Collection of seventy postcards issued by the Jewish Welfare Board during the First World War.

(WORLD WAR I).

New York, c. 1918

The Jewish Welfare Board was established in 1917, as America entered the Great War. The J.W.B. provided American Jewish members of the armed forces with access to chaplains and religious/social events, and continues to do so to this day. This collection includes a series of “safe arrival” postcards featuring American battleships, as well as a selection of holiday greeting cards and images of J.W.B. buildings and staff. The postcards were printed toward the end of the war in 1918 and for several months after its conclusion, and distributed to American Jewish troops upon their return from combat to American ships or military camps stateside or in France. Several contain cheery handwritten messages home.