Grandma's army

  More than 40,000 Jews enlisted into the British Army during World War II to fight against the Nazis. Over 700 were killed during active duty.    Th roughout the war, Jews served in various positions. Palestinian Jewish volunteers cooperated with British intelligence units and sent its personnel out on various commando missions in the Middle East.  Another example of this cooperation was the dropping of 37 brave men and women (among them Hannah Szenesh), who volunteered to parachute into Nazi-occupied Europe. Their mission was: to gather intelligence; rescue Allied forces who had fallen into enemy territory; and try to save Jews in Europe. Due to Arab opposition to the proposed Jewish homeland in Palestine, the British initially refused to establish a separate fighting unit of Jewish volunteers from Palestine. However, wartime manpower requirements and the strategic need to defend the Middle East induced the British to permit the formation of 15 Palestinian Jewi...

  THE ORIGINS OF “GRANDMA’S ARMY” - III Arab riots in Palestine in 1920 and 1921 strengthened the view that it was impossible to depend upon the British mandate. The Palestinian Jews felt the necessity to create an independent defense force completely free of foreign authority. In June 1920, the Haganah , as an underground military organisation, was founded. During the first nine years of its existence, the Haganah was a loose organization of local defense groups, in the large towns and several of the settlements. The Arab riots in 1929  brought about a complete change in the Haganah’s status: It became a large organization, encompassing nearly all the youth and adults in the settlements, as well as several thousand members from each of the cities. It initiated a comprehensive training program for its members, and ran officers’ training courses. Established central arms depots into which a continuous stream of light arms flowed ...