More on Ephraim E. Urbach as a Military Chaplain
I decided to read some more of Urbach’s diary (see here), and here are some thoughts. One thing that jumps out at you from almost every page is to read Urbach’s descriptions of him filling traditional rabbinical roles: leading prayer services, reading Torah, giving divrei Torah, visiting the sick, counseling soldiers, etc. It is a very different Urbach than one is exposed to when they read his scholarly works. He even peppered his sermons with jokes.
Three people are traveling in a boat that was sinking, a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew. The Christian prays that with the grace of his savior he will arrive in the world to come/heaven (Urbach uses the phrase, גן עדן, but I think that “the world to come” or “heaven” is more appropriate.), despite his sins and wrongdoings. The Muslim describes how beautiful the world to come is, and the Jew thinks about how he is going to manage in the water.
Urbach used this joke to describe the precarious nature of Jewish existence. The Jewish people are always trying to figure out how to survive. Urbach sees the Jewish settlement of the Land of Israel as a turning point in this recurring pattern. “אנחנו צריכים פעם ולתמיד להחליט שאי אפשר להמשיך בדרך זו”.
Another interesting description is the case of a Jewish soldier in the British army who was being charged with dereliction of duty. The officer in charge of the trial, a general, brought in a Bible for him to take an oath on. The soldier said that he would only take an oath on a Bible that didn’t have the New Testament. Someone went to the soldier’s unit and found a Tanakh. The general then said to take off his hat. The soldier replied that he would only take an oath with his hat on. In the end, it turns out that the soldier was being accused by someone who had a grudge against him for something else, and all the charges were droppped.
Urbach, in passing, describes meeting Enzo Sereni, who would later parachute into Nazi-occupied Northern Italy. Sereni was captured, and executed in Dachau in 1944.
I am not very familiar with the lives of Jews serving in the Allied forces during WW II, but in Urbach’s diary one reads about the many Jewish soldiers who filled the pews of synagogues all across North Africa and Europe, being exposed to rabbis not only from America and England, but also a rabbi from the Land of Israel.