This book tells the story of the Jewish community, of its individuals and its groups, who contributed to the First World War.

WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE MONTH "This is the incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now." —Wall Street Journal “Brilliantly researched, utterly gripping history: the first full account of a remarkable group of Jewish refugees—a top-secret band of brothers—who waged war on Hitler.”—Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The Longest Winter and The Liberator The incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis. “Garrett’s detective work is stunning, and her storytelling is masterful. This is an original account of Jewish rescue, resistance, and revenge.”—Wendy Lower, author of The Ravine and National Book Award finalist Hitler’s Furies

"This Very Short Introduction discloses a history of Zionism from the origins of modern Jewish nationalism in the 1870's to the present. Michael Stanislawski provides a lucid and detached analysis of Zionism, focusing on its internal intellectual and ideological developments and divides"--

In the autumn of 1917, the British government established three batallions of infantry, for the reception of non-nationalized Russian Jews. Known colloquially as the Jewish Legion, the batallions served in Egypt and Palestine, before their eventual disbandment in the late spring of 1921. By drawing on the testimonies of over 600 veterans, this unique unit is analyzed from within its political and social context, thus providing fresh insights into Anglo-Jewish relations during the early twentieth century.

In this first-ever biography of Colonel John Patterson, Denis Brian reveals his subject to be a diverse composite of identities. An Irishborn soldier, lion hunter, bridge builder, East African game warden, author, and Zionist, Patterson’s life is a fascinating story, and Brian’s well-researched account gives a revealing look into the ebb and flow of circumstances that produced such a colorful character. Brian begins the narrative with Patterson’s assignment in East Africa,where lion attacks are terrorizing workers on a railroad project. With a storyteller’s breathtaking tone, he details accounts of Patterson quelling the rebellion and killing the lions himself. The colonel’s indomitable energy and courage become a consistent theme in the book as the author traces Patterson’s life from his days as a British socialite to his recruitment of the Jewish Legion of volunteers who helped drive the Turks out of Palestine. Patterson spent most of his later years as an ardent Zionist,working for the creation of a Jewish homeland until his death in 1947, a year before the birth of the state of Israel. Drawing on an impressive range of sources, Brian’s biography of this “Righteous Gentile” is an incisive portrait of a key figure in both Israeli and colonial British history.

Focuses on a great watershed event The First World War was one of the great watershed events of the 20th century, not only costing millions of live but also disrupting existing social order, precipitating dramatic changes in the methods of waging warfare, and teaching victors new lessons about the treatment of vanquished foes. Provides valuable perspective Now a new reference work helps to put this momentous historical milestone in perspective. Designed as a companion to Garland's The United States in the First World War, this new encyclopedia concentrates on non-U.S. aspects of the conflict. Its more than 600 alphabetically arranged, detailed entries offer information and insights on such topics as the perceived and underlying causes of war, diplomatic efforts to stop the slaughter, the shortsighted and ultimately disastrous peace terms, and a host of other subjects vital to a full understanding of the events. The Encyclopedia covers all major campaigns and battles, surveys weapons and devices of war, and examines the roles played in the events by statesmen, politicians, religious and military leaders, and prominent citizens. Covers key participants and concerns Also included are biographies of individuals profoundly affected by the war who played major roles in history, such as De Gaule, Hitler, appraisals of military medicine, infantry tactics, the use of artillery, naval blockades, and other subjects; and surveys of such diverse topics as art, literature, and music in the war, camouflage, censorship, propaganda, the creation of Yugoslavia, the Jewish Legion, codebreaking, women in the war, and much more. Each entry is followed by a bibliography for pursuing inquires in depth and a subject index provides easy access.

Even though relations between the Jewish people and the Roman state were sometimes strained to the point of warfare and bloodshed, Jewish military service between the 1st century BCE to the 6th century CE is attested by multiple sources.

On the murderous road to "racial purity" Hitler encountered unexpected detours, largely due to his own crazed views and inconsistent policies regarding Jewish identity. After centuries of Jewish assimilation and intermarriage in German society, he discovered that eliminating Jews from the rest of the population was more difficult than he'd anticipated. As Bryan Rigg shows in this provocative new study, nowhere was that heinous process more fraught with contradiction and confusion than in the German military. Contrary to conventional views, Rigg reveals that a startlingly large number of German military men were classified by the Nazis as Jews or "partial-Jews" (Mischlinge), in the wake of racial laws first enacted in the mid-1930s. Rigg demonstrates that the actual number was much higher than previously thought-perhaps as many as 150,000 men, including decorated veterans and high-ranking officers, even generals and admirals. As Rigg fully documents for the first time, a great many of these men did not even consider themselves Jewish and had embraced the military as a way of life and as devoted patriots eager to serve a revived German nation. In turn, they had been embraced by the Wehrmacht, which prior to Hitler had given little thought to the "race" of these men but which was now forced to look deeply into the ancestry of its soldiers. The process of investigation and removal, however, was marred by a highly inconsistent application of Nazi law. Numerous "exemptions" were made in order to allow a soldier to stay within the ranks or to spare a soldier's parent, spouse, or other relative from incarceration or far worse. (Hitler's own signature can be found on many of these "exemption" orders.) But as the war dragged on, Nazi politics came to trump military logic, even in the face of the Wehrmacht's growing manpower needs, closing legal loopholes and making it virtually impossible for these soldiers to escape the fate of millions of other victims of the Third Reich. Based on a deep and wide-ranging research in archival and secondary sources, as well as extensive interviews with more than four hundred Mischlinge and their relatives, Rigg's study breaks truly new ground in a crowded field and shows from yet another angle the extremely flawed, dishonest, demeaning, and tragic essence of Hitler's rule.

Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein show that, contrary to previous explanations, this transformation was driven not by anti-Jewish persecution and legal restrictions, but rather by changes within Judaism itself after 70 CE--most importantly, the rise of a new norm that required every Jewish male to read and study the Torah and to send his sons to school. Over the next six centuries, those Jews who found the norms of Judaism too costly to obey converted to other religions, making world Jewry shrink. Later, when urbanization and commercial expansion in the newly established Muslim Caliphates increased the demand for occupations in which literacy was an advantage, the Jews found themselves literate in a world of almost universal illiteracy. From then forward, almost all Jews entered crafts and trade, and many of them began moving in search of business opportunities, creating a worldwide Diaspora in the process.