Yiddish Poster calling Canadian Jews to join the British Forces
Canada 1914-1918
Original at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington,
Must Know
During World War I British recruitments posters were published seeking people to join the British forces. Targeting specific target groups such as women, and men, Yiddish posters were made to promote military enrichment for Jews. The First World War poster is from Canada and written in Yiddish.
The top of the poster reads: “Jews all over the world seek freedom, have made sacrifices for it, and are willing to continue doing so. england expects every Jew to fill their duty. Join the Infantry Corps led by commander Isadore Friedman.” Beneath is the British flag and three portraits of Rt. Hon. herbert Samuel, Viscount Reading, and Rt. Hon. Edwin S. Montagu – all Jewish members of the British parliament. The poster shows a soldier cutting the bonds from a Jewish man, who strains to join a group of soldiers running in the distance and says, “You have cut my bonds and set me free – now let me help you set others free!”. Below the text continues: “enlist with the infantry reinforcement for overseas under the command of Captain [Isidor] Freedman, headquarters, 786 St. Lawrence Boulevard, Montreal.”
More Info
Jews were dispersed all over the globe during the outbreak of World War I. Many were in refuge in Britain following the readmission of Jews by english statesman Oliver Cromwell following many years of expulsion by King Edward I of england and his Edict of Expulsion against Jews in 1290. Many Eastern European Jews also arrived as refugees to London and other english ports in the 1880s, making up the largest part of the english Jewish community as we know it today. With the nearing war, england was seen as a place of refuge, offering justice, religious freedom and rights to Jews.
The propaganda pushed in Yiddish recruitment posters was the narrative that Jews must reciprocate the support Britain once gave them (when welcoming them as refugees) by enlisting in the British military and fighting with the British forces in World War I. The message was clear: every able bodies Jew between the ages of 19 and 45 should join the British army.
Between 1916 and 1917 Jewish enlistment with the British army was more formally established through a specifically Jewish Legion made up of five battalions of Jewish volunteers who fought against the Ottoman Empire. Led by Zionists Chaim Weizmann and Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the Legion incorporated Russian Jews and later Jews from the United States and Canada.
