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
Every chaplain with whom I have compared notes has told me of similar
experiences. Chaplain Elkan C. Voorsanger, for example, at the time when
he conducted the first official Jewish service overseas at Passover
1918, received four other invitations in various sections of France both
from army officials and Y. M. C. A. secretaries. At one point the Young
Men's Christian Association even offered to pay all his expenses if his
commanding officer would release him for the necessary time. I have
mentioned that Rabbi Voorsanger had no regular services in the 77th
Division during the fall holydays of 1918, due to the military
situation. There was one exception to this, however, a hasty service
arranged at one of the brief stops during the march by Father Dunne of
the 306th Infantry, and that service arranged by a priest was conducted
by the rabbi in a ruined Catholic church. Chaplain Voorsanger is full of
praise for the thirty chaplains of various religions who worked under
him when he was Senior Chaplain of the 77th. Their enthusiastic support
as subordinates was fully equal to their hearty cooeperation as equals.
Peculiarly enough, the Christian Science chaplain in our division was
the only one who found it difficult to become adjusted with the rest.
This could hardly have been personal, as he was generally respected. It
may have been due in part to the general suspicion of some for the
ministers of a new faith which had lured away a few of their adherents.
But it seemed due chiefly to the ideas and the method he represented. He
was handicapped for the necessary work of caring for the sick and
wounded by a unique attitude toward physical suffering, different from
the rest of us and different from that of most of the soldiers
themselves. As a consequence he could serve most of them only as a
layman might. Certainly he could give no religious treatment of disease,
as the medical department was supreme in its own field. In addition, he
could conduct general services only with difficulty. To the rest of us a
service meant the same thing,--a psalm, a prayer, a talk, perhaps a
song or two. But the Christian Scientist could not give a prayer.
Prevented from using his ritual by the fact that the service was to be
non-sectarian, he had not the power of personal prayer to fall back
upon. He was not a minister in the same sense as the rest of us, and the
army had no proper place for either a healer or a reader.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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