American Jewish Servicemen Overseas Concerned over Anti-jewish Incidents at Home

Jewish men in the United States forces overseas are greatly concerned with the anti-Semitic incidents which have occurred at home, it was disclosed today by Rabbi Barnett Brickner, who has just returned from a visit to Jewish servicemen in all theatres of the war, except the Pacific, as a representative of the National Jewish Welfare Board.

At the same time, Rabbi Brickner reported that among the fighting men racial and religious prejudices are being broken down. “The troops of all faiths,” he said, “are not interested in narrow denominationalism, but rather in whether a man is doing his job efficiently and to the best interests of all.”

Jewish soldiers, he declared, are greatly interested in the plight of the Jewish refugees in Europe and in the situation in Palestine. This is true, Dr. Brickner said, of not only American troops, but of Palestinian units, which he saw in Italy, North Africa, Sicily and Egypt, and of British and other Allied forces. The Palestinians, particularly, he declared, attempt to assist the Jewish refugees with whom they come in contact in liberated territory.

While in Italy, Dr. Brickner saw several refugee camps where Jews who had fled from occupied Northern Italy and from other places were quartered. Among them were Jews of many nationalities who had found refuge in Italy before anti-Jewish measures were introduced there. While praising the assistance rendered the refugees by the British and American military authorities, especially the Jewish chaplains, Rabbi Brickner stressed the necessity for the immediate dispatch to liberated areas of civilian Jewish social workers with adequate facilities to help the refugees rebuild their lives.

BRICKNER DESCRIBES JEWISH LIFE IN “NEGLECTED COMMUNITIES”

Even in the most remote places he visited, where there were hardly enough Jews to constitute a community, individual Jewish families performed superhuman feats in entertaining Jewish troops, Rabbi Brickner stated. In the countries of the Caribbean and in India, for example, Jewish families made special efforts to receive Jewish soldiers in their homes where they were “wined and dined.” In Palestine, where he spent some time, Dr. Brickner saw the large modern service clubs which the Jewish community has provided for Allied soldiers of all faiths and nations. American soldiers stationed in the Middle East, he said, look upon Palestine as an “oasis of western life” in the midst of unfamiliar living conditions and customs.

During his tour Dr. Brickner had occasion to visit what he described as the “neglected Jewish communities” in sections of India, Iran, and North Africa. These Jews live amidst filth and squalor, he revealed, with little if any contact with other Jews. He urged that young Jewish rabbis from American and Britain go into these communities as “missionaries” to raise the standards of living and to make modern educational and cultural facilities available.

Among the high points of his trip, Rabbi Brickner said, was a conference in Naples of Jewish chaplains of the American, British, French and other Allied forces, where plans were discussed for the holding of joint Passover services next month; and his meeting in Algeria with some of the Jewish residents who had functioned as an “Allied fifth column” during the period of Vichy rule and who helped to pave the way for the Allied invasion.