The Views of Rabbi Moses Feinstein, Rabbi Abraham Joshua ...

Protestants, a Catholic, and a Jew,‖ 37 ―George L. Fox[,] Clark V. Poling[,] John P.
Washington, and Alexander D. Goode,‖ 38 respectively, helped save seamen evacuating
the sinking ship by giving the seamen ―their own gloves and life belts.‖ 39
The chaplains
then proceeded to pray alongside one another ―in three languages—English, Latin, and
Hebrew‖ 40 as the ship sunk into the water. This noble act was recorded in heroic terms
on a 1948 U.S. postage stamp that read: ―interfaith in action.‖ 41
This act of ―worshipping
together [by]…the four chaplains…exemplified the creation of a ‗Judeo-Christian
tradition‘ that would come to express American ideals guiding the country‘s wartime
mission.‖ 42
Indeed, the chaplains‘ deaths came to signify ―faith confronting adversity,
the triumph of fellowship over religious strife, the spirit of self-sacrifice by officers for
their men, the power of love over death.‖ 43
After news of the Nazi death camps came to
light, ―a phrase like ‗our Christian civilization‘ seemed ominously exclusive,‖ 44 impelling
an expansion of the spiritual underpinnings of American society. By 1951, institutions
devoted to achieving Christian unity, relating to deed and creed, were established. In the
1950‘s, a direct Catholic-Jewish dialogue, to which ―the largest contributions were made
by Jewish human-relations agencies,‖ 45 began. Come ―1952[,] good Americans were
supposed to be, in some sense, committed Judeo-Christians. It was a recent addition to
37 Sarna 267
38 Moore 120
39 Sarna 267
40 Moore 37
41 Sarna 267
42 Moore 121
43 Moore 121-122
44 Silk 69
45 Feldman & Berenbaum
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