A Jewish Chaplain in France

In giving the story and the opinions of a Jewish chaplain in the American Expeditionary Forces, some statement is necessary of the work of the chaplains as a whole. Chaplains are an essential part of the organization of a modern army and it is notable that General Pershing repeatedly requested that the number of chaplains be doubled in the forces under his command. Hardly a narrative of soldiers' experiences exists without due place being given to the chaplain. In every army in France, chaplains were frequently cited for heroism and in innumerable instances suffered and died with the men in the ranks.

There are two popular impressions of the purpose of the chaplain in the military service; the one sees him as a survival of mediævalism, blessing the weapons of the men at arms; the other welcomes him as a faint harbinger of a dawning humanitarianism, one of the few men in an army who does not have to kill, but is there to save. Some people think of the physician and chaplain as having non-military work to do, as being a kind of concession to the pacific spirit of our generation.

The actual work of the chaplain is quite as unknown to the general public. People wonder what he does between weekly sermons, much as they wonder what the minister or rabbi does during the six and a half days a week that he is not preaching. In fact, I have been greeted with frank or hidden incredulity whenever I admitted that in the army I used to preach up to fifteen times a week, but never had time to write a sermon. People wonder sometimes whether the soldiers and sailors can bear so much preaching, sometimes what else they demand of the chaplain. In fact, to the non-military mind the whole subject seems shrouded in mystery.

To the military man the subject is extremely simple. There is no mystery about it. The chaplain is in the army as the physician is, as the thousands of other non-combatants are, for a strictly military purpose. It happens that the non-combatants may use non-military methods. One may drive a locomotive, another carry a stretcher, another sit in an office and make out papers. All are essential to the military machine; none is in the service for any special humanitarian purpose; none is present as a survival of mediævalism, but all to take part in the grim conflict of the twentieth century. The work of a physician in the military service is the very utilitarian one of saving men's lives and returning them to the front. The work of a chaplain is the equally essential and practical one of stimulating the morale of the troops.

Many factors bear upon the morale of a body of men,—their physical environment, the strength and spirit of their individual units, the temper and ability of their leaders. In our army we were very fortunate in the activity of various civilian organizations which labored among the men in the service with the backing of our entire citizenry, or at least of large and influential groups. The home service of the Red Cross and other non-military organizations was of great importance in keeping up the morale of the families left behind and through them of the men overseas. These important organizations, however, were under the handicap of doing civilian work among soldiers—a handicap whose seriousness only a soldier himself can ever realize. Some months after the war was over, the army recognized its obligation by appointing morale officers for both larger and smaller units, with others under them to supervise athletics, entertainment, and the like. The civilian organizations then conducted their activities under the orders of the morale officer.

But nearest of all to the men, because themselves a part of the actual military machine, were their own chaplains. The chaplain was under the same orders as the men, took the same risk, wore the same uniform, and naturally was regarded in every way as one of their own. I have even heard old army men scorning the new advances of all these new war-time societies. "We have our own chaplain," they said, "He looks after us all right."

The chaplain was first the religious guide of his men. He knew how to talk to them, for talking, not preaching, was the usual tone of the army or navy chaplain. He knew how to speak their own "lingo," slang and all. He knew the spiritual appeal which was most needed by these boys, transplanted, with all their boyishness, into the deep realities which few men have had to face. He knew their boyish shyness of emotion, but with it their deep, immediate need of such emotions as the love of home and God, to sustain them amid dangerous hours of duty and tempting hours of idleness. This religious need alone would have been enough work for the chaplain, even with the intended increase in numbers to three per regiment, or one chaplain for every twelve hundred men. The need for religion was evident in the training camp, the hospital, the transport, the trenches; it was evident everywhere, and the chaplain must be everywhere to satisfy it.