(Author: W. Yesorsky, Vol. 70, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2015)
Editor’s Note: The following is an edited version of an article by Rev W Yesorsky, originally entitled ‘Leaves from a Padre’s Diary’, that appeared in the March 1947 of The Judean. Rev Yesorsky was at the time Honorary Chaplain of the Johannesburg Branch, SA Jewish Ex-Servicemen’s League.
In a recent issue of Readers Digest, an interesting article appeared under the heading, ‘Confessions of Clergyman’, in which the writer endeavours to eradicate from the minds of laymen certain misconceptions about ministers of religion. Among these he mentions the assumption that padres live sheltered lives and are not brought face to face with the evils and the raw side of life. He writes in defence of his fellow ‘skypilots’ and says, “We do not wear halos – we do not dwell on the mountain tops and send down our wisdom to the people . . . The average clergyman sees more real life in a week than the average layman sees in a year.”
As I read this article my mind travelled back a few years, and I thought of my own experiences as a padre in the Union Defence Forces, when so many of the ‘boys’ really got to know the ‘skypilots’ for the first time in their lives, and came to the conclusion that the padre was an ordinary human being just like themselves. He had the same fears and weaknesses, the same hopes and longings, and he could take it and rough it when the going was tough.
I shall always consider my years of service among the most interesting years of my ministry. For we were on active service in more senses that one. The padre was there not only to represent his denomination; he also served as friend, comforter and Good Samaritan wherever and whenever possible to all men, irrespective of creed or colour. He saw the humour and the pathos of each situation, helped to maintain a sense of balance and perspective among his boys, helped to build up morale – above all, he was prepared to live among the troops and take the risks and discomforts of army life with the rest of them.
When, in response to an urgent request from the Jewish soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, I was appointed padre to the troops stationed in the Eastern Transvaal, consternation reigned for some time in the Officers’ Mess at Brigade HQ. A very senior officer expressed himself in plain army language and declared, “I’m not having any b*** Rabbis at my table! Send him to the Imperial Light Horse!” (So high was the proportion of Jews in that the regiment that it was jocularly referred to as ‘Israel’s Last Hope’!) However, when I duly presented myself at Brigade HQ, this same Senior Officer was so surprised when he saw me, that he insisted I remain. It seemed, so I learnt later, that he had expected someone with a terribly broken accent and whose manners and behaviour would bring disrepute on his HQ mess – such was his picture of a Jewish padre.
February 4th, 1941 . . . . My first day in the Army . . . . I was introduced to my fellow officers . . . . “Padre Yeesorsky, Sir,” said the Brigade Major to the O.C. “Yesorsky?” replied the O.C., “We can’t have a name like this in our mess!” (Russian or Slavonic names were not popular in those far-off-days). I turned to the O.C. and asked him, “What do you suggest Sir?” With a broad grin the O.C. said, “I think we’ll call you Yes-or-no-ski!” With a twinkle in my eye I said, “Sir, as a ware Afrikaner I suggest that we drop the ‘ski’ altogether, and that we change the remaining part of my emended name into Afrikaans!” And so it came about that from that day onwards I became known throughout the Brigade, and indeed the whole 2nd Division, as Padre Jannie!
From February–June, 1941, I was stationed at Zonderwater and soon knew every inch of the ground. I learnt to ‘love’ the place so much that I could understand why the boys were simply itching to leave it and be on their way “Up North”. How often during those months, as I went on my rounds from company to company, from tent to tent, did I hear the same complaint from so many fellows – “We didn’t join the Army to win the Battles of Zonderwater and Kaffirskraal.”
June 9th, 1941: The great day arrived – all was set for our trek to meet the enemy in North Africa. I remember as our ship was about to leave Durban looking down at the crowd in the harbour and wondering what heartache and sorrow was to be the fate of some of those saying goodbye to their loved ones. Glorious carefree days at sea. One padre, a little too zealous for the Church, annoyed many of the men aboard. He preached against smoking and against drinking and started a regular crusade against almost everything. Needless to say, he wasn’t very popular later in the sandy wastes of the Western Desert.
June 23rd, 1941: Our first camp was at a place called Marcopolis, about twenty miles from Alexandria. Most of the fellows were unable to understand for what earthly reason they had been dumped there, for it was a veritable dustbowl. From morning till evening the sand and dust whirled all around and it was a real endurance test to go on one’s rounds. I think the powers-that-be decided that if we could survive the “Battle of the Marcopolis”, we could survive anything up North.
August, 1941: I returned one afternoon from a visit to the hospitals in the Delta region, to be told that we were on the move. We were on our way to a little known place on the banks of the Mediterranean – a place destined to become famous as the scene of one of the most decisive battles in all military history, and the scene of the great turning point of the Second World War – El-Alamein. But in 1939, none of us had ever heard of the place, and the average Egyptian hadn’t set eyes on it either. Not that there was anything worth seeing at El-Alamein – just mile after mile of sand and rubble. We were stationed there for over four months, during which time the Division was mainly responsible for building the defences that were to prove so vital to our campaign in the following year. Yet at that time, practically every fellow I met laughed and ridiculed the whole idea of digging at El-Alamein as a sheer waste of time! Little did they realise then how they were literally “digging for victory”!
What characters I learnt to know during those days! One name appears quite often in my diary – Dominie Malherbe. For a few months, the Dominie and I shared a tent, and regular bets were taken in the mess as to who would convert whom first. My fellow officers could never quite get over the fact that a Rabbi and a Dominie could live together without getting into heated arguments over their respective faiths. The Dominie was a good and faithful padre, always kind and cheerful – a good Christian and a fine friend. We visited hospitals together, and the Dominie would make his rounds of the wards carrying a case with him wherever he went. As soon as he’d seen all the fellows in any ward – out would come his case. It was a music case, and he’d play a number of cheery tunes on his fiddle just to brighten the chaps up. Good luck to you, Dominie Malherbe, wherever you are.
Rosh Hashona . . . Yom Kippur . . . Succos, 1941:With great difficulty, I was able to arrange for men to have leave from their vital work of building defences – hundreds of parcels fortunately arrived from the Board of Deputies, just in time to cheer the boys with the thought that the people on the home front hadn’t forgotten them.
November, 1941: We were on the move again . . . this time the campaign was on in earnest. The Division was split up all over the Western Desert and my work was becoming increasingly difficult because the men were so scattered. My biggest headache at that time was the transport problem. The padre had to be mobile if he was to be of much use to his men, and unfortunately a number of padres, including myself, had no trucks or cars at their disposal. In the eyes of the higher ups, the padres were still “necessary evils”, and had to be satisfied with scrounging lifts whenever they conducted services or wanted to visit their respective units. For the Jewish padre, with his men spread over a whole division, it became absolutely impossible to carry out his duties unless he had transport at his disposal all the time. A number of us held a very secret meeting and we enlisted the support of the Gestapo – the Military Police – and we decided to organise a raiding party on V.R.P.’s (Vehicle Reception Parks) to ‘acquire’ the necessary transport. And so it happened – we made a recce and eventually all of us came back in possession of transport. The full story, of course, can’t be told – but all my boys remember how I clung on to my mobile Synagogue right through all the arduous and trying months that followed.
During the early critical days of the campaign a routine order was published, and both Father Simpson, the R.C. padre, and myself found to our utter amazement that we had been declared L.O.B. (Left out of Battle). We had to decide whether we would accept army discipline and stay behind or defy authority and move forward with our boys. Thanks to our own way of solving our transport problem, we decided on the latter course. I shall never forget the look on the face of the O.C. when two dishevelled and defiant padres appeared one morning at the front line and duly presented him with a letter signed by ourselves in which we pointed out to him quite respectfully but nevertheless very firmly that no padre could be left out of battle, and that the place of the padre was with his men in the front.
January, 1942: Battles of Bardia and Sollum brought busy days and nights for padres . . . fairly hungry days for Jewish padres. Down the line it had nearly always been possible to obtain tinned food and vegetables, but in the front line not too much of this kind of food was available. Sometime previously, the O.C. had asked me how I was going to manage for food in the front line. “How many commandments have you got, Sir?” I asked him. “Ten, Padre”, he replied. “Well, Sir,” I declared, “I’ve got eleven! Right at the top of my commandments I’ve written a new one — Thou shalt not starve!”
Pesach . . . Shovuos . . . Rosh Hashona, 1942: During those months, our fortunes in the Middle East changed completely .. . Most of our Divisions captured at Tobruk .z. the battle went on. I held countless services all over the Desert and tried to bring some comfort to the boys. Many of these services have left indelible impressions on the minds of many hard-bitten soldiers. Two services are the most vivid in my own memory: one on 20 June 1942, and the other on Rosh Hashona of the same year. On the morning of June 20%, I was on my way to hold a service at a place just within the Libyan border when a dispatch rider passed me and shouted three words: “Tobruk has fallen!!” Can I ever forget the look of anxiety on the faces of my boys gathered round my Mobile Synagogue, all of whom had come to service despite the terrible news they had just heard. Never had the need for courage been greater, yet everyone was on edge, waiting for orders. My text on that occasion was brief and to the point: “If thou faintest in the day of trouble, thy strength is indeed small” [Mishlei/Proverbs, 24:10]. That text was meant not only to cheer the men up, but to cheer the padre as well!
June-July, 1942: The epic defence of El-Alamein is now world-famous, and how proud I was during those awe-inspiring days of the boys — their undaunted spirits and their determined will to hold out at all costs, come what may.
Rosh Hashona: The military situation during the weeks preceding Rosh Hashona made it extremely doubtful whether we would be able to celebrate the Holydays at all, for we were expecting an attack by ‘Jerry’. How totally different had been our position the previous year. Then, all was quiet on the Western Front. Now we could so nothing until Jerry made his move, and we hoped that it would come before Rosh Hashona. It did come before Rosh Hashona — and it failed miserably. With the comparative lull that ensued, I made arrangements to hold services and do whatever was possible to enable the men to celebrate the Sacred Festivals. Right in the heart of the forward area, in an old disused bir [pit?] which ages ago had probably been used for storage purposes, we established our Shul, our desert House of God, and prepared to usher in the New Year. What a Shul! A huge hole in the earth sufficient to hold hundreds of men. Most of the congregation brought their own seating accommodation — petrol tins — with them. At the top of the bir stood our improvised Aron Kodesh, covered with mosquito netting which, being white, gave it the traditional Yomim Noraim setting. Our beautiful little Sefer Torah was taken out of the Aron Kodesh and placed on the Almemar, which was covered by a fine plush parochet. Thanks to the Board of Deputies, wine was at hand for Kiddush and every soldier had a copy of the Special Siddur for Servicemen — our Shul was complete.
Many a soldier back home in South Africa must cast his mind back, especially on festive occasions, to services such as these — our desert Synagogues might have been drab and bare, but they were filled with such warmth and feeling — sometimes absent from our more pretentious houses of worship.
