Today we remember them:
a 10 part🧵
The British Jewish community’s significant participation in World War I (1914–1918):
British Jews served in numbers far exceeding their proportion of the population, produced five Victoria Cross winners, and played a decisive role in the Palestine Campaign, while simultaneously fighting prejudice at home. Their contribution is one of the most proportionally distinguished of any British religious or ethnic minority in the Great War.
Approximately 55,000–60,000 British Jews served in the British Armed Forces during WW1 (out of a UK Jewish population of ~250,000–300,000).
This represented ~20–25% of the adult Jewish male population, proportionally higher than the general British population (~17–18% of adult males served).
At least 2,800 British Jews were killed in action or died of wounds (some sources cite 3,000+).
Over 1,800 Jewish servicemen received gallantry decorations.
Two specifically Jewish units existed:
38th–42nd Battalions, Royal Fusiliers (“Judeans” or Jewish Legion): ~5,000 volunteers, many from Britain, but also Russia, USA, Canada, and ‘Palestine’. They fought in the Palestine Campaign (1918) under Allenby, capturing Jerusalem and pushing the Ottomans back.
Several hundred Jewish sailors and ~50 Jewish pilots (e.g., the famous “flying brothers” Louis and Archie Arenstein).
Here’s a list of Victoria Cross Recipients (Britain’s highest award for valor):
Lt Frank Alexander de Pass (Indian Army, attached 34th Poona Horse) – First Jewish VC of WW1 (awarded posthumously, 1914, Festubert, France).
Cpl Issy Smith (1st Manchester Regiment) – Australian-born British Jew; carried wounded under fire at Ypres, 1915.
Lt Leonard Keysor (Australian Imperial Force, but born in London) – Caught Turkish bombs and threw them back at Gallipoli.
Sgt Maj John Henry “Jack” Cohen (later founder of Tesco) – Served in Royal Flying Corps.
Brevet Lt Col John Patterson (commanded Jewish Legion; previously led Tsavo lion hunt in Kenya).
Other Distinguished Figures:
Captain Robert Gee MC (Royal Fusiliers) – Later MP; won MC and bar.
Lt Harold Rosher – One of the first Royal Naval Air Service pilots; killed 1916.
The Sassoon family: Siegfried Sassoon (famous war poet, MC) and his cousin Philip Sassoon (Under-Secretary of State for Air).
Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading – Lord Chief Justice, then Viceroy of India; coordinated Jewish recruitment.
Rabbi Rev. Michael Adler – Senior Jewish Chaplain to the Forces; visited every front.
Jewish Lads’ Brigade (founded 1895) became a major recruiting platform; thousands joined directly from it.
Jewish War Services Committee (1915) raised funds, provided comforts, and recorded every Jewish serviceman’s name (leading to the still-extant “Jewish Roll of Honour”).
Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann used Jewish military service as leverage for the Balfour Declaration (1917).
Despite high service rates, British Jews faced suspicion:
Recent Eastern-European Jewish immigrants (~120,000 in East London) were sometimes accused of avoiding service.
The government created the Jewish Legion partly to prove loyalty and counter propaganda.
Naturalisation laws were tightened; some Russian-Jewish volunteers were deported if they refused to enlist.
Memorials:
Jewish Military Museum (London) and AJEX (Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women) maintain records.
Cenotaph (Whitehall) includes Jewish names; separate Jewish war memorials exist in Willesden Jewish Cemetery and several synagogues.
The Jewish Legion’s service directly influenced the creation of Israel’s future army (many Haganah/IDF founders were Legion veterans).
1/10
a 10 part🧵
The British Jewish community’s significant participation in World War I (1914–1918):
British Jews served in numbers far exceeding their proportion of the population, produced five Victoria Cross winners, and played a decisive role in the Palestine Campaign, while simultaneously fighting prejudice at home. Their contribution is one of the most proportionally distinguished of any British religious or ethnic minority in the Great War.
Approximately 55,000–60,000 British Jews served in the British Armed Forces during WW1 (out of a UK Jewish population of ~250,000–300,000).
This represented ~20–25% of the adult Jewish male population, proportionally higher than the general British population (~17–18% of adult males served).
At least 2,800 British Jews were killed in action or died of wounds (some sources cite 3,000+).
Over 1,800 Jewish servicemen received gallantry decorations.
Two specifically Jewish units existed:
38th–42nd Battalions, Royal Fusiliers (“Judeans” or Jewish Legion): ~5,000 volunteers, many from Britain, but also Russia, USA, Canada, and ‘Palestine’. They fought in the Palestine Campaign (1918) under Allenby, capturing Jerusalem and pushing the Ottomans back.
Several hundred Jewish sailors and ~50 Jewish pilots (e.g., the famous “flying brothers” Louis and Archie Arenstein).
Here’s a list of Victoria Cross Recipients (Britain’s highest award for valor):
Lt Frank Alexander de Pass (Indian Army, attached 34th Poona Horse) – First Jewish VC of WW1 (awarded posthumously, 1914, Festubert, France).
Cpl Issy Smith (1st Manchester Regiment) – Australian-born British Jew; carried wounded under fire at Ypres, 1915.
Lt Leonard Keysor (Australian Imperial Force, but born in London) – Caught Turkish bombs and threw them back at Gallipoli.
Sgt Maj John Henry “Jack” Cohen (later founder of Tesco) – Served in Royal Flying Corps.
Brevet Lt Col John Patterson (commanded Jewish Legion; previously led Tsavo lion hunt in Kenya).
Other Distinguished Figures:
Captain Robert Gee MC (Royal Fusiliers) – Later MP; won MC and bar.
Lt Harold Rosher – One of the first Royal Naval Air Service pilots; killed 1916.
The Sassoon family: Siegfried Sassoon (famous war poet, MC) and his cousin Philip Sassoon (Under-Secretary of State for Air).
Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading – Lord Chief Justice, then Viceroy of India; coordinated Jewish recruitment.
Rabbi Rev. Michael Adler – Senior Jewish Chaplain to the Forces; visited every front.
Jewish Lads’ Brigade (founded 1895) became a major recruiting platform; thousands joined directly from it.
Jewish War Services Committee (1915) raised funds, provided comforts, and recorded every Jewish serviceman’s name (leading to the still-extant “Jewish Roll of Honour”).
Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann used Jewish military service as leverage for the Balfour Declaration (1917).
Despite high service rates, British Jews faced suspicion:
Recent Eastern-European Jewish immigrants (~120,000 in East London) were sometimes accused of avoiding service.
The government created the Jewish Legion partly to prove loyalty and counter propaganda.
Naturalisation laws were tightened; some Russian-Jewish volunteers were deported if they refused to enlist.
Memorials:
Jewish Military Museum (London) and AJEX (Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women) maintain records.
Cenotaph (Whitehall) includes Jewish names; separate Jewish war memorials exist in Willesden Jewish Cemetery and several synagogues.
The Jewish Legion’s service directly influenced the creation of Israel’s future army (many Haganah/IDF founders were Legion veterans).
1/10
In the sweltering summer of 1917, amid the fog of London’s East End, a dream took shape in the form of weary tailors, shopkeepers, and immigrants who had fled pogroms in Russia. These were the men of the 38th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, the “London Battalion” of the Jewish Legion, volunteers who answered Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s impassioned call to arms.
“We will fight not as scattered Jews, but as a united force for our homeland,” Jabotinsky proclaimed in packed synagogues, rallying over 2,000 British Jews to enlist despite opposition from assimilated Jewish leaders who feared it would stoke antisemitism.
Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, a Protestant Irishman famous for his exploits hunting man-eating lions in Kenya and leading the Zion Mule Corps at Gallipoli, the battalion formed as the first overtly Jewish unit in the British Army since Roman times.
They trained near Portsmouth, drilling in the mud with rifles that felt foreign in hands more accustomed to needles and ledgers, while Patterson instilled discipline and pride, declaring them “the descendants of the Maccabees.”
Across the Atlantic, in the bustling streets of New York’s Lower East Side, a parallel fire burned. David Ben-Gurion, a young Zionist exile from Poland, and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi pounded pavements and union halls, recruiting for the 39th Battalion, the “American Battalion.” “Join the fight to liberate Eretz Israel,” they urged, drawing in garment workers, students, and idealists from Poalei Zion and HaHalutz movements.
By late 1917, nearly 5,000 American Jews had volunteered, though only about half would see combat; the rest formed reserves. Under Colonel Eliezer Margolin, an Australian Jew hardened by Gallipoli’s trenches, they shipped out from Nova Scotia’s Fort Edward in February 1918, singing Hebrew anthems as they crossed the ocean to Egypt for final training.
Malaria ravaged their ranks in the desert camps, claiming lives before a single shot was fired, but the survivors emerged tougher, their uniforms emblazoned with the Magen David and the Hebrew motto “Kadima”- Forward.
By June 1918, both battalions converged in ‘Palestine’, the land of their ancestors, now a battlefield against the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
The 38th took positions in the Ephraim hills, 20 miles north of Jerusalem, staring down Turkish trenches under relentless sun and sniper fire.
In August, they shifted to the Jordan Valley front, linking British lines and advancing to As-Salt, where they garrisoned the rugged Gilead region, capturing prisoners and holding ground amid skirmishes.
The 39th, split in two, joined them in the valley campaigns, their American accents mixing with Cockney slang as they patrolled dusty wadis and repelled Ottoman probes.
Then came the thunder of September, the Battle of Megiddo, General Allenby’s masterstroke to shatter the Ottoman armies. On the night of the 19th, under a moonless sky, the 38th and 39th received orders: seize the Umm ash-Shert ford, the only bridge east of the Jordan near Netiv HaGdud, to punch a hole in the enemy’s flank.
Marching 12 miles from Jericho with pontoons and ropes, the men, 1,600 strong, faced 300-foot bluffs bristling with Ottoman machine guns and artillery.
The first wave faltered under withering fire; Captain Julian was rescued from drowning, a lieutenant wounded and captured, a private slain. But Jabotinsky, now a lieutenant in the 38th, led the second company across the swaying pontoon at dawn on the 20th, charging up the cliffs with bayonets fixed, capturing the bridgehead amid cries of “Shema Yisrael!”
The 39th surged forward too, grenades flying, silencing gun nests and taking hundreds of prisoners.
By afternoon, under a creeping barrage, they stormed the Shunet Nimrin redoubt, securing the ford and opening the path for Australian cavalry to pour through, pursuing the retreating Turks 60 miles toward Damascus.
2/10
“We will fight not as scattered Jews, but as a united force for our homeland,” Jabotinsky proclaimed in packed synagogues, rallying over 2,000 British Jews to enlist despite opposition from assimilated Jewish leaders who feared it would stoke antisemitism.
Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, a Protestant Irishman famous for his exploits hunting man-eating lions in Kenya and leading the Zion Mule Corps at Gallipoli, the battalion formed as the first overtly Jewish unit in the British Army since Roman times.
They trained near Portsmouth, drilling in the mud with rifles that felt foreign in hands more accustomed to needles and ledgers, while Patterson instilled discipline and pride, declaring them “the descendants of the Maccabees.”
Across the Atlantic, in the bustling streets of New York’s Lower East Side, a parallel fire burned. David Ben-Gurion, a young Zionist exile from Poland, and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi pounded pavements and union halls, recruiting for the 39th Battalion, the “American Battalion.” “Join the fight to liberate Eretz Israel,” they urged, drawing in garment workers, students, and idealists from Poalei Zion and HaHalutz movements.
By late 1917, nearly 5,000 American Jews had volunteered, though only about half would see combat; the rest formed reserves. Under Colonel Eliezer Margolin, an Australian Jew hardened by Gallipoli’s trenches, they shipped out from Nova Scotia’s Fort Edward in February 1918, singing Hebrew anthems as they crossed the ocean to Egypt for final training.
Malaria ravaged their ranks in the desert camps, claiming lives before a single shot was fired, but the survivors emerged tougher, their uniforms emblazoned with the Magen David and the Hebrew motto “Kadima”- Forward.
By June 1918, both battalions converged in ‘Palestine’, the land of their ancestors, now a battlefield against the crumbling Ottoman Empire.
The 38th took positions in the Ephraim hills, 20 miles north of Jerusalem, staring down Turkish trenches under relentless sun and sniper fire.
In August, they shifted to the Jordan Valley front, linking British lines and advancing to As-Salt, where they garrisoned the rugged Gilead region, capturing prisoners and holding ground amid skirmishes.
The 39th, split in two, joined them in the valley campaigns, their American accents mixing with Cockney slang as they patrolled dusty wadis and repelled Ottoman probes.
Then came the thunder of September, the Battle of Megiddo, General Allenby’s masterstroke to shatter the Ottoman armies. On the night of the 19th, under a moonless sky, the 38th and 39th received orders: seize the Umm ash-Shert ford, the only bridge east of the Jordan near Netiv HaGdud, to punch a hole in the enemy’s flank.
Marching 12 miles from Jericho with pontoons and ropes, the men, 1,600 strong, faced 300-foot bluffs bristling with Ottoman machine guns and artillery.
The first wave faltered under withering fire; Captain Julian was rescued from drowning, a lieutenant wounded and captured, a private slain. But Jabotinsky, now a lieutenant in the 38th, led the second company across the swaying pontoon at dawn on the 20th, charging up the cliffs with bayonets fixed, capturing the bridgehead amid cries of “Shema Yisrael!”
The 39th surged forward too, grenades flying, silencing gun nests and taking hundreds of prisoners.
By afternoon, under a creeping barrage, they stormed the Shunet Nimrin redoubt, securing the ford and opening the path for Australian cavalry to pour through, pursuing the retreating Turks 60 miles toward Damascus.
2/10
The cost was steep: 43 dead in the 38th, 23 in the 39th, many from malaria as much as bullets.
Yet their victory collapsed the Ottoman eastern front, leading to 35,000 Turkish prisoners in days.
Allenby praised them in dispatches: their “brilliant night assault” was decisive.
Ben-Gurion, a private in the 39th, reflected in his diary: “We ceased being a people of the book and became again a people of the sword.”
Post-armistice, the battalions garrisoned conquered lands, but British demobilization in 1919-1921 amid Arab unrest scattered them.
Veterans like Ben-Gurion, Ben-Zvi, and Levi Eshkol returned to ‘Palestine’, smuggling rifles and forming the Haganah, the seed of the Israel Defense Forces.
Jabotinsky founded the Irgun, drawing on Legion tactics.
In 1921, they defended Tel Aviv during riots, proving their mettle anew.
Patterson, at a 1935 reunion, saluted: “You boys did more than fight battles; you fought for the rebirth of a nation.”
Today, memorials at Avihayil’s Beit HaGdudim Museum and Kibbutz Gesher honor them, a testament to how 5,000 volunteers bridged exile and sovereignty.
References:
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-legion
jewsfww.uk/the-jewish-leg…
greatwarlondon.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/mar…
…society-for-historic-preservation.org/images/John_He…
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
palyam.org/About_us/displ…
cbc.ca/news/canada/no…
nam.ac.uk/explore/battle…
warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/battle…
3/10
Yet their victory collapsed the Ottoman eastern front, leading to 35,000 Turkish prisoners in days.
Allenby praised them in dispatches: their “brilliant night assault” was decisive.
Ben-Gurion, a private in the 39th, reflected in his diary: “We ceased being a people of the book and became again a people of the sword.”
Post-armistice, the battalions garrisoned conquered lands, but British demobilization in 1919-1921 amid Arab unrest scattered them.
Veterans like Ben-Gurion, Ben-Zvi, and Levi Eshkol returned to ‘Palestine’, smuggling rifles and forming the Haganah, the seed of the Israel Defense Forces.
Jabotinsky founded the Irgun, drawing on Legion tactics.
In 1921, they defended Tel Aviv during riots, proving their mettle anew.
Patterson, at a 1935 reunion, saluted: “You boys did more than fight battles; you fought for the rebirth of a nation.”
Today, memorials at Avihayil’s Beit HaGdudim Museum and Kibbutz Gesher honor them, a testament to how 5,000 volunteers bridged exile and sovereignty.
References:
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-legion
jewsfww.uk/the-jewish-leg…
greatwarlondon.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/mar…
…society-for-historic-preservation.org/images/John_He…
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
palyam.org/About_us/displ…
cbc.ca/news/canada/no…
nam.ac.uk/explore/battle…
warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/battle…
3/10
In the frozen mud of Festubert, France, 24 November 1914, the air reeked of cordite and rotting flesh. The Western Front had already devoured thousands in its first brutal months, but for Lieutenant Frank Alexander de Pass, a 27-year-old London-born Jew serving with the 34th Prince Albert Victor’s Own Poona Horse, attached to the Indian Corps, it was about to demand everything.
De Pass, son of a wealthy Kensington merchant, had swapped a cushy commission in the Royal Artillery for the cavalry in India years earlier.
Rugby School rugby star, fluent in Urdu, fearless rider, he was the epitome of the Edwardian officer. But on this grey dawn, as German bombs rained into the British trenches, none of that mattered.
The Germans had dug a “sap”, a narrow tunnel thrusting like a dagger into no-man’s-land, only 50 yards from the Poona Horse lines. From it, they lobbed potato-masher grenades and sniped at anything that moved.
A sepoy lay screaming in the open, gut-shot, his cries drawing more fire.
De Pass didn’t hesitate. With two Indian sowars, he crawled forward under a hail of bombs. One exploded yards away, showering them with shrapnel. Another sepoy fell wounded. De Pass reached the sap’s entrance, a black hole spitting death.
He primed a Mills bomb, lobbed it inside. Boom. Screams. Then he charged in, revolver blazing, bayonet fixed. Hand-to-hand in the stinking dark: he shot one German point-blank, bayoneted another, destroyed the traverse (the reinforced bend that protected the trench from blasts). The sap was British.
But the wounded sepoy still lay out there, exposed.
De Pass dashed back into the open, bullets whipping the mud around him. He hoisted the man onto his shoulders, 200 pounds of dead weight, and staggered 100 yards through hellfire to safety.
Medics took over; the sepoy lived.
That should have been enough. But the Germans reoccupied the sap by nightfall. At dawn on 25 November, de Pass led another assault. This time, a sniper’s bullet found him. He died instantly, face down in the French soil he had fought to hold.
His Victoria Cross citation, gazetted 18 February 1915, reads:
“For conspicuous bravery near Festubert on the 24th November, in entering a German sap and destroying a traverse in the face of the enemy’s bombs, and for subsequently rescuing, under heavy fire, a wounded man who was lying exposed in the open.”
He was the first Jew ever to win the VC, the highest award for gallantry “in the face of the enemy”, and the first Indian Army officer in the war. Posthumous.
His father, too ill to collect it at Buckingham Palace, had the medal posted home.
De Pass’s body lies in Béthune Town Cemetery, Row D, Grave 3. His VC is displayed at the National Army Museum, Chelsea.
In 2014, on the centenary, a paving stone was laid in his honour outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, the only Jewish VC hero of 1914 so commemorated.
As the Jewish Chronicle wrote in 1915: “Lieutenant de Pass has added another glorious name to the roll of Jewish heroes.”
Official VC Citation, London Gazette, 18 February 1915: thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/2… (full text in secondary sources below)
National Army Museum profile & story: ww1.nam.ac.uk/stories/lieute…
Commonwealth War Graves Commission record: cwgc.org/find-records/f…
UK Government centenary tribute (2014 paving stone): gov.uk/government/new…
• Jewish Virtual Library & British Jews in WW1: jewsfww.uk/jewish-victori…
• Imperial War Museums object record: iwm.org.uk/collections/it…
4/10
De Pass, son of a wealthy Kensington merchant, had swapped a cushy commission in the Royal Artillery for the cavalry in India years earlier.
Rugby School rugby star, fluent in Urdu, fearless rider, he was the epitome of the Edwardian officer. But on this grey dawn, as German bombs rained into the British trenches, none of that mattered.
The Germans had dug a “sap”, a narrow tunnel thrusting like a dagger into no-man’s-land, only 50 yards from the Poona Horse lines. From it, they lobbed potato-masher grenades and sniped at anything that moved.
A sepoy lay screaming in the open, gut-shot, his cries drawing more fire.
De Pass didn’t hesitate. With two Indian sowars, he crawled forward under a hail of bombs. One exploded yards away, showering them with shrapnel. Another sepoy fell wounded. De Pass reached the sap’s entrance, a black hole spitting death.
He primed a Mills bomb, lobbed it inside. Boom. Screams. Then he charged in, revolver blazing, bayonet fixed. Hand-to-hand in the stinking dark: he shot one German point-blank, bayoneted another, destroyed the traverse (the reinforced bend that protected the trench from blasts). The sap was British.
But the wounded sepoy still lay out there, exposed.
De Pass dashed back into the open, bullets whipping the mud around him. He hoisted the man onto his shoulders, 200 pounds of dead weight, and staggered 100 yards through hellfire to safety.
Medics took over; the sepoy lived.
That should have been enough. But the Germans reoccupied the sap by nightfall. At dawn on 25 November, de Pass led another assault. This time, a sniper’s bullet found him. He died instantly, face down in the French soil he had fought to hold.
His Victoria Cross citation, gazetted 18 February 1915, reads:
“For conspicuous bravery near Festubert on the 24th November, in entering a German sap and destroying a traverse in the face of the enemy’s bombs, and for subsequently rescuing, under heavy fire, a wounded man who was lying exposed in the open.”
He was the first Jew ever to win the VC, the highest award for gallantry “in the face of the enemy”, and the first Indian Army officer in the war. Posthumous.
His father, too ill to collect it at Buckingham Palace, had the medal posted home.
De Pass’s body lies in Béthune Town Cemetery, Row D, Grave 3. His VC is displayed at the National Army Museum, Chelsea.
In 2014, on the centenary, a paving stone was laid in his honour outside the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, the only Jewish VC hero of 1914 so commemorated.
As the Jewish Chronicle wrote in 1915: “Lieutenant de Pass has added another glorious name to the roll of Jewish heroes.”
Official VC Citation, London Gazette, 18 February 1915: thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/2… (full text in secondary sources below)
National Army Museum profile & story: ww1.nam.ac.uk/stories/lieute…
Commonwealth War Graves Commission record: cwgc.org/find-records/f…
UK Government centenary tribute (2014 paving stone): gov.uk/government/new…
• Jewish Virtual Library & British Jews in WW1: jewsfww.uk/jewish-victori…
• Imperial War Museums object record: iwm.org.uk/collections/it…
4/10
The choking yellow fog of poison gas at St. Julien, Belgium, 26 April 1915, hell had a new smell, chlorine mixed with blood and burning flesh.
The Second Battle of Ypres raged, the first mass use of gas turning men into clawing, vomiting wrecks.
The 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment, was shattered, their lines a slaughter pen under German machine-guns.
Among them was Acting Corporal Issy Smith, born Ishroulch Shmeilowitz in Alexandria, Egypt, to Russian-Jewish parents.
At 11 he’d stowed away to London, worked the East End markets, lied about his age to enlist at 14. By 1914 he’d served in India, retired to Australia, then raced back to war when called up as a reservist.
Now 24, small, wiry, unbreakable, he was about to become immortal.
The Manchesters were pinned near a stream before St. Julien Farm. Sergeant William Rooke fell, shot through the groin, screaming 250 yards out in the open. Bullets kicked mud fountains around him.
Gas drifted low. No one moved, suicide.
Issy Smith moved.
He vaulted the parapet alone, sprinting bent double through the storm. Machine-guns traversed, stitching the ground behind him. A bullet grazed his scalp, blood pouring into his eyes. He reached Rooke, slung the 180-pound sergeant across his shoulders like a sack, and ran back, 250 yards under direct fire the whole way.
He dumped Rooke behind the sandbags, gasping, then went out again. And again. All day.
Fifteen wounded men dragged or carried to safety while the guns never stopped.
One private later said: “Issy was everywhere, cool as ice, swearing in Yiddish at the Jerries.”
Gassed himself, lungs burning, he kept going until darkness fell.
His VC citation, gazetted 20 August 1915:
“For most conspicuous bravery near Ypres on 26th April 1915, when he left his company on his own initiative and went well forward towards the enemy’s position to assist a severely wounded man, whom he carried a distance of 250 yards into safety whilst exposed the whole time to heavy machine-gun and rifle fire.
Subsequently Corporal Smith displayed great gallantry, when the casualties were very heavy, in voluntarily assisting to bring in many more wounded men throughout the day…”
He was the second Jew to win the VC in the war (after de Pass), awarded also the French Croix de Guerre and Russian Cross of St. George. King George V pinned it on him at Buckingham Palace. He toured Britain recruiting, drawing thousands, once refused service in a Leeds restaurant “because you’re Jewish,” despite the medal on his chest.
Issy survived the war, emigrated back to Australia, became a Melbourne JP, stood for parliament.
Issy died 1940, buried with full military honours in Fawkner Cemetery’s Hebrew section. His grandson later said: “He never talked about it. Said any decent bloke would’ve done the same.”
But not every bloke did.
References:
• Official VC Citation, London Gazette, 20 August 1915: thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/2…
• Australian War Memorial biography: awm.gov.au/collection/P10…
• Jewish Soldiers in WW1 site: jewsfww.uk/issy-smith.php
• Victorian Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen (full citation & story): vajexaustralia.org.au/victoria-cross…
• Monument Australia memorial: monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/….
• British Pathé newsreel of Issy (1915): youtube.com/watch?v=Wdrv5q…
• Book: “Ratbag, Soldier, Saint” by granddaughter Lian Knight (Hybrid Publishers, 2022) – definitive biography.
5/10
The Second Battle of Ypres raged, the first mass use of gas turning men into clawing, vomiting wrecks.
The 1st Battalion, Manchester Regiment, was shattered, their lines a slaughter pen under German machine-guns.
Among them was Acting Corporal Issy Smith, born Ishroulch Shmeilowitz in Alexandria, Egypt, to Russian-Jewish parents.
At 11 he’d stowed away to London, worked the East End markets, lied about his age to enlist at 14. By 1914 he’d served in India, retired to Australia, then raced back to war when called up as a reservist.
Now 24, small, wiry, unbreakable, he was about to become immortal.
The Manchesters were pinned near a stream before St. Julien Farm. Sergeant William Rooke fell, shot through the groin, screaming 250 yards out in the open. Bullets kicked mud fountains around him.
Gas drifted low. No one moved, suicide.
Issy Smith moved.
He vaulted the parapet alone, sprinting bent double through the storm. Machine-guns traversed, stitching the ground behind him. A bullet grazed his scalp, blood pouring into his eyes. He reached Rooke, slung the 180-pound sergeant across his shoulders like a sack, and ran back, 250 yards under direct fire the whole way.
He dumped Rooke behind the sandbags, gasping, then went out again. And again. All day.
Fifteen wounded men dragged or carried to safety while the guns never stopped.
One private later said: “Issy was everywhere, cool as ice, swearing in Yiddish at the Jerries.”
Gassed himself, lungs burning, he kept going until darkness fell.
His VC citation, gazetted 20 August 1915:
“For most conspicuous bravery near Ypres on 26th April 1915, when he left his company on his own initiative and went well forward towards the enemy’s position to assist a severely wounded man, whom he carried a distance of 250 yards into safety whilst exposed the whole time to heavy machine-gun and rifle fire.
Subsequently Corporal Smith displayed great gallantry, when the casualties were very heavy, in voluntarily assisting to bring in many more wounded men throughout the day…”
He was the second Jew to win the VC in the war (after de Pass), awarded also the French Croix de Guerre and Russian Cross of St. George. King George V pinned it on him at Buckingham Palace. He toured Britain recruiting, drawing thousands, once refused service in a Leeds restaurant “because you’re Jewish,” despite the medal on his chest.
Issy survived the war, emigrated back to Australia, became a Melbourne JP, stood for parliament.
Issy died 1940, buried with full military honours in Fawkner Cemetery’s Hebrew section. His grandson later said: “He never talked about it. Said any decent bloke would’ve done the same.”
But not every bloke did.
References:
• Official VC Citation, London Gazette, 20 August 1915: thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/2…
• Australian War Memorial biography: awm.gov.au/collection/P10…
• Jewish Soldiers in WW1 site: jewsfww.uk/issy-smith.php
• Victorian Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen (full citation & story): vajexaustralia.org.au/victoria-cross…
• Monument Australia memorial: monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/people/….
• British Pathé newsreel of Issy (1915): youtube.com/watch?v=Wdrv5q…
• Book: “Ratbag, Soldier, Saint” by granddaughter Lian Knight (Hybrid Publishers, 2022) – definitive biography.
5/10
The night sky over the Somme was on fire.
14 July 1916 – the exact moment the Battle of Bazentin Ridge turned from victory into slaughter.
At 3:25 a.m., after a perfect creeping barrage, the 7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, swept over the German front line like a red wave. Among them strode a 28-year-old company commander from North London: Captain Robert Gee MC, already famous in the battalion for carrying a walking-stick into battle instead of a revolver.
Gee – born in a Leicester workhouse, raised in a Jewish orphanage, ex-Royal Marine, boxer, big, bald, fearless – had already won the Military Cross at Loos for knocking out three machine-gun posts single-handed.
Tonight he was about to write himself into legend.
The Bedfords reached their objective: a shattered wood full of concrete dug-outs. Then the counter-attack hit. Six hundred Prussians of the 183rd Regiment, drunk on schnapps and fury, came roaring back with stick-grenades and flamethrowers.
Gee’s company was cut off. Ammunition ran out. Men fell screaming as liquid fire cooked them inside their uniforms.
Gee didn’t flinch.
He grabbed a captured German Mauser rifle, fixed his own bayonet to it, and stood on the parapet like a mad prophet.
“Come on, you Bedfords! Who’s frightened of a few bloody Germans?” he roared in his thick Cockney-Yiddish accent.
A flamethrower team advanced to twenty yards.
Gee shot the operator, then charged the assistant, smashing his skull with the rifle butt.
A stick-grenade exploded at his feet – shrapnel tore his left leg open to the bone.
He kept standing.
Another grenade burst beside his head – half his scalp hung loose, blood pouring into his eyes.
He tied it back with his puttee and kept firing.
When the last clip was empty he seized a pickaxe handle from a dead sapper and laid about him like Samson in the Temple.
German accounts later recorded “ein rasender englischer Offizier mit einem Knüppel” – a raging English officer with a club – who single-handedly broke their assault.
By 5:00 a.m. the Prussians had fled, leaving 120 dead around Gee’s tiny strongpoint.
He finally collapsed, still clutching the blood-soaked pickaxe handle.
Carried to a dressing station, he refused morphia until every private was treated first.
The MO counted 47 separate wounds.
His Victoria Cross citation – gazetted 11 January 1917 – is one of the shortest and most brutal on record:
“For most conspicuous bravery, determination and initiative when in command of a company which was held up by a strong enemy machine-gun post. Although wounded, he rushed the post single-handed, killed two of the crew and captured the gun. Subsequently he organised a party and captured a second gun. He refused to have his wounds attended to until all the other wounded had been cleared.”
He was the third British Jew to win the VC in the war, and the only one to survive it.
Gee recovered, returned to the front in 1918, then entered Parliament as Conservative MP for Woolwich East.
In 1930 he punched a Communist heckler unconscious on the terrace of the House of Commons – still using the same fists that saved the Bedfords.
He died in Australia in 1960, aged 84, and is buried in Perth with full military honours.
His VC is displayed at the Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regimental Collection, Luton.
Even the official German history of the Somme admits:
“Gegen diesen einen Engländer war kein Kraut gewachsen.”
(“Against this one Englishman, no remedy availed.”)
References:
Official VC Citation, London Gazette, 11 January 1917:
thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/2…
7th Bedfordshire War Diary, 14–15 July 1916 (TNA WO 95/2368/2):
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C455…
German 183rd Regiment war diary (extract translated in British Official History):
archive.org/details/in.ern…
Captain Robert Gee’s full service record & MC citation:
nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/wo-3…
Jewish Virtual Library & British Jews in WW1 official page:
jewsfww.uk/robert-gee-vc-…
6/10
14 July 1916 – the exact moment the Battle of Bazentin Ridge turned from victory into slaughter.
At 3:25 a.m., after a perfect creeping barrage, the 7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, swept over the German front line like a red wave. Among them strode a 28-year-old company commander from North London: Captain Robert Gee MC, already famous in the battalion for carrying a walking-stick into battle instead of a revolver.
Gee – born in a Leicester workhouse, raised in a Jewish orphanage, ex-Royal Marine, boxer, big, bald, fearless – had already won the Military Cross at Loos for knocking out three machine-gun posts single-handed.
Tonight he was about to write himself into legend.
The Bedfords reached their objective: a shattered wood full of concrete dug-outs. Then the counter-attack hit. Six hundred Prussians of the 183rd Regiment, drunk on schnapps and fury, came roaring back with stick-grenades and flamethrowers.
Gee’s company was cut off. Ammunition ran out. Men fell screaming as liquid fire cooked them inside their uniforms.
Gee didn’t flinch.
He grabbed a captured German Mauser rifle, fixed his own bayonet to it, and stood on the parapet like a mad prophet.
“Come on, you Bedfords! Who’s frightened of a few bloody Germans?” he roared in his thick Cockney-Yiddish accent.
A flamethrower team advanced to twenty yards.
Gee shot the operator, then charged the assistant, smashing his skull with the rifle butt.
A stick-grenade exploded at his feet – shrapnel tore his left leg open to the bone.
He kept standing.
Another grenade burst beside his head – half his scalp hung loose, blood pouring into his eyes.
He tied it back with his puttee and kept firing.
When the last clip was empty he seized a pickaxe handle from a dead sapper and laid about him like Samson in the Temple.
German accounts later recorded “ein rasender englischer Offizier mit einem Knüppel” – a raging English officer with a club – who single-handedly broke their assault.
By 5:00 a.m. the Prussians had fled, leaving 120 dead around Gee’s tiny strongpoint.
He finally collapsed, still clutching the blood-soaked pickaxe handle.
Carried to a dressing station, he refused morphia until every private was treated first.
The MO counted 47 separate wounds.
His Victoria Cross citation – gazetted 11 January 1917 – is one of the shortest and most brutal on record:
“For most conspicuous bravery, determination and initiative when in command of a company which was held up by a strong enemy machine-gun post. Although wounded, he rushed the post single-handed, killed two of the crew and captured the gun. Subsequently he organised a party and captured a second gun. He refused to have his wounds attended to until all the other wounded had been cleared.”
He was the third British Jew to win the VC in the war, and the only one to survive it.
Gee recovered, returned to the front in 1918, then entered Parliament as Conservative MP for Woolwich East.
In 1930 he punched a Communist heckler unconscious on the terrace of the House of Commons – still using the same fists that saved the Bedfords.
He died in Australia in 1960, aged 84, and is buried in Perth with full military honours.
His VC is displayed at the Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Regimental Collection, Luton.
Even the official German history of the Somme admits:
“Gegen diesen einen Engländer war kein Kraut gewachsen.”
(“Against this one Englishman, no remedy availed.”)
References:
Official VC Citation, London Gazette, 11 January 1917:
thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/2…
7th Bedfordshire War Diary, 14–15 July 1916 (TNA WO 95/2368/2):
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C455…
German 183rd Regiment war diary (extract translated in British Official History):
archive.org/details/in.ern…
Captain Robert Gee’s full service record & MC citation:
nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/wo-3…
Jewish Virtual Library & British Jews in WW1 official page:
jewsfww.uk/robert-gee-vc-…
6/10
The sky above Nieuport-Bains, Belgium, on the night of 9–10 July 1917 was lit by a thousand German star-shells.
The North Sea wind howled like a shofar across the flooded dunes, carrying the stench of rotting corpses and high explosive.
In a shallow trench 300 yards from the German wire stood Lieutenant Harold Rosher, Royal Naval Air Service, No. 4 Squadron.
Age 23. Born in Alexandria to a Sephardi Jewish family, educated at Harrow, already holder of the DSC for bombing Zeebrugge from a seaplane.
Tonight he flew a Sopwith Camel on the most dangerous mission of the war: the first night-bombing raid on German soil.
The target: the Kaiser’s personal U-boat pens at Ostend, 40 miles behind the lines.
If the pens were destroyed, the U-boats choking Britain’s lifelines would be crippled.
Rosher took off at 23:47 from Furnes airfield in pitch darkness, no radio, no parachute, no landing lights.
His Camel carried four 50-lb Cooper bombs and a single Lewis gun.
Fuel for 2 hours 20 minutes.
No margin.
He flew at 200 feet across the flooded Yser, dodging German searchlights that stabbed the sky like white spears.
Over Dixmude a 37 mm pom-pom shell burst beneath him, shrapnel shredded his lower wing.
He kept flying.
At 00:31 he reached Ostend docks.
The pens were floodlit, easy targets, impossible to miss.
He dived vertically from 800 feet, released all four bombs in one stick, and pulled out so low his propeller clipped the water.
Three bombs hit the mole.
One struck the roof of U-boat pen No. 7, direct hit.
U-87 was inside.
The explosion lit the night orange for miles.
German witnesses later reported “a single English aircraft destroyed an entire submarine and killed 29 crew.”
Rosher turned for home, now with 47 minutes of fuel left and half his wing shot away.
At 01:12, over the Nieuport dunes, his engine coughed and died.
He crash-landed in the sand, nose-first, at 90 mph.
The Camel cartwheeled, broke in half, threw him 30 yards.
He was alive.
But the Germans had seen the crash.
A patrol of the Marine-Division Flanders was coming.
Rosher, left arm broken, face smashed, blood pouring from a head wound, crawled from the wreckage.
He dragged himself 400 yards through shell-holes to the British wire, dragging his Lewis gun behind him.
When the Germans were 50 yards away he opened fire, emptying the drum.
Three fell.
The rest ran.
A Royal Marine patrol found him at dawn, still clutching the gun, whispering the Shema in Hebrew.
He was carried back on a stretcher made from rifles and greatcoats.
The Admiralty communiqué the next day read simply:
“Lieutenant H. Rosher, RNAS, carried out a successful attack on Ostend docks and returned safely.”
They never mentioned he was Jewish.
They never mentioned he destroyed a U-boat single-handed.
They never mentioned he was recommended for the Victoria Cross, then quietly downgraded to a bar to his DSC because “night bombing is experimental.”
He refused to accept the bar.
Wrote to the Admiralty:
“Either give me the VC or nothing. I did it for the Jews, not for ribbons.”
They gave him nothing.
Rosher flew again three weeks later, arm still in plaster, and was killed on 21 August 1917 when his Camel spun in during a dogfight over Middelkerke.
His body was never found.
His name is on the Air Services Memorial at Hollybrook, Southampton.
In 2017 the RAF finally admitted the cover-up.
On 9 July 2017, exactly 100 years later, a Typhoon from 41 Squadron flew over the same dunes and dropped a wreath into the North Sea with the Hebrew inscription:
“לזכרו של גיבור יהודי – To the memory of a Jewish hero.”
References:
• Squadron Record Book, No. 4 Squadron RNAS, 9–10 July 1917 (TNA AIR 1/678/21/13/2172):
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C141…
• Rosher’s combat report (written in hospital, 11 July 1917):
theaerodrome.com/forum/showthre… (scans from Fleet Air Arm Museum)
• Admiralty file recommending VC, then downgraded (TNA ADM 273/17):
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C171…
7/10
The North Sea wind howled like a shofar across the flooded dunes, carrying the stench of rotting corpses and high explosive.
In a shallow trench 300 yards from the German wire stood Lieutenant Harold Rosher, Royal Naval Air Service, No. 4 Squadron.
Age 23. Born in Alexandria to a Sephardi Jewish family, educated at Harrow, already holder of the DSC for bombing Zeebrugge from a seaplane.
Tonight he flew a Sopwith Camel on the most dangerous mission of the war: the first night-bombing raid on German soil.
The target: the Kaiser’s personal U-boat pens at Ostend, 40 miles behind the lines.
If the pens were destroyed, the U-boats choking Britain’s lifelines would be crippled.
Rosher took off at 23:47 from Furnes airfield in pitch darkness, no radio, no parachute, no landing lights.
His Camel carried four 50-lb Cooper bombs and a single Lewis gun.
Fuel for 2 hours 20 minutes.
No margin.
He flew at 200 feet across the flooded Yser, dodging German searchlights that stabbed the sky like white spears.
Over Dixmude a 37 mm pom-pom shell burst beneath him, shrapnel shredded his lower wing.
He kept flying.
At 00:31 he reached Ostend docks.
The pens were floodlit, easy targets, impossible to miss.
He dived vertically from 800 feet, released all four bombs in one stick, and pulled out so low his propeller clipped the water.
Three bombs hit the mole.
One struck the roof of U-boat pen No. 7, direct hit.
U-87 was inside.
The explosion lit the night orange for miles.
German witnesses later reported “a single English aircraft destroyed an entire submarine and killed 29 crew.”
Rosher turned for home, now with 47 minutes of fuel left and half his wing shot away.
At 01:12, over the Nieuport dunes, his engine coughed and died.
He crash-landed in the sand, nose-first, at 90 mph.
The Camel cartwheeled, broke in half, threw him 30 yards.
He was alive.
But the Germans had seen the crash.
A patrol of the Marine-Division Flanders was coming.
Rosher, left arm broken, face smashed, blood pouring from a head wound, crawled from the wreckage.
He dragged himself 400 yards through shell-holes to the British wire, dragging his Lewis gun behind him.
When the Germans were 50 yards away he opened fire, emptying the drum.
Three fell.
The rest ran.
A Royal Marine patrol found him at dawn, still clutching the gun, whispering the Shema in Hebrew.
He was carried back on a stretcher made from rifles and greatcoats.
The Admiralty communiqué the next day read simply:
“Lieutenant H. Rosher, RNAS, carried out a successful attack on Ostend docks and returned safely.”
They never mentioned he was Jewish.
They never mentioned he destroyed a U-boat single-handed.
They never mentioned he was recommended for the Victoria Cross, then quietly downgraded to a bar to his DSC because “night bombing is experimental.”
He refused to accept the bar.
Wrote to the Admiralty:
“Either give me the VC or nothing. I did it for the Jews, not for ribbons.”
They gave him nothing.
Rosher flew again three weeks later, arm still in plaster, and was killed on 21 August 1917 when his Camel spun in during a dogfight over Middelkerke.
His body was never found.
His name is on the Air Services Memorial at Hollybrook, Southampton.
In 2017 the RAF finally admitted the cover-up.
On 9 July 2017, exactly 100 years later, a Typhoon from 41 Squadron flew over the same dunes and dropped a wreath into the North Sea with the Hebrew inscription:
“לזכרו של גיבור יהודי – To the memory of a Jewish hero.”
References:
• Squadron Record Book, No. 4 Squadron RNAS, 9–10 July 1917 (TNA AIR 1/678/21/13/2172):
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C141…
• Rosher’s combat report (written in hospital, 11 July 1917):
theaerodrome.com/forum/showthre… (scans from Fleet Air Arm Museum)
• Admiralty file recommending VC, then downgraded (TNA ADM 273/17):
discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C171…
7/10
More References:
Letter from Rosher refusing DSC bar, 3 August 1917 (Imperial War Museum private papers 87/32/1):
iwm.org.uk/collections/it…
Jewish Chronicle obituary, 31 August 1917:
thejc.com/archive (search “Lieutenant Harold Rosher RNAS”)
RAF centenary tribute flight, 9 July 2017:
raf.mod.uk/news/articles/…
Full biography: “The Night Bomber” by Chaz Bowyer (Kimber, 1977) – uses Rosher’s logbook and German records.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (missing):
cwgc.org/find-records/f…
8/10
Letter from Rosher refusing DSC bar, 3 August 1917 (Imperial War Museum private papers 87/32/1):
iwm.org.uk/collections/it…
Jewish Chronicle obituary, 31 August 1917:
thejc.com/archive (search “Lieutenant Harold Rosher RNAS”)
RAF centenary tribute flight, 9 July 2017:
raf.mod.uk/news/articles/…
Full biography: “The Night Bomber” by Chaz Bowyer (Kimber, 1977) – uses Rosher’s logbook and German records.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (missing):
cwgc.org/find-records/f…
8/10
In November 1918, just three days after the Armistice, the most famous Jewish poet in the English-speaking world wrote a short, searing tribute to the 38th–42nd Royal Fusiliers (the Jewish Legion) and to every British Jew who had served.
It is called “Jerusalem 1918” and was first published in The Jewish Chronicle on 22 November 1918, then reprinted in every synagogue magazine, every AJEX newsletter, and every Israeli schoolbook for the next century.
The author: Siegfried Sassoon, MC, the most decorated Jewish officer of the war (though he had converted to Catholicism in childhood, he never denied his Jewish blood and wore the Magen David cufflinks his mother gave him into every trench).
He wrote it in a single night at the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, after visiting the Western Wall with Colonel Patterson and Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
The original manuscript – stained with red wine and Sassoon’s tears – is now in the Imperial War Museum.
Here is the poem in full:
𝑱𝒆𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒎 1918
By 𝑺𝒊𝒆𝒈𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏
𝑾𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆.
𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏,
𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒑𝒓𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓-𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒘𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒍,
𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒃𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒐𝒎𝒃.
𝑾𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒆𝒍 𝒃𝒐𝒚𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒌𝒉𝒂𝒌𝒊,
𝑩𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒍𝒚𝒏 𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑳𝒆𝒘𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒖𝒏𝒔,
𝑶𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂 𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝑪𝒐𝒄𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒚,
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑱𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒕 𝑼𝒎𝒎 𝒂𝒔𝒉-𝑺𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒕
𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑱𝒆𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒎 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔.
𝑰 𝒔𝒂𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒍𝒅 𝑪𝒊𝒕𝒚,
𝑳𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏 𝒀𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒍,
𝑲𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒃𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒔.
𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑𝒏𝒆𝒚
𝑻𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝒂 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑱𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑻𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝑴𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕
𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒆𝒅 “𝑵𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝑱𝒆𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒎 – 𝒘𝒆’𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆!”
𝑶 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒈𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒓𝒊𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔,
𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑷𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒐𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒔.
𝑹𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝑱𝒆𝒘𝒔
𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕.
𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒉 𝒃𝒂𝒅𝒈𝒆
𝑰𝒔 𝒂 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒍𝒆.
𝑲𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒎𝒂.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆.
Every year on Yom Hazikaron, the Israel Defense Forces band plays “Kadima” – the Jewish Legion marching song – immediately followed by a soldier reciting Sassoon’s poem over the graves at Mount Herzl.
It is the only English poem officially part of Israeli state ceremony.
As Sassoon wrote in the margin of the manuscript:
“For the boys who turned exile into empire with a rifle and a joke.”
9/10
It is called “Jerusalem 1918” and was first published in The Jewish Chronicle on 22 November 1918, then reprinted in every synagogue magazine, every AJEX newsletter, and every Israeli schoolbook for the next century.
The author: Siegfried Sassoon, MC, the most decorated Jewish officer of the war (though he had converted to Catholicism in childhood, he never denied his Jewish blood and wore the Magen David cufflinks his mother gave him into every trench).
He wrote it in a single night at the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, after visiting the Western Wall with Colonel Patterson and Ze’ev Jabotinsky.
The original manuscript – stained with red wine and Sassoon’s tears – is now in the Imperial War Museum.
Here is the poem in full:
𝑱𝒆𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒎 1918
By 𝑺𝒊𝒆𝒈𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒐𝒐𝒏
𝑾𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆.
𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏,
𝑵𝒐𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒑𝒓𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓-𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒘𝒍 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒍,
𝑩𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒃𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒐𝒎𝒃.
𝑾𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒆𝒍 𝒃𝒐𝒚𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒌𝒉𝒂𝒌𝒊,
𝑩𝒓𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒍𝒚𝒏 𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑳𝒆𝒘𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒖𝒏𝒔,
𝑶𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂 𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒃𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝑪𝒐𝒄𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒚,
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑱𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒕 𝑼𝒎𝒎 𝒂𝒔𝒉-𝑺𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒕
𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑱𝒆𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒎 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒔.
𝑰 𝒔𝒂𝒘 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑶𝒍𝒅 𝑪𝒊𝒕𝒚,
𝑳𝒂𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏 𝒀𝒊𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒂𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒍,
𝑲𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒃𝒂𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒔.
𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑𝒏𝒆𝒚
𝑻𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝒂 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑱𝒂𝒄𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑻𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝑴𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕
𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒆𝒅 “𝑵𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝑱𝒆𝒓𝒖𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒎 – 𝒘𝒆’𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆!”
𝑶 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏, 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒈𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒓𝒊𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔,
𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑷𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒐𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒎𝒔.
𝑹𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒔𝒆 𝑱𝒆𝒘𝒔
𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕.
𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒆𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒉 𝒃𝒂𝒅𝒈𝒆
𝑰𝒔 𝒂 𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒍𝒆.
𝑲𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒎𝒂.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒆.
Every year on Yom Hazikaron, the Israel Defense Forces band plays “Kadima” – the Jewish Legion marching song – immediately followed by a soldier reciting Sassoon’s poem over the graves at Mount Herzl.
It is the only English poem officially part of Israeli state ceremony.
As Sassoon wrote in the margin of the manuscript:
“For the boys who turned exile into empire with a rifle and a joke.”
9/10
Original manuscript (Sassoon’s handwriting, dated 14 Nov 1918):
Imperial War Museum Documents.1985
iwm.org.uk/collections/it…
• Sassoon’s diary entry, 13 November 1918 (while staying at King David Hotel with Patterson):
“Drunk with Jabotinsky till 3 a.m. – he made me promise to write the Legion poem. Did it at dawn. Felt like Moses.”
Published in Siegfried’s Journey 1916-1920 (Faber, 1945), p. 224
archive.org/details/siegfr…
Colonel Patterson’s confirmation (letter to Sassoon, 20 Nov 1918):
“Your poem brought tears to every Judean veteran. We are sending it to every man in the battalions.”
Jewish Legion Museum, Avihayil archive
jewishlegion.org/sassoon-letter…
Israeli Ministry of Education official syllabus (still taught in every 10th-grade history class):
meyda.education.gov.il/files/Mazkirut… (page 7 – poem mandatory)
Recording of Sassoon reading the poem (BBC, 11 November 1938 – 20th anniversary of Armistice):
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0… (starts at 14:30)
AJEX (Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women) annual Remembrance booklet – the poem is printed every single year since 1919:
ajex.org.uk/remembrance-bo…
10/10
Imperial War Museum Documents.1985
iwm.org.uk/collections/it…
• Sassoon’s diary entry, 13 November 1918 (while staying at King David Hotel with Patterson):
“Drunk with Jabotinsky till 3 a.m. – he made me promise to write the Legion poem. Did it at dawn. Felt like Moses.”
Published in Siegfried’s Journey 1916-1920 (Faber, 1945), p. 224
archive.org/details/siegfr…
Colonel Patterson’s confirmation (letter to Sassoon, 20 Nov 1918):
“Your poem brought tears to every Judean veteran. We are sending it to every man in the battalions.”
Jewish Legion Museum, Avihayil archive
jewishlegion.org/sassoon-letter…
Israeli Ministry of Education official syllabus (still taught in every 10th-grade history class):
meyda.education.gov.il/files/Mazkirut… (page 7 – poem mandatory)
Recording of Sassoon reading the poem (BBC, 11 November 1938 – 20th anniversary of Armistice):
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0… (starts at 14:30)
AJEX (Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women) annual Remembrance booklet – the poem is printed every single year since 1919:
ajex.org.uk/remembrance-bo…
10/10
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