Formation of The Jewish Brigade
After early reports of the Nazi atrocities of the Holocaust were made public by the Allied powers, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent a personal telegram to the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt suggesting that "the Jews... of all races have the right to strike at the Germans as a recognizable body." The president replied five days later saying: "I perceive no objection..."
After much hesitation, on July 3, 1944, the British government consented to the establishment of a Jewish Brigade with hand-picked Jewish and also non-Jewish senior officers. On September 20, 1944, an official communique by the War Office announced the formation of the Jewish Brigade Group of the British Army and the Jewish Brigade Group headquarters was established in Egypt at the end of September 1944 (the formation was styled a brigade group because of the inclusion under command of an artillery regiment). The Zionist flag was officially approved as its standard. It included more than 5,000 Jewish volunteers from Palestine organized into three infantry battalions of the Palestine Regiment and several supporting units.
- 1st Battalion, Palestine Regiment
- 2nd Battalion, Palestine Regiment
- 3rd Battalion, Palestine Regiment
- 200th Field Regiment (Royal Artillery)
The contemporary newspapers dismissed it as a "token" (The New York Times on page 12) and "five years late" (The Manchester Guardian).
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