What Does Jewish Praying Book from the World War Tell: after the Publication by Rabbi Dr. Sali Levy

Abstract

This paper presents an article by Rabbi Dr. S. Levi published in 1921 in Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums about French Jewish army rabbis and Jewish praying books from World War One distributed among Jewish soldiers in French Army. Levi served himself as an Army Rabbi in German army. He used his own experience to highlight the most interesting and significant features of French approach toward Jewish military service in time of war. This article of Rabbi Levi serves as an example of continuation of the pre-war GermanJewish self-identification as both culturally German and religiously Jewish. However, it also presented an interesting depiction of the technical details about French Army praying book. In contrast to German Jewry, their French counterparts published praying book under the auspices of the Chief Rabbi of France and distributed in with the help of his office. Levi pointed out that these praying books reflect in their content the original war time religiosity, which was still important to reconstruct and to reflect about in the after war epoch. The Great Rabbi of France gave his sanctions for the publishing the Prayer for the War Time and Prayer for France, both prayers bore his name and originated in the years 1914-1915. Dr. Levi justly saw in the figure of the Great Rabbi a central authority for the Jews in the French uniform. The French praying book was designated not only for the French Jews of European origin who mostly had had Alsace and Lorraine roots, but also for the Sephardic Jews from the French colonies in North Africa (Morocco and Algiers). Because of this fact, this praying book was different in its content from both German Jewish praying books. It provided two versions of the Hebrew texts in accordance to Ashkenazi and Sephardic rites. Both versions, the Ashkenazi (and the German one as Dr. Levi called it) and the Sephardic were printed together. Dr. Levi thought that it was necessary to highlight the differences between these two Jewish rites. He found that there elements in general were of great importance whereas his Ashkenazi German readers would find it confusing to differentiate between ritual nuances with their Sephardic co-religionists, namely in the conducting the death-, burial- and mourning praying ceremonies. In accordance to the articles published in the Monatsschrift Jewish experiences during the First World War were positively evaluated by their German co-religionists.