A Rabbi at Gettysburg: Chaplain Ferdinand Sarner, German Jews, and the Civil War

A Rabbi at Gettysburg: Chaplain Ferdinand Sarner, German Jews, and the Civil War

Speaker Rabbi Joseph S. Topek

Sunday, December 22^nd at 2:00pm

Program included with Museum admission

 

Did you know there were no Jewish Chaplains in the American Military before the Civil War? The establishment of a Jewish military chaplaincy was a significant accomplishment for the nascent American Jewish community during the Civil War.  Ferdinand Sarner was the only rabbi to serve as a regimental chaplain on the battlefield.  Rabbi Joseph S. Topek exciting talk will explore Rabbi Sarner’s unusual career as well as look at chaplaincy within the context of German Jewish participation in the Civil War.

 

Rabbi Joseph S. Topek is Director of the Hillel Foundation for Jewish Life at Stony Brook University and Jewish Chaplain in the University Interfaith Center, of which he is also the Chairman.  He is also the Jewish Chaplain at the Long Island State Veterans Home in the Stony Brook University Medical Center.