Praying In Saddam's Palace: CUNY Vet's Powerful Rosh Hashanah

NEW YORK — Ilya Bratman went home, in a sense, for Rosh Hashanah last week — he was in Pittsburgh with a close friend whose family welcomed him as a new immigrant. Classes were out at the CUNY schools where he leads Hillel Jewish student groups and teaches as an adjunct professor.

But 15 years ago, Bratman celebrated the Jewish new year thousands of miles away in a service that changed his life — and his faith.

On those September days in 2003, Bratman, now 41, was in Baghdad as part of the U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division. He was the only Jew in his battalion of 540 soldiers, who he said were among the troops deployed early in the Iraq War.

After a close brush with death on a cargo plane, Bratman ate and prayed with about 50 other service members in an unlikely place: Saddam Hussein's former palace.

"That moment kind of lit a spark inside of me that has been burning ever since," said Bratman, a New Jersey resident.

Bratman came to the U.S. from Russia with his family in 1991, when he was about 14. They were among many Jews in the former Soviet Union who fled to the U.S. or to Israel, he said. While being Jewish was a part of Bratman's identity, he said he was disconnected from the faith's practice.

The family settled in Pittsburgh, where Bratman graduated from college in 1999 with a film degree after studying abroad in Israel. Unsure what to do with his life, he enlisted in the Army — unaware the nation would be plunged into war within a few years.

Bratman was in Korea when the 9/11 terrorist attacks struck. "We became, right away, aware that war was coming," he said. He was sent to Iraq in 2003 and became part of what he called "more or less a military police force" in the capital city of Baghdad. "It definitely didn’t feel like a liberating force of any sort," he said.

The summer was so unbearably hot that Bratman would sit in his truck crying. The temperature one day hit 127 degrees, he said.

A chance at reprieve came in August. Bratman and other soldiers were offered a "rest and relaxation" outing to Qatar, where they were promised air conditioning, flushing toilets and three beers a day, "which is like manna from heaven for an American solider," he said.

Bratman didn't end up among the soldiers who took off for Qatar in a Chinook helicopter — which was shot down, killing 17 people. "Life became even more important that day," he said.

Another trip came around about a month later, and this time Bratman got to go. The 150 soldiers piled into a cargo plane, eager to escape the "godforsaken place" on the ground, he said.

Bratman was sitting by the plane's wing. Something was amiss soon after takeoff — the plane was twisting and turning through the air, knocking the soldiers into each other. Two heat-seeking missiles were fired on the plane, Bratman would find out, and the pilot used flares to outmaneuver them.

Bratman saw two flashing lights pop off the wing and explode. The plane entered a downward spiral, with Bratman clutching a net. He started saying a traditional Jewish proclamation of the oneness of God — but he didn't want to give up.

"I said ... 'This is not the way, this is not gonna end this way, this is not the end of me, I'm not going this way. No, God, you're not doing this, no, no, no' — and at that point the plane started to level out right before hitting the ground," Bratman said.

The troops made it to Qatar and then returned to "the reality of this war," Bratman said. His colonel asked if he'd like to attend Rosh Hashanah services, as per a general's order. He agreed and a truck picked him up early one morning to take him to what he said was then called "Victory Palace," part of a U.S. military base in Iraq.

The soldier's temple for the day was an opulent-looking abode formerly held by Saddam Hussein. It was made of marble, surrounded by a man-made lake and decked out with golden fixtures, Bratman said. It brought relief from the crushing heat and the danger outside its walls.

"I recognized how free, how lucky I was to be an American," Bratman said. "I'm a Jew who theoretically as a refugee, ran away ... from another totalitarian regime where we also knew very little, we also were incredibly restricted and limited."

Bratman and some 50 other military service members gathered to pray in a cavernous palace hall with a giant chandelier, Bratman said. The service featured a shofar, a horn that Bratman said symbolizes awakening and reconnection to God.

Its wail rushed over Bratman as it echoed through the room. "The sound that it made was piercing — not just through my body but through my soul," he said.

"Every word that I said that day, and every word that I tried to read or tried to think of, was meaningful enough for God to hear," Bratman said. "I felt like I was directly closer to God than I've ever been, in some way elevated to a position where I was praying with such emotions and such fervor that I've never have been able to reinvent since then."

That awakening set Bratman on a continuing journey to answer a key question: "Who am I as a Jew?"

He got more active in Jewish community groups after returning to Pittsburgh in 2004. He moved to the New York City area two years later and continued that involvement, working with the Kings Bay Y in Sheepshead Bay and the Brighton Beach-based Russian American Jewish Experience, which offers programs and educational trips for Jewish youth.

Bratman started at CUNY in 2013. He works with chapters of Hillel, the world's largest Jewish campus organization — one he said he never interacted with as a college student himself. He's the executive director of the groups at Baruch College, City College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Bratman said his experience in the military and in Iraq influences his work even now.

"I recognize very clearly that the stories that I tell are very impactful and influential," he said. "And they also can be very useful in a sense of becoming historical lessons, analogies for our lives and for Jewish learning."

Bratman and his fellow celebrants spent the night in the palace 15 years ago. As they walked around, they found an enormous throne that had an Arabic saying on top of it: "The gates of Jerusalem will belong to Islam."

So they took turns sitting in the throne, Bratman said, "on Rosh Hashanah, in Saddam’s palace, saying, 'The gates of Jerusalem belong to the world.'"

(Lead image: Ilya Bratman in the Iraq palace where he celebrated a life-changing Rosh Hashanah service in 2003. Photo courtesy of Ilya Bratman)