Crossing a religious divide; Massachusetts National Guard's first Jewish chaplain says a prayer for enlisted men of all faiths.

Byline: Lee Hammel

It may not rank with 1636, the year that three militia regiments organized into what is now known as the Massachusetts National Guard. Or 1775, when Massachusetts Militia units engaged the British in Concord and Lexington to begin the American Revolution.

Still, 2003, the year Laurence Bazer moved from Long Island to Framingham, marked a chapter in the history of the country's oldest military organization. It was the first time in 367 years that the Massachusetts National Guard had a Jewish chaplain.

The event had its genesis 14 years earlier, halfway around the world.

Rabbi Bazer still remembers the day - April 24, 1989 - when, as a second-year student at Jewish Theological Seminary of America studying abroad, he walked into the American consulate in Jerusalem and took the oath to become an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.

As he walked out, a Marine sergeant saluted him, and he filled with a pride of being in the military that remains evident in him to this day.

A native of Lynn, Rabbi Bazer, 44, grew up in West Hartford, Conn., and graduated from Connecticut College before entering seminary. He was ordained in 1993.

Rabbi Bazer was serving a Hauppauge, N.Y., synagogue when he transferred from the Army Reserve to a newly formed National Guard Unit in Brooklyn, N.Y., and became chaplain of the FBI in Manhattan. After he moved to Framingham to serve the 300-family Temple Beth Sholom, Rabbi Bazer made his historic transfer to the Massachusetts National Guard, and the Boston office of the FBI.

Rabbi Bazer's journey has taken him from the pulpit of his synagogue - a place he arrived at after realizing that healing the soul is no less satisfying a career than the one he might have had if he had passed his medical boards - to other places and people who needed help, including the Statehouse and the area around Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, where he said, "I was looking into the belly of hell," while supporting patrolling army reservists and firefighters who had lost comrades.

He delivered the benediction after Gov. Mitt Romney gave his 2006 State of the Commonwealth message to the Massachusetts Legislature.

Religion, the military and the political arena all share an appreciation, and a need, for ceremony. So, in a country where the Jewish population has been estimated at anywhere from just over 2 percent to less than 1 percent, Jewish legislators told Chaplain Bazer after the State of the Commonwealth prayer how glad they were to see someone of their own faith giving the benediction.And when it is time for soldiers to be reunited with their families after an overseas tour, Rabbi Bazer and the unit commander give medals to the children, recognizing the hardships they have endured with a parent away. The rabbi said children who may have been trying to act as cool as possible a few minutes before proudly return the salutes given them by the uniformed chaplain and commander.

Major Jack McKenna of the Army National Guard remembers a religious ceremony in Faneuil Hall in Boston over which Chaplain Bazer presided when the major and his unit were about to be deployed to Iraq in October 2005. Chaplain Bazer gave Major McKenna a piece of paper with a prayer on it. Never mind that Major Bazer is Jewish, said Major McKenna, whose unit is based in the armory on Salisbury Street in Worcester.

"I didn't care. All that mattered to me was that he was saying a prayer for my men and myself and that he handed me a prayer, and hopefully that protected me.

"I'm Irish, so I'm kind of superstitious," the major added. "He said I should keep this with me, so I did."

Two hundred combat patrols later, Major McKenna returned home unharmed, the prayer still folded into the Army Green Book he kept with him.

Major McKenna said chaplains are valuable even beyond their religious roles. "Sometimes soldiers maybe have personal issues, and maybe they need somebody to talk to outside of the chain of command. Certainly a chaplain would fill that role."

Rabbi Bazer, who is married and has a son, 10, and a daughter, 7, both of whom attend MetroWest Jewish Day School in Framingham, is one of four chaplains in the Massachusetts Army National Guard. The others are Protestant. One of his goals as senior chaplain is to recruit a Roman Catholic priest, he said.

Rabbi Bazer takes tremendous pride in the tablets and Jewish star he wears on his camouflage uniform to denote his service as a chaplain. In the multicultural National Guard he tries to be a chaplain who is Jewish, not a Jewish chaplain, he said.

Fifty rabbis serve in the military, active and reserve, according to Rabbi Brad Hoffman, a commander in the Navy Reserve and deputy director of Jewish Welfare Board's Jewish Chaplains Council. One of their duties is to help Jewish servicemen keep in touch with their faith even while on a combat tour, he said.

So kosher Meals Ready to Eat are provided to them. Rabbi Hoffman even knows of a chaplain attached to the Marine Corps who conducted a Seder in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces.

Rabbi Bazer takes as much pride in serving the FBI as the military.

"I get to be a rabbi, and I get to be a soldier, and I get to be part of a great law enforcement organization," he said.

Some of his most vivid memories are from Sept. 11, when he showed up five hours after the World Trade Center towers fell. He acted as an FBI chaplain until his Reserve unit was activated that night.

Rabbi Bazer recalled an encounter with a New York City fireman near where the earth caved in, in the vicinity of the World Trade Center. The lieutenant said he knew 10 people who had perished in the towers, and asked the rabbi to say a prayer.

"I said a prayer. I think he had tears in his eyes, and I had some tears in my eyes," the rabbi said.

"More than at any other time I realized my role as a chaplain was to bring light and hope even in the darkest moments," he said. "We shook hands and I walked away."

James Margolin, an FBI agent in the New York office, recalls Rabbi Bazer as "a very warm, gregarious guy. He's a hard guy not to like. He was available for anything."

Rabbi Bazer became the second Jewish chaplain to the FBI when he took the unpaid position in 1997. The job requires a security clearance and five years of military or police experience.

That's important in dealing with FBI employees "because of their way of thinking, their belief system," said Betsy Miicke-Naulty, FBI New York office employee assistance coordinator.

The 135 FBI chaplains, six of whom are Jewish, have a variety of sensitive duties. If an FBI agent is killed in the line of duty, a chaplain goes with a supervisor to the home of the family to notify them.

As part of the FBI's critical incident program, chaplains help FBI employees deal with shootings or accidents or the aftermath of tragedies such as 9-11. "We always sit down with an agent (involved) in a shooting and we always have a chaplain. We would go to a safe place and have what we call a debriefing to support our employee," Ms. Miicke-Naulty said.

Chaplains help with FBI memorial services, they visit FBI employees in the hospital, they even marry FBI employees, she said.

"Mostly they talk one-on-one to people," she said, noting that chaplains are available 24 hours a day, by telephone.

Besides the counseling role, Rabbi Bazer recalls then-FBI Director Louis Freeh asking him to help organize a Holocaust awareness program in the New York office in 1998 at which

Mr. Freeh and Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel spoke. He said Mr. Freeh emphasized the protection of religious freedom, especially for minorities.

Two years later, Mr. Freeh asked the rabbi to give the invocation and benediction at the graduation ceremony of the 200th class of the FBI's National Police Academy, at which Attorney General Janet Reno spoke.

There also was a personal relationship between Rabbi Bazer and the New York office. Special Agent Margolin said Rabbi Bazer joined an informal group of eight or 12 FBI employees, jokingly called Jews for Justice, who gathered at the Second Avenue Deli.

But regardless of the light-heartedness - the camouflage yarmulke, the GI Jew jokes, the moniker "Rambo Rabbi" - Chaplain Bazer cannot hide the serious feelings he has about his service for very long. "I'm very, very proud as a rabbi, as an American Jew, and as an American to serve my country," he said.

Contact reporter Lee Hammel by e-mail at [e-mail].

ART: PHOTOS

CUTLINE: (1) Major Laurence Bazer, a rabbi at Temple Beth Sholom in Framingham, wears his uniform and camouflage yarmulke. Rabbi Bazer is the first Jewish chaplain of the Massachusetts National Guard. (2) Maj. Laurence Bazer, a Framingham rabbi, is the first Jewish chaplain of the Massachusetts National Guard.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff/MARK C. IDE