A prominent rabbi who held onto a pulpit and led his congregation for 60 years in the Mill Basin section of Brooklyn is being remembered by his family on his fourth yahrzeit this week.
Rabbi Dr. David Halpern, the spiritual leader and impetus behind the beginning of Flatbush Park Jewish Center, was so much more than an ordinary pulpit rabbi. For his congregants he was an engaging teacher, builder, mentor, leader, advisor and a visionary. He was a formidable and prodigious fundraiser. He was able to connect with all his members regardless of their background or level of observance. Together with his talented gabbaim, he was able to interface with newcomers who initially came to shul just to say Kaddish. He used that opportunity as a hook to mainstream them and their families into synagogue life. The synagogue was originally located in a storefront on Avenue N before moving to its current spacious edifice on Avenue U between 63 and 64 Streets, now dubbed the mothership of 10 Orthodox synagogues in the neighborhood.
A newly-minted rabbi, Halpern was proud of his country and Israel. While trying to hold together a congregation of first generation Americans and new immigrants arriving from Europe post-World War II, at age 25, Halpern embarked on a career to serve his country. He enlisted as a regimental Jewish chaplain for the New York National Guard with the 71st Infantry, 42nd Rainbow Division. He was stationed out of the Park Avenue Armory (between 66 and 67 Streets) in Manhattan.
His tour of duty began on June 14, 1954, serving for seven years through July 20, 1961. The stint included two weekends a year at Camp Smith in Peekskill, Westchester County, and two weeks every summer in Camp Drum in Jefferson County located in the far-reaches of New York state, near Watertown and the Canadian border, according to Army documents obtained by The Jewish Press.
From 1951 until 1974 the Camp Drum Army base was settled on more than 107,000 acres of land named after Lieutenant General Hugh Drum, who was chief of staff of the First United States Army during World War I and First Army commander at the start of World War II.
During and after the Korean War, a number of National Guard units were stationed and trained at Camp Drum to take advantage of the terrain and climate where winter temperatures can reach as low as minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
Halpern heard of a need for kosher food at Camp Drum and for many years he and several of his fellow National Guardsmen embarked on a mission to spend two weeks during August to travel the treacherous roads of the Adirondacks delivering kosher food to the observant Jewish soldiers at Camp Drum who needed the nourishment to survive.
“My father told me he would rent a station wagon, pack it up with kosher food for two weeks to feed as many as 10 Orthodox Jewish soldiers stationed at the Army base and drive it up to Camp Drum,” recalled Dr. Neil Halpern, 63, the Halperns’ oldest child.
The move was sanctioned by Col. John Kelly of Camp Drum. The small culinary hall for the kosher food was named Kelly’s Kosher Kitchen in honor of the colonel.
“He greatly admired this Col. Kelly who helped him set up Kelly’s Kosher Kitchen. All the chaplains lived in the same bunk or barracks,” Halpern recalls his father telling him.
“He received many commendations from his commanding officers complementing his services “in providing for the religious and moral welfare of the officers and men of the regiment,” read one commendation.
Little did Halpern and his crew know of the dangers lurking at Camp Drum. As the Vietnam War was gearing up in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, more than 1,000 acres at Camp Drum became a testing site for a controversial chemical compound known as Agent Orange, an herbicide and defoliant chemical for the troops to fight off the enemy in the jungles of Vietnam.
Agent Orange is widely known for its use by the U.S. military as part of its chemical warfare program during the Vietnam War. In addition to its damaging environmental effects, traces of dioxin have caused major health problems for many individuals who were exposed.
In 1952, Rabbi David Halpern, a resident from the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and a recent honors graduate of Yeshiva University with a bachelor’s degree in history, received his semicha from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS), signed by three rabbinic luminaries, Rabbis Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik, Shmuel Belkin and Moshe Shatzkes, according to family documents obtained by The Jewish Press.
“The Army needed chaplains and Yeshiva University participated with the Army to help them get Jewish chaplains,” recalled Halpern, director of the Critical Care Center at the Manhattan-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “My father was very proud when he spoke of his time in the Rainbow Division. He was also very patriotic.”
In 1956, Halpern’s wife, Sheila, took off from Crown Heights, where she was staying with her parents, to see what was happening up north. Sheila, married for less than two years, was five months pregnant with their first child.
“My parents lived on Montgomery Street in Crown Heights,” Sheila Halpern, 84, recalled earlier this month. “When the rabbi went (to Camp Drum) I stayed with them. I was pregnant and they wouldn’t want me to be alone.
“When I told my parents of my plans to go to Camp Drum, my mother didn’t take it so badly. My father, however, thought I was crazy for wanting to travel up to Watertown. When I look back I can’t believe what I did. It was just an experience that I would never, ever have again in my life. I was 21 years old, it was summer and warm. I had a little valise. I had something because I stayed over.”
Mrs. Halpern only bought a one-way ticket and had to transfer to another train in the middle of the trip, probably in Albany, she recalled for The Jewish Press.
“This was an old-fashioned train. I only went one way by myself. I came back with my husband in an Army car or van with a few other Jewish guys from the city who were from the National Guard and they went together each summer,” she added.
Halpern received an honorable discharge from the New York National Guard in 1961.
He retired from Flatbush Park Jewish Center with the status of rabbi emeritus in 2012. Halpern was nifter on Shabbbos, October 16, 2016 (27 Tishrei) at the age of 88. He is buried at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, Nassau County. He is survived by his sister Hannah Edelman, wife, Sheila, his children – Neil (Judith), Risa (Dennis Weinstein) and Beth (Jimmy Sitt), grandchildren and great-grandchildren.