A Jewish Chaplain in France

of Occupation and saw the occupied portion of Germany. But for nine months I served as chaplain in the American Expeditionary Forces, first at the headquarters of the Intermediate

lfare Board; I saw Paris in war time and a

re Board. Two weeks later I reported at Hoboken for the trip overseas. There I had the good fortune to obtain a furlough of ten days before sailing so that I was able to be back in Chicago just in time

rill. Our ship, the Balmoral Castle, was one of a convoy of twelve, with the usual quota of destroyers accompanying us. Two days from England we met a flotilla of destroyers; later two "mystery" ships joined us and in the Irish Sea we were greeted by a huge Blimp or dirigible bal

rican cities, lined up at a freight station, and were loaded at once on waiting trains and started off for Southampton. All that afternoon we absorbed eagerly the dainty beauty of the English countryside which most of us knew on

s was at a premium, but we were hastening on our way to the war. At Le Havre we were again assigned to a British rest camp, where we appreciated the contrast between the excellent meals of the officers' canteen an

n "Alice in Wonderland." In France, however, one is struck chiefly by the profusion and arrangement of trees. They are everywhere, alone or in clumps, and of all kinds, with often a formal row of poplars or a little wood of beeches to make the sky-line more impressive. In no

infinitely touching. It had all the marks of the great luxury center of the world: shops, boulevards, hotels, and show places of every kind. But many of the most attractive of its tiny shops were closed; the streets at night were wrapped in the deepest gloom, with tiny shaded lights which were not intended to illuminate but only to show the direction of the street. The crowds were only a little repressed in the day-time, for the extreme crisis of the summer

ld chateau of Neuilly sur Suisse, not far from Chaumont, where thirty chaplains received their gas mask training and instruction in front line work, and waited for assignments. The chateau was a queer angular medi?val affair, set off by lovely lawns, with the usual rows of straight poplars all about. A few steps away was a little village with a quaint old twelfth century church, beautiful in feeling, if not in workmanship. We cha

esignated, either those which had French synagogues to receive our men, or those points like Nevers where Americans

Sept.

sses to enable them to observe Jewish Holidays as follows: from noon Sept. 6th to morning of Sept. 9th and from noon Sept. 15th to morning of S

on the march on New Year's Day and in action on the Day of Atonement. Most of the central points designated for Jewish services were important cities with French synagogues,-Paris, Toul, Belfort

where he had been from the very beginning of the war. I went to the army headquarters and arranged for the proper notices to be sent out to troops in the district, then with two or three Jewish families whom I met I discu

ights of Columbus. When he left Great Lakes for overseas, I had parted with one of the two knitted sweaters I possessed, that if I did not see service at least my sweater would. Now I met the sweater and its owner again for a few brief moments. These fleeting glimpses o

ngs have a charm of their own, even if it is chiefly in the quaintness of their outlines and the contrast of their gray with the sunny skies of autumn. The air was always cool and the skies always bright. I stayed at the Grand Hotel de l'Europe, a rather small place, which one had to enter by a back door through a court. With the men

ll of them were equally glad to see me and to attend my services. In fact, my first clear impression in France was that here lay a tremendous field for work, crying out for Jewish chaplains and other religious workers, and that we had such a pitiful force to answer the demand. At that time there were over fifty

ry helpful officers who stayed up most of the night until they had provided enough room on the barrack floors and enough blankets for all who needed them. The accommodations were crude, but the men were soldiers and glad to get them. I was doubly proud, therefore, that this crowd of ours, without official control, coming for the festival and therefore released from the

l very young. We were meeting in a strange land, amid an ancient but alien civilization, which some of us liked and some disliked, but which none of us could quite understand. We had no scroll of the Law, no ram's horn, not e

C. A. here, as everywhere, most eager to co?perate 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

e 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 u

asting 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 reade

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

e 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 fi

eabouts 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 hol

o a combat division. Not that I overlooked the need for Jewish work in the S. O. S., but the most pressing

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 g

ention 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 ev

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 cor

not absent without leave, but simply locked up in the contagious ward. But on his recovery the news went to his family in Chicago to get in touch with my wife and a friendship was established on a genuine basis of interests in common. At another time I was approached at the Y. M. C. A. by one of their women workers who had heard my name announced. She turned out to

the substitution gladly enough. On the second day Mr. Rosenwald himself was there and I had the pleasure of introducing him to an audience of about five hundred soldiers, as varied a group as ever wore the American uniform. His simple personal appeal was a direct attempt to build up the morale of the troops through a hearty report of the interest and enthusiasm of the people at home. He called for a show of

el. Since that time I have frequently been called on for advice in similar cases, for an army chaplain has almost as many legal and medical duties as strictly religious ones. In this particular case circumstantial evidence seemed to show that the young man had stole

be expected. So, with memories of friendships made, of work accomplished, of a new world opening ahead, I left Nevers on Septe

d contained many thousands of American troops, including everywhere a certain proportion of Jews. Then Chaplain Rabinowitz reported at Nev

hrough the central portion of France. Now I left them for good. Their usual greeting on meeting me had been, "You are the first Jewish chaplain or worker we have met on this side." And unfortunately, the same greeting was addressed to me every time I came to a new unit or city until the very day I left France. The need among these two million