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 most important meeting, however, was the one called by Chaplain
Voorsanger for February 24th at the Paris headquarters of the Jewish
Welfare Board. Six chaplains were present, Voorsanger, Tannenbaum,
Richmond, Heller, Bettan and I, together with Mr. John Goldhaar of the
J. W. B. Our chief object was to work out a program of cooeperation with
the J. W. B., our second, to discuss our personal methods for the
benefit of our own work. Voorsanger was chairman; we decided to form a
Jewish Chaplains' Association, which never developed afterward; and
planned to hold another meeting soon, which owing to military
exigencies, we never did. But we did adopt a program of cooeperation with
the J. W. B., which indicates the mutual dependency and the closeness of
contact which were almost uniformly the case. Our program provided that
the J. W. B. should submit to the chaplain the weekly report of the area
in which he was stationed and should have relations with the military
authorities through him. The chaplain, on the other hand, was to make
suggestions to the worker in his area, and in exceptional cases to the
Paris office and was to be in complete charge of all Jewish religious
work in his area, although religious workers were personally responsible
to their superior in the J. W. B. Finally, provision was made for
frequent conferences between the chaplain and the J. W. B. worker in the
same organization. This program was approved, not only nominally but
also in spirit by all the Jewish chaplains and welfare workers
throughout the A. E. F. I know that in Le Mans our contact was so close
that Mr. Rivitz instructed his religious workers to report directly to
me for assignment of services and other division of labor, and I
included their work with mine in my weekly reports to my senior
chaplain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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