lived in the world, 80 years ago, and told them ‘it’s such a pain, I have to get up in the morning, put on my helmet and vest, and go protect the Jewish people,’ he’d look at you like you’re crazy,” said Gerstein. “We take it for granted, and it’s a shame. My 18-year-old commander doesn’t understand the amazing things that he’s doing.”

After his discharge in 2017, Gerstein was left with a lingering feeling that his mandatory service wasn’t sufficient.

“I didn’t necessarily give all that I could give. In 2017, during reserve duty, I was offered an officer’s course, to become an IDF chaplain in the reserves. So I thought I could at least in my reserve duty continue doing something that was more meaningful and impactful,” said Gerstein.

“In 2020, I had the opportunity to return to the military, to serve as the chaplain of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, which is also an ultra-Orthodox combat battalion. I jumped at the opportunity. Because of the religious nature of the battalion, I felt I would be able to help the soldiers there,” he said. “And also, it allowed me to come back to serve the country and army. After two and a half years there, I’m now in my current position as chaplain of the Fire Brigade 282.”

Now, he can’t help but notice the completion of a historical circle, with 80 years separating his grandfather’s service in an artillery unit from his own.

“My grandfather was at the Gardelegen massacre [in northern Germany] — they found 1,000 people who were burned in the barn. His commander ordered the soldiers to take them out and bury them. We have his original photos from the site, the aftermath,” said Gerstein.

The IDF Rabbinate, too, must remain prepared for wartime responsibilities such as burials and dealing with fallen soldiers.

“In his letters, he tried to keep an upbeat persona … but after the war he certainly talked about visiting the Jews,” said Gerstein. Indeed, uplifting the soldiers’ spirits, he said, is his “biggest job.”

“My own personal experience is that run-of-the-mill soldiers don’t realize the immensity of what they’re doing on a day to day basis,” said Gerstein. “If a soldier gets up in the morning and knows why he or she is doing what they’re doing, they become better soldiers,” he added.