Courtesy of Harold Freeman

Harold Freeman.

Other Jewish soldiers felt empowered to undercut American anti-Semitism. "As a GI, I wasn't going to take shit from anybody," Joseph Bensman recalled. "So when I had a civilian teacher in the army school who was anti-Semitic, anti-Roosevelt, and antiwar, I denounced him for propagandizing in class and had him put on the carpet." As the future sociologist knew, "lots of personal abuse was built into the system. I understood that, but I also realized that anti-Semitism was illegal." Jews in the armed services understood that they had the right as Americans to oppose anti-Semitism. Some contended that as they approached the battlefield, anti-Semitism declined and that it disappeared completely under the pressure of battle. The teenage Leon Uris wrote to his father in 1944 that he "fought beside Catholics, Protestants and Mormons, Indians, Irish, Italians, Poles. They liked me because I was a good man and a regular fellow." After two years of serving in the marines in the Pacific, the future novelist was convinced that "it's not the religion we look at, but the man himself."

Corresponding to this perception of a declining anti-Semitism came renewed respect for Judaism by Jewish GIs. Jews turned to religion in the armed forces to assert their identity. "It could only happen here," Albert Eisen wrote to his mother. "I went to Jewish Services tonight. I think I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I have gone before." "However," he explained, "as a minority, it becomes necessary for us to declare ourselves to those who, unfortunately, are imbued with anti-Semitic sentiments." A few actually did find comfort in religion, despite a militantly secular and radical Jewish upbringing. Harold Paris grew up in Brooklyn within a secular Jewish milieu and "was never religious." "Now I somehow want to be very much. I go to services on Tuesday and Friday," the 19-year-old admitted to his immigrant parents, somewhat apologetically. "I feel better when I do. It gives hope for things to come." A soldier in the Third United States Army recalled a Yom Kippur service in Europe:

Our headgear were the steel helmets, and every soldier carried his rifle, which he placed between his feet when sitting, and slung to his shoulder when certain prayers required him to stand. At such times, there would be an ominous rustling of government-issued hardware throughout the theater.

The blend of American weapons and Jewish worship--steel helmets as yarmulkes--kindled powerful imagery and confirmed a dual sense of belonging. Surveying Jewish soldiers' attitudes toward Judaism immediately after the war, Moses Kligsberg argued that they "perceived in it an imposing and powerful force." The war strengthened their identity as Jews.

Chaplains, by contrast, marveled at how little Jews knew about their religion and culture and, correspondingly, how strong was the appeal of kosher salami and gefilte fish. Few perceived any Jewish religious revival in the foxholes, despite popular press accounts of Christian renewal. Some found that Jewish servicemen became aware "that to be Jewish is no crime, rather a natural fact, just as much as being a Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran." Morris Adler concluded from his experience as chaplain what subsequent Jewish population surveys would confirm, namely, how the plethora of American Jewish organizations touch just a handful of American Jews. As a rabbi, he never realized "the extent and depth of the widespread, militant, boundless ignorance of matters Jewish which characterize large sections of Jewry." Searching for an analogy, he suggested that "they are Israelites of a pre-Sinaitic era. It is not that they have turned their backs upon Judaism but that they have never faced it." Rabbis and Jewish leaders "do not have to overcome a bitter opposition and rejection. Culturally, we are presented with a tabula rasa," Adler exclaimed.

Fighting for their country empowered American Jews. In the armed services they came to identify with America and its ideals. "This feeling of affiliation with a great power and the sense that they are symbolizing the principles for which this power went to battle" made many of the same young Jewish men "begin to consider the Jewish religion as a positive asset." A Jewish chaplain thought that because the military "respects the heritage of the Jew and encourages the active identification of every fighting man with his religious civilization," Jews left the service with both components of their identities as Jewish Americans enhanced. Kligsberg concluded that almost all "came back from the war with a feeling of pride in their Jewishness, with an awakened interest in Jewish life and with a readiness to carry out actively certain Jewish responsibilities."