A Jewish Chaplain in France

by Lee J. Levinger

Our services were held in the large Y. M. C. A. hut at the chief barracks. The large, bare room was turned over to us for certain hours; the workers closed the canteen and attended the services. And in return I concluded one of the evening services fifteen minutes early so that the regular clientele would not miss their semi-weekly motion pictures. In fact, I found the Y. M. C. A. here, as everywhere, most eager to coöperate with me and to serve the Jews as well as the Christians in the army. My cantor for most of the services was Corporal Cohen of New York, although several other men volunteered for certain portions of the prayers. The head usher was Sergeant Wolf, who looked after the hall and the seating with the thoroughness characteristic of sergeants everywhere. Among the congregation were ten officers, two nurses, and three families of French Jews, as well as a mixed group of enlisted men from every branch in the army, from every section of America and every group of Jewry. The festival had caught us in a foreign land, in the service of America, and it had brought us together as nothing else could have done.

We wore our hats during the service because that was the natural desire of the majority, who were of orthodox upbringing. Of course, a soldier naturally wears his overseas cap under any circumstances and it would have needed a special ruling to bring them off. The service was read out of the little prayer book circulated by the Jewish Welfare Board, with which about a fourth of the congregation were already provided from the camps in the States. We read the abbreviated Hebrew service, then about half of the prayers in English, and had an English sermon. The only objection to these innovations came from the cantor, Corporal Cohen, a young man with a traditional Jewish background, who had gathered the other Jews in his company every Friday evening for a brief service and was generally looked up to (although not always followed) as a religious leader. My only way of convincing him was to inquire among some of the other men as to the number who did not understand Hebrew. When he saw that over half of the Jewish soldiers had no understanding of the Hebrew service he withdrew his insistent request for a strict traditionalism and I was saved the necessity of falling back on my military rank.

I was much amused after the several services at the number of young men who came to me, complaining about Cohen's rendering of the services and boasting of their own ability. I was able to give several of them the chance in the ensuing days and found out that it is easy to get a Hebrew reader, quite possible to find one who reads with feeling and understanding, but utterly impossible to pick up in the army a cantor with a trained voice.

Our arrangements were made under the approval of my commanding officer, the senior chaplain of the post, and few features of our service were more appreciated than the address of Chaplain Stull at our services on the second day of the festival. I had hesitated to invite him, and was therefore doubly surprised when he assured me that this was the third successive year that he had preached at a Jewish New Year service: two years before on the Mexican Border, the year before in training camp in the States and now in the American Forces in France, Chaplain Stull was a regular army chaplain of eighteen years standing, and his membership in the Methodist Episcopal church was less conspicuous in his makeup than his long experience in army life. His sermon was one of the outstanding events of our holy season. His explanation of the vital importance of the Service of Supply to the army at the front came with personal weight for he had just come back from the fighting forces to take a promotion in the rear. His moral interpretation of the significance of each man to the whole army was the sort of thing that the soldier needs and likes.

These services were unusual in that they were the first holy season which most of the men had spent away from home. The war was still on then; the St. Mihiel drive took place the day after Rosh Hashana; the news from the front was usually good and always thrilling. We at the rear were deeply stirred. Some of us had been wounded and were now recovering; some were in training and were soon to leave for the front; some were in the S. O. S. permanently. But the shadow of war was dark upon us all. We were in the uncertainty, the danger, the horror of it. We felt a personal thrill at the words of the prayers,—"Who are to live and who to die; who by the sword and who by fire." We recited with personal fervor the memorial prayer for our fallen comrades. Many among us were eager to give thanks at recovery from wounds. Therefore, the desire for a religious observance of our solemn days was all the greater. Men came in from a hundred miles, often walking ten miles to a train before they could ride the rest.

Brothers, long separated, often met by chance, soon to separate again for an unknown future. I remember two—one a veteran of two battles, now convalescing at a hospital, the other newly arrived from the States and still in training. They met on Rosh Hashanah, each ignorant of the other's whereabouts and the veteran not even knowing whether his brother had arrived in France. The touching scene of their reunion had its humorous side too, for the wounded soldier from the hospital naturally had not a franc in his possession, and the boy from the States had enough money for a real holiday and had reserved a hotel room with a luxurious French bed. He was thus able to act as host for two happy days and nights. But on Yom Kippur when the wounded soldier came again his brother was not there. His unit had been ordered to the front and I do not know whether they ever met again.

War had us all in its iron grip. I, for one, expected soon to have my request granted that I be assigned to a combat division. Not that I overlooked the need for Jewish work in the S. O. S., but the most pressing need at that time was at the front, and I was looking forward to taking up the more exacting duties there.

The three Jewish families of the city added a pathetic touch, for they were glad indeed to attend a Jewish service and for the sake of the soldiers were willing to sit through our English additions. Their situation seemed similar to that of most recent immigrants of the United States; the parents spoke both Yiddish and French, the young people like ours in America, spoke chiefly the language of the country. It was both ludicrous and touching to see American soldiers competing to exchange the few French words they knew with the two or three Jewish daughters. It was often their first chance for a word with a girl of their own class, certainly with a Jewish girl, since they had left America. And the fact that the girl with her familiar appearance could not communicate with them on a conversational basis, did not seem to impede their relations in the least. The isolated condition of these French Jews in a city of 30,000 can only be compared to that of American Jews in a country village.

While at Nevers I could not overlook the opportunity to visit the two great hospital centers at Mars and at Mesves sur Loire. I visited from ward to ward in both of them, paying special attention to the Jewish boys and finding always plenty of occasion for favors of a hundred different kinds. At that time we were short of chaplains of all denominations in the army, so that even the hospitals had not enough to minister fully to their thousands of sick and wounded, while the convalescent camps with their hundreds of problems were almost uncared for in this respect.

At Mars I held a service on Friday night which was fairly typical of conditions in France. The service was announced as a Jewish religious service, but on my arrival I found the Red Cross room crowded with men of every type, including four negroes in the front row. Evidently it was the only place the men had outside the wards, so they came there every night for the show, movie, or service which might be provided. They were not merely respectful to the service and the minority of Jews who took part in it. They were actively responsive to the message I brought them of conditions in America and the backing the people at home were giving them in their great work abroad. These wounded men from the lines, these medical corpsmen who might never see the front, were alike eager to feel the part they personally were playing in the great, chaotic outlines of the world-wide struggle. And they responded to a Jewish service with an interest which I soon found was typical of the soldier, in his restless attention, his open-mindedness, his intolerance of cant but love of genuine religion.