More Volunteers Sought for Jewish Brigade As Unit Goes into Action on Italian Front

A joint statement hailing the announcement that the Jewish Brigade has gone into action on the Italian front, and appealing to Palestine Jewish youth to enlist in the Brigade and “break down the last barrier remaining between the Jews in the democratic countries and the remmants of martyred European Jewry,” was issued here today by the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Council.

“The Jewish Brigade Group has gone into battle,” the statement reads. “Hundreds of thousands of Jewish soldiers have been fighting for the past six years as anonymous individuals in the ranks of all the Allied armies. Tens of thousands of Jewish volunteers from Palestine are serving in the British Army, the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the Auxiliary Territorial Service. They have partaken in the African, Asian and European campaigns without achieving national recognition or specific publicity.

“Today, for the first time in this war, the world has been officially informed that a Jewish fighting force, organized as a national unit, has entered the fighting lines bearing the name of the Jewish People and carrying the colors of Zion.

“Jews throughout the world are heart and soul with the men who have entered the front lines to avenge the blood shed by the enemy and to redeem the honor which was trodden in the dust. The Jewish Community of Palestine sends to its sons its heartfelt prayers. It knows that they will uphold its honor and acquit themselves of their task with courage and bravery.

“The men of the Jewish Brigade are the representatives at the front of the Jewish People. Their services involve an obligation. The messages which have come to us in Palestine from the men who have today entered the firing lines are a trumpet call to others to join them in the great struggle against the hangman of our people.”