Coast Guard now allows religious headgear

The skullcap can stay on the Coast Guard auxiliarist’s head after all. Jack Rosenberg, a 35-year-old Hasidic Jew from Rockland County, N.Y., signed up for the Coast Guard Auxiliary last year and passed his training, only to be informed that regulations forbade him to wear his skullcap during some duties.

Much as he loves his country, Rosenberg was not about to doff his skullcap, which a Hasid normally sheds only to shower or to swim, so his uniform stayed in the closet.

Now he does not have to. The Coast Guard is issuing new regulations allowing members to wear religious headgear, a spokesman for the guard, Chief Petty Officer Daniel Tremper, said Tuesday. This brings the guard, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, into line with the armed forces under the Defense Department, which have permitted religious garb since 1987.

Coast Guard auxiliary members’ duties include flying on domestic search-and-rescue missions. Rosenberg, a tire technician in Spring Valley and a certified pilot, had been sworn in when the skullcap issue arose.

“I never considered it a problem,” he said Tuesday, “only a bump in the road.”

The old rules said religious clothing could not be visible. Rosenberg’s Coast Guard cap is big enough to conceal his 6-inch black velvet skullcap, but at times auxiliarists do not wear their guard caps, such as when they are indoors, and then Rosenberg’s skullcap would show.

In March, Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn, who has a large Orthodox Jewish constituency, urged the Coast Guard to change its rules, arguing that it was hardly in the guard’s interest to turn away able-bodied volunteers. Other elected officials followed suit.

The new rules allow headgear as long as it is visually low-key: no bright colors, writing, pictures or symbols allowed, Tremper said. The changes have not been formally adopted yet, he said, but Rosenberg may wear his skullcap. Still, Rosenberg, ever mindful of following protocol, declined to comment on the change until he was notified directly.