American Jewish Chaplains: Adopting an American Form

Abstract This article represents the first field-wide treatment of American Jewish chaplains. As fewer Jews, like members of all religious backgrounds in the USA, are religiously affiliated and regularly join or participate in local congregations, Jews and other Americans will likely find ways to address their spiritual–religious needs outside of congregational life, in settings such as hospitals, military, universities, elder care, and other settings where “life happens.” Chaplains are religious professionals who work in these settings. While many people have done the work of chaplains—caring for others, attending to the dying, helping people engage with their spiritual–existential struggles—the evolution of those who consider themselves Jewish chaplains and their wrestling with the term chaplain, itself Christian, is at the center of the analyses offered here. We begin with a brief historical overview and then describe their work today. Our analysis is based on a series of historical and sociological inquiries carried out in 2021–2022. In the face of largely Protestant norms and expectations that shaped chaplaincy, American Jews—who made up the first non-Christian clergy to become chaplains in state and private settings—have engaged with and shifted the concept of chaplaincy and the training required to be eligible for these positions. The case of Jewish chaplains illuminates ways of navigating the seams of Jewishness in American life.