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 Paris office, and still later the club rooms on Rue Clement Marot,
were the entertainment center for the Paris district and all its many
visitors. After its formal opening on Simchath Torah, every Sunday
afternoon an entertainment was provided, with vaudeville, speeches or
dancing, concluding with the famous chocolate layer cake made by
volunteer workers among the American women living in Paris. The wounded
were visited in the nearby hospitals and usually a group of
convalescents was present in the front seats at the entertainment. The
registrations in the big book served to unite many friends and brothers
who had lost track of each other in the constantly moving wilderness of
the A. E. F. A family wrote in from Kansas City that their son was
complaining at not hearing from home; when the J. W. B. wrote him, it
was his first news from home in his six months as a "casual" in France.
Through the Paris office and the workers in the field the whole immense
field of personal service and entertainment had to be covered, including
much of the same work which was being done by the chaplains and in
addition the furnishing of immense amounts of supplies which we and
others could use up but could not provide.
During the high holydays the Paris clubrooms presented a remarkable
mingling of Jewish soldiers of all the allied armies. Mixed with the
olive drab and the navy blue of the United States were the Australians
with their hats rakishly turned up on the side, the gray capes of the
Italian, the French troops from Morocco, the Russian in Cossack
uniform, and a few Belgians. During Chanuka, which coincided with
Thanksgiving in 1918, special services were held at the synagogue in the
Rue de la Victoire, the largest in France. The synagogue was crowded
with French men and women, all at a high pitch of enthusiasm, and with
350 American soldiers, the heroes of the occasion. The impressive
service of the French rabbi was followed by a brilliant Thanksgiving
sermon by Chaplain Voorsanger, who had been invited to come to Paris for
the occasion. After services turkey and pumpkin pie were served at the
club rooms, and while I was not there that day, I can testify that the
pumpkin pie served at the Jewish Welfare Board on New Year's day, 1919,
was one of the most poignant reminders of the United States during my
stay abroad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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