A Jewish Chaplain in FranceLevinger, Lee J. (Lee Joseph)
Religion
A Jewish Chaplain in France
Levinger, Lee J. (Lee Joseph)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Jews
The American Expeditionary Forces never had sufficient chaplains at any
time for the work that was planned for them. The proportion desired by
the G. H. Q. Chaplains' Office and approved by the war department was
one chaplain to every thousand men, or one to an infantry battalion,
besides those assigned to administrative work as senior chaplains of
divisions and areas, and the very large number detailed to hospitals.
The total number of chaplains who went to France was 1285, just half the
number needed by this program, and from this total we must subtract a
considerable group of deaths, wounds and other casualties. The
chaplains' corps was undermanned at all times,--we Jews were simply the
most conspicuous example. Compared to the general proportion of one
chaplain to every two thousand men, and the ideal one of a chaplain to
every thousand, we had one chaplain to every eight thousand men, and
those tremendous numbers were not even concentrated in a few units but
scattered through every company, every battery, and every hospital ward
in the army.
The British forces contained one Jewish chaplain for every army
headquarters, or nine in all. I had the pleasure of meeting Rabbi
Barnett, the chief Jewish chaplain in the B. E. F., although I never met
his predecessor, Major Adler. Through their long experience and the
cooeperation of the Chief Rabbi of England, the English chaplains were
well equipped with suitable prayerbooks and other material, which I
obtained from one of them for the use of our men while I was on the
British front. Still, even with their larger proportion of chaplains to
the Jews in service, the lack of transportation facilities and the
tremendous rush of war-time, especially at the front and in the
hospitals, made their actual duties impossible of complete fulfillment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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