Jewish Legion

For other uses, see Jewish Legion (disambiguation).

The cap badge of the First Judaeans 1919-1921: menorah and word קדימה Kadima

The Jewish Legion Veteran ribbon.

The Jewish Legion (1917–1921) is an unofficial name used to refer to five battalions of Jewish volunteers, the 38th to 42nd (Service) Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers, raised in the British Army to fight against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

Background

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Jabotinsky (left) and Trumpeldor (right) in uniform

In February 1915, a small committee in Alexandria approved a plan of Zeev Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor to form a military unit from Russian Jewish émigrés from Palestine that would participate in the British effort to "liberate" Palestine from the Ottoman Empire. The British commander General Maxwell met a delegation, led by Jabotinsky, on 15 March. The General said he was unable, under the Army Act, to enlist foreign nationals as fighting troops, but that he could form them into a volunteer transport Mule Corps. Jabotinsky rejected the idea and left for Europe to seek other support for a Jewish unit, but Trumpeldor accepted it and began recruiting volunteers from among the Jews in Egypt who had been deported there by the Ottomans in the previous year. The British Army formed 650 of them into the Zion Mule Corps, of which 562 served in the Gallipoli Campaign.

Gallipoli Front

Main articles: Gallipoli Campaign and Landing at Cape Helles

Cape Helles landing map

The need on the Gallipoli peninsula for means to carry water to the troops was considered so urgent that in mid-April, a request was forwarded to Egypt for the Zion Mule Corps to be sent immediately, regardless of its lack of equipment. Its Commanding Officer was Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson, DSO, an Irish Protestant, and Captain Trumpeldor was Second-in-command; Jabotinsky served as an officer. The Zion Mule Corps landed at Cape Helles from 27–28 April, four weeks after being raised, having been stranded at Mudros when its ship ran aground. The corps was embarked in the same ship as the Indian 9th Mule Corps bound for Gaba Tepe and so a detour to Helles was ordered. The Zion Mule Corps was disembarked under artillery fire from the Asiatic shore, with help of volunteers from the 9th Mule Corps and began carrying supplies forward immediately.

A Distinguished Conduct Medal was awarded to Private M. Groushkowsky, who, near Krithia on 5 May, prevented his mules from stampeding under heavy bombardment and despite being wounded in both arms, delivered the ammunition. Trumpeldor was shot through the shoulder but refused to leave the battlefield. Patterson later wrote: "Many of the Zionists whom I thought somewhat lacking in courage showed themselves fearless to a degree when under heavy fire, while Captain Trumpeldor actually revelled in it, and the hotter it became the more he liked it ..."

The men returned to Alexandria on 10 January 1916. The Zion Mule Corps were disbanded on 26 May 1916. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists 13 members of the Zion Mule Corps as fatalities.

Official formation

39th Battalion, Jewish Legion, at Fort Edward (Nova Scotia), Yom Kippur, 1918

File:Royal Fusiliers Badge.jpg

Badge of the Royal Fusiliers

Between the dissolution of the Zion Mule Corps and the formation of the Jewish Legion, Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor and 120 Zion Mule Corps veterans served together in 16 Platoon of the 20th Battalion, London Regiment.

Finally, in August 1917, the formation of a Jewish battalion was officially announced. The unit was designated as the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers and included British volunteers, as well as members of the former Zion Mule Corps and a large number of Russian Jews. In April 1918, it was joined by the 39th Battalion, raised at Fort Edward, Nova Scotia, which was made up almost entirely of Jews who were resident in the United States and Canada.

Thousands of Palestinian Jews also applied to join the Legion and in 1918, more than 1,000 were enlisted. Ninety-two Ottoman Jews who had been captured in the fighting earlier were also permitted to enlist. This group was organized as the 40th Battalion. The 41st and 42nd Battalions were depot battalions stationed in Plymouth, England. In his memoirs about the Legion Jabotinsky described the composition of the 5000-member Legion as; "thirty-four per cent from the United States, thirty per cent from Palestine, twenty-eight per cent from England, six per cent from Canada, one per cent Ottoman war prisoners, one per cent from Argentina." The soldiers of the 38th, 39th and later the 40th Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers served in the Jordan Valley and fought the Ottomans north of Jerusalem.

Action in the Jordan Valley, 1918

Main articles: Battle of Jerusalem (1917) and Battle of Megiddo (1918)

In June 1918, the volunteers of the 38th Battalion began engaging the Ottomans some twenty miles north of Jerusalem. In the fighting in the Jordan Valley, more than twenty Legionnaires were killed, wounded, or captured, the rest came down with malaria, and thirty of this group later died. The Legion then came under the command of Major-General Edward Chaytor, who commanded the ANZAC Mounted Division.

Besides various skirmishes, the Legion also participated in the Battle of Megiddo in mid-September, 1918, widely considered to have been one of the final and decisive victories of the Ottoman front.

The Legion's mission was to cross the Jordan River. Jabotinsky led the effort. Later, he was decorated and Chaytor told the Jewish troops: "By forcing the Jordan fords, you helped in no small measure to win the great victory gained at Damascus."

Legacy

The Legion casualties in World War I

Battalion	Fatalities
38th	43
39th	23
40th	12
42nd	3
38th/40th	9
Transferred from Jewish Legion	1

Almost all the members of the Jewish regiments were discharged immediately after the end of World War I in November 1918. Some of them returned to their respective countries, others settled in Palestine to realize their Zionist aspirations. In late 1919, the Jewish Legion was reduced to one battalion titled First Judaeans, and awarded a distinctive cap badge, a menorah with the Hebrew word קדימה Kadima (forward) at the base.

Former members of the Legion took part in the defence of Jewish communities during the Riots in Palestine of 1920, which resulted in Jabotinsky's arrest. Two former members of the Legion were killed with Trumpeldor at Tel Hai. One former member of the Legion was killed in Tel Aviv-Jaffa during the Jaffa riots of 1921. Some members of the Jewish Legion settled in moshav Avihayil. Another former member died in service in World War II.

Gallery

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  A recruitment poster published in American Jewish magazines. Daughter of Zion (representing the Jewish people): 'Your Old New Land must have you! Join the Jewish regiment.'

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  December 1917. Jewish Legion soldiers at the Western Wall after the British take-over of Jerusalem

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  February 1918 The 38th battalion of the Jewish Legion marches in the streets of London.

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  Col Margolin leading the 39th Battalion of the Jewish Legion through Bet Shemen

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  The Choir of the Jewish Legion

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  The flag of the First Judaeans 1919-1921.

• Jabotinsky in Jewish Legion.jpg

  Lt. Jabotinsky in the uniform of the Royal Fusiliers

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  Private David Ben-Gurion, a volunteer in the Jewish Legion 1918

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  Colonel Eliezer Margolin of the "First Judaeans"

Members of Jewish Legion

• Gershon Agron, Mayor of Jerusalem.
• Nathan Ausubel, Jewish-American author.
• Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, second Israeli President.
• Yaakov Dori, Haganah leader; first Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces.
• Maxwell H. Dubin, rabbi, Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Los Angeles.
• Sir Jacob Epstein, British sculptor.
• Levi Eshkol, third Israeli Prime Minister.
• Louis Fischer, Jewish-American journalist and author.
• Eliyahu Golomb, founding member of the Haganah.
• David Grün, later Ben-Gurion, first Israeli Prime Minister.
• Nachum Gutman, Israeli Painter
• Dov Hoz, Zionist activist, Haganah fighter.
• Bernard Joseph, later Dov Yosef, Governor of Jewish Jerusalem during the 1948 siege; longtime Labor MK.
• Berl Katznelson, Zionist philosopher and activist.
• Reuven Katzenelson - Sgt under Joseph Trumpeldor at Battle of Gallipoli and father of Shmuel Tamir
• Bert "Yank" Levy Internationalist in Spain and Military instructor for the British Home Guard, which served as the basis for a popular handbook on guerrilla warfare
• Gideon Mer, physician, veteran of Zion Mule Corps, Jewish Legion and British Army in World War II. Served as medic in Israeli War of Independence; later worked in the Israeli Ministry of Health. {Note: he is the unnamed Officer during World War II in charge of anti-Malaria program mentioned in Martin Sugarman's article on the Zion Mule Corps}.
• John Henry Patterson - Commander of Zion Mule Corps and 38th Battalion Royal Fusiliers
• James Armand de Rothschild, D.C.M. Major, 39th Royal Fusiliers Battalion; Captain Royal Canadian Dragoons; a member of the Rothschild family.
• Redcliffe N. Salaman, medical officer, since April 1918 in Egypt and Palestine, 38th Battalion, then 39th of Royal Fusiliers
• Moshe Smilansky, Pioneer of the First Aliyah, a Zionist leader who advocated peaceful coexistence with the Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, a farmer, and a prolific author.
• Edward Sperling - humorist and later director-general of the Ministry of Trade and Industry under the British Mandate of Palestine
• Edwin Herbert Samuel, 2nd Viscount Samuel; CMG son of Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel.
• E. L. Sukenik, Israeli archaeologist; father of Yigael Yadin

See also

• Jewish Brigade, a similar military formation of volunteer Jews that fought in the Second World War.
• Tilhas Tizig Gesheften, organization which grew out of the Jewish Brigade

Further reading

• Patterson, John H. With the Judaeans in the Palestine campaign. Uckfield : Naval & Military Press, [2004 reprint] ISBN 1-84342-829-6
• Jabotinsky, Vladimir. The story of the Jewish Legion. New York: Bernard Ackerman, 1945. OCLC 177504
• Freulich, Roman. Soldiers in Judea;: Stories and vignettes of the Jewish Legion. Herzl Press, 1965. OCLC 3382262
• Gilner, Elias. Fighting dreamers; a history of the Jewish Legion in World War One,: With a glimpse at other Jewish fighting groups of the period. 1968. OCLC 431968
• Gilner, Elias. War and Hope. A History of the Jewish Legion. New York; Herzl Press: 1969. OCLC 59592
• Keren, Michael and Shlomit Keren, We Are Coming, Unafraid: The Jewish Legions and the Promised Land in the First World War. Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. ISBN 9781442205505 OCLC 700447107
• Kraines, Oscar. The soldiers of Zion: The Jewish Legion, 1915-1921. 1985. OCLC 13115081
• Lammfromm, Arnon, Izhak Ben-Zvi and the Commmoration of Joseph Binyamini: A Failed Attempt to Create a Site of National Heritage", Archion, 17, Winter 2013, pages 48–55, 68 (Hebrew and English abstract)
• Marrion, R.J. "The Jewish Legion," 39th (service) battalion, Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), 1918-1919. 1987.
• Watts, Martin. The Jewish Legion and the First World War. 2004. ISBN 1-4039-3921-7
• "When the spirit of Judah Maccabee hovered over Whitechapel Road and — The march of the 38th Royal Fusiliers" by Martin Sugarman, Western Front Association Journal, Jan 2010.

External links

• The Zion Muleteers of Gallipoli (March 1915 - May 1916) by Martin Sugarman (Jewish Virtual Library). Accessed June 21, 2006.
• Jewish legion and Jewish East end of London Link