(below is a speech given at a sheloshim service for Rabbi Judah Nadich)
RABBI JUDAH NADICH (1912-2007)
I did not know Rabbi Nadich personally. Nommi and I sat in class together at Ramaz (along with Diane Richler, then Comet), but in the antediluvian days when we were in grade school, only Mothers came to visit the class, not fathers. I do remember Nommi’s mother and I even remember her grandmother, Mrs. Ribalow, who lived near us in Manhattan, and who my parents used to occasionally visit on lonely Shabbat afternoons.
But if I did not know Rabbi Nadich personally, I certainly knew of him. His was a name spoken of with substantial respect in the circles in which I mixed. Even as a child, I knew that Nommi’s father was a great rabbi. That impression was only reinforced when we moved to Brookline in 1965, and joined Kehillath Israel (KI). Many of my parents’ friends spoke reverently of Rabbi Nadich, who served as rabbi of KI for about a decade following World War II.
Rabbi Nadich’s larger historical significance, especially his important role in World War II, I only really learned to appreciate later, when I read his book on Eisenhower and the Jews. I learned even more about him in the last few weeks, when, thanks to Nommi, I was able to read Rabbi Nadich’s unpublished memoirs.
To begin at the beginning: Judah Nadich, or to be more precise Adolph Judah Nadich, was born in 1912, the child of East European Jewish immigrants. His father eked out a living in Baltimore as a grocer. Like so many children of immigrants, our young hero initially rebelled against the Jewish education he received at the hands of ill-tempered and incompetent teachers, and his mother was in despair. “What will happen to this boy? He’ll become a truck driver.” Of course, the story had a happy end, and Adolph Judah Nadich became inspired by a fine teacher, went on to Yeshiva High School and RIETS, and then, like many Yeshiva students of that time, transferred to the Jewish Theological Seminary which he found less rigid and more modern. It was at the seminary, following the rise of Adolf Hitler, that he understandably dropped the name Adolf and became Judah.
Ordained at the advanced age of 24, Rabbi Nadich took his first pulpit at Buffalo, Congregation Beth David, where he is remembered by the city’s Jewish historian as having been “young and energetic” as well as “handsome and immaculately groomed” - adjectives that would long characterize him. He achieved notable success in Buffalo, and four years later went off to Chicago to become co-rabbi and heir apparent to one of the greatest rabbis of the day, Rabbi Solomon Goldman. The Conservative movement was growing very rapidly at that time, and Rabbi Nadich was on the rabbinic fast track. He was energetic, dynamic, learned, well-organized, a fine preacher, and a committed Zionist. Yet modern and proudly American as he was, he still knew Yiddish and could still interact with the immigrant generation. Rabbi Solomon Goldman, we know, was deeply impressed with him.
Pearl Harbor transformed Rabbi Nadich’s life. He enlisted as a chaplain in the army, and soon became the first Jewish chaplain sent overseas, initially to Britain. This was important for many reasons: first and foremost, it meant that the burgeoning number of American Jewish soldiers had their religious needs attended to, including, if tragedy struck, a Jewish funeral. It also meant that there was an ordained American Jewish religious figure available in Europe, when questions arose concerning Jewish matters. And finally, it made an enormously important symbolic statement. At a time when Jews throughout Europe faced persecution and were being publicly shamed, America demonstrated its commitment to religious liberty by placing a rabbi in a position of high responsibility. So it was that the still young Rabbi Nadich (then in his 30s) came to interact with England’s Chief Rabbi Hertz and other prestigious European rabbis; they saw him (not without reason) as Chief rabbi of the American forces in Europe.
Rabbi Nadich, who was extremely efficient and well-organized, was soon placed in charge of all religious supplies for the American army in Europe ["G-3, the supply officer on the staff of the theater chaplain"] He reports, matter-of-factly, that he was for a time “the world’s largest distributor of rosary beads, mass wine, mass kits [and ] New Testaments” as well as all of the Jewish religious supplies, from prayer books and Bibles to matzahs.. [108] Again, one cannot underestimate what it meant in those days that a rabbi was in charge of supplying the religious needs of all American soldiers. In many ways, these wartime experiences laid the groundwork for postwar religious America which defined itself no longer in restrictively Christian terms, but rather in terms of religious pluralism; what Will Herberg would describe as the trinity of “Protestant-Catholic-Jew.”
Rabbi Nadich did not long remain the only American Jewish chaplain in Europe; others followed. But he continued to serve as their superior (he outranked all of them) and he had the power to decide where they would serve. He courageously sent one chaplain, Abraham Klausner, to help the survivors of Dachau, although this later got him into trouble with his superior [136]. A Jewish chaplain named David Max Eichhorn, whose letters have been recently published, always referred to Nadich as the “Jewish boss chaplain” and was particularly impressed with him, as other chaplains also were, because Nadich spoke French [in fact, Nadich reveals that his French teacher was the brother of France's Chief Rabbi Weill, Prof. Felix Weill who taught at City College[114]. This all became enormously important after “D Day.” At the first service held at the grand Rothschild Synagogue in Paris after the liberation - in the presence of American soldiers and thousands of French Jews - Nadich in Rabbi Eichhorn’s enthusiastic words, “preached a sermon in French and in English and brought down the house.”[Eichhorn, GIs Rabbi, 99] Nadich describes the event more modestly and insightfully. He writes that ”All of the feelings pent up with [the Jews of Paris] - fear, grief, despair under the Nazis, mixed now with elation, relief, hope because of the liberation, burst forth at the sight of an American rabbi - he could have been any American Jewish chaplain [I wonder!] - speaking to them in a service of liberation from German rule.” [125]
In August of 1945, Rabbi Nadich was suddenly ordered to come to Frankfurt, Germany to assume a position that, to my knowledge, never previously existed in any army in the world (and does not exist now!) He became “Advisor to the Commanding General [meaning Gen. Eisenhower] on Jewish Affairs.” The background to this appointment is by now well-understood. In the months following the liberation of the Concentration Camps, the American army came under withering criticism domestically for its treatment of the Jewish survivors, some of whom were forced to share their camps with Nazi prisoners of war (their former persecutors), and almost all of whom were confined behind barbed wire. A report by Earl Harrison was particularly critical of the military: “As matters now stand,” the report declared, “we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them except that we do not exterminate them.” President Truman was shocked and angry. The result, thanks in large measure to him, was recognition of the Jewish DPs as a separate national category and the appointment of Rabbi Nadich as Eisenhower’s advisor on Jewish affairs. His job was to visit the different DP camps and to report directly to Eisenhower on what he saw and how conditions could be improved.
It would take a long book to describe all of Rabbi Nadich’s achievements in this important and highly delicate position. Perhaps most importantly, he helped to sensitize the military to the conditions of the Jewish DPs and to what they had suffered during the war. He wrote a whole series of reports that are today invaluable historical documents concerning the conditions of the DPs. In terms of specifics, he quickly was able to have former Nazis removed from amidst the DPs and to increase the rations available to Jewish refugees. He also persuaded Gen Eisenhower to have the barbed wire removed from around DP camps. When Gen Patton, a vicious antisemite, ignored Eisenhower’s order, Nadich reported him to Eisenhower and, according to Nadich, that was the real reason that Patton was removed from his command (different from what the movie “Patton” would have us believe.) Nadich was also responsible for a whole series of other improvements in the treatment of Jews. Eisenhower and the staff trusted him and turned his suggestions into official orders.
In his memoirs, Nadich reveals that he used his position to help free Jews who had been hidden in French convents during the war and now were in danger of being kept there. Like many Jewish chaplains, he also secretly assisted the “Brichah” the so-called illegal immigration to Palestine at that time. He helped relay information and was otherwise useful in helping refugees fulfill their desire to immigrate to Israel. He also hosted David Ben Gurion during his famous tour of the DP camps. Years later, he received a decoration from his Israel for his services.
Rabbi Nadich served until the end of 1945, when Judge Simon Rifkind arrived as a civilian advisor on Jewish affairs, and succeeded him. He then returned home, and commenced a highly important speaking tour that helped to bring first hand accounts of the Shoah and the condition of the survivors to American Jews. He also traveled abroad for the Joint Distribution Committee. Long before the Holocaust was known as “the Holocaust,” Rabbi Nadich was talking and writing about it, hoping that Jews and non-Jews would come to appreciate its significance.
Only later, in 1947, did Rabbi Nadich manage to resume a more normal life and career. He married Hadassah Ribalow, he spent a decade at Kehillath Israel here in Brookline, where his three daughters were born and he published his famous book entitled Eisenhower and the Jews. Rabbi Joe Schulz, who is with us, was one of his assistants at KI. Then in 1957, he moved with his family to his most important pulpit, the distinguished Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, where he remained for the rest of his extraordinary career.
Time is short, and it would require a long lecture to describe Rabbi Nadich’s rabbinic career, so I forebear. But what must be mentioned is his early championing of equality for women (maybe no surprise when you have three daughters!) As President of the Rabbinical Assembly in 1972, Rabbi Nadich declared that it is [quote] “high time for our movement to accord Jewish women their rightful equality in the synagogue and the school, in Jewish law and Jewish life.” [NYTimes, March 16, 1972] He called for women’s equality and women’s ordination. Long before Amy Eilberg was ordained in 1985, the Park Avenue Synagogue included women in the minyan and offered them aliyot.
I have a clear memory that Mrs. Adelle Ginzberg, the widow of Rabbi Nadich’s great teacher, Levi Ginzberg, had her first aliyah to the Torah at a very advanced age at the Park Avenue Synagogue. I still recall the excitement in her voice when she recounted this to my late Father. As a teenager, I did not appreciate the significance of what she was saying. Looking back, I realize that she was expressing sentiments that would soon sweep through the Conservative movement, transforming it in the very direction of equality that Rabbi Nadich so boldly advocated.
Rabbi Nadich merited to live to a very advanced age (he was 95 when he died), and he used his time well. In his late 60s, he published a scholarly book entitled Jewish Legends of the Second Commonwealth. He also traveled widely, even to Vietnam and China - places where Conservative rabbi were exotic and unknown. As a new generation became interested in the Shoah, he made time to teach them of his experiences. Just a year or two ago, well into his 10th decade of life, he spoke on camera to a film-maker creating a documentary about Jewish chaplains in World War II. She later told me what an amazing experience it was for her to hear Rabbi Nadich recount these central events in his life. They had remained etched in his memory.
I began with my classmate, Nommi, and let me end the same way. It seems to me that much can be learned about Rabbi Nadich by looking at the careers of his three daughters. He was concerned about their education and their values, and, notwithstanding his busy career, he made time for them. As a result, all three have carried on their Father’s distinguished legacy and all three have devoted themselves to Jewish causes, particularly social justice and Jewish education - causes that were very dear to him, and remain dear to Nommi and Shira and Leah.
Rabbi Nadich is gone, but his legacy lives on. Yehe zikhro baruch. May his memory be for a blessing.
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