Jacob Frankel (July 5, 1808 – January 12, 1887) was a German-born rabbi who became the first official Jewish military chaplain of the United States, during the American Civil War.
Life and work.
Frankel came from a Jewish family with a long tradition of musicians based in Grünstadt in the Palatinate which was then part of the French Empire, and was the son of Joseph and Dorothe Fränkel.
With his two brothers he undertook concert tours, including to neighboring Alsace. Frankel, at the time of Rabbi Leopold Roos, became cantor at his Grünstadt home synagogue, and in 1844 he moved to Mainz. In 1848 he emigrated to the United States.
From 1848 to a year before his death, Frankel served as the cantor and leader of the Rodeph Shalom Congregation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The congregation was a community of Ashkenazi Reform Judaism which had been founded in 1795. He was known as the "sweet singer of Israel."
Military career.
Frankel was appointed the first official Jewish chaplain in the United States Armed Services on September 18, 1862, by President Abraham Lincoln. He was also the first non-Christian to be appointed as a chaplain. Until his appointment, the law required a chaplain to be ordained by a "Christian denomination." After Rabbi Arnold Fischel was elected to serve as chaplain-designate for the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment, as a test case as opposed to their prior un-ordained minister, the Secretary of War Simon Cameron (for whom the regiment was named, "Cameron’s Dragoons") denied the request. This denial led to the Board of Delegates of American Israelites and Fischel to lobby to change the law. Fischel also met with President Lincoln who was in favor of changing the law. Once the law was changed, Lincoln appointed Frankel as the first Jewish chaplain. Frankel served in the military hospitals of Philadelphia which was a center of care for the war wounded. He held this post until mid-1865 and was discharged from the military at that time.
Death.
Frankel died in Philadelphia in 1887 as a widower, leaving two sons and two daughters. Isaak Fränkel, one of his brothers, died on December 20, 1877, in Grünstadt at the age of 74 after serving as a cantor for the synagogue there for over 50 years.
Commemoration.
During the torpedoing and sinking of the in 1943, four American military chaplains, including a Jewish chaplain, sacrificed themselves and died in the performance of their duties. In commemoration of this, a medal was designed by the American sculptor Eugene Daub and issued by the Jewish-American Hall of Fame, the "Four Chaplains' Medal". The obverse shows Jacob Frankel as the first Jewish chaplain of the United States Army, the reverse shows the fallen clergymen from 1943.
References.
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