Bisbee daily review., 1918-10-27
IT. JOE JACOBSON
 WRITES EXPERIENCES
 IN FRENCH CITIES
TELLS OF ATTENDING FEAST OF RoSHOSHONA IN WONDERFUL JEWISH SYNAGOGUE IN OLD TOWN OF FRANCE AND OF MEETING STRANGE PEOPLE

! tTdnCe as they dlIeCL the menD6IS Ol the American expeditionary forces, are given in a series of letters from
 Sec. It Joe Jacobson, quartermaster department, to his father, l. Jacobson, of this city. These will prove par ticularly interesting to local people of the Jewish faith.
 Lieutenant Jacobson says in part:
 Tt was a beautiful day when we
 landed and l had the pleasure of go- ing out to the camp in a Packard truck We drove through the heart of the quaint old city and my eyes were surely opened to see French .wo- men as they walk down the street nearly three out of four dressed com pletely in black Many of them still wear wooden shoes, but as one of the
 boys said, Not since the Americans have started spending The streets are as in pictures, in many places mar row. For as old city it is quite pro gressive. To revert a moment to the boat 1 will say the food was excellent every meal as good as the best at the Chamberlain and equal the ser vice. The officers were put in a state l to have equal rank in the rooms. There were four second heutenants in our room and we gained the reputa- tion of making the most noise on the boat. The first few days of the jour ney was extremely warm and impos- sible to sleep inside. l slept on the aft port side of the deck, which is | the rear left side side of the top deck. We were on a three decker so it was not so bad at night. We were on the | lookout for subs but with the eagle | eyes of our American gunners they | did rot have chance in the world. One night a couple of shots were talk en at, some say sub, but I said that I lived close to Missouri, and first had to be shown.
 The Y. M. c. A. is certainly very active and from morning until night a column a half block long is waiting to get to it's canteen. Can you won- der? Why, they sell nearly everything you want at much cheaper prices than in the states. Camels sell for seven cents a package and Hershey's and other such candies at proportionate prices. None of the French popula- tion are permitted to buy anything as it is all for the army.
 Sugar cannot be obtained any where except in the army and it is very limited here. A man in the Amer ican army is surely an aristocrat when it comes to food. To show you how conserving they (the French) are: while we were still aboard the boat an old man came in a small row boat with little net and gathered up the bread which had been thrown over board. Of course he was going to feed 1t to his chickens but when they threw him a fresh loaf for himself he nearly fell out of the boat with joy. They soon dropped many small coins into his boat and also a pipe and some Tuxedo. l guess he can soon retire
 'I have not forgotten that today and yesterday is 'Roshoshona' and was to real 'shoop this morning. Il certainly had novel experience find ing it again. Although every one speaks l managed to find the 'shooT but it was closed. l finally found the lady in charge and she spoke Eng. lish fairly well also a little Yiddish. Incidentally she has a relative at Du- buque (some more wonderful experi- 1 ence). She directed me to the Rabbi | and l found that he spoke English quite well and also Yiddish, so you see l progressed wonderfully well. He is in the French army and acts as interpreter at the German prison | camp. But the way have seen many | of the beasts at the dock and they al ways look sDeeringly at the Amer jeans. I guess they still believe We barely have a couple of hundred men here
 After having quite conversation | with the Rabbi I left to return to 'shoOl today. IL was my desire to try and get man to come out to have ! services with the boys as they are in l quarantine and cannot get away. There are 40 Jewish boys in the com pany.
 The church is really wonderful. It looks almost like the Masonic rooms only smaller. It has the large pillars. stone floor, large balconies and a won. derful altar. They had their services in POrtuguese-French, except for small sections. But it was most impressive and I attended a Jewish church on Aoshoshona in France. The most sur prising feature of the entire trip was that there were about 200 American (Jewish) soldiers and sailors from the surrounding country there. I was moro than astonished to have it brought to my attention that so many Jewish boys are in the army. There must be at least 1000 around this base. Last night, two majors and a lieutenant colonel of medical units were there.
 Very, very few of the Jews speak English or Jewish Most of them are of Portuguese decent and speak French. That is why it is so hard for me to get along. | have been invited 10 dinner the night before Yon Kip pur by a French lieutenant He speaks only French but I am sure it will be a pleasant experience for me. In or der to arrange the engagement, we talked through an American soldier who interpreted to a Frenchman who spoke Yiddish and from him 10 the