Elihu H. Rickel papers

Elihu H. Rickel was born in Montreal on April 8, 1910, but was raised in Cleveland. His father, Harry Rickel, served as cantor of the B’nai Jeshurun Congregation in that city. Following studies at New York University and Columbia University, he earned a degree as rabbi and master of Hebrew letters at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1935. He was subsequently named rabbi of Temple Beth El in Buffalo, New York, where he served from 1939 to 1951.

During World War II, he was commissioned as a chaplain in the U.S. Navy in 1943, serving initially with the U.S. Marine Corps at Parris Island, South Carolina. He was then sent with the Third Marine Division to Guam, and was present at the invasion of Iwo Jima in early 1945, when he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for heroism. Following the end of the war, Rickel was sent with the First Marine Division to China, where among other activities, he ministered to Jewish displaced persons in Tianjin and other locations. In 1946 he returned to Temple Beth El in Buffalo to serve as rabbi, but asked for another leave of absence from the congregation at the outbreak of the Korean War, when he returned to active duty in 1951. Initially he served with the First Marine Division in Korea, but after the end of that war, he remained in active duty for the next two decades, until his retirement in 1969. During those years , he served at various Marine and Navy installations, including with the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, as assistant district chaplain of the Eleventh Naval District in San Diego, and at the U.S. Naval Training Center at Great Lakes, Illinois, among other locations.

Commander Rickel received the “Chaplain of the Year” award from the Four Chaplains Award Committee in 1959, and was granted an honorary doctorate from the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1972. He died in Aventura, Florida, on January 23, 2003.