THE JEWISH WELFARE BOARD IN THE A. E. F.
The Jewish Welfare Board in the United States Army and Navy was the
great authorized welfare agency to represent the Jews of America, as the
Young Men's Christian Association represented the Protestants and the
Knights of Columbus the Catholics. It was organized on April 9, 1917,
just three days after the declaration of war, and was acknowledged by
the Department of War as the official welfare body of the Jews in
September, 1917. It was not so much a new organization as a new activity
of a number of the leading Jewish organizations of the United States:
the United Synagogue of America, the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Union of
Orthodox Jewish Congregations, the Agudath ha-Rabbonim, the Jewish
Publication Society of America, the council of Y. M. H. and Kindred
Associations, the Council of Jewish Women, the Independent Order B'nai
B'rith, the Jewish Chautauqua Society, the Order Brith Abraham, the
National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, the New York Board of Jewish
Ministers, the Independent Order Brith Sholom, the Independent Order
Brith Abraham, and the Women's League of the United Synagogue. In the
camps and cantonments at home it did a large and important piece of
work, establishing 490 representatives at 200 different posts and
putting up 48 buildings for its work at various important points. This
great field, however, is outside the scope of the present study, which
can take up only the overseas activities of the J. W. B.
One home organization must be mentioned in this place, the Chaplains'
Committee which made recommendations to the War Department for the
appointment of Jewish chaplains. This was composed of representatives of
the leading religious bodies of the country: for the Central Conference
of American Rabbis, Dr. William Rosenau and Dr. Louis Grossman; the
United Synagogue of America, Dr. Elias L. Solomon; Eastern Council of
Reform Rabbis, Dr. Maurice H. Harris; the New York Board of Jewish
Ministers, Dr. David de Sola Pool; the Union of Orthodox Jewish
Congregations, Dr. Bernard Drachman; the Agudath ha-Rabbonim, Rabbi M.
S. Margolies. Dr. Cyrus Adler, the Acting President of the Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, was chairman of this committee. They
had the task of reviewing the applications of one hundred and forty-nine
rabbis, of whom thirty-four were recommended to the War Department and
twenty-five were commissioned by the time the armistice put an end to
more appointments. I have already given in some detail the story of the
twelve of us who served in the A. E. F., while the other thirteen did
their service in cantonments in the United States.
The Jewish Welfare Board began to take up the overseas problem as early
as August, 1917, when Rabbi Voorsanger, then Sergeant in the Army
Medical Corps, received a letter from Colonel Harry Cutler, asking for
such information as he had at command and also how far he might be able
to cooperate personally with the Jewish work. Some months later, after
Voorsanger had been appointed chaplain he was again asked for
information. This time he was in a position to give a great deal
together with recommendations. A certain amount of supplies was
furnished him at once, but no welfare workers were sent until the
overseas commission had made its investigation and report.
The overseas commission of the Jewish Welfare Board, consisting of
Congressman Isaac N. Siegel, chairman, Rabbi H. G. Enelow, Rabbi Jacob
Kohn, and Mr. John Goldhaar, secretary, went to France in July, 1918,
and were the first friends I met when I reached Paris. Their general
work was to study the nature and scope of the overseas field so as to
make recommendations on their return; incidentally to this, they were to
establish contact with kindred organizations and with the army, open
headquarters, and cooperate with the chaplains in the field in the
holyday services. They made their surveys during the summer by constant
traveling and numerous interviews with officers and welfare workers as
well as with Jews in the service. Congressman Siegel made a trip to
General Pershing's headquarters and to the sector then occupied by the
77th Division, where Chaplain Voorsanger was taken into consultation
regarding the problems ahead. The Congressman then returned to America,
while Mr. Goldhaar was left as executive secretary pro tem of the Paris
office and Rabbis Kohn and Enelow conducted holyday services at
different points. Afterward Dr. Kohn also returned home, and Dr. Enelow
devoted himself to field work, establishing welfare centers at various
points. Later on, when the army educational program was undertaken, he
became the J. W. B. representative on the faculty of the Army University
at Beaune. Dr. Enelow was recommended for a chaplaincy by the J. W. B.
Chaplains' Committee, but was among those prevented by the armistice
from receiving the rank. Meanwhile he labored in any capacity at hand,
for he was determined not to return to America while work remained to be
done among the soldiers in France.
All this was entirely inadequate for the task at hand, as we all
realized at the time. At that time the J. W. B. was functioning in the
overseas forces, not as a separate entity, but through the Y. M. C. A.
This naturally prevented the full expansion of its independent viewpoint
or the direct contact with the army officials which alone could give it
standing. The arrival of the overseas commission made some difference in
this respect, but the J. W. B. was not fully recognized as one of the
responsible overseas welfare organizations until Colonel Harry Cutler,
its national chairman, had come to France and presented his case at
General Pershing's headquarters. There were more than the usual
difficulties with passports and vises, owing to the German or Austrian
ancestry of some of the most desirable workers; this was finally
overcome by the chairman of the Board vouching personally for the
loyalty of every individual recommended. The selection was limited, as
with all welfare organizations, to men not subject to draft. With these
obstacles the difficulties proved for the time insuperable.
This situation made it impossible for the J. W. B. to undertake any
independent work before the armistice. It could only support and assist
the work already being done by chaplains and by the dozens of ready
volunteers among the officers and enlisted men themselves. The early
history of Jewish welfare work abroad is that of a scattered band of
eager, self-sacrificing workers who gave up their own time to labor
incessantly for the welfare of the Jewish men in the service. The first
task was to acquaint the soldiers with the fact that there was a Jewish
Welfare Board, even though its Paris staff consisted only of Mr.
Goldhaar, one stenographer and one office boy. Advertisements in the
_Stars and Stripes_ and the Paris editions of American newspapers and
correspondence with Jewish and non-Jewish chaplains, American, French
and British, did the work. Letters began to pour in for supplies,
advice, information, and a great correspondence school of welfare work
began.
The center of this work was naturally the Paris club rooms, in
connection with the office at 41 Boulevarde Haussman. Mr. John Goldhaar
was in immediate charge of both, with a mountain of mail on his desk
from every part of the A. E. F. and a constant crowd of doughboys
outside in the club rooms. His indefatigable labors and his profound
sympathy for the boys in the service won him thousands of friends
through the length and breadth of the forces. He continued in this
position, with its constantly growing duties, until Captain Voorsanger
was appointed Overseas Director of the J. W. B., when Mr. Goldhaar was
made Overseas Field Director and put in charge of the field work. His
Medaille d'Honneur from the French government was earned by the hardest
and most valuable kind of war work. Mr. Goldhaar gathered about him in
the Paris club rooms a group of American Jewesses and a few of their
French coreligionists as an entertainment committee to make the boys
feel at home. Every afternoon they served tea--a little thing in itself,
but a big one to lonesome boys without a friend nearby. It meant much
effort, too, on the part of the ladies themselves, especially their
leaders, Mrs. Ralph Stern, Mrs. Zacharie Eudlitz, Mrs. Engelman and Mrs.
Hertz. Some of them came from the suburbs every afternoon, rain or
shine, to render this devoted service. Monsieur and Madame Henri
Bodenheimer opened their hearts and their homes, both in Paris and
Tours, to receive the Americans; every Friday evening saw their table
crowded with lonesome "buck" privates, especially the ones whom other
people would overlook. With the assistance of these same people hospital
visitation was begun. A registration book in the office began to fill up
with the names of Jewish soldiers and officers, and letters sent home
recorded the fact of their visits and often established an important
connection for the welfare of the men themselves.
At the same time, among the hundreds of letter-writers and visitors
eager to do something, anything, for their fellow-soldiers, a few began
to stand out here and there as effective and central workers. The
soldiers were always ready to cooperate; I found that out from my first
service at Nevers to my last at Le Mans. So it was only natural that far
more of them volunteered for this work than I can possibly mention. I
shall simply have to speak of a few outstanding names, and leave it to
the imagination of the reader to multiply these examples many times. In
Chaumont there was Field Clerk A. S. Weisberger, formerly of Scranton,
Pa. "Sandy" Weisberger mimeographed a little newspaper, the "Junior
Argus," for his fellow-soldiers from Scranton; organized the Jewish
soldiers at G. H. Q. for services and sociability; and referred any
number of men to the Jewish Welfare Board for such advice or assistance
as it could give. He was later mustered out of service to become a J. W.
B. worker and met his death most tragically by an accident in the Paris
headquarters, during the festivities of Passover week, 1919.
In Dijon there was a group, Major Jacob Jablons, Medical Corps; Miss
Bessie Spanner, a regular army nurse; and Sergeant J. Howard
Lichtenstein, of Baker Co. 339. They organized hospital visiting in the
many hospital centers in that area, celebration of the high holydays,
Simchath Torah parties, and group gatherings of all kinds. This work was
spontaneous and needed only supplies of stationery, prayerbooks and the
like to make it completely effective, furnishing a fertile field for the
welfare workers when they opened their community center there. By that
time the two last were also in the service of the Welfare Board, Miss
Spanner in the unique position of head of the women workers overseas. In
Tours the outstanding figure was Colonel Max B. Wainer, at that time a
Major. He gathered a group of active workers among the soldiers, used
the local synagogue as a center, and organized a full welfare program,
including Friday evening services and round table discussions, hospital
visiting, and distribution of stationery and prayerbooks. I dropped in
at Tours for a day to arrange for the holyday services; the local
committee of soldiers saw that special meals were provided for the
Jewish men; and the bills were paid by the Jewish Welfare Board.
In the Le Mans area, which before the armistice was used as a
classification camp from which soldiers were sent as replacements to
units in the field, the first Jewish work was started by Sergeant
Charles S. Rivitz of Army Post Office 762 through the aid and assistance
of his commanding officer, Lieutenant Willing of Cleveland. Lieutenant
(later Captain) Willing, though a non-Jew, had taken a deep interest in
the Jewish men in his unit while still in camp in the States and
continued this interest to France. With the approval of Gen. Glenn, in
command of the area, Rivitz was detailed to the Jewish Welfare Board
under the supervision of the senior chaplain of the area and Capt.
Willing. Sergeant Rivitz was not a social worker at all, but had one
source of strength which made his good will effective. He was a soldier,
had attained his sergeancy through force of personality; he knew what
the soldiers wanted and insisted on giving it to them. He rented a
chateau as a club house largely on his own responsibility, and the
Jewish Welfare Board soon found that both the structure and his method
of conducting it were excellent. His chief assistant was Corporal George
Rooby, who after his discharge from the service volunteered for the
first unit of the Joint Distribution Committee in Poland, and continued
serving Jewry there.
In fighting units also the Jewish officers and enlisted men were early
active in welfare work. Two officers occur to me whose work I saw
personally; undoubtedly there were many others with the same sort of
interest. Captain Leon Schwartz of the 123rd Infantry, 31st Division,
was active from the outset in his own division and the Le Mans area.
Later, during the time when the army was trying every means to keep up
the morale of the troops, and the temporary organization of "Comrades in
Service" was being pushed through the G. H. Q. Chaplains' Office,
Captain Schwartz was assigned to this work as the Jewish representative,
and addressed hundreds of gatherings of soldiers, together with the
Catholic and Protestant spokesmen for morale and comradeship. In the
26th Division, the "Yankee Division," Captain Bernard I. Gorfinkle of
the Judge Advocate's office was one of the first and most effective
Jewish workers in France. Captain Gorfinkle organized an overseas branch
of the New England Y. M. H. A., deriving his first funds from the Young
Men's Hebrew Associations of New England. Later, when the Jewish Welfare
Board arrived, he joined forces with its Paris office for the benefit of
his men. Mr. Goldhaar tells how surprised he was after the battle of
Chateau Thierry to be highly complimented for the work of the J. W. B.
in marking the Jewish graves. Of course, at that time no such work had
yet been undertaken. On investigation he found that the graves of Jews
of the 26th Division who fell in action had been marked with a crude
Magen David by their comrades under the initiative of Captain Gorfinkle.
Wherever a Jewish chaplain existed the Welfare Board had a means of
contact with the men. And here and there throughout the A. E. F.,
volunteers sprang up, establishing their little groups and doing their
own work, large or small. In the 42nd Division, to cite only one more
example, some of the boys came together and held holyday services during
the actual campaign, and afterward instituted their own hospital
visiting. But then came the armistice, and at the same time the passport
difficulty was disposed of. Workers began to come; new plans were being
issued daily by the army authorities; the whole viewpoint of the work
was revolutionized and the facilities suddenly enlarged.
The determining factor was that troops were no longer being scattered
for training and fighting but concentrated for their return home. Hence
the J. W. B. centered its work on the American Embarkation Center and
the base ports, established a line of centers in the chief points of the
Service of Supply, and went with the Army of Occupation to Germany. The
last to be supplied with workers were some of the combat divisions not
in the organized areas. Thus the work grew. The club-house at Le Mans
was dedicated on November 28, 1918, in the presence of Major General
Glenn, with speeches by Dr. Enelow and the prefect of the Department of
the Sarthe, and a vaudeville show and refreshments to wind up the
evening. Buildings were rented in the ports of Brest, St. Nazaire,
Bordeaux and Marseilles, and a line of centers established across
France, from Le Mans on through Tours, St. Aignan, Gievres, Bourges,
Beaune, Is-sur-Tille, Dijon and Chaumont. The headquarters for the Army
of Occupation were at Coblenz, where the B'nai B'rith Building was
employed and seven huts established through the area. Finally as workers
continued coming, they were assigned to seven of the combat divisions,
staying with them in their movements through France and saying farewell
only after the troops were embarked for home. These divisions were the
5th, 6th, 7th, 29th, 33rd, 79th, and 81st. When Antwerp became an
important port for army supplies a center was established there as well.
Altogether the Jewish Welfare Board employed 102 men and 76 women in 57
different centers in the American Expeditionary Forces. Of this
personnel, 24 men and one woman, Miss Spanner, were mustered out of the
service for this purpose, while the others were transported from the
States. Of the buildings, 23 were located in towns and were rented; the
other 34 were provided by cooeperation of other organizations, 28 by the
U. S. Army, two by the Knights of Columbus, two by the Red Cross, one by
the Y. M. C. A. and one by the Belgian Government. In camps rough
barracks or tents were usually the thing; in cities the equipment
varied, and in some places was complete with kitchen, dance hall,
writing room, and offices.
I can speak of the large work in the Le Mans area through personal
acquaintance. There the personality of Mr. Rivitz was the decisive
factor. With his unerring knowledge of the soldier, he established at
once the policy of everything free, which was soon adopted by the J. W.
B. throughout its overseas work. Religious services were provided, hot
chocolate and cigarettes served, contact established with thousands of
soldiers for the personal needs which they brought to the welfare
worker. As the needs of the area grew, other centers were established.
When the 77th Division, with its thousands of Jews, was in the area,
five huts were established in its various regiments and the men provided
with everything possible right at home. In other units where the Jews
were more scattered, the centers were at the Division Headquarters. In
cases where units stopped in our area for only a few days or a week, an
automobile load of supplies with two workers was sent out on an
extensive trip, meeting the boys and giving them as much personal cheer
and physical sustenance as possible under the circumstances.
I have described this type of activity several times in connection with
my own personal story. Here and there, however, special personalities or
incidents stand out in the constant, exhausting labor to which the
workers subjected themselves in the terrific rush of the morale agencies
during that period of waiting to go home. In Germany at the head of the
work was Mr. Leo Mielziner, son of the late Professor Moses Mielziner of
the Hebrew Union College, a man of high reputation as an artist and of
commanding personality. Mr. Mielziner, who had two sons in the service,
conducted the work in the Army of Occupation with the finest spirit of
fellow-feeling for the enlisted man. Under his direction the Jewish
Welfare Board maintained such a high standard that when the Red Cross
closed its railroad canteens in the occupied territory the J. W. B. was
requested by the army to take them over.
At Gievres, where the great bakeries of the A. E. F. were located, the
J. W. B. was the center for the bakery units. So when Purim came both
Jews and non-Jews cooperated in baking a gigantic cake for the
celebration. The cake, which had to be baked in sections, occupied not
only the stage but also an addition made for the purpose. It was cut
into 10,000 portions and every man in that camp received a slice. As
the crowning achievement of the A. E. F. bakeries, that Purim cake
received a reputation of its own.
The Paris office, and still later the club rooms on Rue Clement Marot,
were the entertainment center for the Paris district and all its many
visitors. After its formal opening on Simchath Torah, every Sunday
afternoon an entertainment was provided, with vaudeville, speeches or
dancing, concluding with the famous chocolate layer cake made by
volunteer workers among the American women living in Paris. The wounded
were visited in the nearby hospitals and usually a group of
convalescents was present in the front seats at the entertainment. The
registrations in the big book served to unite many friends and brothers
who had lost track of each other in the constantly moving wilderness of
the A. E. F. A family wrote in from Kansas City that their son was
complaining at not hearing from home; when the J. W. B. wrote him, it
was his first news from home in his six months as a "casual" in France.
Through the Paris office and the workers in the field the whole immense
field of personal service and entertainment had to be covered, including
much of the same work which was being done by the chaplains and in
addition the furnishing of immense amounts of supplies which we and
others could use up but could not provide.
During the high holydays the Paris clubrooms presented a remarkable
mingling of Jewish soldiers of all the allied armies. Mixed with the
olive drab and the navy blue of the United States were the Australians
with their hats rakishly turned up on the side, the gray capes of the
Italian, the French troops from Morocco, the Russian in Cossack
uniform, and a few Belgians. During Chanuka, which coincided with
Thanksgiving in 1918, special services were held at the synagogue in the
Rue de la Victoire, the largest in France. The synagogue was crowded
with French men and women, all at a high pitch of enthusiasm, and with
350 American soldiers, the heroes of the occasion. The impressive
service of the French rabbi was followed by a brilliant Thanksgiving
sermon by Chaplain Voorsanger, who had been invited to come to Paris for
the occasion. After services turkey and pumpkin pie were served at the
club rooms, and while I was not there that day, I can testify that the
pumpkin pie served at the Jewish Welfare Board on New Year's day, 1919,
was one of the most poignant reminders of the United States during my
stay abroad.
Due to the intense pressure of the situation, the actual volume of work
done by the J. W. B. was surprisingly large. The entertainments and
dances conducted at every center numbered fully 5,000, with an aggregate
attendance of 2,750,000. Among the conspicuous units which toured the A.
E. F. under Welfare Board auspices, was "Who Can Tell?" the Second Army
show, which was underwritten by request of the Welfare Officer and was
one of the most elaborate of the army musical comedies, with a full
complement of chorus girls acted by husky doughboys; this production
toured for five weeks and while in Paris was seen by President and Mrs.
Wilson. There was the "Dovetail Troupe," a vaudeville unit which
likewise went on tour. And there was the "Tuneful Trio," led by Mr. and
Mrs. Henry Gideon of Boston, which came to France under the Y. M. C.
A., and gave many excellent concerts under J. W. B. auspices; I heard
one of their programs in Le Mans and felt not only the musical
excellence of their work, but also the special appeal of their program
of Yiddish folk songs to the Jewish men; this troupe delivered 81
concerts to fully 60,000 men. The army educational work received much
support in the various huts, and two of the best equipped men in the J.
W. B. service were assigned to it, Dr. H. G. Enelow for the University
of Beaune, and Professor David Blondheim of Johns Hopkins, for a time
executive director of the overseas work, for the Sorbonne in Paris. The
bulk of the daily work in the huts throughout France appears from the
fact that 2,500,000 letterheads were distributed and refreshments served
without charge to a total of 3,000,000 men.
The records of religious work are equally imposing, as 1,740 services
were held, with a total attendance of 180,000 men. The constant
cooeperation with the chaplains meant that far more than these were
indirectly influenced and aided. Eighteen thousand prayer books were
distributed and ten thousand Bibles. On Passover of 1919 the J. W. B.
provided unleavened bread (matzoth), which had been furnished through
the Quartermaster Corps, for the Jewish soldiers in the American forces,
as well as for French and Russian soldiers. The J. W. B. even provided
matzoth for six thousand Russian prisoners in Germany during Passover of
1919. At the request of the military officials, the Jewish Welfare Board
took charge of welfare work for the sixty thousand Russian troops in
France, who had come originally as fighting units, but after the
withdrawal of Russia from the war had been transferred to agricultural
labor. No other welfare agency had provided for them and so they were
assigned to the J. W. B. which had a few workers who could speak
Russian. It was rather ironical that these men in Cossack uniform, most
of whom were non-Jews, received their only friendly service in France at
the hands of the despised Jew.
The whole work of the J. W. B. abroad culminated in the Passover of
1919. The most intense moment for us chaplains had come during the high
holydays when feeling was most profound and suspense at its deepest and
when, in addition, we had to carry the burden almost unaided. By
Passover the feeling had changed, the war was safely over, the men were
rejoicing at their imminent return home, and we had the Jewish Welfare
Board to arrange our celebration for us. Fully 30,000 of the Jews in the
A. E. F. ate the Seder dinners furnished by the Welfare Board. I have
already described our celebration at Le Mans, with its many features in
which the J. W. B. and I worked together. A similar program was carried
out everywhere. At Dijon Rabbi Schumacher of the local French synagogue,
who had been most active throughout in the interest of the American
soldiers, led a great congregation of 2,000 men through the rain to the
synagogue for worship and afterward to the Seder tables. In Germany, the
city of Coblenz became the leave area for soldiers of Jewish faith and
was closed for all other furloughs during the three days. The Y. M. C.
A. and the K. of C. assisted in giving proper honor to the Jewish
festival and proper pleasures to the Jewish men, and with their aid
boat rides on the Rhine, entertainments in the Festhalle, and all the
features of a full amusement program were provided.
Most striking of all was the great Seder at Paris, with its crowd of
American, Australian, English, French and Italian soldiers, some of them
former prisoners in Germany, all of them united in the great occasion of
their faith. Among the speakers and the guests of honor were some of the
great leaders of Jewry, as well as personal representatives of Marshall
Foch and General Pershing. Colonel Harry Cutler, Mr. Louis Marshall,
Judge Julian Mack, Dr. Cyrus Adler, and Dr. Chaim Weitzmann were there,
as well as many other celebrities. At that time and in that place the
highest honor for any man was to worship and eat side by side with the
soldiers, who had carried love of their country and loyalty to their
faith to the last extreme of service and of sacrifice.
Decoration Day of 1919, which was observed by all France together with
its American visitors, was another important ceremony for the Jewish
Welfare Board, together with its French hosts at the great synagogue on
the Rue de la Victoire. The sermon was delivered by Rabbi Voorsanger,
the service read by Rabbi Levy of Paris; and again the great throng of
Americans in uniform and their French friends joined in the common
worship of their faith and the common exaltation of their patriotism.
In addition to the overseas commission and the men in the field, several
of the prominent officers of the Jewish Welfare Board went to France at
various times and took personal part in the work. The first was Mr.
Mortimer L. Schiff, who spent the months of December 1918 and January
1919 in France as a member of the commission of eleven of the United War
Work Organization, which had just completed its great financial drive.
In that capacity Mr. Schiff was equally interested in all the welfare
agencies; naturally, he gave the full benefit of his advice to the J. W.
B. In February 1919 Colonel Harry Cutler, chairman of the Jewish Welfare
Board, came to France. Although burdened with duties for other
organizations as well, he accomplished wonders for the work of the J. W.
B. during his four months in France. His enthusiasm and vigor showed at
once, as in any matter he ever undertook. He traveled throughout the A.
E. F., observed conditions for himself, and then accomplished two
important pieces of work. First he obtained an order from the General
Headquarters releasing the J. W. B. from its former dependence on the Y.
M. C. A. and allowing it to work directly in cooeperation with the
military authorities; this was certainly advisable under post-armistice
conditions, and many others felt with me that it would have been the
preferable system at all times. Second, he persuaded Chaplain Elkan C.
Voorsanger, then completing his second year overseas, to allow his
division to return home without him, while he stayed on from April to
September as Overseas Director of the J. W. B. Together with Chaplain
Voorsanger, Colonel Cutler administered the J. W. B. during the period
of growth, and then left him to carry it on successfully during the time
of retrenchment, until finally he also returned home with the Paris
Staff, and the only representatives left in France were those working in
cooeperation with the Graves Registration Service.
Another important worker for the J. W. B. was Dr. Cyrus Adler,
vice-chairman of the national organization, who reached France in March,
1919 as a representative of the American Jewish Committee. On Colonel
Cutler's return in May, Dr. Adler took over his duties for the Welfare
Board, and worked with Chaplain Voorsanger until the end of his mission,
in July 1919.
One necessary part of the work of the Jewish Welfare Board, after all
its efforts on behalf of the men in the service had been accomplished,
was to care for the graves of those Jews who gave their all in the
service of America. The Graves Registration Service, later called the
Cemeterial Division of the War Department, had a great and necessary
work. The Jewish Welfare Board obtained in February, 1918 a War
Department order that all graves of Jews should be marked with the Magen
David, the double triangle.
This order was confirmed by a response from General Pershing on July 29,
1918. Temporary Jewish headboards were supplied overseas, together with
the temporary crosses, and whenever we knew definitely that a particular
soldier had been a Jew they were used. Unfortunately, that information
was not always available. Most units had no religious census, certainly
none was up to date including the replacements. The order for marking
the identification tag with an additional letter--"P" for Protestant,
"C" for Catholic, and "H" for Hebrew--was issued after most of us were
overseas, and hardly any of the tags had it; I know I never had the "H"
put on mine. Often a man would carry a prayerbook in his pocket, but if
the bodies were searched by one detail and buried by another that did
not help. I know that it took me three months to verify my list of
Jewish dead in the 27th Division, so that one can imagine the task for
the entire A. E. F.
In May, 1919, the J. W. B. undertook this duty of identifying the Jewish
graves, so that the War Department could mark them all properly. They
have thus identified 1,500 altogether and where a cross had already been
put up the headboard was changed. In this connection, a peculiar
situation arose through the efforts of the Red Cross to photograph all
graves in France for the benefit of the families at home. Such graves as
had not been identified as Jewish still had the cross, and some families
had their religious sensibilities shocked by the photographs. Hence the
photographs in all such cases were detained until the changes had been
carried out, and the Jewish Welfare Board had the graves photographed
for the benefit of the families. Naturally, this work is being continued
in the funerals of such soldiers as are being returned and in the care
of such graves as shall remain permanently where our heroes fought and
fell.
The sad death of Colonel Cutler occurred in England during the summer of
1920, on a trip which he undertook in the interest of the Graves
Registration work, against the advice of his physicians and solely
through his profound interest in the cause. His life was a sacrifice to
his duty, to the tremendous efforts he had made for the Jewish Welfare
Board and the other great national movements of Jewry. He gave, as so
many others gave, another sacrifice for Judaism and America.
On the whole, the field workers of the Jewish Welfare Board made an
enviable record in France. In this respect a minor organization had the
advantage in being able to choose its representatives so much more
carefully than in the enormous machine of the Y. M. C. A. The women
workers were especially conspicuous for their steady, uncomplaining
service. Their work was anything but romantic; it was driving, wearing
labor. They tended canteen all day and danced almost every evening, a
regime that was hard physically and exhausting mentally. Only those in
the larger cities could enjoy the luxuries which are so commonplace in
America--electric lights, a bath tub, and the other conveniences of
civilization. I have marveled to see them living for months in tiny
French villages or in army camps, giving devoted service to the men in
uniform, without distinction of rank or creed.
Through these workers the Jewish Welfare Board was able to render the
personal touch which was missing in much of the war work overseas. This
applied especially to the Jewish man, who felt overjoyed to meet a
Jewish girl from America, to attend a Seder, to write home on the J. W.
B. letterhead. He had found a touch of home in a foreign land; his
personal needs could be understood and satisfied so much more easily and
directly now. But many men of many creeds found themselves at home in
the J. W. B. huts. Men learned to know Jews, to respect Judaism in the
army who had been ignorant of both at home. They often attended a Jewish
service, met a Jewish chaplain, or simply preferred the home-like
atmosphere to that of other welfare organizations. For one thing, the J.
W. B. was run according to the tastes of the soldiers; there was no
charge for anything, even a nominal one; there was no condescension and
no dictation, none of the things which the soldiers hated. In the Le
Mans area, which was typical, from 56 to 60 per cent of the men
patronizing the J. W. B. building were non-Jews. This constituted a
return for the thousands of Jews who patronized Y. M. C. A. and K. of C.
huts, as well as our contribution to the morale of the forces.
In some areas the Jewish Welfare Board was the most popular of all the
welfare agencies; in all, it was very popular with the men of all
faiths. The high caliber of the women workers, the personal touch and
home-like spirit of the work, gave it a hold on the affections of the
men. For a long time the Jewish soldiers had felt neglected by their
own, not knowing the obstacles which had to be overcome. Then they found
their own huts, suddenly springing up in all the central points, crowded
and popular with all the groups of soldiers in America's composite army.
The Jewish soldier became proud and the Christian soldier became
appreciative. The excellence of the work brought forgiveness for
everything, even though the soldier was not used to listening to reasons
but formed his opinions quickly from the facts nearest at hand. The
contribution through happiness and unity to the morale of the American
Expeditionary Forces was one that did full justice to the eagerness and
good will of the Jews of America.