New on Findmypast - British Jewry Book of Honour 1914-1920

[alf mcm]

Another interesting set of records added today;-

The British Jewry Book of Honour 1914-1920 contains nearly 57,000 colour images and transcripts of the original document. This two volume book was published in 1922 to record and honour the contribution made by the 50,000 + Jews who served in the British and colonial forces during the First World War.

The book was edited by Reverend Michael Adler who was the first Jewish chaplain to serve in HM Forces. It describes Jewish enlistment, casualties, military honours, Jewish Units and the work of Jewish hospitals and other Jewish institutions and agencies. Importantly, it contains alphabetical lists of those killed in action, those who were awarded military honours and the nominal rolls of Jews who served, listed by service and by regiment. There are indexed photographs of many of these individuals and the book also contains letters of support and acknowledgment from distinguished men of the day, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Winston Churchill wrote a foreword to the book in which he pointed out that although Jews only made up a tiny fraction of the Empire’s population, some 60,000 enlisted and fought in the war; of whom 2,324 gave their lives, and 6,350 were wounded.

Regards,

Alf McM

[rksimpson]

That will upset FWR! At least it is original, not a transcription.

[Coldstreamer]

http://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/british-jewry-book-of-honour-1914-1920

[timbo58]

It's been on FWR as a transcription- fully searchable and a complete image ( in the historic documents section) for some time now both can be seen by full members without limit., I'll have to take a look at FMPs to see what the difference is.
It doesn't upset us though, it's not exactly a rare book but we were very pleased to have included it all the same.

Re-edit- as OO states below FWR's is a full transcription AND the original image of the original single volume book from 1922.

Hence FMP's is a later indexing and a later reprint imaging.

The information remains the same though I am sure.

Edited 22 April , 2016 by timbo58

[Old Owl]

Another interesting set of records added today;-

The British Jewry Book of Honour 1914-1920 contains nearly 57,000 colour images and transcripts of the original document. This two volume book was published in 1922 to record and honour the contribution made by the 50,000 + Jews who served in the British and colonial forces during the First World War.

The book was edited by Reverend Michael Adler who was the first Jewish chaplain to serve in HM Forces. It describes Jewish enlistment, casualties, military honours, Jewish Units and the work of Jewish hospitals and other Jewish institutions and agencies. Importantly, it contains alphabetical lists of those killed in action, those who were awarded military honours and the nominal rolls of Jews who served, listed by service and by regiment. There are indexed photographs of many of these individuals and the book also contains letters of support and acknowledgment from distinguished men of the day, both Jewish and non-Jewish. Winston Churchill wrote a foreword to the book in which he pointed out that although Jews only made up a tiny fraction of the Empire’s population, some 60,000 enlisted and fought in the war; of whom 2,324 gave their lives, and 6,350 were wounded.

Regards,

Alf McM

It was actually published originally as one (very large) volume. I suspect that the two volumes you mention are a reprint?

[Keith_history_buff]

  

On 24/07/2020 at 17:24, Keith_history_buff said:

I have a family member in the book, a WW1 fatality. His religion is incorrect, as is his rank. He was always a shiksa, and was baptised C of E, so was never of the Jewish faith, although having a partly Jewish sounding surname. (The nearest connection was friendship with a Jewish tank crewman similarly linked to the East End.) I have wondered just what the criteria were for compiling the list, and therefore consider it a dubious source, needing to be cross-referenced elsewhere.

Some idiot has "improved" my family member's profile on the jewsfww.uk website. According to the inputter, he enlisted on 13th August and was killed in action on September 1914. Who knew?

 

  

19 hours ago, headgardener said:

 

I had to laugh at this story! I understand that the book was compiled from unofficial sources, largely as a result of appeals to congregants of synagogues to submit names for inclusion, so it's about as accurate as any war memorial is ever likely to be. I also understand that there was a desire on the part of the Jewish 'community' to be seen to be every bit as patriotic as 'native' Brits (especially as so many Ashkenazi had Germanic names) which may have led some individuals to seek to include anyone who might be even only partly Jewish - whether practicing or not. The Jewish establishment in the UK was traditionally Sephardi (minor mobility and high status mercantile class) while many Jews from the east end at the outbreak of war were relatively newly arrived Eastern European Ashkenazis (unskilled or semi-skilled farm workers and labourers with very limited English language skills) who often organized their own synagogues privately according to their Eastern European country of origin, so it's easy to imagine that the system for collecting names and details would be rather haphazard. I imagine your relative 's name for forwarded by someone who knew him and assumed that he was `one of ours', and the passage of time has now caused it to become 'fact'..... 

 

@headgardener,
Thank you for having provided a very interesting reply. I have reproduced it here as I think others will benefit from reading this. He had been in the army for seven years prior to his death. His sister lived in a street in Bethnal Green that experienced an anti-semitic riot in 1917. Bethnal Green and Haggerston certainly had a sizeable population of Eastern European Jews at this time.

 

From time to time I do consider asking for a take down of my man from the Jewish website. He should not be there and the info that has been shoddily added ought not be there either. It smacks of tokenism, whereas it would be better for more of the numerous undocumented military service of Jewish servicemen to be further researched and added to the jewsfww domain. 
 

Thanks

Keith