November in a very different era

With the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration having just passed and the approach of Remembrance Day – originally known as Armistice Day – marking the end of the war that it was hoped would end all wars, it is fascinating to reflect on local community attitudes to the events of that time. Those events and dates are now barely noticed given all that has transpired since commencing with and of course including the horrors of Kristallnacht, November 10, 1938, just 20 years after the Armistice.

In the records of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation we find that at the 1914 AGM that took place a month after the outbreak of war, president Phillip Cohen declared: “The Union Jack of old England has always been a symbol of peace, of security, of freedom, of justice … it therefore behoves us as loyal citizens of the King to rally around the flag and assist in every way the cause of the empire. When you come to read of the way our gallant comrades are fighting our cause, it makes your blood tingle with pride that you are Britishers.”

Assistant Minister and Secretary of the congregation, the Revd SM Solomon, acted as a chaplain assisting Jewish servicemen within Victoria. The Jewish Herald reported that “Chaplain the Revd SM Solomon attended at the military training camp in Langwarrin and addressed the trainees … in compliance with his request, exemption from firing and other duties on Sabbath and Holy Days was granted to the Jewish units [sic] and the supply of motzos and rations other than meat was also provided by the military authorities.”

In his biography of Rabbi Jacob Danglow, Rabbi John Levi notes that by September 1916 “St Kilda Hebrew Congregation alone had sent 45 of its young men to the front. It now became customary for Jewish boys who were about to be sent overseas to come to St Kilda to be called to the Torah before they embarked. Rabbi Danglow (who was only called overseas himself towards the end of the war to succeed Chaplain Rabbi David I Freedman of Perth in ministering to troops at the front) began to wear his chaplain’s uniform on Shabbat.

“Almost every service concluded with the congregation singing ‘God save the King’ as the congregation farewelled the young volunteers.” Sadly there were to be many casualties.