A Jewish Chaplain in France

by Lee J. Levinger

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 coöperated 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 coöperation 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 Lévy 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 coöperation 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 coöperation 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.