Hitgayesu! ["Enlist!": Appeal from Jewish Agency and Va'ad Le'umi to Jews of Eretz Israel to serve in the British Army in the War against Germany]

(ZIONISM)

Defuss Azriel, September

Jerusalem

1939

Blue and white stripes reminiscent of the Zionist flag

In this bold declaration, the Jews of British Mandatory Palestine are asked to put aside their differences with England and not allow the severe injustice of the White Paper of May 1939 (severely limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine precisely at the time it was most needed) to prevent them from coming to the defense of England against Germany. Ben Gurion's famous statement of 1939 set the tone: "We shall fight the war against Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war." Despite British-Jewish tensions, thousands of Jewish volunteers from Palestine served in the British Army in World War Two. Eventually, in 1944, there was established the Jewish Brigade of the British Army, some 5,000 strong