One of the strongest supporters of Rabbi Dr. Sanford H. Shudnow, who was a Navy chaplain for more than two decades, was a member of the Seventh Day Baptist Church — both faiths observed the Sabbath on the same day.
Shudnow has a plethora of similar amusing anecdotes from a life long dedicated to service and Jewish faith.
The Kemp Mill resident belongs to both Kemp Mill Synagogue and Young Israel Shomrai Emunah of Greater Washington, attending services twice daily at the latter.
“[My neighborhood is] just a close-knit group: very Jewish, very special,” Shudnow said. “So I like it.”
He is an active member of Jewish War Veterans Post 360 after retiring from the Navy in 1998, and attends senior lunches at the Bender JCC of Greater Washington.
Born and raised in Chicago, Shudnow and his family regularly went to synagogue for Shabbat and the holidays. He attended public school and Hebrew school during the week, taking off for the High Holidays to attend shul.
Though Shudnow had uncles who served in the United States Navy, his interest was in Boy Scouts. Shudnow was a Sea Explorer through Scouting America as a teen.
“I was wearing a navy sailor-type uniform when I was in high school,” he said. “I actually thought about going to Annapolis and maybe even achieving being an admiral, so [my] Jewish [identity] and [interest in the] Navy was sort of coming together.”
In rabbinical school, one of Shudnow’s peers had served in Vietnam as an officer, then, following family tradition, studied to become a rabbi and then a Jewish chaplain.
“For me, that really sounded like something I could do,” Shudnow said. “I was looking at him in uniform when he would put on his service dress blues. I was just taken by it. And I thought, ‘Wow, I’m going to do that.’”
But his career path took an unexpected turn. The recent rabbinical graduate received word that the University of Miami Hillel was seeking a “very religiously practicing rabbi.”
“And before I knew it, I was the Hillel director at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida,” he said. “It was very special. My daughter was born there in Miami.”
Shudnow became a reservist in the Navy. He received orders to go to Pearl Harbor, but after those orders were modified, he instead ended up at Naval Base San Diego, where his son was soon born.
Then, Shudnow was sent to Japan as the only Jewish chaplain for the U.S. military.
“I covered [the] Army, Air Force and Navy throughout mainland Japan for three years,” he said.
The rabbi conducted services and religious programs and facilitated trainings aboard ships, “open to anybody to attend.” He also became the Jewish chaplain for the U.S. Sixth fleet out of Italy.
“For two years, I rode ships through the Mediterranean,” Shudnow said. “In all of these countries, everywhere that I was, they considered me to be super-duper special.”
He recalled many trips to France aboard ships: “The chief rabbi of France and I became very close.”
At the time, Shudnow was aboard ships “one after another,” including stops in Haifa, Israel. He was aboard the U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, the aircraft carrier, with upwards of 5,000 men, when the Israeli port police showed up. Shudnow greeted them in fluent Hebrew: “Boker tov, ma nishma?”
“They’re looking at an American officer, who they do not know, speaking in Hebrew, and before you know it, I become a sensation and a celebrity,” he said. “Overnight, they have me on Israeli television. I’m on a talk show; it’s like ‘The David Letterman Show’ in those days. I’m in uniform, and the whole conversation with me is in Israeli Hebrew.”
It wasn’t long before he became known across Israel and beyond; he was also recognized by a man in Zürich, Switzerland. On a solo trip to Israel, Shudnow’s wife mentioned to a butcher that she was headed to Naples, Italy, and the butcher said, “There’s a famous rabbi there with the military. I wonder if you know him.”
“Know him? I’m married to him,” Shudnow’s wife replied.
Being Jewish in the Navy wasn’t always smooth sailing. “Things changed in 1985,” Shudnow said. That year, the U.S. Navy banned beards for all sailors, aligning with other branches’ stricter grooming standards.
“I had to shave,” Shudnow recalled. “This is painful: I was required to remove my yarmulke from my uniform. … For two years, I was not allowed [to wear it].”
In 1988, Congress enacted service members’ rights to wear religious apparel in uniform, but “not during [Shudnow’s] time.”
He’s learned to be present for others throughout his decades of service: “You have to be there for them and listen and care.”
Shudnow retired in July 1998 at what’s now known as Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, but he’s aware of the impact he’s had on Jewish people’s lives.
“I would have people coming up to me that I didn’t remember, and they’d say, ‘Rabbi, I remember when you said … ’ and they’re telling something that they remember from derasha, from a lesson that I may have given for services and sermon,” Shudnow said. “This still has happened over the years.”
He suspects that his services were particularly memorable due to the scarcity of Jewish services available at naval bases at the time.
In more recent years, Shudnow received a phone call from a woman living in Israel who attended Hebrew University at the same time as him in 1968. The woman claimed that something Shudnow had said had inspired her to become “very religious” and have 10 children.
“She said, ‘I just wanted you to know that what you said to me,’ — and she didn’t say what it was — she said, ‘It changed my life,’” Shudnow said.
I’ve been a friend of Rabbi Sandy since kindergarten, grammar school, high school and Hebrew School. We also lived one block apart, in Chicago.
Back in the day, Sandy was a very good singer. I thought that he might become a Cantor.
Most important he was always a nice person and friend.
The successes that Rabbi Sandy has achieved were earned and well deserved.
All the best to a good, decent, and religious person.