Komroff's Christ

"This is a beautiful book by an artist who knows not a little of the thirst for ideals which has always tortured the best of men." -Saturday Review of Literature.

"It comes nearest to anything I know of being in the spirit of what men have justly called the most beautiful story in the world." -New York Times.

"Beautifully conceived and perfectly written." -New York Herald Tribune.

The book thus touted is Manuel Komroff's In the Years of Our Lord (Harper; $2.50), a new novel about the life of Christ to add to the brief fiction shelf which includes Lew Wallace's Ben Hur (over 2,000,000 copies since 1880), George Moore's pale The Brook Kerith (1916), Bruce Barton's Rotarian The Man Nobody Knows (1925) and Sholem Asch's lush The Nazarene (1939). (Some would include Kenan's famed Vie de Jesus.)

In the Years of Our Lord first appeared serially in Esquire, in a setting of Esquire color or off-color cartoons. Komroff himself, like Sholem Asch, is not a Christian. He was born in Manhattan of Jewish parentage, is married to a Gentile, attends neither church nor synagogue but Ts described by friends as "deeply religious like Walt Whitman."

Author Komroff once before tried his hand at a novel set in Jerusalem in the time of Christ. In Two Thieves he told the story of the pair who were crucified with Jesus, but never mentioned Christ's name or presence. This time Christ is the central character.

Sample Komroff characterizations: Pilate as a genial, well-meaning Roman lawyer who is constantly having to cope with fanatics; Matthew as a tax collector so harried by his job that Christ's call comes as a welcome relief; Lazarus as a rich young Jewish cosmopolite whose death is caused by a chariot race he entered on the urging of his crony Pilate.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

"Religious conditions at Fort Dix, N.J. are quite typical of all the camps'' said Brigadier General William R. Arnold, Chief of Army Chaplains, last week. Here is the setup at Dix:

>The Government has spent about $295,000 on 14 chapels, each seating 400, scattered around the camp. With changed altars, each is used for Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish services. One chapel belongs to the post troops regularly assigned to Dix. Two are in the reception center. In addition, each regiment passing through is assigned a chapel of its own. > Eleven chaplains are regularly stationed at Dix: four Roman Catholic, one Jewish, six Protestant (Baptist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, two Presbyterian). Each transient regiment is also supposed to have its own chaplains, so that the total for the camp often runs as high as 40. > Dix has more church services than a good-sized town: over 40 on Sunday, some 65 others through the week. Each chapel has Jewish services on Friday evening, two Protestant services and two Catholic Masses on Sunday. Attendance has more than doubled since the chapels were built, and ranges up to 800 for one Catholic Mass (which is held in a theater, since none of the chapels is big enough to accommodate it). There are special services in the hospitals, guardhouse, and a few remote mess halls. Most of the Protestant chaplains try to hold denominational services (often Communion) for men of their own sects. These account for most of the weekday Protestant services. >Catholic chaplains say that often 50% of the Catholics off duty attend Sunday Mass. Protestant chaplains estimate that about 25% of the Protestant soldiers free to attend do so.

> At Dix 80% of the soldiers list a church affiliation, though only 42% of the population of the U.S. is enrolled in any church. ^ Some chaplains say there is no better place for proselytizing than the Army. One Protestant instructs and baptizes half a dozen men a month who have never before been near a church.

Back to Orthodoxy

Cardinal tenet of Reform Judaism is that the Jews should adapt their customs to the ways of the country in which they live. Therefore America's 500,000 Reform Jews (including most of the best-known leaders of U.S. Jewry) pay little or no attention to Orthodox dietary laws, do not segregate the sexes in the synagogue, tend to hold their services on Sunday.

The most famous Reform rabbi, Stephen --Samuel Wise, took a significant step back toward Orthodoxy this month when he gave up his 32-year practice of holding services on Sunday, went back to the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, Friday evening. Said he: "This is a return to the older tradition which has been maintained through the centuries. The Free Synagogue is aligning itself with that centuried tradition. Such a return is bound up with the understanding that assimilation (or imitation) does not solve any problems."

Churches and the War

> Puppet Vidkun Quisling retreated still further last week in the face of Norwegian Lutheran resistance. He released ex-Primate Eivind Berggrav from concentration camp, confined him to his home "to prevent him from renewing his political activity."

> Hitler has banned all church conferences in Germany until the end of May. This ban will prevent Germany's Roman Catholic hierarchy from holding their annual meeting at Fulda.

>The Archbishop of Kaunas, Roman Catholic Primate of Lithuania, was severely wounded and a priest accompanying him killed by "accidental" Nazi gunfire when he went to Vilna to substitute for its Archbishop, whom the Nazis had jailed.

> The WPB, which has curtailed zippers, has exempted Bibles and Testaments closed with slide fasteners.

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