On the last day of his deployment, Konstantin Pal stands on a naval ship in Tallinn and looks out over the Baltic Sea. Waves splash against the hull while dark clouds move over the harbor of the Estonian capital. Pal squints. “I’m going to miss this,” he says, “but I’m also looking forward to coming home to my family.”
Pal is a rabbi in the German army. The 45-year-old spent seven weeks as a chaplain on the “Donau”, a supply ship of the German Navy that supports mine detection in the Baltic Sea as part of a NATO squadron. He got used to the waves, talked to soldiers, helped peel potatoes in the galley. You could also say: Pal made history. With him, a German military rabbi was deployed for the first time in more than 100 years. The last time this happened was in World War I, when almost 100,000 Jews fought in the German armed forces.
In his uniform, Pal – a tall, broad-built man with a soft voice – is recognizable as a rabbi. Tablets of the law and a Star of David shine on his shoulder straps. On this gray spring Sunday, he is preparing to leave; tomorrow he will fly back to Germany. He and his colleagues in the military rabbinate are working to make something that seemed unthinkable just a short time ago a matter of course: the German army also offers space for personal encounters with Judaism.
There have only been rabbis in the troops for three years. Before that, soldiers could only choose between Catholic and Protestant chaplains. To change that, at the end of 2019, the then Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) concluded a state treaty with the Central Council of Jews. Up to ten military rabbis are to be hired, five positions have already been filled. At the time, the minister spoke of a “clear signal” against right-wing radicalism and anti-Semitism.
The Ministry of Defense assumes that there are 300 people of Jewish faith in the Bundeswehr, but this is only an estimate. Like their Christian counterparts, the rabbis are the contact persons for all soldiers. In the past few weeks, says Pal, none of the approximately 200 soldiers in the squadron have identified themselves as Jewish. Of course, he has still had many conversations. “I think I have exchanged at least a few words with everyone on board, with some more than with others,” says the liberal rabbi. “People already knew that if they had problems, they could come to me.”
When Pal came on board in February, he replaced a Protestant colleague. He said he had learned how complicated pastoral care can be here. To show what he means, he leads people around the ship, climbs up and down stairs, walks across the helicopter landing pad and opens a door that leads to the laundry room. A metallic smell hangs in the air. In this passage, he says, he usually has his confidential discussions. Relatively unobserved and protected from the wind, but anything but ideal.
Pal does not want to go into detail about what the soldiers talked about with him. One problem is the distance from home and family. Some find the deployment difficult because, for example, their child has just been born at home. One comrade reported that the Bundeswehr had cost him three relationships. Another issue is friction. On a ship, you cannot avoid each other, Pal stresses. There is hardly any privacy, just a curtain in front of the bunk that you can draw at night.
The rabbinate of the Bundeswehr is under the authority of a military federal rabbi, Zsolt Balla, who is based in Berlin. There are also branches in Hamburg, Cologne, Leipzig, Munich and Schwielowsee. Like their Christian colleagues, the rabbis are civilians. They not only work as pastors, but also travel to barracks and hold seminars there. Sometimes the focus is on minorities, sometimes on world religions. Many soldiers are consciously meeting a Jew for the first time.
Of course, there is something symbolic about a military rabbi in the country responsible for the Holocaust. In fact, his office is far from normal operations. Since the Hamas massacre on October 7th last year, Pal and his colleagues have often been asked about the situation in the Middle East. In the Bundeswehr, he has the impression that there is “great solidarity with Israel.”
Pal was born in Moscow and moved to Berlin with his parents when he was ten. He later earned a master’s degree in Jewish studies in Potsdam. He met two American rabbis who talked about their time as chaplains in the US Army. Both raved about their work, especially about how important the job was.
In 2004, at the age of 25, he completed an internship with a Catholic army chaplain. He spent two weeks on a frigate and learned how important it is for soldiers to have a confidential contact person. After that, he knew that if the opportunity to work as a rabbi in the army ever arose, he would do it.
As is often the case in Germany, the present can be explained by the past. In the First World War, Jewish soldiers were looked after by around 30 field rabbis. Afterwards, the army command accused the Jews, in the “stab-in-the-back legend”, of being to blame for the defeat along with other forces. Barely 15 years later, the National Socialists seized power. The fact that there are now military rabbis again, while the approximately 3,000 Muslim Bundeswehr soldiers have no imam, can also be understood as a response to this past. And as a reaction to the present, in which anti-Semitism is still a problem.
According to the Bundeswehr, there were 216 suspected cases of right-wing extremist, racist and anti-Semitic behavior in the troops in 2022. According to the report, the number has recently decreased. Nevertheless, for an army whose soldiers have sworn to defend the free and democratic basic order, every case is one too many. The military rabbinate is reluctant to talk about this topic. Combating anti-Semitism, they say, is not the job of the rabbis. In any case, Konstantin Pal says that he himself has not been subjected to hostility in the Bundeswehr so far: “I think people are aware of the consequences if they act anti-Semitic towards me.”
In the future, rabbis will regularly accompany the armed forces on missions. Thanks to his time on the “Danube”, Pal has more experience than his colleagues, and he will prepare them for this in the future. He still has to work out exactly how. “We are new to military chaplaincy,” he says. “We have to find our way. It’s trial and error. It’s best to make as few errors as possible.”
