A Jewish Chaplain in France

by Lee J. Levinger

The soldier was honest, he gave no cut-and-dried answers but his own full opinion, based upon the circumstances of his own life. At the front courage is actually the most important attribute of manhood and cowardice the unforgivable sin. One coward can at any moment imperil the lives of his entire unit by crying out in surprise on a night patrol, by deserting his post as sentinel or gas guard, by infecting with the spirit of panic the weaker men who follow any contagious example. Selfishness likewise was more than serious; it was vital. The selfish man was one who ate more than his share of the scanty rations on the march, who did not carry his full pack but had to be helped by others, who was first in line at the canteen but last to volunteer for disagreeable duty. Pride, on the other hand, was not dangerous but merely irritating in the extreme to an army of civilians, of Americans with the spirit of equal citizens, who felt that they were doing everything for their country and resented equally the autocratic and the patronizing manner. Besides the soldier saw examples of these his highest virtues about him constantly. Courage became a commonplace; self-sacrifice an everyday matter. Officers often shared the discomforts and exceeded the dangers of their men. When one reads the accounts of citations for the D. S. C. and Medal of Honor, one wonders that human beings could do such things. And when we who were at the front recall the utter democracy of those days, how salutes and formality of every kind were forgotten while only leadership based on personality could prevail, we realize anew the emphasis of the soldier on modesty and his resentment of the attitude of many a civilian and even a few military men in patronizing him either as a common soldier or as a miserable sinner.

As to religious tendencies, the soldier had, first and foremost, hope. He looked forward to better things both for himself and for the world. He had the religious longing and the religious certainty that the future will witness the dawning of a better day. He had a vast respect for manhood, though his democracy did not go so far as to include other nations, whom he very largely despised on account of their "queerness" and his own ignorance. He had an abiding hatred for anything which smacked in the slightest degree of hypocrisy or "bluff." I mention this in my next chapter in connection with preaching to soldiers, but preaching was not the only field in which it applied. The soldier laid an inordinate value upon personal participation in front line work, ignoring the orders which necessarily kept the major part of the A. E. F. in back area work, in supply, repair, or training duty. I know of one chaplain, for example, who joined a famous fighting division shortly after the armistice, through no fault of his own but because he had been previously detailed to other duty, and who found his service there full of obstacles through the suspicion of the men—because he who was preaching to them had not been under fire when they were. Of course, this worked favorably for those of us whom the boys had personally seen under fire at the first aid post or in the trenches.

This very respect for deeds and suspicion of words, especially of polite or eloquent words, made for suspicion of the churches and churchmen. We had so pitifully few chaplains to a division, and some of them were necessarily assigned to hospitals in the rear. Only here and there did a Y. M. C. A. or K. of C. secretary go with the men under fire. True, they had nothing to do there, as there was no canteen or entertainment hut at the front; true, strict orders forbade their entering certain territory or going over the top. The soldier asked not of orders or duties; he knew only that this man, who in many cases seemed to consider himself superior, who preached and taught and organized, had not slept night after night in the rain, had not fallen prone in the mud to dodge the flying missiles, had not lived on one cold meal a day or had to carry rations on his shoulder that he and his comrades might enjoy their scanty fare.

Therefore the soldier cared little for creeds of any kind. He could not apply any particular dogmas to the unique circumstances in which he found himself—he had probably never applied them to any great extent even in the more commonplace circumstances of peace—and he was suspicious of many of those who attempted to apply them for him. The soldier needed religion; he wanted God; he cared very little for churches, creeds or churchmen.

In most characteristics the Jewish soldier was one with his Christian brothers. He differed only in those special facts or ideas which showed a different home environment or a different tradition. For example, the usual Christian minister used the word, "atonement" with a special meaning which was understood, if not accepted, by every Christian present, but which meant nothing whatever to the Jew, except through the very different association with the Day of Atonement. So any analysis of the religion of the Christian soldier would begin with his attitude toward the atonement, but with the Jewish soldier this must be omitted—he had no attitude at all. The Jewish soldier was guided by the same general facts in his attitude toward the Jewish religion which animated the Christian soldier in his attitude toward the Christian religion; the difference was largely that of the religion which they considered rather than of the men themselves.

Of course, it was hard to be a good Jew in the army. The dietary laws were impossible of fulfillment, and the Talmudic permission to violate them in case of warfare meant less to the average soldier than the fact that he was breaking them. The Sabbath could not be kept at all, even in rest areas where there was no immediate danger to life. No soldier could disobey an order to work on the Sabbath; if the work was there, the soldier had to do it. In many ways Judaism was difficult and Christianity just as difficult. For example, I know of one division where the Passover service was held under difficulties, as the unit was about to move, and where the Easter service had the same handicap, as the men had just finished moving and were not yet established in their new quarters. Most of the obstacles to religious observance were common to all religions.

A few Jews denied or concealed their religion in the army as elsewhere. Some few enlisted under assumed names; a number denied their Judaism and avoided association with Jews, perhaps fearing the anti-Semitism which they had heard was rife in military circles. Their fear was groundless and their deception, as a rule, deceived nobody. The American army as it was organized during the war had no place for prejudice of any kind. Efficiency was the watchword; the best man was almost invariably promoted; in all my experience abroad I have never seen a clear case of anti-Semitism among higher officers and only seldom in the ranks. Occasionally also I met the type of Jew who admitted his origin but had no interest in his religion. Such a one—a lieutenant—who was known as a friend of the enlisted men generally and especially of the Jewish ones, assisted me greatly in arranging for the services for the fall holydays, but did not attend those services himself. He represented the type now fortunately becoming rarer in our colleges, the men who have too much pride to deny their origin but too little Jewish knowledge to benefit by it. It is noteworthy that this particular man was stationed in the S. O. S. and had at that time never been at the front. Most men turn toward religion under the stress of battle; those who have never been in battle presented in certain ways a civilian frame of mind.

Most of the Jews in the army were orthodox in background, rather than either reform or radical. Perhaps the orthodox did not have the numerical superiority they seemed to possess; in that case I saw them as the most interested group, the ones who came most gladly to meet the chaplain. Not that the other two groups were lacking in this army, which took in practically all the men of twenty-one to thirty-one years in America. The dominating group, however, was orthodox in background, though most of them were not orthodox in conviction. Causes are not far to seek—they had never studied orthodoxy; they were young men and had few settled religious convictions; they were in the midst of a modern world where other doctrines were more attractive. The fact is that their convictions were usually directed toward Zionism rather than toward one or another form of Judaism itself. Again, they were without reasons for their interest. Zionism appealed to them simply as a bold, manly, Jewish ideal; they did not enter into questions either of practicability or of desirability. In other words, they were young men, not especially thoughtful, who were interested in Jewish questions only as one of many phases of their lives. They had their own trend, but were glad to accept leadership of a certain type, adapted to their own lives and problems.

All these Jewish soldiers welcomed a Jewish chaplain. The Catholics and Protestants had chaplains, and all Jews except the negligible few who denied their faith were very glad to be represented also, to have their religion given official recognition in the army and to see their own chaplain working under the same authority and along the same lines as chaplains of other religions. Most of the Jewish soldiers had personal reasons also to greet a chaplain. In many of the occasions, small and great, when a Jewish soldier desired advice, aid or friendship, he preferred a Jewish chaplain to any other person. As a chaplain he had the influence to take up a case anywhere and the information as to procedure, while only a Jew can feel and respond to the special circumstances of the Jewish men. On the other hand, not all Jewish soldiers were eager to welcome the Jewish Welfare Board although they all liked it after it had arrived and made good. Some were afraid of any distinction in these semi-military welfare organizations, feeling that the two already in the field, the Y. M. C. A. and K. of C., were quite adequate. The Jewish Welfare Board, however, made such an impression at once on both Jews and non-Jews that even the doubtful ones became reconciled and felt that Jewish work in the army was more than justified by results. As always among Jews, who lay great emphasis on non-Jewish opinion, one of the chief causes of the popularity among Jews of Jewish war work was its popularity among Christians. When a Jewish boy found his building overcrowded by non-Jews, when he had to come early to get a seat at the picture show among all the Baptists and Catholics, when he saw Christian boys writing to their parents on J. W. B. stationery, he thought more of himself and his own organization. This same fact refuted the argument against segregation; men of all faiths used the J. W. B. huts, just as they did those of the other welfare organizations. They were one more facility for men of every religion, even though organized by Jews and conducted from a Jewish point of view.

In their religious services, as in most other things, the Jewish boys liked practices which reminded them of home. Just as many of them enjoyed a Yiddish story at an occasional literary evening, so they all appreciated the traditional Seder at Passover more than all the shows and entertainments which were provided at the Passover leave. They preferred to have many of the prayers in Hebrew, even though I seldom had a Jewish congregation in the army in which more than one third of the men understood the Hebrew prayers. They liked the home-like and familiar tone of the Jewish service on both Sabbaths and festivals. They preferred to wear their caps at service and to carry out the traditional custom in all minor matters.