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A JEWISH CHAPLAIN IN FRANCE
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[Illustration: A group of Jewish welfare workers at Le Mans, France, in
March 1919. From left to right, George Rooby, Julius Halperin, Frank M.
Dart, Chaplain Lee J. Levinger, Adele Winston, Charles S. Rivitz, David
Rosenthal and Esther Levy.]
A Jewish Chaplain in France
BY
RABBI LEE J. LEVINGER, M.A.,
Executive Director Young Men's Hebrew Association, New York City,
formerly First Lieutenant Chaplain United States Army
WITH A FOREWORD BY
CYRUS ADLER, Ph.D.,
President of Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning,
Philadelphia
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
COPYRIGHT 1921,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and printed. Published October, 1921
TO A GOOD SOLDIER
WHO SENT ME TO FRANCE
AND BROUGHT ME BACK AGAIN--
MY WIFE
FOREWORD
The tendency to "forget the war" is not admirable. Such an attitude is
in effect a negation of thought. The agony which shook mankind for more
than four years and whose aftermath will be with us in years to come
cannot be forgotten unless the conscience of mankind is dead. Rabbi
Levinger's book is the narrative of a man who saw this great tragedy,
took a part in it and has thought about it.
In all the wars of the United States Jews participated, increasingly as
their numbers grew appreciably. They served both as officers and
privates from Colonial days. But not until the World War was a Rabbi
appointed a Chaplain in the United States Army or Navy for actual
service with the fighting forces. President Lincoln appointed several
Jewish ministers of religion as chaplains to visit the wounded in the
hospitals, but the tradition of the Army up to the period of the Great
War, rendered the appointment of a Rabbi as chaplain impossible. The
chaplain had been a regimental officer and was always either a
Protestant or a Catholic. The sect was determined by the majority of the
regiment. When the United States entered the Great War, this was clearly
brought out and it required an Act of Congress to render possible the
appointment of chaplains of the faiths not then represented in the body
of chaplains. Twenty chaplains were thus authorized of whom six were
allotted to the Synagogue the remainder being distributed among the
Unitarians, who were not included in the Evangelical Churches, and the
other smaller Christian sects which had grown up in America.
In order to meet the requirements of the War Department and in
consonance with the spirit of unity which the war engendered, it was
necessary for the Jewish organizations to create a body which could sift
the applications for chaplaincies and certify them to the War
Department, as being proper persons and meeting the requirements of the
law of being regularly ordained ministers of religion.
Judaism in America is far from being a united body. Its differences may
not be such as rise to the dignity of separate sects but they are
considerable in belief and even more pronounced in practice. Membership
in the various Rabbinical and synagogue organizations is voluntary and
each synagogue is autonomous. In the face of the awfulness of the war,
these differences seemed minimized and through the cooeperation of all
the Rabbinical associations and synagogue organizations, a Committee was
created under the general authority of the Jewish Welfare Board which
examined the credentials of all Jewish candidates for chaplaincies and
made recommendations to the War Department. So conscientiously did this
Committee perform its duties that every Rabbi recommended as a chaplain
was commissioned.
As the law exempted ministers of religion and theological students, no
person could be drafted for a chaplaincy. Every clergyman who served was
a volunteer. It is therefore greatly to the credit of the Jewish
ministry in America that one-hundred and forty men volunteered for the
service. As there are probably less than four hundred English speaking
Rabbis in the United States, many of whom would have been disqualified
by the age limit and some by their country of origin, the response of
the American Rabbinate to this call, is a most gratifying evidence of
their patriotism and of their sense of public service.
Rabbi Levinger's narrative is his own, in the main and properly enough a
personal one, but it is representative of the work of some thirty men
some of whom ministered to the troops who did not go abroad whilst
others had the opportunity of being in the midst of the Great Adventure.
Every one who saw the troops overseas, could not doubt the real service
of the chaplain or the appeal that religion made to the men in uniform.
However the armchair philosophers may have viewed the war, it
strengthened the faith of the men who were engaged; hundreds of
thousands of young men turned to the chaplain who would have been
indifferent to him at home. That this was true of Jewish young men is
certain and if there has been a reaction on the part of these young men
who returned from the war, let it be blamed not so much upon religion,
as upon the disappointment in the soldiers' minds at the attitude of the
millions of their fellow citizens who remained at home and who want to
"forget the war." The soldier who came back and found that his fellow
citizens had their nerves so over-wrought by reading of the war in
newspapers that they immediately entered upon a period of wild
extravagances and wilder pleasure, might very well have had his faith,
newly acquired if you choose, shaken by this evident lack of seriousness
on the part of his fellow countrymen.
I shall not commend Rabbi Levinger's book to his readers, because if the
book does not commend itself, no approbation will. As an officer of the
Jewish Welfare Board whose purpose was to join with other organizations
in contributing to the welfare of the American soldiers and sailors and
particularly to provide for the religious needs of those of the Jewish
faith, I want to express the obligations of the Board to the Rabbis who
without experience or previous training for the purpose, entered upon
this service and carried it through with distinction. Had it not been
for them, the overseas work of the Board would have been comparatively
limited and many a Jewish boy would have been deprived of the comforts
and solace of his religion.
I cannot help but think that the chaplain himself derived much benefit
from his service. In sections of the synagogue, as I believe in sections
of the church, men are on many occasions a minority in the congregation
and ministration is largely to women and children. It meant something
for the chaplain to have great congregations of men, and of young men at
that, and I am inclined to think hardened his mental and even spiritual
fiber. It emphasized too the importance of emotion and sentiment as
against mere rationalism. The worship meant more than a preachment, and
sympathetic human contact for a minute was worth a barrel of oratory.
The fine spirit of liberality which grew up among the chaplains of the
various faiths, reflecting as it did the comradeship of the men
themselves, should not and will not be lost. The brotherhood of man will
be a mere abstraction until individual men can act as brothers to one
another. The ministers of religion, if they have any God-given mission
above all others, surely have that of leading men, however different
their physical and spiritual equipment, into the bonds of a common
brotherhood. By this way and this way alone will mankind arrive at
lasting peace.
CYRUS ADLER.
October 19, 1921.
PREFACE
This book is the result of the profound conviction that we are
forgetting or ignoring the lessons of the World War to Israel, America
and humanity. During the war such words as morale, democracy,
Americanism, became a sort of cant--so much so that their actual content
was forgotten. Now that the war is over and their constant repetition is
discontinued, the grave danger exists that we may lose their very real
influence.
These personal experiences and conclusions worked out by an army
chaplain as a result of his overseas service may have some historical
value also, especially as the same ground has not yet been covered by
any Jewish chaplain or welfare worker in the American Expeditionary
Forces. The role played by Jews in the army and navy of the United
States and the Jewish contribution to the morale of the forces overseas
deserve preservation, both as a reminder to ourselves and to the nation.
When the possibility of this book was first discussed in Paris with the
late Colonel Harry Cutler, Chairman of the Jewish Welfare Board, he
spoke of writing a foreword for it. Since his lamented death, Dr. Cyrus
Adler, his successor as acting Chairman, has consented to fulfill the
same friendly task. In addition to Dr. Adler, I acknowledge my great
indebtedness to Mr. Harry L. Glucksman, Executive Director of the Jewish
Welfare Board, for giving me full access to their records; to Mr. John
Goldhaar for his personal reminiscences of the welfare work overseas; to
Captain Elkan C. Voorsanger for the invaluable suggestions based upon
his vast personal experiences; to Justice Irving Lehman, President of
the Young Men's Hebrew Association, for his encouragement and friendly
advice; to a host of coworkers and friends in both France and America
for the brilliant deeds and cordial comradeship which are here embodied;
and finally to my secretary, Miss Hattie Tanzer, for her invaluable
assistance in seeing the book through the press.
Much of the material used here has already been published in the form of
articles appearing at various times in the _American Hebrew_, _American
Israelite_, _Biblical World_, _B'nai B'rith News_, _Hebrew Standard_,
_Jewish Forum_ and _Reform Advocate_.
LEE J. LEVINGER.
New York, May, 1921.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE CHAPLAIN'S FUNCTION 1
II. THE JEWISH HOLYDAYS OF 1918 IN THE A. E. F. 10
III. AT THE FRONT WITH THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DIVISION 27
IV. AFTER THE ARMISTICE 52
V. AT THE AMERICAN EMBARKATION CENTER 69
VI. THE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVERSEAS 81
VII. THE JEWISH WELFARE BOARD IN THE A. E. F. 92
VIII. THE JEW AS A SOLDIER 114
IX. JEW AND CHRISTIAN AT THE FRONT 132
X. THE RELIGION OF THE JEWISH SOLDIER 145
XI. PREACHING TO SOLDIERS 160
XII. MORALE AND MORALS 170
XIII. THE MORAL GAIN AND LOSS OF THE SOLDIER 190
XIV. THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND JUDAISM 205
XV. THE JEWISH SOLDIER AND ANTI-SEMITISM 214
CHAPTER I
THE CHAPLAIN'S FUNCTION
In giving the story and the opinions of a Jewish chaplain in the
American Expeditionary Forces, some statement is necessary of the work
of the chaplains as a whole. Chaplains are an essential part of the
organization of a modern army and it is notable that General Pershing
repeatedly requested that the number of chaplains be doubled in the
forces under his command. Hardly a narrative of soldiers' experiences
exists without due place being given to the chaplain. In every army in
France, chaplains were frequently cited for heroism and in innumerable
instances suffered and died with the men in the ranks.
There are two popular impressions of the purpose of the chaplain in the
military service; the one sees him as a survival of mediaevalism,
blessing the weapons of the men at arms; the other welcomes him as a
faint harbinger of a dawning humanitarianism, one of the few men in an
army who does not have to kill, but is there to save. Some people think
of the physician and chaplain as having non-military work to do, as
being a kind of concession to the pacific spirit of our generation.
The actual work of the chaplain is quite as unknown to the general
public. People wonder what he does between weekly sermons, much as they
wonder what the minister or rabbi does during the six and a half days a
week that he is not preaching. In fact, I have been greeted with frank
or hidden incredulity whenever I admitted that in the army I used to
preach up to fifteen times a week, but never had time to write a sermon.
People wonder sometimes whether the soldiers and sailors can bear so
much preaching, sometimes what else they demand of the chaplain. In
fact, to the non-military mind the whole subject seems shrouded in
mystery.
To the military man the subject is extremely simple. There is no mystery
about it. The chaplain is in the army as the physician is, as the
thousands of other non-combatants are, for a strictly military purpose.
It happens that the non-combatants may use non-military methods. One may
drive a locomotive, another carry a stretcher, another sit in an office
and make out papers. All are essential to the military machine; none is
in the service for any special humanitarian purpose; none is present as
a survival of mediaevalism, but all to take part in the grim conflict of
the twentieth century. The work of a physician in the military service
is the very utilitarian one of saving men's lives and returning them to
the front. The work of a chaplain is the equally essential and practical
one of stimulating the morale of the troops.
Many factors bear upon the morale of a body of men,--their physical
environment, the strength and spirit of their individual units, the
temper and ability of their leaders. In our army we were very fortunate
in the activity of various civilian organizations which labored among
the men in the service with the backing of our entire citizenry, or at
least of large and influential groups. The home service of the Red Cross
and other non-military organizations was of great importance in keeping
up the morale of the families left behind and through them of the men
overseas. These important organizations, however, were under the
handicap of doing civilian work among soldiers--a handicap whose
seriousness only a soldier himself can ever realize. Some months after
the war was over, the army recognized its obligation by appointing
morale officers for both larger and smaller units, with others under
them to supervise athletics, entertainment, and the like. The civilian
organizations then conducted their activities under the orders of the
morale officer.
But nearest of all to the men, because themselves a part of the actual
military machine, were their own chaplains. The chaplain was under the
same orders as the men, took the same risk, wore the same uniform, and
naturally was regarded in every way as one of their own. I have even
heard old army men scorning the new advances of all these new war-time
societies. "We have our own chaplain," they said, "He looks after us all
right."
The chaplain was first the religious guide of his men. He knew how to
talk to them, for talking, not preaching, was the usual tone of the army
or navy chaplain. He knew how to speak their own "lingo," slang and all.
He knew the spiritual appeal which was most needed by these boys,
transplanted, with all their boyishness, into the deep realities which
few men have had to face. He knew their boyish shyness of emotion, but
with it their deep, immediate need of such emotions as the love of home
and God, to sustain them amid dangerous hours of duty and tempting
hours of idleness. This religious need alone would have been enough work
for the chaplain, even with the intended increase in numbers to three
per regiment, or one chaplain for every twelve hundred men. The need for
religion was evident in the training camp, the hospital, the transport,
the trenches; it was evident everywhere, and the chaplain must be
everywhere to satisfy it.
But in addition the chaplain had much welfare work of a more general
kind to transact in connection with the various welfare agencies. One
man wanted advice about getting married before leaving for the front;
another had trouble at home and desired a furlough; another found
himself misplaced in his work and would like a transfer. A Jewish boy
came in to ask that a letter be written to his pious father; the old man
had not wanted him to enlist, but would feel better if he knew there was
a rabbi in the camp. Another had a request for a small service (a
minyan) that he might say the memorial prayer on the anniversary of his
father's death. And still another presented a letter from his home
community, for he was a fine musician and wanted to help out at a
concert or a "sing."
The many requests for service and the occasional offers of service made
the circuit constantly from a possible teacher to a number of boys with
defective English, from a potential comedy team to a crowd of eager
listeners, from a timid boy with personal troubles to their remedy,
either by a change in circumstances or by convincing the boy himself.
Sometimes a complaint of religious prejudice had to be adjusted which
might work grave harm in a company unless it were investigated and
either proved groundless or remedied.
In a later chapter I shall have an opportunity to go into this more
deeply. All that I want to bring out here is the important and usually
misunderstood fact that American boys are restive under authority. They
object vigorously to the domination of another's mind over theirs. And
this objection too often took the form of bitter resentment against
their officers. Therefore the final and most delicate work of the
chaplain was to befriend the enlisted men against the oppression of
their natural enemies and tyrants, the line officers. The army often
reminds one of a school, the men are so boyish. In this regime of
stringent rules which must be constantly obeyed, of short periods of
intense and jovial recreation, of constant oversight by authority, the
average enlisted man regarded his commanding officer much as the average
small boy regards his school teacher, from whom he flees to a parent for
sympathy.
That role of sympathetic parent was precisely the one which the chaplain
was called upon to play for these boys in uniform. Not that he believed
everything he was told, or took sides unfairly, or was always against
authority. Simply that any boy could talk to him, as he could only to
the exceptional commanding officer, and that every boy was sure that the
chaplain would help him if he could. Being himself an officer, the
chaplain could talk to officers more freely than any soldier could. And
not being a line officer, he did not himself issue commands to any one
except his own hard-worked orderly or clerk.
Thus the chaplain was fortunately placed. If he was even partially
congenial, he was the one man in the army who had not an enemy high or
low. The soldier looked to him for friendly aid. The officer referred to
him as the great cooeperating factor in building up the spirit of the
troops.
During the stress of actual warfare the work of the chaplain changed in
character though not in purpose. At the front the chaplain was with his
boys. During a "push" he took his station at the first-aid post and
worked from there as the first place to meet the wounded and dying who
needed his physical or spiritual aid. He stood beside the surgeon on the
battle field, he was with the stretcher-bearers searching for wounded
and bringing them to safety. He rode from post to post with the
ambulance driver, or tramped up to the trenches with a ration party. And
wherever he went he was welcomed for his presence and for the work that
he tried to do.
After a battle, when the men retired to rest and recuperate, the
chaplain had to remain behind. He stayed with a group of men for the
last terrible task of burying the dead. And when, that sad duty over, he
returned to the troops in rest, he could not yield for a time like the
others, to delicious languor after the ordeal of the battle field,
hospital and cemetery. Then the chaplain must take up his round of
duties, knowing that after the battle there is many a prayer to be said,
many a hospital to be visited, many a soldier to be befriended. His task
has just begun.
The military object of the chaplain is clear, to stimulate the morale of
the men. But his methods were most unmilitary. Instead of reminding the
men of the respect due him as an officer, the wise chaplain took his
salutes as a matter of course and tried to draw the men personally, to
make them forget all about military distinctions when they came to talk
to him. The minute a chaplain insisted upon his rank as an officer, he
lost his influence as a minister. Rank was useful to the chaplain in so
far as it gave him free access to the highest authorities; it became the
greatest obstacle to his work whenever the boys began to talk to him as
"Lieutenant" or "Captain" instead of "Father" or "Chaplain." In the
military as in the civil field the religious message can come only by
personality, never by command.
The chaplain appealed for the men whenever he felt that the appeal was
justified and had some chance of success, but never when it would be
subversive of military discipline. He remembered always that he was in
the army, a part of a great military machine, and that his presence and
his work were to make the men better, not worse soldiers. He met the men
personally, with their various needs and appeals, and often his best
work was accomplished in short personal interviews, which would not look
at all imposing on a monthly report, but which made better soldiers or
happier men in one way or another. He encouraged every effort at
recreation for the men, and often took part in these efforts himself.
This last applies especially in the navy, where the chaplain aboard ship
is the whole staff for religious, recreational, and welfare work.
In the main the work of the chaplain differed little, whatever his
religion might be. He was first of all a chaplain in the United States
Army, and second a representative of his own religious body. That means
that all welfare work or personal service was rendered equally to men of
any faith. The only distinction authorized was between Protestant,
Catholic and Jewish services, and even to these a "non-sectarian"
service was often added. Wherever I went I was called upon by Jew and
non-Jew alike, for in the service most men took their troubles to the
nearest chaplain irrespective of his religion. The soldier discriminated
only in a special case, such as the memorial prayer (kaddish) for the
Jewish boy, or confession for the Catholic. The office at once insured
any soldier that he had a protector and a friend.
But as there were only twelve Jewish chaplains in the entire American
Expeditionary Forces, we were instructed to devote our time so far as
possible to the Jewish men. At the best it was impossible for one man to
fulfill the constant religious and personal needs of the thousand Jewish
soldiers scattered in all the units of an entire division, as I, for
one, was supposed to do. When instead of one division a Jewish chaplain
was assigned several, his troubles were multiplied and his effectiveness
divided. Naturally, most of the work of the Jewish chaplains had to be
devoted to the needs of the Jewish soldiers, which would not otherwise
be satisfied.
Any one who witnessed the labor and the self-sacrifice of chaplains of
all creeds in the American army must preface an analysis of their work
with a heartfelt tribute to the men themselves. I think that these men
were a unique aggregation--devoted to their country and its army, yet
loving men of all nations; loving each his own religion, yet rendering
service to men of all creeds; bearing each his own title, yet sharing
equal service and equal friendship with ministers of every other faith.
I could never have accomplished one-half of the work I did without the
constant friendship and hearty support of such co-workers as Father
Francis A. Kelley and Rev. Almon A. Jaynes, of the 27th Division
Headquarters, to mention only two notable examples among many others. I
have seen Father Kelley on the battlefield going from aid post to front
line trench, always most eager to be with the boys when the danger was
the greatest, always cheerful, yet always a priest, doing the noble work
which won him his medals and his popularity. I have seen the devotion
and the regret which followed Chaplain John A. Ward of the 108th
Infantry to the hospital in England after he was wounded in performance
of duty, and the burst of enthusiasm which welcomed his return months
afterward. I have seen one after another laboring and serving in the
same spirit, and I tender to them the tribute of a co-worker who knows
and admires their great accomplishments.
The place of morale in the army has not yet been studied scientifically.
All that can be done as yet is to gather such personal and empirical
observations as mine, which may have bearing on the general problem.
These experiences were typical and these conclusions are not mine alone.
They are shared by great masses, in many cases by the majority of
thinking men who had like experiences. I am here setting down the most
typical of the incidents which I saw or underwent and summing up the
little known work of the Jewish chaplains and the Jewish Welfare Board
overseas.