THE JEWISH CHAPLAINS OVERSEAS
My experiences, which were fairly typical throughout, showed clearly the
great need for Jewish chaplains in the army overseas. Even my trip on
leave to the Riviera was typical, showing the effect of release from
discipline combined with a pleasure trip on thousands of our soldiers,
most of whom needed it far more than I; for the privileges of a
chaplain, just a little greater than those of most officers, certainly
had prevented my morale falling as low as that of many of the enlisted
men. The Jewish chaplain was not only a concession to the very
considerable body of Jewish citizens who felt that they should be
represented in the military organization as well as men of other faiths;
he had a definite contribution to make to the moral and spiritual
welfare of the forces. We had to conduct Jewish religious services for
both holydays and ordinary seasons, to assist the dying Jew, and to pray
for him at his grave. We had to defend the Jewish boys in the rare cases
of prejudice against them, or, what was just as important, to clear up
such accusations when they were unfounded. We had to serve the special
needs of the Jewish soldier, whatever they might be, at the same time
that we did the chaplain's duty toward all soldiers with whom we might
be thrown.
The American Expeditionary Forces never had sufficient chaplains at any
time for the work that was planned for them. The proportion desired by
the G. H. Q. Chaplains' Office and approved by the war department was
one chaplain to every thousand men, or one to an infantry battalion,
besides those assigned to administrative work as senior chaplains of
divisions and areas, and the very large number detailed to hospitals.
The total number of chaplains who went to France was 1285, just half the
number needed by this program, and from this total we must subtract a
considerable group of deaths, wounds and other casualties. The
chaplains' corps was undermanned at all times,--we Jews were simply the
most conspicuous example. Compared to the general proportion of one
chaplain to every two thousand men, and the ideal one of a chaplain to
every thousand, we had one chaplain to every eight thousand men, and
those tremendous numbers were not even concentrated in a few units but
scattered through every company, every battery, and every hospital ward
in the army.
The British forces contained one Jewish chaplain for every army
headquarters, or nine in all. I had the pleasure of meeting Rabbi
Barnett, the chief Jewish chaplain in the B. E. F., although I never met
his predecessor, Major Adler. Through their long experience and the
cooeperation of the Chief Rabbi of England, the English chaplains were
well equipped with suitable prayerbooks and other material, which I
obtained from one of them for the use of our men while I was on the
British front. Still, even with their larger proportion of chaplains to
the Jews in service, the lack of transportation facilities and the
tremendous rush of war-time, especially at the front and in the
hospitals, made their actual duties impossible of complete fulfillment.
To cover the enormous field before us was plainly impossible. The
chaplain could only work day by day, clearing a little pathway ahead of
him but never making an impression on the great jungle about. When I
first reached France, I grew accustomed to the greeting: "Why, you're
the first Jewish chaplain I've met in France!" That was hard enough
then, but it grew harder when the same words were addressed me in Brest
just before sailing and on shipboard on the way home. And yet it was
inevitable that twelve chaplains could not meet personally the hundred
thousand Jewish soldiers scattered through the two millions in the
American uniform through the length and breadth of France. Under these
circumstances we all feel a natural pride at the work accomplished
against adverse conditions. I for one feel that we did all that twelve
men similarly situated could possibly have done, and I gladly bring my
personal tribute to those others, chaplains, welfare workers, officers,
and enlisted men, whose cooeperation doubled and trebled the actual
extent and effectiveness of our work. This includes especially the
Christian chaplains and welfare workers; their own field was great
enough to take all their time and energy, but they were always ready to
turn aside for a moment to lend a hand to us, in order that the labors
of twelve men serving their faith in the great American army might not
be quite futile.
The first of the Jewish chaplains to reach France was Rabbi Elkan C.
Voorsanger, who gave up his pulpit in St. Louis in April, 1917, to join
the St. Louis Base Hospital as a private in the medical corps. As his
hospital unit was the third to reach France in May, 1917, Rabbi
Voorsanger was one of the first five hundred American soldiers in the
American Expeditionary Forces. In the medical corps he rose from private
to sergeant, gaining at the same time an intimate first-hand knowledge
of the problems of the man in the ranks. When the bill was passed by
Congress in November, 1917, ordering the appointment of chaplains of
sects not at that time represented in the army, Rabbi Voorsanger was the
first Jew commissioned under its provisions. He was examined by a
special board appointed overseas by General Pershing at the direction of
the Secretary of War; his commission was dated November 24th, 1917. In
January 1918 he was assigned to the 41st Division and in March to Base
Hospital 101 at St. Nazaire. While posted there he conducted his first
important service overseas in Passover 1918, the first official Jewish
service held in the A. E. F. He was assigned to the 77th Division in May
1918 on their arrival in France where he served with a most enviable
record, receiving the Croix de Guerre and being recommended for the D.
S. M. for exceptional courage and devotion to duty in time of danger.
The midnight patrol on the banks of the Meuse, by which he won these
honors, was both a courageous and a useful exploit. He was promoted to
Senior Chaplain of his division with the rank of Captain, the only Jew
so distinguished. Finally in April 1919, instead of accompanying his
division home he resigned his commission to become the head of the
overseas work of the Jewish Welfare Board. He returned to the United
States in September 1919, after two and a half years with the American
Expeditionary Forces. Since that time he has continued his
self-sacrifice and his devotion to his people in the service of the
Joint Distribution Committee for the Relief of Jews in eastern Europe.
In 1920 and 1921 he conducted two relief units to Poland and carried on
their life-saving work.
When I arrived in France, Chaplain Voorsanger was stationed at Chaumont
for the time being, to take charge of the arrangements for the Jewish
holydays of 1918. I have already described how these were carried out,
by designating central points for services, getting in touch with the
French rabbis and synagogue authorities and assigning the few American
rabbis at hand to fill in the deficiencies.
I was the fifth Jewish chaplain to reach France. Those who preceded me
were first Voorsanger and then Chaplains David Tannenbaum of the 82nd
Division, Harry S. Davidowitz of the 78th and Louis I. Egelson of the
91st. All these men served at the front, as did also Chaplain Benjamin
Friedman of the 77th Division, who took up the Jewish work of that unit
when Chaplain Voorsanger was promoted to the Senior Chaplaincy. Chaplain
Davidowitz was the only Jewish chaplain to be wounded, receiving severe
injuries from shrapnel; these put him in the hospital for several months
and occasioned his being sent back home, invalided, the first of us all.
The others, in order of their arrival, were Chaplains Jacob Krohngold,
of the 87th Division; Israel Bettan of the 26th Division; Harry
Richmond, at the port of Bordeaux; Elias N. Rabinowitz, at Blois;
Solomon B. Freehof, at First Army Headquarters; and James G. Heller, at
Le Mans. The last two left New York on the day following the armistice,
so that on November eleventh, 1918, the Jews of America were represented
overseas by just ten chaplains and two representatives of the Jewish
Welfare Board, Rev. Dr. Hyman G. Enelow and Mr. John Goldhaar.
The twelve of us represented all three Jewish seminaries in this
country, although the majority were naturally from the oldest, the
Hebrew Union College at Cincinnati, where Rabbi Freehof was even a
member of the faculty. We came from every section of the country, east,
west and south, including Krohngold and myself from little towns in
Kentucky and Richmond from Trinidad, Colorado. Rabbi Richmond had the
unusual distinction of not claiming exemption in the draft as a
minister. He therefore entered the service as a private and was promoted
to the chaplaincy just before his division went overseas.
The chaplains who were commissioned before the armistice and served in
the United States were thirteen in number; Rabbis Nathan E. Barasch,
Harry W. Etteleson, Max Felshin, Samuel Friedman, Raphael Goldenstein,
Abram Hirschberg, Morris S. Lazaron, Emil W. Leipziger, Julius A.
Liebert, Abraham Nowak, Jerome Rosen, Leonard W. Rothstein, Israel J.
Sarasohn. Three of them, Rabbis Rothstein, Felshin and Barasch, soon
after resigned their commissions and came overseas as representatives of
the Jewish Welfare Board. When the great need for morale agencies was
realized after the armistice, the War Department refused to relax its
prohibition against the transportation of more chaplains or other
special branches of the service, but favored the passage of large
numbers of welfare workers instead. Rabbi David Goldberg was the only
Jewish chaplain in the navy, with the rank of Lieutenant, junior grade;
he served at sea on the transport, President Grant.
We were almost all reassigned as our divisions left for home and as the
need grew in various areas, especially in the base posts and the Army of
Occupation. Chaplain Davidowitz was sent home wounded, and Friedman
accompanied his own division back. Krohngold, Bettan, Heller and Freehof
joined the Army of Occupation in the order named, although for a long
time Rabbi Krohngold was the only Jewish chaplain there. Rabbi Egelson
left his division for the port of St. Nazaire, Rabinowitz was
transferred from Blois to St. Aignan, and I was left behind at Le Mans
together with Heller, who shortly after was transferred to the Third
Army in Germany. Tannenbaum while stationed at Bordeaux was also, by
special arrangement, appointed as supervisor of the Jewish Welfare Board
for that area; and Voorsanger was mustered out of service to become
executive director of their overseas work. Rabbi Richmond alone held the
same post to the very end of his overseas service.
As I have mentioned repeatedly in my personal narrative, so long as a
man was assigned to one division he had some chance of establishing
personal contacts with his men and doing effective work among them; as
soon as he was assigned to an area, he had to spread himself thin over a
wide expanse of territory and could cover it in only the most cursory
fashion. The problem was larger than the matter of transportation,
although that was serious enough. The larger aspect lay in the number of
men, the number of companies, the infinite possibility of individual
service if one were only able to know all these soldiers personally, to
understand their needs, and to minister to them. Every hospital ward
with its forty beds presented forty distinct individual
problems,--often, indeed, more than forty. Sometimes the same man would
need pay, mail, home allotment, reading matter, and contact with his
original unit and comrades. With the constant shifting to other
hospitals further from the front and then to convalescent camps, the
ward would always contain a new forty men and the work was always
beginning over again. This situation was not in the least unique. The
hospital simply represents the extreme case of what was true in a less
degree in every branch of the service and every unit.
During the post-armistice period I had several very agreeable reunions
with my fellow chaplains, which were at the same time valuable for our
common information and cooeperation. At my very first visit to Le Mans,
on December 6th, I quite unexpectedly met Chaplains Freehof, Bettan, and
Heller, as well as Rabbi Enelow, who had just come to the city for the
dedication of the J. W. B. headquarters. I devoured their comparatively
fresh news from home as eagerly as Voorsanger had absorbed mine several
months before, when he was already entering his second year in France.
The second time was on the last day of the year, when I met Rabbis
Friedman, Egelson and Rabinowitz in Paris, all coming there as I did for
the cars which the J. W. B. had ready for us. At the same time Rabbis
Martin Meyer of San Francisco and Abram Simon of Washington were in the
city, both captains in the American Red Cross. Their six months of duty
in France had just expired and they were then making ready for their
return home. We all had dinner together at one of the famous Parisian
restaurants and discussed war and peace, France, America and Israel,
until the early closing laws of war-time sent us all out on the
boulevards and home. Chaplain Egelson and I saw the New Year in
together, first hearing "Romeo and Juliet" at the Opera and then
watching the mad crowds on the streets, headed always by American or
Australian soldiers, the maddest of them all.
The most important meeting, however, was the one called by Chaplain
Voorsanger for February 24th at the Paris headquarters of the Jewish
Welfare Board. Six chaplains were present, Voorsanger, Tannenbaum,
Richmond, Heller, Bettan and I, together with Mr. John Goldhaar of the
J. W. B. Our chief object was to work out a program of cooeperation with
the J. W. B., our second, to discuss our personal methods for the
benefit of our own work. Voorsanger was chairman; we decided to form a
Jewish Chaplains' Association, which never developed afterward; and
planned to hold another meeting soon, which owing to military
exigencies, we never did. But we did adopt a program of cooeperation with
the J. W. B., which indicates the mutual dependency and the closeness of
contact which were almost uniformly the case. Our program provided that
the J. W. B. should submit to the chaplain the weekly report of the area
in which he was stationed and should have relations with the military
authorities through him. The chaplain, on the other hand, was to make
suggestions to the worker in his area, and in exceptional cases to the
Paris office and was to be in complete charge of all Jewish religious
work in his area, although religious workers were personally responsible
to their superior in the J. W. B. Finally, provision was made for
frequent conferences between the chaplain and the J. W. B. worker in the
same organization. This program was approved, not only nominally but
also in spirit by all the Jewish chaplains and welfare workers
throughout the A. E. F. I know that in Le Mans our contact was so close
that Mr. Rivitz instructed his religious workers to report directly to
me for assignment of services and other division of labor, and I
included their work with mine in my weekly reports to my senior
chaplain.
On my final visit to Paris at the end of April I found a host of Jewish
celebrities gathered together in the interests of the Jewish Welfare
Board, the Joint Distribution Committee for the relief of Jews in
Eastern Europe, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish
Congress. At the office of the J. W. B., I had a farewell conference
with Rabbi Voorsanger and Colonel Harry Cutler, giving them a summary of
the latest situation in my area. Colonel Cutler was busy as chairman of
the J. W. B., one of the American Jewish Congress delegates to the Peace
Conference, and a member of the Joint Distribution Committee. I met my
old friend, Rabbi Isaac Landman, who was reporting the Peace Conference
for his paper, the American Hebrew, and he introduced me in turn to Miss
Harriet Lowenstein, at that time the Paris purchasing agent of the
Joint Distribution Committee, especially in the important work of buying
supplies originally sent to Europe for the use of the American forces. I
encountered also three of the active workers of American Jewry, sent to
represent us before the Peace Conference in such matters as might
concern the Jews; Judge Julian Mack, representing the American Jewish
Congress; Dr. Cyrus Adler, for the American Jewish Committee; and Mr.
Louis Marshall, a representative of both organizations. The two last
were also active in the Jewish Welfare Board, and Dr. Adler,
vice-chairman of the Board, took charge as the representative of the
Board after Colonel Cutler's departure for the States. Even on the ship
going home I met two Jewish workers, Rabbi B. Levinthal of the American
Jewish Congress delegation and Mr. Morris Engelman, returning from his
work in Holland for the Joint Distribution Committee. By that time world
Jewry was fully aroused and its delegates were busy, both at the seat of
the Peace Conference and in the lands of eastern Europe, where Jewish
suffering was becoming daily more intense.