Jewish Recruiting Posters From World War II On Exhibit

Biblical quote in Hebrew says: “Put on your robes of glory, Jerusalem, the holy city, because the impure and the unclean will no longer come into the city” (Isaiah 52:1). The ATS was the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army in World War II.

When war with Germany broke out in 1939, more than 30,000 Jews in Palestine answered the call to fight with the British Army against the Nazis and for the liberation of European Jews. The men and women of the Jewish settlement put aside their ongoing dispute with the British government over immigration policies to support the war effort. The Museum of Jewish Heritage explores this subject visually through the exhibition, Jews Want To Fight As Jews: Posters From Eretz Israel 1941-45, running now through May 14.

The exhibition showcases 28 recruitment posters calling for Palestinian Jews to join the fight against the Nazis. The effort was a success, motivated by anti-Nazi sentiment and by the real threat from Axis forces to British Egypt and Palestine, 71 percent of eligible men and 42 percent of eligible women responded to a call to register for voluntary service.

On loan from the collection of Micha Riss, the posters are in vibrant color and feature bold Hebrew and English typography urging Jews to join the fight against the Nazis. The exhibition is free with general museum admission.

The posters in the exhibition, designed by artists, were displayed on kiosks and other public places beginning in 1941. They urge the viewer to join the war effort to defeat the Nazis and help save European Jews, using slogans like "For revenue and for redemption," and "With blood and fire Judea will arise!"

One of the most striking posters shows a soldier with a rifle shielding a woman and child from a skeletal figure whose cloak bears a swastika. In another, a drawing of Winston Churchill calls on the Jews of Palestine to serve in the British Army "until this Scourge is driven from the Earth."

Eastern and western styles of design are both evident in these communications.

"The same message is seen time and time again conveyed in the ancient Hebrew font," collector and designer Micha Riss said. "As you view the different posters, you will be exposed to the very fabric of the people that later created the new nation state of Israel."

Of the 30,000 Jews recruited, 5,000 eventually made up the British Army’s Jewish Brigade, the only all-Jewish military unit to serve under a Jewish flag in World War II. It included Jewish infantry, artillery, and service units. The Brigade fought on the Italian front in the final battles of the war. In 1945, at the conclusion of the war, Jewish soldiers from Palestine helped smuggle Holocaust survivors to ports where they could embark on "illegal" ships for Palestine, defying British immigration restrictions. Others secured arms for the Jewish defense forces in Palestine. The training that the Palestinian Jews received in the British Army was put to good use in the War of Independence.