America Yavish Periodical Oder

Friday, August 16, 1946

CLIFTON AVENUE - CINCINNATI 20, 01110

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Federal Power Commission Acts
To Ease Gas Shortage in So. Michigan

Jhe Returning Veteran and The Synagogue

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By Rabbi L. Spitz

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The question of what will be
the reaction of the returning Jew-
ish veteran to his synagogue has
been engaging the minds of rabbis
and synagogue officials for some
time. The debunking stage has
already been bypassed. The hour
) clarification is approaching.
be present article is intended as
4alistic contribution to this dis-
sion, based solely on this writ-
s personal, direct and first hand
observation of the facts.
This rabbi served as an auxil-
iary chaplain during World War I
for fully a year at Camps Han-
cock and Macon way down South,
at Merit and Upton, and at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The following features have
stamped themselves upon his
memory. They may therefore be
regarded both as characteristic
and as significant.
At Camp Hancock a military
base which included some 4,000
Jewish men chiefly recruited in
New York City, this rabbi had the
Jewish religious field to himself
and his center of operation was
the Jewish Welfare Board hut.
Saturday mornings a minyan serv-
ice was a certainly infrequent epi-
sode. On Friday eights attendance
was fine but this was undeniably
stimulated by the presence of
several scores of civilian hos-
tesses, including girls and lavishly
served Shabosdig refreshments.
Chanuka lighting of the Me.
norah was well publicized in ad-
vance and served as a feature in
an open air concert from the steps
of the J.W.B. hut. It bore the
familiar earmarks of a good will
rally.
The high-holidays were gener-
ously attended: The synagogues
in town, the hospitalized men in
the Red Cross hall.
Camp Upton—located so close to
Metropolitan New York—yielded a
little larger quantity of so called
observant Jews including a con-
scientious objector who felt it was
against his atheistic principles to
physically hold a Siddur. Camp
Merrit—a delousing camp — from
whence hundreds of thousands of
veterans were sent on their last
stage home—was not the shrine at
which the Jewish boys just re-
turned from service on the water-
front stopped to pray with thank-
ful hearts. No, they managed to
curb the fervour of Kawana which
they were supposed to have ac-
quired in their foxholes with ad-
mirable restraint.
At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, this
writer personally guided fully a
dozen youthful gobs every Sab-
bath Eve to a neighboring Reform
Temple to services plus pretty
hostesses and plus again tea-and-
cake. And this was that.
The natural conclusion—Jewish
social and cultural life in World
War I military environment cen-
tered about the rabbi and the
J.W.B. hut; but of religious-ritual
life there was woefully little. The
Yom Kipper Jew remained true to
type, as in civilian life so in mili-
tary service. The uniform he
donned was not a military tallith.
Still, if war-time experience did
not make a better Jew of him, it
neither spoiled him for the syna-
gogue—in the Post-World War
era.

One suspects that World War II
will only repeat the experience of
World War I.
It is not difficult to marshal!
the data that pertain to the re-
ligious contacts with the Jewish
men in Uncle Sam's Uniform dur-
ing World War II: these contacts
cover a full year at the Miami
Beach Aviation Training Base,
supplemented by a High-holiday
week at Camp Grant and Colum-
bia, S. C and further comple-
mented by intimate Interviews
with visiting soldiers on furlough
and with discharged veterans,
with chaplains and visits to the
University of Connecticut—all in
all an array of sound evidence.
Almost from the first every
-etaplain, Jewish and Christian, in-
,,,tiewed has seen befit to de.
' IAnk the "there are no atheists
the fox-holes" slogan that had
for alas too brief a moment been
so effectively and dramatcially
Publicized.
It is well that the returning
chaplain has his pulpit reserved
against his return by public pres-
sure. The rabbi who shared the
war-time life of the Jewish G.I.
Joe may be expected to minister
to
him spiritually in the post-war
r eadjustment.

.,

.

And yet it is momentary over.
exuberance that prompts a goodly
number of chaplains who address
both Rabbinical conventions and
other lay gatherings to maintain
so stoutly that the returning Jew-

Equality in Death

In a imitly spot !ugh In the
Laurentian Mountains near St.
Donat, Que., are the graves of 24
airmen who were killed when the
Liberator bomber in which they
were flying home on leave in 1943
crashed. The plane was discovered
in June of this year and a spe-
cial funeral service, with Protes-
tant, Catholic and Jewish chap-
plains in attendance, was held.
Interspersing the neat rows of
crosses is one Star of David which
designates the final resting place
of Warrant Officer Jacob "Jake"
Silverstein, RCAF, of Windsor,
Ont. Rabbi Ephraim Mandelcorn,
former Canadian army chaplain,
of Montreal, was delegated by tha
Canadian Jewish Congress, Reli-
gious Welfare Committee, to of-
ficiate at the service for the Jew-
ish airman.

upon the cessation of hostilities.
It has come to this rabbi's at-
tention that a sergeant — whose
father and mother stayed away
for years from the local syna-
gogue never missed a Friday night
service In his Midwestern army
base, and on the eve of last Yom
Kipper wrote to his father de-
manding that the family on the
home-front should make a finan-
cial contribution to the synagogue
budget. And this soldier has never
trod the valley of the shadow of
death.
A soldier about to be discharged
and to get married, a winner of
the Purple Heart, Ras donated
$200 towards the synagogue build-
ing fund, and some six months
ago had sent $50 as a Thanksgiv-
ing offering for his deliverance
from the jaws of death. But this
young man had always been "re-
pectably" devoted to the syna-
gogue.
This writer's son tells him that
as many as 2,000 Jewish trainees
at the U. S. Naval Training Cen-
ter at Sampson attend the Sab-
bath Eve service.
The problem of Kosher-diet has
been inordinately exaggerated.
Canned gefilte fish at the U.S.O.-
J.W.B. Center at Columbia, S. C.,
has not enjoyed such a tremen-
dous sale. At Miami Beach—with
a good thousand Jewish enlisted
men in town, the Kosher restau-
rant which the J.W.B. subsidized
for their benefit did not do a
rushing business. Jewish rather
than Kosher home meals were
even more sought after when fair
maidens were included in the fam-
ily circle. Shalos-Shudos with her-
ring and beer and white chalah
in the Beach Synagogues were not
overcrowded.
The sole sigificant exception was
the Sunday morning service con.
ducted at the swanky Roney Plaza
Hotel by the Aviation Candidates
School. As many as 300 Jewish
men attended regularly and Sun-
day after Sunday. Attendance was
not obligatory but, somehow to do
so seemed to involve boffin military
and Jewish honor. Perhaps this is
the key to the solution of the
problem of synagogue attendance
in war and in peacetime to
make it somehow indicating of
Jewish honor, to make it a Kid-
dush hashem. The means, the
method, the procedure, these fac-
tors challenge serious study.
That high holiday week at Co-
lumbia and Camp Grant in the
autumn of 1941 was revealing. On
Yom Kipper Night the services at
Camp Grant, at the Columbia
Temple and Synagogue, and at the
U.S.O.—J.W.B. were all“owd ,
not so generously on,,Rosha-Shop
mornings. Evenif
p Yom Kip
morning a consi erable numbs of
Jewish soldier enjoyed their
breakfasts, smoked and wrote let.
ters to their home folk while serv-
ices went on in the U.S.O. house.
For the benefit of the shocked
readers a reminder may be in-
jected. That exact situation pre-
vails in civilian life in certain
Jewish circles.
And so it goes. There is really
no great mystery about it all. The
average Jewish G.I. did not get
religion by the mere act of putting
on the uniform. Albeit it is sen-
sible to assume that army life did
stir him to reflect more seriously
on the fundamental realities which

While Michigan Consolidated berg, chief counsel, as follows:
Gas Company continues its resis-
"Mr. Dowling: And the firm
tance to the program of Panhan- that gets $25,000, their services,
dle Eastern Pipe Line Company then, were for their particular
for piping more natural gas to participation in the opposition to
Detroit for local use, the Federal the Panhandle's schedules A and
Power Commission is acting swift-
ly to ease the gas shortage else-
"Mr. Richberg: "Well, undoubt-
where in southern Michigan.
edly services were rendered In
By commission order, Panhan- that connection, yes. I can't tell
dle Eastern has recently been au- where the exact $25,000 would be
thorized to sell natural gas to
absorbed, but it is part of their
Consumers Power Company for services."
storage underground in depleted
"Mr. Dowling: Part of it?"
Winterfleld and Cranberry Lake
"Mr. Richberg: Surely."
gas fields, northwest of Saginaw,
and to install the necessary ad-
Unless Michigan Consolidated
ditional facilities. Less than a year successfully opposes the Panhan-
ago, the Michigan Public Service dle Eastern program, it will be
Commission chairman urged the compelled to remove its present
two companies to alleviate the curtailment on use of gas for fur.
impending gas shortage, but ther house heating, as more and
when a similar request was put more Panhandle gas becomes
by the chairman to the Michigan available at the Detroit city li-
Consolidated Gas Company, it mits.
flatly declared it would not nego-
tiate with Panhandle Eastern for
Although the Mexican federal
the additional gas necessary to
meet all of Detroit's future needs. laws do not permit the death pen-
alty, Mexico's State of Sinaloa has
Instead, according to recent just established the penalty within
revelations during Securities and its borders.
Exchange Commission hearings at
Philadelphia, the City of Detroit
learned that attorneys acting on
behalf of Michigan Consolidated
interests have been actively op-
posing Panhandle Eastern's pro-
gram for ending ' Detroit's gas
shortage as represented by so-
called "A" and "B" construction
schedules, suumuted to tne Vede-
ral Power Commission.
Also Furniture Cleaning )
Corporation Counsel William E.
Dowling, inquiring into the pur-
pose of fees paid to those attor
neys, questioned ITonald Rich-

t

ish veteran will not tolerate de-
nominational sectarianism and will
simply abandon after his first visit
both synagogue and rabbi unless
he is greeted instantaneously by
a transcendental Super Synagogue
presided over by a great prophetic
spirit, who will on first acquaint-
ance hand him a most lucrative
job on a platter of gold. It may
be stated right here and now that
there are no such synagogues and
no such rabbis bearing such tro-
jan gifts—and most important of
all—Jewish G.I.s have no such de-
lectable rations. And this rabbi
has an experience of two years as MEN•11=1111111MIIIIMIIINIM
a re-employment committeeman to
substantiate his contention.
The soldier on furlough as fre-
quently as not visits the syna-
gogue and is warmly welcomed by
both rabbi and worshippers. In-
variably he is called to the Torah
HABERDASHER
and a blessing is pronounced for
his safety. And he does not react
Book•Cadillae
United
in any churlish manner towards
Hotel
Artlet Bldg.
this genuinely human reception.
CL. 0172
CH. 1711
It does not lead him to look upon
Open Evenings 111
the rabbi as a slacker nor to re-
gard the synagogue with sophis-
ticated distaste. His reaction
conversely—is normal and appre- ■■•■■■•■•■•■••■
ciative. It augurs well for his par-
LENDING
ticipating in the synagogue life
LIBRARY

TOM
COTTER

••.

It's the . . .

GIFTS

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(Next to Avenue Theatre)

WHERE YOU MEET
THE SHOW PEOPLE

of
All ands
Br

BEER • WINE • LIQUOR

432 WOODWARD AVE.
JOHNNY LEWIS. Proprie

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Page Thirteen

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properly touch the domain religion.
It is quite likely that he has his
moments of spiritual exultation--
and this rabbi has received sol-
emnly contemplative letters from
friends in the army forces on the
other side.
Yet—except for a certain pre-
dictable percentage of unfortunate
psychopathic cases—the returning
Jewish veteran will adjust himself
to the synagogue just as nor-
mally as he will re-enter into the
general life of the community--
industrial, cultural, professional,
political and social. And chances
are that he will not make any
dictatorial ultimatums for a revo-
lutionary reinterpretation of the
synagogue program.

106

O
by *.

Leader

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