Yarmulkes in the United States Air Force
The yarmulke is a significant symbol of the identity and religious beliefs of the Jewish people. The first mention of wearing a head covering in Judaism appears in Tractate Shabbat, where both respect and fear of God are discussed. The yarmulke has several important functions within Judaism. In terms of its religious significance, the yarmulke serves two main purposes. By wearing a yarmulke, Jews are recognizing that there is something between God and their bodies. The yarmulke serves as the physical boundary between their body and God. The yarmulke is also worn on the head to remind the Jews that there is something always above them, God. In non-religious terms, the yarmulke represents a symbol of identity for the Jews, their religion, and their culture. For many Jews, the yarmulke is such a strong symbol that it is not only a symbol of their group identity but of their self-identity as well. Rabbi Goldman is a Jew who has a strong connection with his yarmulke: ” ‘The yarmulke is an important part of what I was and am.'”# With the yarmulke representing Goldman’s self-identity and his identity within his religious group, it is understandable how shocked he was when informed of the Air Force regulation forcing him to remove his yarmulke.
Reflecting the pride Goldman had in his religious identity, he wore his yarmulke everyday while serving in the military. For three years in the early seventies, Goldman served as a chaplain for the United States Navy where he wore the yarmulke without any conflicts. In the late seventies, Goldman became a captain at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California where he continued to wear his yarmulke without any controversy for several years. The controversy over his yarmulke rose out of a 1981 court-martial hearing where Goldman was a defense witness. An angered prosecutor in the hearing, whom Goldman had taken an opposite position against, retaliated at Goldman by beginning the controversy over his yarmulke. After the prosecutor filed a complaint, the Air Force issued an order for Goldman to remove his yarmulke while on duty or anytime he wore the Air Force uniform. Being an Orthodox Jew and an ordained rabbi, Goldman could not believe what the Air Force was forcing him to do. He saw no reason for the removal of his yarmulke as he often wore it under his hat: ” ‘Wearing a yarmulke in a hospital did not interfere with the base mission of launching nuclear-armed B-52s at a moments’ notice.'”# Goldman’s arguments fell to deaf ears and the Air Force restricted the wearing of yarmulkes while on duty. The Air Force regulation that disallowed Goldman’s yarmulke removed part of his religious and self identity.
Fredrik Barth, author of Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, would agree with Goldman’s loss of identity through the loss of his yarmulke. Barth would argue that Goldman would not only lose part of his identity, but his identity would begin to change to the identity of his altered surroundings. Barth states that a “change of identity takes place where the person’s performance is poor and alternative identities are within reach.”# The “poor performance” would be Goldman not wearing the yarmulke as he is not fulfilling what he needs to do in order to share the Jewish identity that he maintains while wearing it. The “alternative identities” would absolutely be in reach as the Air Force creates its own unique identities that could have a stronger influence on Goldman once he has lost a part of his own identity. While it may seem as if the loss of the yarmulke wouldn’t completely alter someone’s identity, Barth would disagree when he says, “[…] many change their ethnic label, and only few are in a position where they cling to it under adverse circumstances.”# The part of his identity that Goldman loses with the yarmulke is a large enough part that could influence his shifting identity “under adverse circumstances,” which could be considered the environment in the Air Force where a certain identity is constantly surrounding him. Despite the argument of Goldman’s loss of identity, the Air Force did not change the regulation, and Goldman did not stop fighting.
The controversy revolving around Goldman’s loss of identity and the Air Force’s possible violation of his First Amendment rights found its way to the United States Supreme Court in 1986. The case was argued on January 14, 1986 in Goldman v. Weinberger. Goldman’s side argued that the Air Force’s order to remove his yarmulke broke his basic right to religious freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. By forcing Goldman to remove his yarmulke, the idea of his loss of religious identity was also argued. The side of the Air Force argued that the regulation was set for all people and not geared towards any certain religion or culture. They believed there was no violation of any of Goldman’s basic rights of freedom. The Supreme Court agreed by majority with the Air Force’s argument.
The Supreme Court’s majority did not believe that the Air Force’s regulation violated the basic right of freedom guaranteed in the Constitution. The regulation was reviewed less harshly than a normal regulation because the Supreme Court holds the military to different standards than other parts of society. According to Justice Rehnquist, the military is looked at in a different light because they need to “foster instinctive obedience, unity, commitment, and esprit de corps.”# If the military allowed Goldman to wear the yarmulke, it would allow him to create an identity completely separate from the military. The Air Force does not want its members to have such a unique identity, but rather it seeks to create one unified group under one uniform set of regulations. The Supreme Court majority believed that nowhere in the First Amendment did it state that the military was required to accommodate the wearing of a yarmulke. The ruling stated that the regulation simply defined the difference between wearing a religious symbol that was visible and that was not. When wearing his yarmulke, however, Goldman often hid it underneath a military hat.
The visible and non-visible religious symbols argument quickly became the fire for a more heated debate over one religion being put above another. Goldman, who had hidden his yarmulke for many of the times he had worn it, saw no difference in Christians wearing a cross that occasionally showed on their chest. The decision to uphold the regulation requiring the removal of all yarmulkes was not connected to any similar regulations requiring the removal of crosses. These unfair regulations set forth by the Air Force once again reflected a violation of Goldman’s First Amendment rights and he attempted to appeal the ruling in his Supreme Court trial. In 1987, the Goldman case reached Congress where the argument against the violation of his First Amendment rights was once again argued and discussed. In the end, the ruling in the Goldman case was reversed as Congress passed legislation in regards to the Air Force’s regulation. The legislation passed by Congress stated that members of the Air Force and the military, in general, were allowed to wear symbols of their religion in a “neat and conservative” manner. The regulation that had forced Goldman to remove his yarmulke while in the Air Force was overruled by Congress based on the violation of his and others’ First Amendment rights.
In a similar case from the Supreme Court of Canada, a man felt his rights were being violated when his employer required him to remove his turban in order to wear a hard hat. The case, Canadian National Railway Co. v. Canada (Human Rights Comm.) and Bhinder, reached the Supreme Court of Canada in 1985 with an argument similar to the argument seen in the Goldman case a year later. Mr. Bhinder, a member of the Sikh religion, wore a turban which is required in his religion. When his employer, Canadian National Railway Co., informed him that he needed to wear a hard hat while on the job, he refused because he would have to remove his turban. Wearing a different or second head covering is also not allowed in the Sikh religion. When Bhinder refused, his employment was terminated by the company based on his refusal to wear a hard hat. He claimed that his basic rights to religious freedom were being disregarded and that he had unfairly lost his job. The Supreme Court of Canada, however, saw it the way Bhinder’s employer did. The Court ruled that the termination of Bhinder’s employment was with fair reason because the circumstances of one worker should not have an effect on a safety requirement within the company. By Bhinder choosing to disobey the company’s safety regulations by not wearing a hard hat, he became a liability for the company and thus the company’s firing of him was just.
Although the Goldman and Bhinder cases seem identical because both men were required to remove a piece of religious headwear, only Goldman’s rights were being violated. According to the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” By allowing Goldman to wear the yarmulke during his time spent in the Air Force, the government or military, in this case, was not in anyway establishing a religion because members of other faiths were allowed to wear symbols of their particular religion. When the Air Force regulation required Goldman to remove his yarmulke, the violation of the First Amendment occurred. Forcing Goldman to remove the yarmulke represented the military “prohibiting the free exercise” of a religion, Judaism. The clear separation of which parts of the First Amendment were not involved and which were being violated became the basis for the reversal of the original Supreme Court decision. The Bhinder case, however, was correctly ruled because his fundamental “freedom of conscience and religion” as guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) did not apply to the situation because of what is stated in the first part of the CCRF: “The [CCRF] guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” Bhinder’s refusal to wear a hard hat in his working environment placed him beyond the “reasonable limits” as he became a major liability for the company especially in the instance he was severely injured or killed on the job by something a hard hat would have stopped. Therefore, the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that the firing of Bhinder was warranted is the correct ruling based on what is set forth in the CCRF. The fight that both Bhinder and Goldman went through for their religious rights was highly applauded in their respective religious groups whether they won the trial or not.
The forced removal of religious headwear can be reason for a loss of identity within one’s religious group. The conflicts that arose regarding the removals, however, could have actually created a stronger sense of identity with their respective religious group. Fredrik Barth argues that conflict is actually the cause for the distinctions between ethnicities, religions, and cultures. The fight of Goldman, as well as Bhinder, may have actually increased the role their religious identity had on their lives. The maintenance of their diversity was kept in tact by the regulations that disallowed their continuous wear of religious headwear. By maintaining a sense of diversity, their religious identities showed in a bolder way than they had prior to the conflict. Although Barth would argue that the initial Air Force regulation stating that Goldman not wear a yarmulke took away from his identity and instigated a possible shifting identity, Barth would then also argue that the conflict created by Goldman standing up for his rights increased his connection to the group identity that he had previously lost a part of. In the end, Goldman’s religious identity was actually more significant than it had been prior to the regulation and the resultant conflict.
The initial regulation set forth by the Air Force not only affected Goldman but other Jewish members within the United States military. Other members of the military were forced to stop wearing yarmulkes while on duty and many fought the regulation, but it was Goldman’s argument that ended up turning into a Supreme Court case. The initial ruling in the Supreme Court case reflects the way certain rights are overlooked in the military whereas in normal society, a regulation such as the forced removal of yarmulkes would be quickly reversed. Unfortunately both the regulation and the Supreme Court’s verdict influenced the religious identities of many Jewish members of the military who were forced to continue service without their yarmulkes. Others, who either removed themselves or were discharged from the military, had their lives changed resulting in a massive impact on certain Jewish individuals. Either way the Jewish members chose to react to the regulation, the regulation was guaranteed to impact their life or influence their religious identity. The eventual reversal of the ruling, thanks to legislation passed by Congress, was a moral victory for Jews in the military and throughout the nation who had been following the case. Although Goldman faced a violation of his basic First Amendment right to religion in the face of the Air Force’s regulation, he persevered through the discrimination and a Supreme Court case in order to maintain his religious identity which only grew stronger throughout the conflict.
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