The Department of Defense approved the Aleph Institute, an organization linked to the Lubavitch movement, to endorse chaplains.
Endorsing agencies provide a required seal of approval for any religious leader who wants to join one of the three branches of the military.
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The Miami-based Aleph Institute will join the Jewish Welfare Board’s Jewish Chaplains Council, which, since 1918, has been the only body endorsing Jewish chaplains.
The approval of a Lubavitch body is particularly notable because Lubavitch rabbis are currently not able to become chaplains because of a military regulation banning beards. The new body will endorse rabbis from other corners of the Orthodox world, but it is also likely to lead any efforts to overturn the military’s prohibition on chaplains having beards.