The Jewish Americans by Rodney P. Carlisle

Author:Rodney P. Carlisle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: CHBiographies
ISBN: 9781438170275
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
Published: 2017-04-13T21:07:48+00:00

War Comes to America

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and U.S. entry into the war ended American Jews' enforced period on the sidelines. The United States declared war on Germany and Italy, Japan's two main allies, and the Jewish community mobilized at every level to participate in the fight against Nazism, fascism, and the destruction of European Jewry.

At a minimum, 550,000 self-identified Jews either volunteered or were drafted into the U.S. military, forming a percentage of the nation's armed forces that exceeded the proportion of Jews in the American population. The U.S. military had a policy that each member of the armed forces should be able to observe his or her religion while in uniform and to receive the burial rites of his or her religion should they die in combat. Accordingly, on each individual's identification tag, affectionately dubbed their "dog tag," the military engraved a "P" for Protestant, a "C" for Catholic, or an "H" for Hebrew, anachronistically using the polite 19th-century term for "Jewish." The men and women who registered their religion as Judaism received dog tags with an "H." Some Jews, anticipating the treatment they might receive if captured by the Nazis, indicated that no religious identification should be engraved on their tag. For this reason, it will never be known for certain how many Jews volunteered or were drafted during the war.

The National Jewish Welfare Board conducted surveys to document the exact number of Jews who fought in the war and published stories about American Jewish soldiers and sailors who were killed, wounded, or awarded medals. The board's efforts were a response to decades of scurrilous charges that Jews were either war profiteers who never fought but prospered when others did, or unassimilated immigrants and radicals who cared more about European Jews and socialist revolution than American patriotism, or simply cowards.

One of the stories the Jewish Welfare Board and other Jewish organizations were proud to tell was that of the German Jews who had arrived before 1924 or under the quota and had volunteered for the U.S. military. Many of the men in this group, including future secretary of state Henry Kissinger, proved invaluable as translators during the invasion of Germany.

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