Jewish Legion Research Articles

פגישת חיילי הגדוד העברי ה-39 עם יהודי ארץ ישראל בתקופת המנדט

The article focuses on relations between the American volunteers of the 39th Battalion and the Jewish community of the Yishuv, one of the earliest encounters between the two groups following the Jewish migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two questions regarding the nature of this encounter are addressed here: 1. What was the attitude of the Jewish community to the Jewish Legions in general and to the American battalion in particular? 2. Were the American soldiers received with open arms or were they criticized for their behavior and conduct in the Yishuv, and why was the promise to settle them over a 13-year period accepted only after many of them had already left the country? Answers to these questions emerge from the Tel Hai incident of 1920 and the indifference expressed by the Yishuv community as a whole towards the American Jewish volunteers.

The art of listening: a soldier’s life writing in the Jewish Legions

ABSTRACT In this article I uncover formerly undisclosed ego-documents by Baruch Gurevitz, a young soldier who served in the Jewish Legions formed in the British army in the First World War. Gurevitz recorded in his notebook conversations with Jewish legionnaires from different countries and varied backgrounds. These documents reveal how crucial the tales of individuals are for an understanding of the sources of Jewish nationalism shown here to relate to tiny sparks of consciousness rather than to the rhetoric of national leaders and ideologues. The documents also highlight an important, if sometimes forgotten, component of life writing: the art of listening.

Britain, Zionism, and the Jewish Legion

ABSTRACT In the autumn of 1917, the British government committed itself to the “Formation of Battalions for the Reception of friendly Alien Jews,” an announcement that was followed just 7 weeks later, by the Balfour Declaration. In this article, which builds on the author's previous research into the Jewish Legion, the link between Britain and Zionism, in the context of the First World War, is reconsidered. By taking into account further secondary works, some written since the publication of The Jewish Legion and the First World War in 2004, combined with a re-examination of archival sources, the roles of geopolitics, national interest, and anti-Semitism are assessed for their relative importance. The influence of prominent personalities is also included, especially as personal relationships were exploited in the pursuit of policy, perhaps accounting for the ambiguities of the Balfour Declaration. Historians continue to debate the repercussions of the Declaration, whilst its consequences continue to influence contemporary events and international relations in the Middle East.

Recruitment of Britain’s Legion in the United States: The Case of Minneapolis, Minnesota

During World War I, Great Britain attempted to recruit troops not subject to British jurisdiction to participate in the imperial war effort. The most successful of these efforts was the enlistment of thousands of Jewish immigrants from the United States in several battalions, known collectively as the Jewish Legion, which fought along the Jordan River in Palestine in 1918. This paper is a case study (Minneapolis, Minnesota) illustrating the organizational mechanisms by which this recruitment campaign was executed successfully and in a remarkably short period of time.

The Politics and Imperialism of Colonial and Foreign Volunteer Legions during the Great War: Comparing Proposals for Cypriot, Armenian, and Jewish Legions

Throughout history, colonial and foreign legions have been a part of larger armies but rarely have they been as politically ‘loaded’ as the three proposed to the British government during the Great War. Cypriot, Armenian, and Jewish political elites proposed the formation of volunteer legions in the British army in late 1914 and early 1915. The primary sources show that they were initially rejected for political as well as military reasons. In 1916 the British agreed for the French to establish an Armenian legion, while in April 1917 the British agreed to establish a Jewish legion. When the French and British authorities accepted the Armenian Legion in the French army and the Jewish Legion in the British army respectively, the same political reasons for initially rejecting them were overcome or set aside. Imperialism was the key to understanding the initial rejecting of all three and the acceptance of those two: the Cyprus proposal threatened British rule in Cyprus and so was never accepted; the Armenian proposal did not play into British imperial interests, but once the British accepted French imperial interests in Cilicia in the Sykes–Picot Agreement the British accepted it; the Jewish Legion was accepted after the British embarked on their conquest of Palestine. Using British, French, and Cypriot archives, this article explores the official British reasoning for rejecting offers of Cypriot, Armenian, and Jewish legions and then accepting the latter two during the Great War.

The Photography of Roman Freulich from Poland to Hollywood

Professional contributions and technical innovations of photographer Roman Freulich to the Hollywood film industry are contextualised regarding the heritage of his life experiences in Czenstochowa, Poland, New York and Los Angeles. The remarkable output of Freulich's independent work, consisting of film projects that ventured far beyond the relative professional shelter provided by his popular glamour shots, emerges in the present study. Freulich sought to give voice to the voiceless as evidenced in his self-produced film Broken Earth (1936) – the first film to feature a black actor in a starring role – as well as his collaborations with the actor Paul Robeson. Freulich's immigration to America and the loss of his family members who remained in Poland are two legacies that distinguished Freulich from his fellow cameramen. Freulich both achieved a fruitful Hollywood career as a photographer of contract players – aided by his early use of the 35 mm camera – and authored a narrative of Joseph Trumpeldor, founder of the Jewish Legion. A survivor of the Holocaust, Freulich did more than preserve these dual identities; his lasting achievement lies in the incorporation of a veteran's sensitivity toward war in cinematic works that expanded early principles of still and moving image photography. Perspective by Freulich's family members is presented in original form, illuminating chronological events in the life of a pioneering photographer, writer and soldier.

Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky, Hillel Kook-Peter Bergson, and the Campaign for a Jewish Army

Viewed within the larger context of Zionist ideology and Zionist politics, the story of the campaign for a Jewish Army in World War II must begin with Vladimir (Ze’ev) Jabotinsky. As early as 1923, the founder of the Jewish Legion in World War I and of the first Hagana units in Jerusalem against Arab attack in 1920, respectfully analyzing adamant Arab opposition to Zionist aspirations, advocated the only solution to be a Jewish majority with a formidable army in an independent Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan. The thesis of this pioneering essay, ‘‘The Iron Wall,’’ was reiterated in the right-wing political platform of Jabotinsky’s World Union of Zionist Revisionists two years later. 1 Jabotinsky was not, at the same time, prepared to embrace the maximalist trend in Revisionism, spearheaded in the early l930s by Abba Ahimeir, Yehoshua Yeivin, and poet Uri Zvi Greenberg. While Greenberg had already called in 1923 for ‘‘biryonim’’ (ruffians) who dreamt of ‘‘the Kingdom of Israel’’ and in 1928 for a Jewish armed force to conquer Palestine, and Yeivin blasted the World Zionist Organization (WZO) executive for relying on the British mandatory power, Ahimeir urged Jabotinsky to become Zionism’s authoritarian Duce a la Mussolini. Ahimeir also called on Revisionist Betar youth to become the fighting avant-garde for Jewry’s national liberation and, with Yeivin, even raised the possibility of political terror. Jabotinsky applauded Ahimeir’s personal example of imprisonment, but his own abiding faith in British parliamentarianism, in liberal values, and in open diplomacy precluded the revolt demanded by Ahimeir’s small Brit HaBiryonim circle; he refused to resign from the WZO. After the 1929 Arab riots, Jabotinsky pressed for a renewal of the Jewish Legion in Palestine, all the while preferring that a Jewish commonwealth become part of Britain’s dominions as advocated by Josiah Wedgwood, M.P. 2 Ahimeir’s influence extended to young Revisionists within the El-Al fraternity at the Hebrew University, who responded to his call

We Are Coming, Unafraid: The Jewish Legions and the Promised Land in the First World War (review)

We Are Coming, Unafraid: The Jewish Legions and the Promised Land in the First World War (review)

Chaplain with a Star of David: Reverend Leib Isaac Falk and the Jewish LegionsShlomit Keren is an associate professor at the Department of History and Director of the Israel Studies Programme at the University of Calgary. Michael Keren holds a Canada Research Chair in Communication, Culture and Civil Society at the University of Calgary and is visiting professor at Haifa

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Eric J. Leed, No Man's Land: Combat and Identity in World War I, Cambridge, 1979, p. 204. 2. Michael Berkowitz, Western Jewry and the Zionist Project, 1914–1933, Cambridge, 1997. 3. Stuart A. Cohen, English Zionists and British Jews: The Communal Politics of Anglo-Jewry, 1895–1920, Princeton, NJ, 1982, p. 216. 4. Christopher M. Sterba, Good Americans: Italian and Jewish Immigrants During the First World War, New York, 2003. 5. Peter Simkins, Kitchener's Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914–16, Manchester, 1988. 6. The Jewish Chronicle, 25 December 1914. 7. Igal Elam, Hagdudim Ha'ivri'im Bemilhemet Ha'olam Harishona (The Jewish Legions in the First World War), Tel Aviv, 1984 (Hebrew); Zeev Jaostinsky, Megilat Hagdud (The Story of the Battalion), Tel Aviv, 1991 (Hebrew). 8. Martin Watts, The Jewish Legion and the First World War, New York, 2004. 9. See Michael Adler (ed.), British Jewry Book of Honour, London, 1922. 10. J.H. Patterson's letter to Col. John Wynne, 7 December 1917, Zahal Archive, Falk Private Papers. 11. J.H. Patterson, With the Judeans in the Palestine Campaign, New York, 1922. 12. War Cabinet Extracts 227 (3 September 1917), Jabotinsky Archive, Tel Aviv, Letters and memos, File 6-26. 13. Evening Standard, 12 September 1917. 14. Jonathan Hyman, ‘Jews in Britain during the Great War’, University of Manchester, Department of History, Working paper 51, October 2001. 15. Rev. L.A. Falk, ‘With the Jewish Battalions in Palestine: Memoirs of a Jewish Chaplain’, The Maccabean, 15 February 1929. 16. Michael Snape, God and the British Soldier: Religion and the British Army in the First and Second World War, London, 2005. 17. Doris L. Bergen, The Sword of the Lord: Military Chaplains from the First to the Twenty-First Century, Notre Dame, Indiana, 2004; Duff Crerar, Padres in No Man's Land: Canadian Chaplains and the Great War, Montreal, 1995. 18. On Jewish chaplains in the British army see British Jewry Book of Honour, and in the American army see Albert Isaac Slomovitz, The Fighting Rabbis: Jewish Military Chaplains and American History, New York, 1999. 19. The Maccabean, 15 February 1929. 20. L.I. Falk, Private papers, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF Archives), Tel-Hashomer, Israel. 21. Letter by Mrs Malkin, L.I. Falk, Private papers, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF Archives), Tel-Hashomer, Israelibid. 22. The Maccabean, 3 May 1929. 23. Richard Schweitzer, The Cross and the Trenches: Religious Faith and Doubt among British and American Great War Soldiers, Westport, CT, 2003, p. 47. 24. Robinson Memoirs, Legions House, Aviha'il, Israel, 38th Legion, file 2b, document 3. 25. H.D. Myer, Excerpts from Letters [of] H.D. Myer 1918–1919, Legions House Library, Aviha'il, Israel, p. 98. 26. The Maccabean, 22 March 1929. 27. The Maccabean, 8 March 1929. 28. The Maccabean, 22 March 1929. 29. The Maccabean, 5 April 1929. 30. The Maccabean, 5 April 1929 31. The Maccabean, 5 April 1929 32. The Maccabean, 26 April 1929. 33. Falk, Private papers 34. Falk, Private papers 35. Falk, Private papers 36. Falk, Private papers 37. Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, London, 1975. 38. Clarence L. Abercrombie, The Military Chaplain, Beverly Hills, CA, 1977. 39. The Maccabean, 5 April 1929. 40. Falk, Private papers. 41. Letter by Professor Boris Schatz to Rabbi Falk, 7 Adar Beth, 1919, Falk Private papers. 42. ‘A Temple in the Wilderness: Bezalel in Jerusalem’, Israel Museum online publication, available at http://www.imj.org.il/eng/exhibitions/2006/schatz/bezalel_jerusalem.html 43. Abraham Isaac Kook, ‘The Significance of the Revival’, in Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, the Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters, and Poems, Translated by Ben Zion Bokser, New York, 1978, p. 286. 44. Zvi Yaron, Mishnato Shel Harav Kook (The Philosophy of Rabbi Kook), Jerusalem, 1974 (Hebrew), p. 28. 45. Falk, Private papers. 46. Falk, Private papers 47. Paul Goodman, History of the Jews: Soldiers' and Sailors' Edition, London, 1917. 48. Falk, Private papers. 49. The Maccabean, 15 November 1929. 50. Megilat Hagdud, p. 133. 51. See Arthur Hertzberg, The Jews in America, New York, 1989; Gerald Tulchinsky, Taking Root: The Origins of the Canadian Jewish Community, Toronto, 1992. 52. The Maccabean, 22 February 1929, p. 12. 53. Falk, Private papers. 54. D. Gogol, ‘Bagdudim’ (In the Legions), Kuntres 2 (8 I'yar, 1919), pp. 35–37.

THE JEWISH LEGIONS IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR AS A LOCUS OF IDENTITY FORMATION

Based on life‐writing material, this article sheds light on the process by which the Jewish Legions in the British Army in the First World War, composed in large part of Jewish volunteers from Canada and the United States, contributed to the development among its legionnaires of a sense of belonging to their respective North American countries. The notion that formerly displaced immigrants were fighting for the Promised Land, and the consistency of this notion with the overall aims of the allies in the First World War, promoted the development of a unique identity as Jewish “citizen‐soldiers”.

Radical Israeli settlers: ultimate concerns, political goals and violence

The focus of this article is the radical and activist parts of the wider Israeli settler community on the West Bank. This Radical Israeli Settler Movement should not be confused with the general settler community in the West Bank, even if the more radical groups often recruit their members from the general settler community. The Radical Israeli Settler Movement today includes groups such as Kach, The Committee for Safety on the Roads and The Jewish Legion. The purpose of this article is to analyse some instances of violence in the radical Israeli settler movement and to identify recurring features and processes in this violence. It will be argued that these features and processes are important factors in understanding why certain movements use violence. It will also be argued that future comparative studies are needed, which include other contexts where similar radical movements have become violent, in order to develop a general theory of ethno-religious movements using political violence.

The Jewish Legion and the First World War

The Jewish Legion and the First World War

Going against the Grain: Two Jewish Memoirs of War and Anti—War, 1914–18

Utilising two unpublished memoirs of the seminal Great War period, this article seeks to consider the impact of compulsory military service on a British Jewish community, two-thirds of whom were recently arrived, mostly Russian Jewish immigrants. Its aim is two-fold. Firstly, it challenges a cherished received communal wisdom regarding the ‘patriotic’ nature of enlistment and ‘sacrifice’ as portrayed not only in the official British Jewry Book of Honour but also in Vladimir Jabotinsky's alternative, Zionist version, The Story of the Jewish Legion. Secondly, it seeks to argue that the writing of Jewish history as if national ideology—assimilationist or Zionist—were the dominant discourse, fails to account for human experiences which do not fit its predetermined, collectivist contours. The richness of the narratives by Arnold Harris and Henry Myer lies in the very fact that these two young men facing the crisis of war did not act according to straightforward national ‘type’, but instead responded in ways which must necessarily complicate rather than simplify our understanding of the Jewish encounter with modernity.

A selection of books on Zionism and the land of Israel

Zvi Shilony, The Jewish National Fund and Settlement in Eretz Israel (1903–1914) (Hebrew), Jerusalem, Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, 1990, x+457 pp. Mordechai Eliav, ed., Siege and Distress: Eretz Israel during the First World War (Hebrew), Jerusalem, Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, 1991, 290 pp. Nathan Efrati, The Jewish Community in Eretz Israel during World War I (1914–1918) (Hebrew), Jerusalem, Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, 1991, 361 pp. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, The Story of the Jewish Legion in World War I (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, Ministry of Defence Publishing House, new edition, 1991, 173 pp. Anita Shapira, ed., Ha'apala: Studies in the History of Illegal Immigration into Palestine, 1934–1948 (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, The Association for the Study of Illegal Immigration in Memory of Shaul Avigur at Tel Aviv University and Am Oved, 1990, 433 pp. Varda Pilowsky, ed., Transition from Yishuv to State: Continuity and Change (Hebrew), Haifa, University of Haifa, 1990, 348 pp. Shlomit Keren, Between Ears of Corn and the Sword: The Youth Movements and the Establishment of the Nahal (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, Ministry of Defence Publishing House, 1991, 140 pp. David Shaham, Israel — 40 Years (Hebrew), Tel Aviv, Am Oved, 1991, 503 pp.

Pinchas Rutenberg and the establishment of the Jewish Legion in 1914

Pinchas Rutenberg and the establishment of the Jewish Legion in 1914