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Patrons For 1948

ARTHUR FRIEDMANLEO FRIEDMAN

BERNARD STARKOFF

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American Jewish

CONTENTSTHE PROGRAM OF THEAMERICAN JEWISH ARCHIVES ....................................... d e 2JEWISH CHAPLAINS

..........................................................................................DURING THE CIVIL WAR Page 6ACQUISITIONS ............................................................................................................................Page 23

DIRECTOR OF ARCHIVES:JACOB R. MARCUS, PH. D.

Adolph S . Ochs Professor of Jewish History

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR:RABBI BERTRAM W. KORN, M . H . L.

Ella H . Philipson Fellow in American Jewish History

ARCHIVIST:SELMA STERN-TAEUBLER, PH. D.

Manuscripts For Consideration By the Publishers Should BeAddressed To:

DIRECTOR OF ARCHIVES, HEBREW UNION COLLEGECLIFTON AVENUE, CINCINNATI 20, OHIO

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The Program of theAmerican Jewish Archives

BY THE

During the late winter of 1947-in December-Dr. NelsonGlueck, President of theHebrew Union College, authorizedthe establishment of the AmericanJewish Archives. He appointed Dr.Jacob R. Marcus, the Adolph S.Ochs Professor of Jewish History,to serve as director; Rabbi Ber-tram W. Korn, the Ella H. Philip-son Fellow in American JewishHistory, to serve as associate direc-tor; and Dr. Selma Stern-Taeubler,the well-known historian of Ger-man Jewry, to serve as archivist.Prior to this time the only in-stitution devoted exclusively to thefield of American Jewish historicalresearch was the American JewishHistorical Society, founded in 1892.The activities of this organizationhave been pioneering ones; it hasalready published thirty-eight vol-umes of essays, source materials,and indices, thereby laying a foun-dation for scientific scholarship inthe field. No historian or sociolo-gist who attempts to understand theAmerican Jew can afford to neglectthese productions; they are basicand invaluable, although admitted-ly of uneven quality. The libraryof the American Jewish HistoricalSociety, situated in the city ofNew York, has an excellent collec-tion of both manuscripts andprinted records, but because of theaccident of its geographic situa-tion, it serves primarily, thoughby no means exclusively, thosewho dwell in the New Yorkmetropolitan area. The time hasnow come to make provision forthose students and researchersliving between the Rockies and theCumberland plateau, and to offer

study opportunities to the 1,100,-000 Jews living in the Mississippibasin.The creation of this new Jewishdepositary in Cincinnati, the oldestJewish settlement west of theAlleghenies, is but one phase ofthe inevitable geographic expan-sion of American Jewish culture.We may assume that it is but amatter of time before a similararchive will be established on thePacific coast. This Jewish academ-ic expansion is a repetition of thestory of the development of thegeneral -non-Jewish -Americanhistorical societies and archivesthroughout the nation. Today thereare literally hundreds of such or-ganizations and libraries through-out the land; several states havedozens; New York state alone has142 of them.The establishment of Jewishhistorical and archival centers isa particularly fortunate develop-ment. American Jewry is at thismoment the largest surviving bodyof Jews in any one country. TheseUnited States today shelter 5,000,-000 Jews, almost one-half of the11,000,000 who have survived theHitler era. American Jewry hasbecome th e "center" of worldJewish spiritual life. When theJewish historian of the next gener-ation reaches the year 1939, hewill begin a new chapter in thehistory of his people, a chapterwhich must be called, "The Ameri-can Jewish Center." This Jewishcommunity has now become thepivotal and controlling factor inthat historic development whichbegan in th e thirteenth pre-Chris-tian century in Palestine and has

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continued throughout the interven-ing centuries in Babylon, Spain andGermany-Poland. The p r e s e n tposition of American Jewry wasthrust upon it in 1939 when theJews of- Poland began to perishin the wake of the German inva-sion; its roots, however, as anAmerican Jewish expression, goback to the middle of the seven-teenth century and even earlier ifwe include those individuals whosailed w i t h C o l u m b u s , whomarched with Cortez, or who livedand died as crypto-Jews in thegreat settlements of South America,the Caribbean, Mexico and the oldSpanish southwest.

It is rare for a historian to begranted the privilege of watchingand "filming" history as it actuallyoccurs. Yet that is our privilegetoday. This is a young country;incredibly y o u n g. The G r a t zbrothers - distinguished enter-prisers who helped open the trans-Allegheny country in the eigh-teenth century-first came to theseshores in 1754, at a time whenthere were less than two millionsouls in the American colonies;today, in this land of one hundredand forty millions, there are hun-dreds of people still living whoenjoyed the friendship of, a n dlistened to the romantic reminis-cences narrated by, Mrs. TomHenry Clay, a granddaughter ofone of those merchant venturers.It is still possible today to col-lect considerable amounts of co-lonial Jewish material and thusto document much of the life ofAmerican Jewry from its very firstmoments. Only too often in thepast the study of Jewish historyhas been a post-mortem autopsy.We propose to collect the recordsof this great Jewish center, notafter it has perished, but whileit is still young, virile, and grow-

ing, It is a remarkable opportunityand challenge.

The study of American Jewishhistory is primarily the study ofthe interrelationship and interac-tion, within the life of the indi-vidual Jew and the Jewish com-munity, of the Jewish heritage andthe American environment. Juda-ism, the expression of Jewish life,took root 3500 years ago in a NearAsiatic environment. This religionand its followers have l i v e dthrough a variety of cultures andtremendous inner changes downto the present day. The AmericanJew with his composite back-ground, stemming from SlavonicEast Europe, or Germanic CentralEurope, or Iberian SouthwesternEurope, is now in the process ofevolving a type of Judaism in thisnew Anglo-Saxon, Christian en-vironment which will permit himto be all-Jewish and all-American.He is attempting to create a suc-cessful adjustment. The opportu-nity to observe this process in its"becoming" offers a fascinating andinstructive field of study.

The perception, analysis andrecording of the symbiosis of Juda-ism and Americanism is obviouslya part of American history. T o besure, it does not comport with theorthodox historiographic tradition.It will not have much to do withCongress, with statute law, withsieges and blockades, although in-dividual Jews have participated inalmost every event in Americanlife since the earliest days. ButAmerican history is also the recordof th e various social, religious,cultural, ethnic and racial groupswho have moved in crisscross fash-ion through the confusion of Ameri-can life. The story of this nationis not a straight Anglo-Saxon linebeginning in England and stretch-

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T H E PROGRAM OF T H E A M ER IC AN JE WI SH ARCHIVES

ing primly and unwaveringly acrossthe centuries. It is also the historyof a host of influences, peoples andinstitutions moving and darting infrom all angles and converging inone central agglomerative mass tocreate an American people a n depos.In this polilineal series, Ameri-can Jewry is but one hair-thin line,numerically small, but distinctlyvisible because of its early urbancharacter, its commercial proclivi-ties, its high degree of literacy, andits struggle for civil and economicliberties. Whether this small grouphas made any special "contribu-tion" to American life is yet tobe determined. We shall first haveto agree on a definition of theterm "contribution". But whateverthe definition, many of us are notparticularly interested in studyingAmerican Jewish history from thisviewpoint. Whether the immigrantJew came in 1654 to New Amster-dam or in 1924 to New York, weseelc to understand how he lived,how he worked, how he establishedhis own cultural-religious commu-nity, and how he interacted to thisnovel environment, creating a newJewish life and at the same timehelping to give birth to a newAmerican world.

In order better to understandand study the history of AmericanJewry, we shall have to study itslife as a "community". AmericanJewry is a "fellowship" (Gemein-schaft), a closely knit ethnic-re-ligious commonalty. (We do notmean a legally-recognized religiouscorporation like the EuropeanGemeinde or Kehillah, or theCatholic church in Quebec.) Thisliving-together of Jews finds itsmost tangible expression in thereligious core, the independent re-ligious congregation. The Ameri-can Jewish Archives, therefore, willconcentrate on t h e acquisition

and study of synagogal minutebooks, trustees' minutes, financialand cemetery records, charters,constitutions and their amend-ments, temple dedication and an-niversary booklets, and similarliterary materials. Since the leader-ship of these religious institutionswas frequently their most obviousform of expression, the Archiveswill also assemble collections ofrabbis' manuscript files, sermonnotes, and other rabbinical papers.Of course the synagogue doesnot exhaust the field of Jewishcorporate expression or communalmanifestation. While it is true tha toriginally all Jewish institutionswere religious in the sense thatthey operated within the peripheryof religious control and were osten-s i b 1y religiously motivated, itshould constantly be borne in mindthat with the dawn of th e FrenchRevolution and the breakdown ofthe oligarchical, corporate Jewishcommunity, the secular Jew andsecular Jewish societies made theirappearance. Today, therefore, thereare numerous American Jewishfraternities, lodges, Landsmann-schaften, and clubs of a cultural,social, philanthropic, economic, andcivic defense nature that havedrawn large numbers of Jews intotheir ambit. It is essential thatthe records of these organizations-at least typical examples-becollected and preserved.Every Jewish community is inmany ways the aggregate of aseries of individuals. Consequentlythe intensive study of the individ-ual is indispensable. We are inter-ested, therefore, in collecting thepapers and studying the lives andcareers of individual Jews andtheir families, particularly if weare able to trace them from theirearliest appearance on the Ameri-can scene. It is true that we shalloften enough find nothing specif-

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T H E PROGRAM OF TH E AM EK IC AN JE WI SH ARCHIVES

ically "Jewish". (W e are still notcertain that we can define thisadjective!) Any student of Ameri-can history knows that only toofrequently the typical Jew, likethe typical Catholic or Protestant,Swede or Italian, Mason or Knightof Columbus, is about 90 per centamporphously American and about10 per cent an example of hisspecific religious group, lodge, orclub. Very often-in the majorityof cases, to be exact-the recordsof an individual Jew do not throwany light on his relation to hisreligious past, or to the ethnic-nationalistic culture from which heor his forebears stemmed. The veryfact that many records of this typestudiously avoid all Jewish refer-ences is highly significant, for ifpersonal reminiscences like manu-script and privately printed auto-biographies do not express theJewish reactions of their authors,we may draw interesting conclu-sions about their conscious or un-conscious assimilation and sub-mergence into the main stream ofAmerican life. The larger Ameri-can history, particularly, will pro-fit from the preservation andexamination of this t y p e ofmaterial.

These Archives h a v e b e e nestablished primarily for the col-lection of manuscript and unpub-lished materials. It is not intendedto compete with the Hebrew UnionCollege Library-in whose build-ing it is houskd-in the assemblingof printed works touching on theAmerican scene. But, because ithas been designed to serve as aresearch center for establishedscholars, for students of the He-brew Union College, and for others

who wish to explore the AmericanJewish field, every effort will bemade to assemble-in open shelves-a working library of the stan-dard reference books on generaland American Jewish history wherethe scholar may find the essentialtools a t arm's reach. T o furtherthis purpose it is also planned tobuild up a file of American Jewishperiodicals, magazines and jour-nals. Gifts of significant generaland Jewish reference books, andof runs of American Jewish peri-odicals will therefore be gratefullyaccepted.In order to inform the interested- - ~~ --public and co-worker~in the fieldof American history of our pro-gress and activities, we will publishthis semi-annual bulletin : includ-ing lists of our more importantaccessions and, in each issue, atleast one article of scientificcalibre.We will welcome the coopera-tion of all persons interested in thisventure, whether laymen or schol-ars, and will gratefully welcomecontributions of funds and ma-terials, loans or copies of significantrecords, and above all we solicitreferences to Jews-however thatword may be defined-in thehistory of the United States.We seek to ascertain the factsas they actually are; and we desireto promote the study of thosematerials which will further aknowledge of the American Jew,not only for the purpose of und'er-standing this present period in themillenial history o f , the Jewishpeople, but also so that we maygrasp the ethos of Americanismand thus make another contribu-tion to the history of humanity.

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J E W I S H C H A P L A I N S D U R I N G T H E C I V I L W A R

cient number of Jews in any oneConfederate regiment to warrantthe election of a Jewish chaplain,but at least there was no legalbarrier to such an appointment.In this instance the ConfederateCongress was more liberal and tole-rant than its Washington counter-part, and it was in the North thatthe storm broke over the right ofJewish soldiers to chaplains oftheir own faith. The original Vol-unteer Bill, as reported t o the floorof the House, required that regi-mental chaplains, who were to be"appointed by the regimental com-mander on the vote of the fieldofficers and company commanderspresent," be "regularly ordainedminister [s] o f s o m e Christianden~mination."~On July 12, 1861,in a discussion of this proviso, anOhio Congressman m o v e d anamendment which would substitutethe phrase "religious society" forthe objectionable words "Christiandenomination." The Congressmanwas Clement L. Vallandigham whowas later to become notorious forhis leadership of the Copperheadmovement and who was eventuallyarrested by military o r d e r andexiled a c r o s s the Confederateborder. Apparently on his owninitiative and without any Jewishprompting, he spoke out clearly indefense of . Jewish rights. "Thereis a large body of men in thiscountry, and one growing contin-ually, of the Hebrew faith," hesaid, "whose rabbis and priests4. W a r of the Rebell ion: . . . Of fic ial Records ofthe Un io n and Confederate Armies, Washington1880-1901, 111, I, p. 154. (Hereafter abbreviatedas W R O R ).5. Congressional Globe, Washington 1861, 37thCongress, First Session, p. 100. Vallandigham latertook pleasure in re mi nd ~ng his fellow Congressmentha t he had called the injustice of this measure totheir attention months before they were deluged withprotests from their constituents: ibid, Second Session,Part I, pp. 156-7.6. T h e Israelite VIII, No. 3, p. 23, July 19, 1861.Perhaps this was yet another reason for Wise's un-abating opposition to the Republican adminisrrationand his mounting loyalty to the Democratic Party.Wise was willing to stand as Democratic nominee

are men of great learning andpiety, and whose adherents are asgood citizens and as true patriotsas any in this country." Amplify-ing his remarks, he denounced theunderlying implication of the billthat the United States is a Chris-tian country, in the political sense,and branded the law as entirelyunjust and completely "withoutconstitutional ~ a r r a n t . " ~Vallan-digham's appeal failed to move hisfellow members of the House, orperhaps they paid no attentionto his comments. At any rate, theyrejected his amendment and passedthe bill with its discriminatoryclause intact.This brief episode attracted verylittle notice. But perhaps becausehe also was an Ohioan and a mem-ber of the Democratic Party , RabbiIsaac Mayer Wise did grasp itssignificance. He labeled the quali-fication clause an "unjust violationof our constitutional rights" andapplauded Mr. Vallandigham forhis staunch advocacy of the Ameri-can conception of equality. ButWise was more furious than imag-inative and had no constructivesuggestion to offer to remedy thesituation. His fear of dictatorshipand of militarism ran away withhis confidence in democratic action,and he could only urge his readersto remember this deliberate act ofinjustice and to hold their indig-nation in check until the end of thewar, when surely they would befree to "square account^."^for State Senator in Ohio in the same election of1863 in which Vallandigham was narrowly defeatedfor the gubernatorial office. See thi s writer's essayon "Isaac Mayer Wise on the Civil Wa r" in HebrewUnion College Annual X X , Cincinnati 1947. A neditorial in the Jewish Messenger (X, No. 9, p. 68)on Nov. 1, 1861, indicates tha t its editors were notoblivious to the problem, but had failed to commentupon it because they were convinced that it was anoversight and that "no discrimination against ourco-religionists, was in any way intended, and . . . thatCongress, at its next session, will modify the act."Obviously the father and son editorial team, SamuelM. and Mye r S. Isaacs, were either ignorant of thefacts or blind to their meaning: Va llandigham'smotion was defeated -t he House had acted de-liberately.

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For all tha t Vallandigham, Wise,an d the few others who were inter-ested, knew, th e question of t heJewish chaplaincy would remain atheoretical one. Wise himself hadno inclination for personal militaryservice since he was totally anta-gonistic to the purposes of the war.Fortunately for America and theJew, however, the question did notremain a theoretical one and wasnot permitted to die for lack ofexcitement and interest.In September, 1861, less thanthree months after the House hadrefused to sanction the service ofJewish chaplains, a YMCA workerhappened to visit th e military campin Virginia where the 65th Regi-men t of the 5 th PennsylvaniaCavalry, popularly k n o w n as"Cameron's Dragoons", was tem-porarily stationed. He was horrifiedto discover th at a Jew, one MichaelAllen of Philadelphia, was servingas the regimental chaplain, andpromptly began such an agitationin the public press that ultimatelythe Assistant Adjutant General ofthe Army, George D. Ruggles, wasforced to state in writing his officialwarning that "any person musteredinto service as a chaplain, who isnot a regularly ordained clergy-man of a Christian denomination,will be at once discharged withoutpay or allowance."7 Allen felt sohumiliated that he resigned hiscommission on th e excuse of illhealth rather than suffer the dis-honor of dismissal from the serv-ice, but the clamor raised by thezealous YMCA worker brought th eissue before the public once a g a h 87. Phi ladelphia S u n d d y D t r p d t r h , O c to b e r 20, 1 8 6 1 .T h e r e w e r e undoubtedly many other cares in whichth e a p p o i n tm e n t of c h a p l a i n s of m i n o r i ty fa i th s wasattacked publ i c ly . Carl San dbu rg, in A b r a h a m Lin-coln: The W a r Y ea rs , N e w Y o r k 1 9 3 9 , 11. p . 2 3 0 .r e co r d s th e v i s i t t o W a s h i n g t o n o f a d e l e g a t io n o fP h i l a d el p h i a c l e r g y m e n t o u r g e L i n c o ln n o t t o a p p o i n ta certa in Universal i sr mini ster as chapla in , because"he bel i eves that even rebel s themselves wi l l bef i n a l l y s a v e d . "8. H i s r e s ig n a ti o n w a s a c ce p ted o n S e p t . 2 6 .

MICHAEL M. ALLEN0 b v i o u s l y, Allen had beenelected without any deliberate in-tent ion on th e part of his regiment'scolonel and officers to disobey thelaw. They were probably ignorantof the Congressional bill which

forbade them to designate a Jewishchaplain for their regiment eventhough the Commanding Officer,Colonel Ma x Friedman, and a largeproportion of his officers an d 1200men were Jewi~h.~And Allen hadbeen a very fitting choice for theoffice. Born in Philadelphia, No-vember 24, 1830, he was, fromS p e c i a l o r d er s N o . 79, H e a d q u a r te r s . A r m y o f th ePatomac, in R e co r ds o f t h ~ .War D e p t . , O f l i c r u fthc Adjlctnnt Gene ra l , Volsrne 4 0 3 . Orde r r an dS p ec ia l Order i , i n t h e N a t ~ o n a l A r c h iv e s .9 . W o l f , op. cir . , p p . 4 8 4 - 5 . T h e la w w a s p a ss e do n l y a f e w d a y s b e for e A l l e n e n l i s t ed (J u l y 1 8 . 1 8 6 1 .according to Rrrordr o f the V etrrunr Adnrin r t :a f ion ,WO 1 2 0 4 8 3 1 . in t h e N a t i o n a l A r c h i v e s ) . T h eoff i cers could hardly have known of rhe prohibi toryc l au s e . N e w York Tr brine, O c t . 3 1 , 1 8 6 1 .

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childhood, a pupil of the Rev.Isaac Leeser, the leading spokes-man of American traditional Juda-ism, and for a time he undertookto follow, under his rabbi's gui-dance, a regular course of studyfor the Jewish ministry. Evenafter he abandoned this ambition,and unlike many other erstwhilerabbinical students, he remainedclose to Jewish affairs and pre-served his relationship with Leeser.He taught classes for the Phila-delphia Hebrew Education Society,and substituted for Leeser as Hazan(Cantor) in the conduct of serv-ices, when that frequent travelerwas out of town. The Rev. SamuelM. Isaacs, editor of the JewishMessenger, wrote a few years laterthat Allen was "the only gentle-man not a c t u a 11 y a minister,accustomed and able to read theentire r i t u a 1 according to thePortuguese minhag [rite]. H ereally deserves credit for the alac-rity with which he has alwaysresponded to . . . calls [to act asHazan] , having frequently offici-ated at the Franklin street andSeventh s t r e e t Synagogues o fPhiladelphia, and occasionally atthe 19th street Synagogue of N.Y."1 As a layman, Allen took afurther leading role in Jewish com-munal affairs, and served as secre-tary to both the United HebrewBeneficial Society and the HebrewEducation Society."Surely there was no one in theentire regiment better equippedby training as well as inclinationto serve as its chaplain. Duringthe two months of his service, Al-len was not a Jewish chaplain, butthe regimental chaplain for menof all faiths. On the New Year,10. Jewirh Merrenger XIX, N o . 2 3 , p. 4, June1 5 , 1866 .11 . Zbid X , N o . 7 , p. 52 , Oct . 4, 1851; Henry S .Mora's, T h e J e w r of Philadelph'a, Fh!nd::.;i:ia 1894,p. 2 4 5 .12 . P . 5 of an c1:v.n page diary kept by Allen

the Day of Atonement, and theFeast of Tabernacles, as well ason the Jewish Sabbath, he went toWashington or Philadelphia to at-tend services. But on Sundays, heheld his non-denominational ser-vices, consisting of brief Scriptural~eadingsand a hymn or two, aswell as a sermon. An entry in hisdiary for Sunday, September 8,1861, reads:

"Arose at 5% am. Very cool, pleasantand invigorating. 'Fast of Gedaliah.' Did ,not fast, not feeling able to do so. Hadservice at 8 o'clock. Lectured on 'Peaceand Harmony.' All the officers and com-panies ware present under command ofLieut. Col. Becker, and they all in theiruniform looked very well."l2On that Jewish holiday, filledwith remembrances of the pain ofexile and the destruction of Jewishstatehood, the chaplain preacheda message about friendship and

consideration to his men, withouta single indication of the meaningof the day in his own religiousthinking!Indeed, one who reads over themanuscript copies of his sermons,preserved by his family, wouldnever know they were written bya devout Jew. Of course, there isno reference to Christianity or itscentral figure, but neither is thereany reference to the most pivotalof Jewish concepts. Theologically,his sermons approached the vari-ous aspects of religion; immortal-ity, ethics, faith, from a general andcommon Judaeo-Christian back-ground. They were realistic, prac-tical, down-to-earth talks, designedto touch the most basic problemsof men stationed only a few miles

from the battle-front: fear, restless-ness, d o u b t , and homesickness.during the weeks his regiment was encamped nearWashington, in the possession of Mrs. ClarenceMichael Al len of N . Y ., daughter in-law of M . M .Allen. Dr. David de Sola Pool of CongregationShearith Israel of N . Y . will present a paper o nthe diary as a whole a t a future meeting of theAmerican Jewish Historical Society.

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Chaplain Allen spoke of faith inGod, "our shield and our buckler. . . in the hour of battle, of danger,and of tribulation." He urged themto prepare for the strife by learningth e arts of th e soldier as conscien-tiously as they could, becausetheirs was a "good and just cause. . . to save our country from thehands of the spoiler;" but he alsopleaded for a spiritual preparationfor the death that surely facedsome of them. Never discussing'political issues as such, he never-theless took care that they cameto have some understanding of hisconviction that the Union was indanger, that the Confederacy wasa rebellion against the Constitu-tion, and that their erstwhile fel-low-Americans were now theirdeadly foes. He never avoided themost difficult subjects: desertion,sex, obedience to superiors, theevils of camp life, but tried as besthe could to impart a reasonable,loyal, and high ethical attitude tohis men. Reverence for Deity andlove of Scripture infused everysermon with a warmth and human-ity which must truly have "en-deared him to all." Those werewords used by his friend, Alfred T.Jones, who gave an address whenthe regimental colors were pre-sented to Col, Friedman by a groupof Philadelphia Jews in a formalceremony on September 10. Jonessaid further, in the ornate fashionof his day, that Allen "taught theWord of God with pure unadul-terated piety; he breathed into theears of his hearers no sectarianhatred toward others, but laboredzealously for their moral and spiri-tual welfare."13In a passage of one sermon, Al-len presented his own conceptionof some of the duties of the chap-lain :13. In a letter to the Phila. Sunday Dispatch, Oct.20 , 1861.

"I [must be] as one of you . . .I mustshare with you, the pleasures and priva-tions of a soldier's life, and I trust thatI shall be able to gain the esteem andconfidence of each and every one of you. . . [Since] there are many of you whoare good and loyal adopted citizens ofthis our country, and as there areamongst you those not very well convers-ant with the English language, I wishyou to consider me as your Teacher,and during your leisure hours in camp,should you wish to perfect yourself inthe vernacular language of this country,I will be glad and willing to impart allthe necessary information which my timeand abilities will permit."To teach, to inspire, in his ownhumble way-this was Allen'spurpose in serving as substituteRabbi, and as military chaplain.The "Cameron's Dragoons" weredeprived of a sincere and superiorreligious mentor when MichaelMitchell Allen was forced to resignhis office.On the other hand, we must not

overlook the fact that Allen wasdisqualified from serving as chap-lain for two reasons: he was nota Christian, it is true, but neitherwas he a "regularly ordainedclergyman." Even under the re-vised provisions of the followingyear which permitted rabbis toenter the military service, Allenwould still have been ineligible.An unknown Philadelphian, writ-ing a "letter to the editor" in aneffort to clarify the issue which hefelt had been unjustly confoundedby accusations of intolerance, in-sisted that Allen's appointmenthad been called into question notbecause of his faith but becausehe was "a liquor dealer . . . doubt-less a very worthy man, but noclergyman."14This editorial correspondent wasnot attempting to white-wash theWar Department. Great as theirexcitement about Allen had been,the original letter from the Y. M.14. Philadelphia S u n d q D i s p a t c h , Oct. 27. 1861.

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C. A. had not complained abouthim but about "a number ofChaplains in our Pennsylvaniaregiments [who] are entirely dis-qualified . . . for the high and im-portant position to which theyhave been raised;"l5 and Ruggles'letter nowhere specified the Allencase, although it undoubtedly in-cluded it. Indeed, the election ofnon-clergymen to the office ofchaplain plagued War Depart-ment officials and thoughtful Prot-estant leaders all during the war.It was a subject which obtainedrecognition and reference in manyinvestigation reports and exposes.The Paymaster General of theArmy, for i n s t a n c e , wrote toSenator Henry Wilson of Mass-achusetts on Dec. 5, 1861 that:

"I regret to say that very many hold-ing this position [of chaplain] are utter-ly unworthy . . . I think none should beappointed who did not come recom-mended by the highest ecclesiastical au-thority . . . It is said one regiment em-ploys a French cook, and musters him aschaplain to meet the expense . . . "16Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise tookgreat delight in quoting the asser-tion of a Presbyterian journal that"two thirds of the chaplains in thearmy are unfit for their place,"'7and offered his own personal tes-timony that at least two professedatheists of his acquaintance wereserving as chaplains.l8 One ofLincoln's private secretaries, W. 0.Stoddard, charged that militarychaplains were, for the most part,"broken down 'reverends,' longsince out of the ministry for in-competency or other causes, menwho could not induce any respect-15. Philadelphia Enquirer, Oct. 12, 1861, p. 8.16. WROR 111, I, p. 728.17. Presbyterian Banner, cited in The Isre e l i t e M ,No. 2, p. 14, J ~ d p11, 1862.

able church to place itself undertheir charge," and quoted Lincoln'sangry comment that "I do believethat our army chaplains, take themas a class, are the worst men wehave in the service."l8a

C o 1o n e 1 Friedman and hisofficers w e r e undoubtedly dis-tressed by this valid legal objec-tion which complicated their deter-mination to be served by a Jewishchaplain. They now realized thatAllen would have had no right toserve as chaplain even if the lawcould be stretched to permit Jewsto be elected to that position. Sothey resolved to try again. Thistime they would elect an ordainedrabbi, but they would also take theprecaution of electing a civilianwho would not so easily be fright-ened into resigning, and who wouldhave to apply directly to the Sec-retary of War for a commission.This would indeed be a test casewhich would determine whetherdiscriminatory legislation againstthe Jews was to be enforced withthe full knowledge and consent ofthe government and the people.Colonel Friedman lost no time inselecting the Rev. Arnold Fischelof New York City as the regiment'schaplain-designate. This was Mr.Fischel's introduction to the causecelebre in which he participatedfor many months. His service inthe Potomac area as a civilianchaplain, and his lobbying activ-ities in the nation's capitol as therepresentative of the Board ofDelegates of American Israelites,have been known for a long time,but the motivation behind hisapplication for a commission has18. T h e Z rr delite, VIII, No. 6, p. 45, Aug. 9,1861; No. .9,- p.,70, Aug. 30, 1861.. .18a. W. 0. Stoddard , "White House Sketches."N ew Y o r k C i t k e n , Oct. 6, 1866, quoted in David R.Barbee, "President Lincoln a n d Doctor Gurley,"Abraham Lincoln Quarterly , March 1948, p. 7.

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never been explained before.19 Thesimple truth is that he sought thecommission after his election bythe officers of the regiment, inorder to test the law and to securea public statement about Jewishrights in the matter. His applica-tion was denied, of course, and.ironically, the letter of rejection(warm and friendly as it was)was signed by the very same SimonCameron, Secretary of War, inw h o s e h o n o r the "Cameron'sDragoons" was r e c r u i t e d andnamed.20 T o be fair to Cameron,we must understand that he hadnot dictated the law and that hehad no choice about obeying it-but now there was no possibledoubt of the interpretation of thelaw, and American Jewry had torecognize it.These, then, are the circum-stances: The illegal election ofAllen; the expose by the YMCA;Allen's chagrined resignation; thenthe election of Fischel as a testcase; and, finally, the rejection ofhis application on the basis of thediscriminatory clause. This wasthe chain of events which con-fronted American Jewry in late1861 with the first instance of out-right discrimination and legal in-equity in the nation's history. Itwas a realistic situation, not atheoretical one, and it demandeda realistic solution. We shall nottake the time here to chronicleand evaluate the lobbying cam-paign which lasted for almost ayear and involved political pres-sures and techniques of everyknown variety, (and which alsorevealed the alarming degree to19. Jewish Messenger X, N o . 12, p. 93, Dec. 13 ,1861, and various items in the Board of Delegatesof American Israelites correspo?dence files in thelibrary of the American Jewish Historical Society(notably Letter N o . 37 from M yer S . Isaacs,

Secretary of the Board, to the Rev. Fischel, Nov.27, 1861) established the authenticity of his appoint-ment by the officers of the regiment. Some ofFischel's activ ities are chronicled in the mis-namedarticle by Myer S . Isaacs, "A Jewish Army Chap-lain,". in Publications of the American Jewish H 'r -

which a n a r c h y and indifferenceprevailed within American Jewry).Suffice it to say that, in July of1862, Congress finally modifiedthe chaplaincy requirements sothat any "regularly ordained min-ister of some religious denomina-tion" might, with the proper recom-mendations and qualifications, seekappointment as a chaplain.21 Thiswas, to the writer's knowledge, thefirst major victory of a specificallyJewish nature won by AmericanJewry in a matter touching theFederal government. But it wasmore than a Jewish victory andcertainly more than the recogni-tion of a blunder by Congress andthe erasure of a mistake. Becausethere were Jews in the land whocherished the e q u a 1i t y grantedthem in the Constitution, thepractice of tha t equality was as-sured, not only for Jews, but forall minority religious groups. AndMichael Allen, an innocent victimof national carelessness, was thedirect cause of that democraticvictory.

In July of 1862, then, it waspermissible for rabbis to apply forcommissions in either of two cate-gories; as regimental chaplains, oras members of the newly orga-nized hospital chaplaincy. And, asmight be predicted, it was not longbefore President Lincoln receiveda communication in this regard-amonth later, to be explicit. It wasa petition from the Board of Min-isters of the Hebrew Congrega-tions of Philadelphia, requesting

torical Society N o . 12 (1904), pp . 127-137. T h eRev. Fischel's contact as lecturer at the ShearithIsrael Synagogue in N . Y. was about to expire onOct. 31, 1861, and was not expected to be renewed.H e was, therefore, seeking a new position. ShedrithZrrael Trurteer' Minutes VI, p . 477, passim.20. Jewish Messenger X, N o . 12, p. 93, Dec. 13,1861. , .21 . WROR'III , I , p . 154 111, 111, pp. 175-6.

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th e appointment of a Jewish hos-pital chaplain for the Philadelphiaarea. This representative body hadmet on August 19, the letter said,and discussed the hospital prob-lem. Two soldiers of the Jewishfaith had already died without theconsolation of prayers by a Jewishclergyman, and, since Philadelphia

was increasingly becoming "a cen-tral d e p o s i t o r y for sick a ndwounded soldiers," more and moreJewish men would be sent to thosehospitals. Although the Board hadnow contacted the hospital officialsand were assured that their Secre-tary, the Rev. Isaac Leeser, wouldbe notified of the admission of

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Jewish wounded, they neverthelessbelieved it advisable that a Jewishchaplain be officially appointed,and they suggested further tha t hebe assigned not only to the Phila-delphia hospitals but also to thoselocated in "York, Harrisburg, Ches-ter, and other towns at not toogreat a distance."22John Hay, Secretary to Mr.Lincoln, wrote Leeser on Septem-ber 6 tha t the President "recognizesthe propriety of your suggestion,and will appoint a chaplain ofyour faith if the Board will desig-nate a proper person for the pur-pose." The Board of Ministers wascalled to conference again, andafter deliberating on the relativemerits of their varied membership,selected the Rev. Jacob Frankel,minister of Rodeph Shalom Con-gregation of Philadelphia, thenfifty-four years old, as their nom-inee for the commission. The Pres-ident was informed of this action,and Frankel's commission arriveda few days later, duly signed bythe President, together with allthe requisite papers and direc-ti0ns.~3 Thus, on September 18,1862, Jacob Frankel became thefirst American rabbi to be ap-pointed a military chaplain.The Rev. Frankel was a nativeof Griinstadt, Bavaria, where hewas born on July 5, 1808. Hisfamily was one with a long musicaltradition, and, at an early age,he set out ' on his first concerttour, through the Alsace-Lorainedistrict, with two brothers. His firstposition as cantor was in his nativetown. He next went to Mainz,where he remained for a number of22. Th e Occident X X , N o . 7, pp . 325-28, Oct . 1862.23. Ibid. The appointment was signed by the Presi-dent on Sept . 10, and forwarded by the SurgeonGenera l on Sept . 15 . Records of the W a r De pt. .Of fic e of the Adju tant General, in the Nat iona lArchives . Th e commiss ion printed on p. 13 wassent to Frankel two years later when his appointmentwas renewed.24 . Morais, op. c i t . , pp. 73-4; Edward Davis, T h e

years. In 1848, he applied for andwas elected to, the position ofMinister of Rodeph Shalom Con-gregation of Philadelphia. A pleas-ant and popular man, blessed witha stirring voice and a kindly dis-position, the Rev. Frankel w a sgreatly beloved by his congrega-tion, and served it well until hisretirement from the active min-istry a year before his death onJanuary 12, 1887. Contemporarydescriptions of his gentle charac-ter and mild manner render iteasy to understand why his fellowrabbis selected him from amongtheir number to be honored withthe chaplaincy assignment. Furtherevidence of his popularity can bediscovered in the results of a good-humored election, in 1866, for themost popular rabbi in Philadel-phia, incidental to a raffle to raisemoney for the new Jewish hospital.The Rev. Frankel's friends boughtso many tickets that he had morevotes than all the other ministersc0mbined.~4Frankel's service as a chaplainextended for almost three years,until July 1, 1865, when the warhad I t was, of course, onlya part-time activity, and his fellowrabbis assisted him in visiting thev a r i o u s military hospitals.26 Asmall fund was placed at his dis-posal for purchasing inexpensivegifts and necessities for the men hevisited, but the men were mostgrateful for the gift of his voice.Frequent were the occasions whenthey asked him to sing during hisrounds in the hospitals; and manywere the men, wounded and well,who came to his synagogue when-His tory o f Rodeph Shalom Congregation, Philadel-phia 1802-1926, Phila. 1926, pp. 61, 98-100.ZF. Records o f the W ar Dcpr ., Of f i c e of the Adju-tant General, in the National Archives .26 . Se e the Rev. Leeser's pass, addressed to "Surgeonsin Charge of U S A General Hospitals , Departmentof the Susquehanna," requesting that he be permittedto visit sick Jewish soldiers, signed March 30, 1864.In Dropsie College Library, Leeser Collection.

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ever they could to hear his in-spired chanting of the service. Asbest he could, Chaplain Frankelarranged for religious furloughsfor ambulatory cases during theHigh Holy Days and at the Pass-over. In his typical summarizingstyle, Leeser wrote, after Frankelwas mustered out, that the latterhad "faithfully discharged the du-ties incident to the office, and theJewish soldiers in the hospitalsin this vicinity were properly caredfor under his ~ u p e r v i s i o n . " ~ ~Frankel so cherished this war-timeexperience that he framed his com-mission, signed by Lincoln andStanton, and had it hung on thewall of his home, where it remaineduntil his death. I t has been a treas-ured possession of his family eversince.Frankel and the other Jewishhospital chaplain who served dur-ing the Civil War have all but beenignored by writers who have some-how assumed that because it wasdifferent, the hospital chaplaincywas inferior to the regimental chap-laincy. This is a historical errorcompletely unwarranted by t h efacts. Both hospital and field chap-lains were enrolled in the volunteerarmy and were appointed to officeon temporary commissions. Indeed,all hospital chaplains were com-missioned by the President and theWar Department, whereas manyregimental chaplains w e r e ap-pointed by governors and otherstate officials. Equal remunerationwas provided for both types ofservice by Congressional law-thepay of a cavalry captain-butneither was responsible for the mili-tary duties of that rank. The same27. The Occ ident XXII, N o . 5, pp. 234-5, Aug.1865. Other details f mm miscellaneous clippings inthe possession of Mr. Joseph Frankel, N . Y ., grand.son of Jacob.28. General Orders of the W ar Deparrment , 1861-1863 , New York 1864, I, p. 177. Allen wore auniform (see p. 8 ) , as did certain other chaplains,

uniform regulations were applied tothe chaplain in the field and thechaplain in the hospital: neitherwore a military uniform; they wereboth instructed to wear their custo-mary civilian garb.28Hospital chap-lains were subject to the same typeof military discipline as regimentalchaplains, and were equally re-sponsible to their military superiors.For purposes of centralized effi-ciency, all hospital chaplains weresubordinate to the Surgeon Generalof the Army, and assigned by himto hospitals in the cities of theirresidence, where, in turn,they weresupervised b y t h e Surgeons in~harge .~9Regimental chaplains, onthe other hand, were subject to theorders of their colonels. I t was afortunate decision to place all hos-pital chaplains under a s i n g l eauthority, for they could never havesuccessfully fulfilled their essentialrole within the complicated andoften contradictory structure o fstate and national military auth-ority.Much of the confusion regardingthe two types of appointments hasresulted from the very history ofthe hospital chaplaincy itself: itwas new for the entire country aswell as for the American-Jewishcommunity. No such office had ex-isted prior to the Civil War, andCongress alone might never havecreated it even then. The urging ofvarious Protestant ministers and ofArchbishop John Hughes of NewYork30 was necessary to convincePresident Lincoln of the desirabil-ity of such a new departure andthen he did not wait for Congres-sional action; instead he requestedcertain clergymen to act as hospitalbecause he had enlisted as an officer of the linebefore his election as chaplain.29. For the military orders concerning the appoint-ment and assignment of hospital chaplains, see W R O R111, 11, pp. 67, 222, 276; IV,rn, p. 496.30. See Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: Th e W a rYears, 11, p. 44, for pertinent quotations fromLincoln's correspondence on this subject.

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chaplains, and pledged that at thefirst opportunity he would pressCongress to legalize their appoint-ments. He fulfilled his promise inhis Annual Message to Congress onDecember 3, 1861, and such a billwas finally enacted in May 1862,(without any denominational pro-visions), a short time before the billwas passed which revised the regi-mental chaplaincy qualifications.31

I11In his report to the readers of

The Occident informing them ofthe steps taken to secure a com-mission for the Rev. Frankel, IsaacLeeser had urged his colleagues inNew York, Baltimgre, St. Louis,and Cincinnati, to organize them-selves as the Philadelphia rabbishad, and to apply in a similarfashion for Jewish chaplaincy ap-pointments for the benefit of theJewish soldiers in their areas.32This suggestion was never adoptedby those rabbis, but another repre-sentative Jewish body did makeapplication for a hospital c h a plaincy. The Board of Delegates of' American Israelites, through i t sPresident, Henry I. Hart, petitionedthe President on October 6, 1862,for an appointment as h o s p i t a 1chaplain for the Rev. Arnold Fis-chel, who had, from December of1861 to the following April, carriedon such duties in the Potomac areaas the civilian representative of theBoard, in much the same capacityas Jewish We'f sre Board workersduring World Wars I and 11. Fis-chel richly deserved such officialrecognition for his noteworthy andunique activities. His work hadcome to a halt only because themember congregations of the Boardfailed to contribute adequate funds

to pay his expenses. But now thatchaplaincy appointments were ob-tainable it was more than fittingthat the Board should recommendhim to Mr. Lincoln and ask that hebe assigned to the hospitals inWashington and v i c i n i t y withwhich he was already so familiar.This letter of application33 wasendorsed by John Hay, Lincoln'ssecretary, in these words: "ThePresident directs me to refer theenclosed to the notice of the Sur-geon General and to i n q u i r ewhether a J e w i s h chaplain isneeded here." No other notationwas made on the letter and thereis no answer to it in the files ofthe Board of Delegates' corres-pondence which have been care-fully preserved.At any rate, Fischel never re-ceived a commission and neverserved as a military chaplain. Thenoteworthy, service he performedwas as a civilian. Our knowledgeof his later career is extremelyhazy, but it is reported that hereturned to Holland shortly afterthis episode, although the date isuncertain.34This was a disappoint-ing conclusion to the war careerof a rabbi who should, by virtu-of his interest in, and efforts inbehalf of, the Jewish soldiers ofthe Union Army, have been privi-leged ultimately to serve as anofficer of that Army.There were not enough rabbisin Louisville, Kentucky, to form aBoard of Ministers, but the entireJewish community of Louisvillewas conscious enough of the Jewishwar wounded in Kentucky hospitalsto initiate a public movement tosecure the appointment of a Jewishchaplain for that area. Prominentnon-Jewish citizens joined together

31. WROR 111, I, pp . 712 , 721. 34. Myer S. Isaacs, "A Jewish Army Chaplain," inP A J H S , N o . 1 2 (1904), pp . 130-1. The Jewish32. X X , N o . 7, pp. 325-28, Oct. 1852. Record reported several times t!mt Fis:hel inte ndedto return to America, but these e~ p:- tat ion s were33. N o . 18878-9 of rh ? Robe!t To dd Lincoln Col- never fulfilled. See, for example, V, N o . 2 2 , p. 2,lection, Manuscript Divis ion, L~brary of Congress. Feb. 24, 1865.

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with Jews, and urged Robert Mal-lory, a Kentucky member of theHouse of Representatives f r o m1859 to 1865, to seek a commissionfor the Rev. Bernhard H enry Gott-helf, th e rabbi of Adath I s r a e 1Congregation of Louisville. Thispublic movement coincided withthe furore over General Grant'santi-Jewish General Order No. 11which had so many repercussionsin the state of Kentucky- indirectevidence that th e majority of non-Jews in this area where Jews wereaccused of disloyalty did not shareth e suspicions of Grant's staff of-ficers. T he petition met with suc-cess and the Rev. Gotthelf receivedhis appointment on May 6, 1863,although his commission dated hisrank from February 16.35The Rev. Gotthelf, born in Ba-varia on February 5, 1819, hadcome to the United States at theage of twenty-one, and served con-gregations in the East, includingKeneseth Israel of Philadelphia,, ofwhich he was the first cantor andpreacher, prior to his call to Louis-ville in 1851. After the Civil Warhe moved to Vicksburg, M i s s .,where he ministered to A n s h eC h e s e d Congregation until hisdeath in 1878, a victim of the yel-low fever epidemic which sweptthe whole Southland tha t year. Theinscription on his tombstone re-cords his life and charac ter in theselaudatory terms: "a wise teacher,a faithful minister, a tender hus-band, a devoted father, a g o o dman."36So successful had been the cam-paign to convince the Americanpublic of the right of rabbis toserve as military chaplains, thatth e news of Mr. Gotthelf's ap-pointment was noted in the publlc35. The Israelite IX . N o . 45, p. 357, M a y 15,1863: Records o f the War Department, O f f i e ofthe Adjntant General, Vo l. XI, O ff ice rs of SignalCorpr and Horp'tal Chaplarnr, In the NationalArchives.36. Letters from Rabj i Stanley Br a v , Vicksburg.

BERNHARD H. GOTTHELFpress, although cheplaincy appmnt-ments (for Christians, at least jwere by that date quite common-place. The editor of the LouisvilleJournal celebrated the occasion inthese words:

"An Excellent Appointme7t.-We aregratified to announce that President Lin-coln has appointed the Rev. B. Got thd f ,the minister of the Ger man Jewish Con-gregation of this city, as Hospital Chap-lain, to be stationed here. T h e fact th ata very respectable number of Jewishsoldiers have been and still are receivingmedical treatmen t a t our hospitals hav-ing been brought t o the notice of t heHon. Robert Mallory, he made an appli-cation for the appointment of Mr. Gott-helf, which we took pleasure, with othorcitizens, in endorsing. Th ese invalids ca nnow e njoy the instruction an d consolationof a m inister of their own fait h, and weare, therefore, convinced that the ap-pointment was as t imely as i t is wellmerited."37O c t . 23. 1947, an d 1Mr. Harold Gotthelf (grandsonof the rabbi). Vicksburg, N ov . IS. 1947: KrnescthIsrael 90t h Anniversary Booklet, Phila. 1937.37. Cited in Th e Israelite IX . N o . 45, p. 357, M a y15, 1863.

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A careful search for f a m i l ypapers and examination of con-temporary periodicals has disclosedonly one interesting detail of theR e v . G o t t h e l f ' s twenty-eightmonths of chaplaincy service (hewas mustered out of the Army onAugust 26, 1865). Since the re-sponsibility of the Civil War chap-lain towards his men included theprovision of various items of com-fort and entertainment, the Rev.Gotthelf was eager to obtain read-ing matter for his men, most ofwhom were German-Jewish immi-grants. During January and Feb-ruary of the final year of the war,he made a tour of the larger Jewishcommunities of the midwest tosecure donations in cash, and inbooks, to establish German lang-uage libraries in the various mili-ta ry hospitals under his jurisdiction.An editorial in The Israelite endors-ing the purposes of this trip con-veyed the information that "thereare almost always from 2,000 to3,000 sick and wounded Germansoldiers in [the Louisville] hos-pitals, among them from 200 to300 I~raelites."3~Undoubtedly thelibraries were to be assembled forth e use of all German-speakingpatients, non-Jews as well as Jews.Perhaps this was the first exampleof that type of non-denominationalservice which Jewish chaplains andwar service agencies rendered sofrequently during the subsequentwars of the United States.In Cincinnati, at least, RabbiWise's assurance that "Mr. G., wellknown to our readers, will find theencouragement this m a t t e r de-serves," was not disappointed. BethEl Lodge of B'nai B'rith appointeda special committee to assist Mr.38. XI, No. 30, p. 237, Jan. 30 , 1865.39. Ibid . , No. 34, p. 269, Feb. 17, 1865.40. Ibid . , No. 39, p. 309, March 24, 1865.41. R e cor dr o f the W a r De p t . , O f f i c e of the A d-

Gotthelf in the project, as did otherJewish lodges in the community.There is no record of the othercities which Gotthelf visited, or ofthe general success of his tour,39but the whispered word of criti-cism, which seems to make the livesof so many rabbis miserable, pur-sued even this meritorious missionof beneficence. One William Krieg-shaber of Louisville was compelledlater to send a public letter of re-traction to Th e Israelite, apologiz-ing for some bitter reflections onthe character of the Rev. Gotthelfand of his mission which he hadwritten to friends in Cin~innati.4~This episode marks the sum totalof the information available con-cerning Gotthelf's military career.I t was unfortunately typical ofJewish interests during the CivilWar that once Jewish chaplainswere appointed, their work was allbut ignored by the Jewish press,and the more glamorous militaryexploits of individual Jews receivedthe greater amount of publicity.

So incomplete has our knowledgeof the Civil War chaplaincy beenthat no notice has been taken ofthe one rabbi who did serve as aregimental chaplain. On April 10,1863, the Rev. Ferdinand Sarnerenlisted in the Army at Brooksstation, Va., for three years, andwas immediately elected chaplainof the 54th New York VolunteerInfantry.4l On the same day, hesent off notes to the editors of TheIsraelite and Th e Occident tellingthem of his appointment a n dchange of address. They lost notime in passing on the news to theirjutant General, in the National Archives, and theRecords of the Adjutant General of the Division ofMilitary and Naval Affairs of the State of NewYork, Albany.42. The l r r ae l i f e IX, No. 43, p. 338, April 31,1863; T h e O c c i d e n t XXI, No. 2 , May 1863, p. 96.

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FERDINAND L. SARNERWho was Ferdinand LeopoldSarner-this rabbi who has nevereven been mentioned in our stand-ard American Jewish history texts,an d who yet achieved, without a nygreat influence, that appointmentover which all American Jewry hadbeen aroused only a year before?

A year-long search for descendantsled the writer to Mrs. M a r t h aSarne r Levy of Bradford, Pa., hisseventy-six yea r old daughter, whohas generously contributed variousdocuments and reminiscenceswhich help to outline his life-facts.Ferdinand Sarner was born inLissa, Posen, on F ebruary 8, 1820,43the son of a humble tanner. Benton securing a modern academictraining, he firs t s tudied at t h eGymnasium in Hamburg. In July,1851, he entered th e Royal Fried-rich Wilhelm University in Berlin.

Th er e he remained for three years,undertaking a difficult course ofstudies particularly in the field ofphilosophy. I n 1854 he proceededon to th e University of Hesse wherehe studied for four more years,finally passing the examinations in1858 and achieving the covetedD o c t o r of Philosophy degree.Meanwhile, in 1856, he had beenelected rabbi of the congregationof Battenfeld, an d was thereforeconcurrently student and spiritualleader for two years. H e retainedthis position for a very short timethereafter, and was ready to leavefor America by January, 1859, withthe blessings of the Mayor of thetown inscribed on his travel permitin formal documentary language,and his diplomas and certificatespacked securely in his luggage.This was, however, not the firsttime he had planned a trip to theUnited States. I n 1850, he hadsecured a passport marked f o rPittsburgh, Pa., but e v i d e n t 1ychanged his mind and decided toremain in Europe at least until hehad taken advantage of Germanacademic opportunities.Almost immediately upon hisarrival in the United States, hesecured the position as rabbi ofB r i t h Kodesh Congregation inRochester, N. Y., where he servedably for about a year. Upon hisresignation from that post in July.1860, two formal resolutions werepresented to him: one b y t h eofficers an d members of the con-gregation, t he o ther b y th e Board ofTrustees. Both paid high tribute tohis ministrations. He had conductedhimself "in the most virtuous andexemplary fashion," the congrega-tion testified, adding that " h i sbeautiful lectures have been fullof instruction and never failed t o

4 3 . T h ~ sis th e date an his passport. H e told the t h a t he was then 3 8 ! He undoubt e d l y want e d toA r m y authorities at the time of his enl is tmen t In 186 3 avoid any questlo" of h i s be ing t oo o l d r o e n l i s t .19

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inspire his hearers with a true senseof our holy religion." No doubt inorder to preclude any suspicionthat he had been dismissed by the,congregation, i t was e x p 1i c i t 1ysta ted that he had "voluntarily re-signed his office as our Rabbi,thereby causing his n u m e r o u sfriends and admirers great sorrow."The Trustees' resolutions recordedthese same sentiments in o t h e rwords, but they also added theirrecommendation of Dr. Sarner "toevery Congregation in this Coun-try", expressing their belief thathe was "an excellent scholar, an elo-quent lecturer, and a good, trulyreligious man, for whom we shallever bear the kindest feelings."Virtually nothing is known ofSarner's activities between 1860and 1863, beyond the fact that hisapplication for the position of rabbiof the Anshi Chesed Congregationof New York City was tabled byits Board of Trustees on June 2,1861.44 But perhaps he had takento haunting the government agen-cies in Washington, for a traveler'sreport to The Israelite mentioneda meeting with him in mid-1861 inthe Capitol building. This reportercommented that Sarner was notonly a "learned" man, but that hewas also "the author of severalplays."45At any rate, Sarner was electedto the chaplaincy of the 54th N. Y.Volunteer Regiment, also knownas the "Hiram Barney Rifles" andthe "Schwarze Yager", on April 10,44. Anrhi Chesed Board o f Trus leer Minutes , 1816-1866, p. 414.45 . VIII, N o . 18, p. 141, Nov. 1, 1861.46. Copy o f the certificate in the Records o f theW a r De p t . , O f f i c e of the A d ju tan t Ge ne r a l, in theNational Arch~ves.47 . A Record of the Cotnmisrioned Off icer s , N o s -Commiss ioned O ff ic er s and Pr ivates of the Regi-ments which were organized in he Stdte of NewY o r k . . . T o A sr i st in Suppr e ss ng the R e be ll ion. . . Albany 1864, 11, pp. 407-427.48. Both documents are found in the Records of theW a r D e p t . , O f f i c e of t h e A d j u ta n t G e ne ra l , in theNat ional Archives. Manuscript evidence can be dis-

1863. The meeting of regimentalofficers required by law was heldon that day, and the assembledo f f i c e r s certified his electi0n.4~Strangely enough, only a possiblethree of the thirteen officers whosigned the document were Jews.An examination of the muster-rollsof enlisted men, company by com-pany, reveals the fact that Jewswere a small minority in the entireWhy they should havepreferred a Jewish Chaplain is aquestion which it is impossible toanswer with any categorical cer-tainty. Perhaps, since the regimentwas composed almost exclusivelyof German immigrants, the officersdeemed the language their chaplainused in his sermons, and his educa-tional background, more importantthan the faith he professed. Indeed,one of the documents which he hadpresented when first interviewedby the officers was a letter from thePrussian Ambassador in Washing-ton, certifying to his German aca-demic attainments, and when hewas examined by a board of chap-lains on May 15, his colleaguesseem to have been impressed bythe evidence he presented that hewas a graduate of "two of the Ger-man Uni~ersities."~~This emphasismight indicate that the regimentalofficers were more concerned tosecure the services of a culturedGerman, than of a chaplain of aparticular denomination.The 54th Infantry had an activecombat career. During the year andconce:tingly erroneous: the board of chaplains alsocertified that Sarner was "a regularly ordained min-ister of the Lutheran Church"! ! Were we not cerainthat he was a rabbi previous to and subsequent tohis service in the Army, and did we not knowthat he was in contact with contemporary Jewishperiodicals (which would surely have received reportsof his apostasy i such had been the c ase), theremight be a possibility that the chaplains knew betterthan we. Perhaps they tar assumed that a regimentcomposed of a majority of German Gentiles wouldelect a Protestant chaplain. It is barely possiblethat Sarner spoke such poor English that he couldnot make them understand he was a rabbi. What -ever the reason for such an error, it is enough toma!ce a researcher shudder for the accuracy of other"certified" evidence.

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a half of Sarner's service, the regi-ment saw action a t Chancellorsvilleand Gettysburg, and in the invasionof South Carolina. Of all the detailsof his chaplaincy experience duringdays of battle and weeks of restand then intensified preparation,we know only that he himself waswounded at Gettysburg. A singleline to that effect was printed inThe Jewish Record of New Yorkon Jan. 15, 1864, with the hypo-thetical guess that "Dr. Sarner isprobably the first Rabbi who vol-untarily took a part in a fight sinceRabbi Akiba." A more elaboratereport of the incident appeared inthe French-Jewish monthly, Ar-chives Israelite,+' stating that dur-ing the battle, Sarner's "horse waskilled under him, and he himselfreceived a dangerous wound, fromwhich he subsequently recovered;this was the result of the verycourageous manner in which heconducted himself during that ter-rible battle." Although he wouldundoubtedly have served out hisperiod of enlistment, or at leasthave seen the end of the war withhis regiment, the wound apparentlydid not heal for a long time, andhe was ultimately discharged onOctober 3, 1864, to date from July31, for physical disability.50 Butwe have not yet finished with thewound, although it is the o n 1ysingle shred of detail which hasbeen ascertained about Sarner'smilitary career.After his discharge, the ex-Chap-lain returned to New York City anddelivered guest lectures in variouspulpits. I t was not long, however,before he was engaged in a newventure. Jointly with the R e v .49. X X V , p . 135, Feb. 1, 1864.50. Headquarters of the Army, Adjutant General'sOf f ice , Spec la1 O de rs N o . 330, Paragraph 36,October 3, 1864. Dr. Sarner apparently left campbefore this order had been transmitted to him, underthe impression that it would be forwarded. Thismade him tech n~c ally absent without leave, and i nMarch, 1869, the Adjutant General's Office finally

Jacob Levi, rabbi of the Society ofConcord Congregation of Syracuse,he undertook to edit and publisha new German-Jewish monthly,The Rebecca, and to travel in itsbehalf for funds and subscriptions.Leeser, in his review of the firstnumber of this periodical, noted ,,that part of a drama was includedin its contents, that it was obviouslymore of a literary journal than areligious one, and that what therewas of a religious nature smackedtoo much of religious liberalism tosuit his taste.51 Another contemp-orary went into the more practicaldetails of its publication, affordingus a valuable insight into its prob-lems which we would otherwise notpossess, since no single copy of TheRebecca has s u ~ v e dthe neglectof the intervening years:

" . . . Notwithstanding the attractivefeatures of the paper, however, and theability with which it seems to be edited,still there seems to be some difficulty inthe way of it s continuation. For, in thesecond number the publisher informs usthat the appearance of the third numberof 'The Rebecca' is postponed until. Dr.Sarner returns from a journey, which heis about to make in search of subscribers.He says that each number of the papercosts the sum of $92, and that it will beuseless to continue its publication unlessthe subscription lists are increased. Thisis but another example of the difficultiesthat await those who attempt to publishJewish periodicals in America. For it isan undeniable fact that, however gener-ous the Israelites may be in other mat-ters, they always seem loth to encouraget h e establishment o f Jewish news-papers."52

It was during this trip whichmight mean life or death for TheRebecca, (and which did mean itsdemise, since no further issues arerecorded), that Dr. Sarner's war-compared its records of his service, revoked the orderfor his honorable discharge on account of disabiliry,and l isted him as discharged for being absent withoutleave. Adjutant General's Offic e, Special O r d mN o . 63, March 18, 1869, in the National Archives.51 . T h e Occident XXII, N o . 9, p. 420, Dec. 1864.5 2 . Th e Jewish Record V , N o 15 , p. 2, Jan . 6, 1865.

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wound became the subject of ascandalous accusation. In Cleve-land, where he attempted to securenew subscribers, he apparently se-cured a few especially v i c i o u senemies instead. One of them, B.Dettelbach, Secretary of the Boardof Trustees of the Anshe ChesedCongregation, wrote an open letterto The Israelite, denouncing t h etraveling rabbi-editor as a liar anda slanderer. Part of the evidenceconcerned the Gettysburg wound:"On his last visit to our city, beingrequested to state the cause of hislameness, he [Sarner] very piouslyremarked, to have been woundedin a battle in the service of theUnited States. Unseen by him,though, he has been observed walk-ing as erect as an arrow! Why thisdeception? Why this denial oftruth? . . . Does he think thatsuch malicious expressions of false-hood will either benefit him or hissheet?"53 Undoubtedly Dettlebach'scomments were the malicious, slan-derous ones; a few weeks later,another Anshe Chesed Trustee, Ab-raham Bloch, wrote that the meet-ing out of which the letter (signed"by order of the Trustees") hadproceeded was an illegal one, andthat if there was any quarrel it wasonly between Rabbi G. M. Cohen53 . XI, No. 31 , p. 244, J an 27, 1865.

(of the congregation), Mr. Dettle-bach and Sarner, and, furthermore,purely of a private nature.54The further details of Sarner'spost-war career are not altogetherin order. His daughter remembersthat he taught languages a t variousschools in New York, and thereare indications that he continuedpreaching from time to time invarious synagogues. He becamerabbi of the Beth-El Emeth Con-gregation in Memphis, Tenn., some-time during 1872 and ministeredthere until his death on August 18,1878, when he fell victim to thesame yellow fever epidemic whichtook the life of B. H. Gotthelf.Little remains of Rabbi Sarner'scareer: some faded documents; thememories of a loving daughter;typical rabbinical souvenirs of theperiod: a silver butter dish, a goldheaded cane and a large waterservice, presented to him on specialoccasions and engraved i n h i shonor. But the hundreds of rabbiswho served with United S t a t e scombat units during World War I1may remember with pride theirpredecessor -the first of a longand honorable line who have servedtheir nation and their faith withcourage and blood--Chaplain Fer-dinand Leopold Sarner.54. The lrraelite XI, No . 34, p. 269, Feb. 17, 1865.

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AcquisitionsAlthough the American JewishArchives was established just aboutsix months ago, it has already as-sembled a small collection of im-portant historical manuscripts sentin by various congregations, organi-zations, and private persons, someas gifts, others as permanent loans,some in their original form, othersas photostatic or typewritten copies.Among the more important ac-cessions are about fi fty congrega-

tional minute-books which are nowavailable in photostatic form. Mostof the records of this type were sentin by communities here in the Mid-dle West but there are also anumber from other parts of thecountry.Of interest and of particularimportance for the student of earlyAmerican Jewish history are thefollowing minute-books :Mikve Israel Congregation, Phil-adelphia, Pa., 1782-1936Mickve Israel Congregation, Sa-vannah, Georgia, 1790-1912H e b r e w Benevolent Society,Cincinnati, Ohio, 1838-1889Brith Sholom Congregation, Eas-ton, Pa., 1843-1929 (German andEnglish)B'nai El Congregation, St. Louis,1847-1886 (German)Sherit Israel Congregation, SanFrancisco, Calif. 185 1-1900Congregation Share Shamayim,Madison, Wisconsin, 1856-1922Congregation Kahl Montgomery,Montgomery Ala., 1858-1893 (Ger-man and English)Beth Israel Congregation, Jack-son, Michigan, 1861-1874

B'nai Israel Congregation, Elmi-ra, N. Y., 1862-1929Temple Beth Zion Congregation,Buffalo, N. Y., 1866-1910Congregation R o d e f Shalom,Youngstown, Ohio, 1867-1874A n s h e Chesed Congregation,

Scranton, Pa., 1868-1889 (Ger-man)Hebrew Benevolent Congrega-tion, Atlanta, Georgia, 1877-1899For the student of the AmericanJewish Reform movement and ofthe educational, religious, and cul-tural trends of the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries, thefollowing congregational minute-books are available :Anshe Emeth, Piqua, Ohio, 1874-

1920Temple Beth El, San Antonio,Texas, 1874-1910B'nai Sholem, Huntsville, Ala.,1876-1893Temple Israel, Paducah, Ky.,1880-1910B'rith Sholom, Louisville, Ky.,1880-1915 (English and German)Kol Sherith Israel, Republic of

Panama, 1886-1917B'nai Jehuda, Kansas City, Mo.,1895-19 16B'nai Brith, Los Angeles, Calif.,1895-1929Sons of Israel, Bellaire, 0 h i o ,1896-1918Beth S h o 1e m , Danville, Va.,1893-1930Beth El Congregation, Alexan-

dria, Va., 1904-1943B'nai Israel, Kalamazoo, Mich.,1907-1924Temple Beth El, South Bend,Ind,, 1919-1935North Shore Congregation Israel,Glencoe, Ill., 1920-1938B'nai Abraham, Decatur, I 1I. ,1920-1927Temple Sinai, Sioux City, Iowa,1925-1936Temple Israel, New Castle, Pa.,1926-1928B'nai Israel, Galveston, Texas,192 1-1937Congregation Habonim, N e wYork, N. Y., 1941-1945

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Temple Emanu-El, Tucson, Ariz., vereins of the Congregation, The1910-1945 Gates of Prayer, Lafayette, La.,House of Israel, Staunton, Va., 18491885-1947 A valuable gift-for which weHoly Blossom Temple, Toronto, wish to express our thanks toCanada, 1890-1912 Temple Sinai and to the Rev. Dr.Temple Emanu-El, Chicago, Ill., Julian B. Feibelman of New Or-1900-1910 leans -are the manuscript ser-The Temple on the Heights, mons, addresses, and lectures ofCleveland, Ohio, 1891-1904 (Ger- R a b b i James Koppel Gutheimman ) 1817-1886). Included in this col-We are particularly grateful to lection are his:the congregational officers, rabbis, "Installation Sermon" 18 5 4 ;and other interested persons who "Eulogy of Judah Touro" 1854,made it possible for us to collect delivered in Temple Ohabei Sha-or to copy these record books which lom, Boston; his "Installation Ser-we have just listed. mon" in Temple Emanu-El, NewB e s i d e s these minute-books, York, 1872; his Thanksgiving Ser-which include also the constitutions mon" relating to the Franco-Prus-of the organizations as well as many sian War, delivered a t T e m p 1edocuments and letters connected Emanu-El, New York 1870; h i swith the inner life of the communi- German Lecture on Schiller, deliv-ties, the Archives is in possession ered in New Orleans, 1859; hisof manuscript congregational his- Sermons on Reform Judaism, ontories of which the following are Moses Mendelssohn, on Theology,typical : delivered on various occasions; his"The 50 years of the Congrega- "Translations of some chapters oftion Ahaveth Chesed, Jacksonville, Graetz," his "Biblical Translations,"Fla., organized and chartered Feb- and his "Notes for Lectures onruary 1882" Jewish History." A number of clip-"History of the Congregation pings and papers dealing with Mrs.B'nai B'rith, Los Angeles (1862- Gutheim were presented to us by1947)" written by M a r c o R . Miriam H. Goldsmith, through theNewmark courtesy of Mr. Henry S. Jacobs."History of Mizpah Congrega- Among the personal p a p e r stion, Chattanooga, Tenn., 18 6 6 - which the Archives have received1947" compiled by Rabbi Abraham and are now in the process of cata-Feinstein loguing, the most important are,The minutes of women's socio- without doubt, several hundredphilanthropic organizations, such as letters of Gotthard Deutsch ( 1859-the following, are of value for a 1921) , who was Professor of Jew-knowledge of the social work and ish History a t the Hebrew Unioneleemosynary activities of a gen- College for a generation.eration ago: This distinguished historian-Ladies Hebrew Social Circle, he was also active as a publicist1895-1910, Harrisburg, Pa. a n d novelist -wrote to friends,Ohev Sholem Sisterhood, 1918- colleagues, relatives, and newspa-1925, Harrisburg, Pa. per editors both in Europe a n dHebrew Ladies Aid S o c i e t y , America, from 1894 to 1920. His1895-1899, Sioux City, Iowa letters deal with personal, profes-Constitution and Nebengesetze sional, literary, religious, political,des Israelitischen Wohltatigkeits- economic, and historical matters,

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and, of course, with affairs of the rare. Mrs. Marx Levy of Shreve-Hebrew Union College. His most port, La. was kind enough to sendfamous correspondents, in G e r - us a photostatic copy of a letter ofmany, were A. Berliner, M. Brann, Isaac M. Wise to her grandfather,A. Brill, Ludwig Fulda, Ludwig Rabbi M. Wurzel, April 3, 1860.Geiger, Jakob Guttmann, Eugen The Rev. Dr. Max Raisin wasKuhnemann, Max Nordau, G. Kar- gracious enough to send us aboutpeles, Hermann Strack; in Austria: 20 letters which had been addressedM. Gudemann, Moritz and Nahida to him by G. Deutsch, Max Mar-Remy Lazarus, Samuel Krauss; in golis, Louis Grossman, Judah Mag-Hungary: M. Bacher; in Denmark, nes, Julian Morgenstern and othersD. Simonsen; in Holland : Sigmund (1903-1917). An anonymous friendSeeligmann; in France: Edmond of Rabbi Isaac M. Wise was thede Rothschild; in England: M. Gas- donor of several letters written byter, A. Hyamson, Claude Monte- Dr. David Philipson to J u 1i u sfiore, and I s r a e 1 Zangwill; in Freiberg (1888), to the PresidentAmerica: Louis Brandeis,Theodore of the Hebrew Union College, toDreiser, Professor Gottheil, Cyrus Dr. Louis Wolsey (1925), and toAdler, Alexander Kohut, J u d a h Albert Wolf, among others.Magnes, Jacob Schiff, Henrietta Among the papers now in t h eSzold, Stephen S. Wise, Mary An- Archives are a number touchingtin, and President Theodore Roose- on the life of Rabbi Ferdinandvelt. Sarner ( 1820-1878) of Memphis,Gotthard Deutsch was not only Tennessee, presented by his daugh-a prolific correspondent but also a ter, Mrs. Martha Sarner L e v y .faithful writer of diaries. His dia- Material from the clipping andries, kept for th e years 1892 to pamphlet collection of the 1a t e1920, throw much light on his per- Rabbi Charles Hoffman of Newark,sonal and professional affairs, his N. J. was loaned by his son, Dr. M.relations to the President of the D a v i d Hoffman. Through theHebrew Union College and t h e courtesy of Dr. Joshua Bloch, themembers of the faculty, to his wife, Archives received a confirmationhis children, relatives, friends and sermon by Rabbi L. Merzbacherpupils. His entries, in spite of their of Temple Emanu-El, New Yorkbrevity, are of value for an under- 1853, and a letter of Dr. Solomonstanding of his views on Jewish and Schechter to Dr. Kaufmann Koh-general history, literature, religion ler, October 12, 1903. Both of theseand politics, his opinions about items came from the collection ofbooks, magazines and the many Lili Kohler. The scrapbook of theinteresting people he met during late Rabbi George Jacobs (1834-his lifetime. 1884), of Richmond and Philadel-The Archives also possesses a phia, was lent to us for copying byfew holograph letters of R a b b i his daughter Miss Rebecca Jacobs;Isaac M. Wise, the founder and items dealing with th e life of thefirst president of the Hebrew Union Rev. Mr. Jacob Frankel (1808-College, dated 1856, 1875, 1892, 1887) were sent us by Mr. Joseph1898, as well as the Hebrew Union F r a n k e 1 and by Mrs. Pearl E.College Daily Record Book, 1875- Whitely. Rabbi Stanley Brav was1883, and the Hebrew Union Col- good enough to send the Archiveslege Alumni Association Minute- photographs of Rabbis B. H. Gott-Book, 1898-1900. Holograph let- helf and H. M. Bien of Vicksburg,ters of Isaac M. Wise are quite Mississippi, and Rabbi David Wice

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has helped us with certain letters A detailed analytical index of thisand pamphlets touching on Rodeph collection has been prepared byShalom Congregation in Philadel- the Archivist, Dr. Selma Stern-phia. Taeubler.We are grateful to D. Arthur The American Jewish ArchivesBowman for his permission to copy contain also a number of wills; fora series of about fifty letters written instance, those of a number of Jew-by an American Jewish boy from ish citizens of Charlestown, SouthMl'ssouri, by the name of Arthur Carolina, whose wills were probatedAmson, to his parents. The corres- in the first half of the nineteenthpondence, carried on in the German century.language while he was a student Among the manuscript or, type-at the Universities of Heidelberg script memoirs in the Archives are:.and Leipzig (1873-1875), sheds "Galleries of Memory," by Edmondsome light on the cultural, eco- Uhry, one of the founders of the .nomic, and political conditions in Free Synagogue, who came to theseGermany after the Franco-Prussian shores as a young immigrant fromWar, his archaeological, philosophi- Ingweiler, in Alsace, in 1890. It wascal, and philological studies a t the this same obscure Alsatian villageuniversities, his travels in Europe, that many of the most prominentand his personal affairs. They have Jews of present day Cincinnatino specific Jewish references. look back to as their home.Professor Mordecai M. Kaplan The Uhry manuscript was madeof New York was kind enough to available for copying through thepermit us to copy selected items of courtesy of the Rev. Dr. Louis I.his correspondence-covering the Newman. Through the kindness ofyears 1899 to 1920-with men Mr. Thomas J. Tobias we werelike Cyrus Adler, Herman Bern- permitted to copy the diary ofstein of The Day, Israel Fried- Joseph Lyons, who lived in Savan-laender, Justice Irving L e h m a n , nah, Georgia, and began to describeJ u d 9h Magnes, Felix Warburg, his impressions of America, and hisChair$ Weizmann, Stephen S. Wise, own personal activities, as early asand many others. The K a p 1a n 1833.papers -which also include copies Edward Rosewater, editor andof lectures, addresses, sermons, and founder of the newspaper, Thedrafts of pamphlets-present a Omaha Bee, is described in andetailed picture of the cultural and interesting manuscript biographyreligious life of American Jewry which tells of his early childhoodduring the first two decades of the days in a small village in Bohemia,. twentieth century. They deal also and of his immigration-with hiswith scientific. educational, rabbi- parents to the United States innical, congregational, journalistic 1855. The Archives possess a copyand social matters; for instance, of this work.with the National Hebrew School, All personal papers, whateverthe Young Men's Hebrew Associa- their nature-now in the posses-tion, the Jewish Teachers Associa- sion of the Archives-will be sub-tion, the League of the J e w i s h ject to "library restrictions," thatYouth of America, the Menorah is, they will be offered for use toSociety, with questions of Reform researchers only on condition thatand Orthodoxy, the Yiddish Press, nothing will be published whichthe Jewish Renascence Movement, might in any degree offend thethe Palestine problem, and the like. donors.