The Jewish Brigade: An Army with Two Masters 1944-45 - Hardcover

London-based Morris Beckman is a veteran of WWII and has written five previous books.

In the latter stages of World War II, the British government authorized the recruitment of a Jewish brigade, to be staffed primarily by Palestinian Jews, many of whom had fled Europe a step ahead of the Nazis. Beckman, a veteran of the British navy during World War II, shows how the brigade fought courageously and effectively in Italy in 1944^-45. This is not a uniformly uplifting story, though. Many brigade members, outraged by Nazi persecution of Jews, took part in brutal reprisals against captured Germans. After the war, some members formed small "revenge cells" that hunted down and executed Nazis they believed had committed war crimes. Beckman effectively illustrates the ambivalence of these fighters; they had to fight in a British unit while anticipating the coming fight against British forces supporting the Arab position in the Palestine Mandate. Eventually, many brigade officers rose to prominence in the Israeli Defense Forces. This is a very readable, compact, and informative survey of an obscure episode in Jewish history. Jay Freeman