A baby boy had his bris in the Army's sukkah at Fort Sam Houston

A Jewish service member stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio gave birth to a boy the day after Yom Kippur, and eight days later, on Sukkos, he had his bris in the Army's own sukkah on the base, Chabad.org reported on Oct. 13, 2026.

The baby was named Shraga Feivel ben Avraham. Army Chaplain (Maj.) Menachem "Mendy" Stern, a Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi and the Jewish chaplain on the installation, served as sandek. The baby's aunt and grandmother carried him in.

The mother had told Stern weeks earlier that she was expecting. When she called the day after Yom Kippur to say she had a healthy boy, Stern started looking for a mohel right away. He found a reserve military chaplain who is a certified mohel and had him flown in. A Jewish chaplain from a nearby Air Force installation said the blessings. According to Chabad.org, the Army traditionally pays for the mohel but not for the rest of the simchah.

Before the ceremony, Stern and the mohel, both officers, walked the family through each step and showed them the sterilized, sealed instruments. Chabad.org compared it to the briefing soldiers get before an operation.

The sukkah stands behind the Stern family's home on post. Each year, soldiers help the rabbi put it up before the holiday and take it down afterward, and Jewish troops eat in it all through Sukkos. The Stern home also has the only kosher kitchen on the installation.

That kitchen fed the bris. Stern's wife, their daughters and a friend of one daughter who was visiting for Yom Tov did all the cooking and baking for the seudah. About 30 guests came, roughly half in uniform and half civilians who had been cleared onto the base.

A hurricane had been forecast for the region that day. Just after the tables were set, a short drizzle fell from what looked like a clear sky and stopped almost at once. Stern saw it, and the way the whole day came together, as hashgachah pratis. "We could not have planned it better," he told Chabad.org.

Stern's path into the Army drew national attention more than a decade ago. In 2011, Chabad.org reported that he had wanted to become an Army chaplain since August 2008. He won preliminary approval for a reserve commission in 2009, but his swearing-in stalled because he would not trim his beard, which put him at odds with military grooming rules.

A precedent existed. Col. Jacob Goldstein, a bearded Chabad rabbi, had served 33 years in the Army Reserve and National Guard. When Stern could not get the same exemption, he filed a federal lawsuit, and the Army settled. The Aleph Institute, the Chabad organization that serves Jewish service members and their families, lobbied for him alongside Sens. Charles Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand and Joseph Lieberman. Aleph's military director said at the time that only nine Army rabbis were on active duty worldwide. JTA reported that the Defense Department had made Aleph a chaplain endorsing agency in March 2006, the second Jewish group given that authority.

According to a 2021 Army article, Stern was born in Israel, came to the United States at 13, and was commissioned on Nov. 23, 2011, in New York, at age 29. By then he had served in New York, Texas, South Korea and Afghanistan, and as a captain in the Military District of Washington he had conducted more than 55 funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. That year he was one of 13 active-duty Jewish Army chaplains.

How we reported this: based on Chabad.org's Oct. 13, 2026 report on the bris, Chabad.org's Dec. 2, 2011 report on Stern's commissioning, a 2021 U.S. Army article on Stern and a March 2006 JTA report on the Aleph Institute. The mother, the mohel and the Air Force chaplain were not named. We could not confirm when Stern was assigned to Fort Sam Houston or when he was promoted to major. Military families with a simchah to share can reach us at [email protected].