Top Photo: Max Fuchs, New York City cantor, sings as Rabbi Sydney [sic] Lefkowitz, Richmond, VA, conducts the first Jewish services from Germany. James Cassidy of NBC holds the microphone over which the services were broadcast to the United States. U.S. Army Signal Corps

In late October 1944, a young war correspondent named James Cassidy fretted about an important story. Assigned to record a Jewish prayer service for American soldiers on German soil for a joint broadcast by NBC and the American Jewish Committee, Cassidy worried that the event might not happen at all. The rabbi who initially agreed to lead the service had recently backed out, and arranging a relay to transmit the story from Germany to New York City and into the homes of American radio listeners was a complicated task. As Cassidy wrote in his diary on Thursday, October 26, “I’ve spent damn near all week worrying about the show, which will probably flop.”1

In the end, Cassidy’s worries were unfounded. Three days later, on Sunday, October 29, his microphone recorded dozens of Jewish American soldiers gathered in prayer near the recently captured town of Aachen. The assembled soldiers stood amidst the distinctive dragon’s teeth of the Siegfried Line, a series of German defensive positions built in the late 1930s to secure Germany’s western border. As US and Allied armies moved westward onto German soil, they met fierce resistance from German troops who were under orders to hold their positions at all costs. 

The prayer service was led Captain Sidney Lefkowitz, a rabbi who left his congregation in Richmond, Virginia to serve as a chaplain in the Army. Lefkowitz was assisted by Private First Class Max Fuchs of the 1st Infantry Division, who had been training to become a cantor when he was drafted into the U.S. Army.

Together, Lefkowitz, Fuchs, and the assembled soldiers sang two hymns, “Ein Keloheinu” and “Yigdal,” prayers that were routinely sung near the end of weekly services in Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox congregations. Both were well-known to a wide range of American Jews, and, conveniently, both were included in the Abridged Prayer Book for Jews in the Armed Forces of the United States, published by the Jewish Welfare Board.2  Speaking to The New York Times in 2009 at the age of 87, Fuchs recalled that these hymns were chosen for another reason: “They didn’t take too long.”3  With the frontline close by and the war far from over, the soldiers returned to duty as soon as the service ended.  

Rabbi Lefkowitz did more than recite scripture and sing hymns with his fellow soldiers. He also spoke about the larger importance of the service and this moment in the Allied fight to defeat Nazi Germany. With the noise of falling shells clearly audible on Cassidy’s recording, Lefkowitz calmly proclaimed that, in this historic moment, “The light of religious freedom has pierced the darkness of Nazi persecution, that freedom of conscience again exists in the land which had been denying men that right. That an eternal truth has lived through and will outlive the fanatical power which fought to destroy it.”4

The First Jewish services are held in Germany in the middle of the concrete “dragon-teeth” tank barriers of the Siegfried Line, U.S. Army Signal Corps

The Jewish American soldiers were joined by two Christian chaplains—Catholic priest Edward J. Waters and Protestant minister Bernard F. Henry. Together, they presented a united interfaith front against the Nazi regime, which James Cassidy described in his introduction as one bent on “the destruction not only of the Jewish religion but of all religions.”5  One newspaper account proclaimed that the prayer service “gave proof to thousands that one of the four freedoms had been restored in Allied occupied Germany.”6  

In her history of World War II’s impact on a generation of American Jews, Deborah Dash Moore noted that chaplains and prayer services took on added importance for Jewish servicemen when they deployed overseas, writing that “Declaring oneself a Jew in public made a dramatic statement.”7  In the context of an ongoing war to defeat a regime in Germany that set out to eliminate the Jews of Europe, no statement could be more dramatic than for Jewish American soldiers to proclaim their faith on German soil.  

Honoring the Memory of Jewish Aachen

Aachen was a powerful setting for a Jewish prayer service held by soldiers from the United States, which was then home to the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Europe. As James Cassidy said in his introductory remarks to the broadcast, “In the minds of many of us who stand here at this moment is the memory of thousands of Jewish men, women and children who have died here in Germany because they also professed the Jewish faith.”8  

Map of German Jewish population centers around 1933, USHMM 

In 1933, the year Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime came to power, there were more than 500,000 Jews living in Germany—less than one percent of the country’s population.9  Although the majority lived in large cities like Berlin, many lived in smaller cities and communities around the country, including Aachen, which was home to a synagogue built in 1862.

Synagogue in Aachen Germany, date unknown, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Stadtarchiv, Aachen

In his history of German Jews from the 18th century to the rise of the Nazi regime, the Israeli journalist Amos Elon wrote that, despite their small numbers, “Jews loomed ominously larger than their number, a presumed threat to national integrity, identity, culture, ‘health,’ and the general well-being.”10  In 1935, two years after coming to power, Hitler and his government approved a series of laws known as the Nuremberg Laws that forbade marriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews, and stripped basic citizenship rights from Germany’s Jewish population.

Three years later in November 1938, the Nazi regime escalated its campaign against Jews in German-controlled territory by launching a pogrom known as Kristallnacht. Following the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris, paramilitary forces from the SS and SA attacked Jewish homes, businesses, and houses of worship across Germany and Austria. According to reports from the Reuters news agency, Aachen was one of many towns across western Germany where Jewish shops were destroyed and synagogues were broken into and trashed before being set on fire.11 

View of the old synagogue in Aachen after its destruction on Kristallnacht, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Stadtarchiv, Aachen

Observers recognized the significance of Aachen as the setting for the October 29 prayer service immediately. A report from the United Press agency noted that “It would be hard to find a German Jew in this part of the world but these Americans held service in token for them. They did not need a synagogue. They worshiped in the open air, close to a brick factory, and shells which the Germans dropped on Brand [Aachen] during the service were ignored.”12  

The Battle for Aachen

Aachen’s history mattered greatly to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party: as the capital of the Holy Roman Empire, Germany’s first Reich, and a favorite city of the emperor Charlemagne, Hitler was determined that the city would not fall to the advancing Allied armies. As historian Charles MacDonald wrote in the US Army’s official history of the campaign, “To strike at Aachen was to strike at a symbol of Nazi faith.”13  

By the fall of 1944, Allied bombing had already devastated the city, and most of Aachen’s civilian population had fled, leaving only a German garrison in well-defended positions.  

Soldiers from the 1st Infantry Division enter Aachen Germany, October 13, 1944, US Army Signal Corps

Throughout October 1944, soldiers from the US First Army fought to secure Aachen. Under orders from Hitler to hold the city at all costs, German defenders inflicted heavy casualties on the attacking American forces in close-quarter urban combat. One statistic underscores the ferocity of the battle for Aachen: American artillery units fired more than 9,000 rounds per day in support of the American forces trying to take the city, more than twice the number of shells fired by defending German troops.14  

Although Aachen was declared secure on October 21, the frontline was still very close to the site of the October 29 prayer service. The sounds of artillery shells landing nearby are clearly audible no less than three times during the 14-minute broadcast, which continued despite the proximity of the ongoing war.

More Prayer Services Follow

The October 29, 1944, service was not the first time that Jewish American soldiers gathered to pray on German soil. Just a few weeks earlier in September, Rabbi Lefkowitz led services for Jewish American soldiers on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. According to a report from Reuters, the service took place near the border with Belgium and was briefly interrupted by a German air attack. Undaunted, Lefkowitz and the other Americans continued the service, and the only inconvenience came “when the chaplain had to repeat the page number of the prayer book, or shout to be heard while reading.”15  

Along with several other Jewish chaplains, Lefkowitz held services for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, during the first week of October 1944. In what the Jewish Telegraph Agency called “probably the first free Yom Kippur services held in Germany since, at least, the outbreak of the war,” Lefkowitz addressed Jewish servicemen from around the United States. Given their proximity to the front lines and ongoing combat, they did not fast, as was called for under normal circumstances. 16 

Capt. Robert S. Marcus conducts outdoor services at the Siegfried Line in Germany, November 3, 1944, US Army Signal Corps

The October 29 service was also not the last ceremony conducted by Jewish American soldiers on the Siegfried Line. On November 5, less than a week after Rabbi Lefkowitz’s service, another Jewish chaplain, Captain Robert S. Marcus of the Ninth Tactical Air Force, held a similar service in a similar location.

Passover on German Soil, 1945

As US and Allied troops advanced deeper into Germany, American Jewish soldiers continued to observe their faith traditions in newly-conquered enemy territory, often in deeply symbolic locations. In early April 1945, approximately a month before the end of World War II in Europe, Jewish servicemen from the 42nd Infantry Division held Passover services in the city of Dahn, on Adolf Hitler Strasse.

Rabbi Eli A. Bohnen, a chaplain in the 42nd Division from Buffalo, New York, led the service. Also present was the division commander, Major General Harry Collins, who told his Jewish soldiers, “You have shown by your deeds what the American soldier can do when he fights for a cause in which he believes.”17

Soldiers from the 42nd Infantry Division celebrate Passover in Dahn, Germany, April 1945, Rabbi Eli A. Bohnen photograph collection, USHMM 

• 1

  James Cassidy, NBC Goes to War: The Diary of Radio Correspondent James Cassidy from London to the Bulge (New York: Fordham University Press, 2022), 113. 

• 2

  See Abridged Prayer Book for Jews in the Armed Forces of the United States (New York City: Jewish Welfare Board, 1941), 8-9 and 33-34. 

• 3

  Paul Vitello, “A Soldier’s Voice Rediscovered,” The New York Times, September 17, 2009. 

• 4

  “First Broadcast of Jewish Religious Service from Nazi Germany: Auspices of the American Jewish Committee,” National Broadcasting Company, October 29, 1944, pp. 2, American Jewish Committee Archives. (URL: https://ajcarchives.org/Portal/Default/en-US/RecordView/Index/1940). Accessed 10/14/2025.  

• 5

  “First Broadcast of Jewish Religious Service from Nazi Germany: Auspices of the American Jewish Committee,” National Broadcasting Company, October 29, 1944, pp. 1, American Jewish Committee Archives. (URL: https://ajcarchives.org/Portal/Default/en-US/RecordView/Index/1940). Accessed 10/14/2025. 

• 6

  “Jewish Services At Aachen Mark Despotism’s End,” Brooklyn Eagle (Brooklyn, NY), October 30, 1944. 

• 7

  Deborah Dash Moore, GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 140-141. 

• 8

  “First Broadcast of Jewish Religious Service from Nazi Germany: Auspices of the American Jewish Committee,” National Broadcasting Company, October 29, 1944, pp. 2, American Jewish Committee Archives. (URL: https://ajcarchives.org/Portal/Default/en-US/RecordView/Index/1940). Accessed 10/14/2025.

• 9

  Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 1998), 10-11. 

• 10

  Amos Elon, The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 (New York: Picador, 2002), 6. 

• 11

  “Anti-Jewish Terror in Germany,” The Daily Echo (Bournemouth, Dorset, England), November 10, 1938. 

• 12

  “GI Jews Ignore Nazi Shells to Hold Service in Germany,” The Washington Daily (Washington, D.C.), October 30, 1944. 

• 13

  Charles B. MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center for Military History, 1963), 281. 

• 14

  MacDonald, The Siegfried Line Campaign, 318. 

• 15

  “Jewish Rites Held in Reich,” Times Herald (Washington, D.C.), September 24, 1944. 

• 16

  “Yanks Observe Yom Kippur on German Ground,” The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), October 6, 1944. 

• 17

  “Rabbi Bohnen Conducts Passover Services in Nazi Meeting Hall on Adolf Hitler Street,” Buffalo Jewish Review (Buffalo, NY), April 13, 1945.