Rabbi Alvin Kass, a New York Police Department chaplain for 50 years, is promoted to three-star chief — becoming the highest-ranking chaplain ever in the department.
Kass, 80, receives the promotion in honor of his half-century with the department. He currently serves as the NYPD’s chief chaplain, leading a staff of nine clergy of different faiths and serving about 34,000 police officers.
Kass once successfully negotiated with a Jewish man who had taken a woman hostage, getting him to agree to turn over his guns in exchange for two pastrami sandwiches. On the day of his son’s bar mitzvah, Kass went to be with the family of a Jewish police officer who had been shot and killed in the line of duty.
Kass is the rabbi emeritus of the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn, where he served as spiritual leader for three decades.
— JTA
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
From the Liveblog of
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
