Life
Their darkest New Year
Daniel Sugarman on how the JC reported Rosh Hashanah in 1939, three days after war had been declared
October 7, 2019 09:02
Daniel Sugarman on how the JC reported Rosh Hashanah in 1939, three days after war had been declared
October 7, 2019 09:02For most, if not all, of its 178-year history, the largest and most important edition of the JC has been the Rosh Hashanah issue.
Eighty years ago, however, the production of what was then called the “New Year number” proved particularly challenging; the Second World War had been declared three days earlier.
The paper, mindful of the difficulties it had encountered at the outbreak of the previous war a quarter of a century before, had immediately moved its editorial department from central London to the location of its type-setting department in High Wycombe.
On its front page, the JC explained the circumstances, and asked readers “to bear these in mind when comparing this issue with previous New Year numbers”.
It would have been difficult for British Jews to ignore such circumstances, however, because, as a United Synagogue notice in the paper made clear, they were about to experience a very different sort of Rosh Hashanah.
“The services on the eve of New Year, as all Synagogue evening services throughout the War, must conclude half an hour before the time of the official blackout,” the message, in bold type, read.
“On the mornings of New Year, the Service should begin at 8:30 and must conclude not later than 10:30. This can be done, including a sermon of a quarter of an hour’s length, by omitting all Piyutim [liturgical poems] and replacing Chazanut by plain chanting.”
It also informed readers that “there will be no service in the Synagogues on Kol Nidrei.”
Meanwhile, the Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbi, Joseph Hertz, circulated a notice to all synagogues in the country, announcing the procedure to take place if an air-raid siren sounded during prayers.
The service “must cease immediately… all worshippers living within five minutes’ walking distance of the place of worship must immediately return to their homes… other worshippers must go to the nearest air-raid shelters.”
Synagogues would also be far less full; the United Synagogue’s notice had instructed “old men, women and children” to say their prayers at home.
In London, however, many women and children were not at home at all. As the JC reported, “more than 600,000 mothers and children” had already been evacuated from the capital to the countryside.
The JC also published a statement from the Chief Rabbi, which had been broadcast by the BBC on the evening of Monday September 4.
“The Chief Rabbi,” it read, “has been informed that some difficulties have arisen as a result of the strong desire of Jewish children brought up in religious homes to carry out their observances in regard to food in their new surroundings.
“He wishes to draw the attention of all Jewish parents and children… to the fact that in a national emergency such as the present all that is required of them is to refrain from eating forbidden meats and shellfish.”
The determination of Jews to fight the Nazis was clear. In Poland, still defending itself against the German invasion, which had begun on September 1, the JC described how “Jews responded 100 per cent to the calling up summons”.
In Britain, the JC reported on “hundreds” of refugees from Nazism offering their services for the war effort in any capacity.
The paper’s editorial saw extra meaning in Rosh Hashanah in the wake of the outbreak of war. “Hard on the heels of the opening of what may prove one of the grimmest and most fateful conflicts in human history comes the opening of the Jewish New Year,” it ran.
“To some this may seem only an inconsequence, an irrelevance, dramatic perhaps but of no account. That would be, however, a sad error into which we must not and dare not fall.
“For Rosh Hashanah is the spiritual response to the evil forces which have loosened upon us the present immeasurable calamity.”