This is
a really cool book that I picked up on Yom Kippur about the Jewish men who
served the United States in World War II. It covers the gamut of the ways they
thought about themselves and the war and the ways that they were perceived by
their fellow servicemen. There were obviously stereotypes to be overcome and anti-Semitism
but there was also support from their fellow soldiers and many transformed in a
way to become both more American and more Jewish.
One
example of an event that made many men more Jewish was the discovery of the Nazi
death camps. One soldier described entering Mauthausen as his “bar mitzvah, his
emancipation, his baptism all rolled into one.” It hit him that he would be a Jew
for the rest of his life as he met the suffering people inside the camp. Another
noteworthy incident mentioned in the book happened to another Jewish soldier.
In Paris on leave after the war had ended in Europe, he found a group of Parisians
chanting “Down with the Jews,” opposing the right of Jews to return to their
old homes and properties from before the war. He would be inspired to help
create a Jewish state so that the Jews could be treated as an equal among the
nations. He sent guns to Israel as they waged war against the Arab states that
sought to drive the Jews into the sea. This was a really great book filled with
interesting anecdotes. It is very readable and recommendable.
Miscellaneous Facts:
- September 1939, the same month that Hitler invaded Poland, also began a new century in the Jewish calendar, 5700.
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