The United States Air Force Academy has said it will rectify the process that led to a clash between a key training exercise and Yom Kippur.
“The US Air Force Academy recognises the importance of the holy days of all faiths. A training event was unintentionally scheduled this week during the Jewish observance of Yom Kippur,” Lieutenant Colonel Brian Maguire, the academy’s public affairs director told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Thursday.
“The Academy’s Academic Year Calendar is developed and maintained through an institutional process that includes input on faith considerations of the cadets.
“We will correct our processes to ensure this, and mistakes like this, do not happen again.”
Lt. Col Maguire explained that cadets planning to observe the holiest day in Judaism were permitted to do so, stating: “Religious accommodations were planned and made available to all Jewish cadets wishing to observe Yom Kippur.”
The academy’s “Commandants Training Day” is a compulsory event that takes place once every semester. The high publicity event involves cadets displaying what they have learned throughout their training and is important to cadets’ advancement.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) publicised the scheduling clash in an article published by the liberal political blog site Daily Kos.
MRFF founder Mikey Weinstein, a Jewish graduate of the academy, told the JTA that a number of Jewish staff and students had informed him about the clash, and said academy leadership had known about the oversight for weeks.
Local media also published an email, sent last Tuesday evening just minutes before Kol Nidrei, from the dean of faculty, Brigadier General Linell Letendre, in which she said a “serious scheduling oversight,” had occurred.
“Obviously, tomorrow’s Commandant’s Challenge should not have been scheduled to overlap with this significant religious holiday,” she continued.
Mr Weinstein says he has submitted a freedom of information request to uncover how the academy dealt with the forthcoming clash with the key Jewish High Holy Day.
“All anyone had to do was to Google ‘Yom Kippur 2022’, and the dates would have happily popped up on pretty much any computer screen on this planet,” he argued.
The organisation says that US troops and other military personnel who complain of religious discrimination often turn to it as it ensures the complainant’s identities are not revealed.
