Though World War II overshadows World War I in American Jewish consciousness, Professor Daniel Schwartz argues that it was the latter that shifted the arc of Jewish history — by fanning virulent anti-Semitism, and by motivating the British-Zionist alliance that led to the creation of the State of Israel.Schwartz spoke with Moment senior editor George E. Johnson about how fears of Jewish disloyalty fueled deportations and massacres in Eastern Europe during and after the war, how the Jewish Legion helped conquer Ottoman Palestine for the British, and why World War I was a turning point for European Jewry.
Daniel Schwartz is an associate professor of history and director of the Program in Judaic Studies at George Washington University. He specializes in modern Jewish and European intellectual and cultural history.
How many Jews fought in World War I?
This is a watershed. The number of Jews who are soldiers for different sides far exceeds any precedent to that point. Approximately a million and a half Jews fought in World War I for their respective countries. On the Allied side, at least 500,000 Jews served in the Russian Army, notwithstanding widespread Russian anti-Semitism and distrust of Jews. After the United States enters the war, U.S. forces get something like 250,000 Jewish soldiers. About 40,000 or so throughout the British Empire fought for Britain. And about 35,000 soldiers for France.
On the side of the Central Powers, nearly 100,000 Jews served in the German Army and 12,000 were killed in action. German Jews were very determined to prove their loyalty to Germany, to the Kaiser. The overall population of German Jews at the time was probably around 500,000. So you had close to 20 percent of the total Jewish population serving. In the Austro-Hungarian Army there were around 275,000 Jews.