TCN Civic Engagement Fellow · 2026 Cohort
Rabbi Dr. Jon Cutler
U.S. Navy Reserve Chaplain Corps · Captain (Ret.) · 32 Years of Service
Chester County, Pennsylvania
Service
USN Reserve, Ret.
Home
Chester County, PA
Project
Constitutional Sentinel
Focus Area
Healthy Democratic Institutions
About Rabbi Cutler
A retired Navy chaplain bringing constitutional service into public civic witness.
Background & Education
Rabbi Jon Cutler, a native of Philadelphia, earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Temple University in Religious Studies in 1981. He earned a Master of Hebrew Letters and ordination as a Rabbi from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pennsylvania in 1987, and his Doctor of Ministry in Counseling from Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion in New York in 1996.
Military Service
Rabbi Cutler is a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve, Chaplain Corps. He served 32 years, including five years on active duty at Naval Station Subic Bay in the Philippines, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, and Marine Corps Base Okinawa in Japan.
He served as the Deputy Chaplain of the U.S. Marine Corps from 2015 to 2017 at the Chief of Chaplains Office at the Pentagon. He served as the Deputy Chaplain for Commander, Navy Installations Command, Washington Navy Yard from 2013 to 2015, and as the Force Chaplain for U.S. Navy Sea Systems Command in 2015, where he provided PTSD chaplaincy to more than 3,000 personnel following an active shooter incident. He also served as Deputy Command Chaplain for the U.S. 6th Fleet, U.S. Forces Europe and Africa from 2012 to 2013.
He was mobilized to East Africa with Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa as Force Chaplain and Director of Religious Affairs from 2011 to 2012; for Operation Iraqi Freedom in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, where he served as the only Jewish chaplain and senior chaplain at a base of 18,000 personnel from 2008 to 2009; and following the September 11, 2001 attacks, where he was attached to a mortuary affairs team at the Pentagon. He also served in Desert Storm with the First Marine Expeditionary Force as the only Jewish chaplain for Marines and Navy in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1991.
Civilian Rabbinical & Academic Career
Rabbi Cutler’s pulpit experience includes serving four congregations across his civilian career: Congregation Bet Tikva in Flemington, New Jersey; Congregation Tiferes B’nai Israel in Warrington, Pennsylvania; Darkaynu in Warrington, Pennsylvania; and interim rabbi at Congregation Beth Hatikva in Summit, New Jersey. He presently serves Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County, Pennsylvania.
He served as a hospice chaplain for the Abramson Center for Jewish Life and as an adjunct professor teaching Judaic Studies at Gratz College, philosophy and religion at Philadelphia University, and counseling psychology in the graduate program at Holy Family University in Philadelphia.
Awards
Rabbi Cutler is a recipient of numerous military honors, including the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal with two awards, and the Navy/Marine Corps Commendation Medal with four awards.
The Initiative
Constitutional Sentinel Movement
Mobilizing veterans as visible defenders of democratic institutions through strategic public presence, including an annual Oath Renewal ceremony at Independence Hall.
The Constitutional Sentinel Movement mobilizes veterans as visible defenders of democratic institutions through public presence, civic witness, and renewed commitment to constitutional principles. The initiative centers the oath veterans took — not to a party or a political faction, but to the Constitution itself.
The project culminates in an annual Oath Renewal ceremony at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, using one of the nation’s most symbolically important civic spaces to remind the public that constitutional democracy depends on people willing to stand for it in public. The movement reclaims the language and imagery of patriotism for constitutional duty, civic responsibility, and democratic resilience.
Focus Area Healthy Democratic Institutions
The Constitutional Sentinel Movement connects to TCN’s focus on Healthy Democratic Institutions. By making veterans publicly and ceremonially visible as defenders of constitutional principles — not party platforms — the initiative reinforces a central premise of TCN’s work: that the oath veterans took is to a document, an idea, and a system of self-governance, and that visible commitment to that oath is itself a contribution to democratic resilience.
Follow the Fellowship
One of five veterans building civic action in their communities.
Rabbi Cutler is one of five veterans in TCN’s inaugural Civic Engagement Fellowship cohort. Follow the full cohort as they build community-based civic initiatives across the country.