Yet another unique experience last night in Iraq. Being in Al Asad for a few meetings I had the opportunity to attend a Jewish Shabbat service. Shabbat or Shabbos is the weekly Sabbath i.e. day of rest in Judaism. I must confess that being in the heart of the Middle East I erroneously didn’t expect to see anyone practicing their Jewish faith.

Before the 1st millennium it is said that the Jews were nearly 300,000 strong in what we now considered Iraq. At the time this was the largest Jewish population in the world. Sadly now, they number only 9. Yes 9. 9 followers of the Jewish faith amongst the 25 million people of Iraq.

As for the number of Synagogues in Iraq? 1. I had no idea I would be observing and eating dinner in the only Synagogue in Iraq.

Service was led by Rabbi John Cutler who is in the Navy and is the Chaplain for the Third Marine Air Wing stationed here in Al Asad. Rabbi Cutler is also from Pennsylvania and lives in Bucks County (not too far from Philly).

Afterwards the dinner, the Rabbi and I talked for awhile so that I can gather some of his thoughts and opinions on how religion can play a role in the counter-insurgency (COIN) in Iraq.

All the left-wing nuts so badly wanted to call this a civil war (yes including MoveOn.orgs favorite son B. Hussein Obama) so that their blame-America-first rants would start to have more validity. In keeping with tradition of the loony left they failed to look at the facts nor show a desire to help a culture other then theirs.

We have now been fighting a COIN for the past couple years. Since General David Petraeus was able to implement a surge our ability to conduct COIN operations has proved huge dividends. By the way, McCain supported the surge and the General while B. Hussein Obama still speaks against both.

While we are doing a terrific job with COIN operations we still lack probably the most necessary ingredient for quicker success and that is the implementation of religious engagement programs. We need more American Muslim Chaplains to live with and work the Iraqi religious leaders.

Iraqis do not identify themselves as Iraqis. They first identify themselves by their household (family), then their clan (group of families), then their tribe (groups of clans), and finally a confederation or qabila (groups of tribes). Essentially, we are talking about what is known as blood loyalty.

With loyalty based on local leadership (predominantly religious leaders) vice those in Baghdad it would be in Americas best interest to expand our Chaplain Corps well beyond the 2 Muslims Chaplains we have now.

If you attended any meetings with military, political, and religious leaders in Iraq its easily recognizable that the Iraqis listen to the religious leaders first and foremost. This is the sort of knowledge that we must exploit.

Let me close by thanking Rabbi Cutler for the Shabbat dinner and follow-on discussion and of course the warm welcome I received from all of my new friends who also attended last night.

Shabbat Shalom and Semper Fi,

GySgt Jonathan Jenkins

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