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65,000 Palestine Jews Volunteer for War Service

September 17, 1939
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A total of 65,000 Jews have volunteered for war service in the registration sponsored by the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Jewish National Council, it was announced today. The volunteers include a general, several officers and aviators of the old Czech army.

Prayers for victory of the Allies in Europe were recited in synagogues throughout Palestine on Rosh Hashonah at the call of Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog.

The Irgun Zvai Zionist-Revisionist military organization, announced that it was suspending terrorism and was ready to join Britain in fighting for democracy against Hitlerism and “for creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.”

Meanwhile, the 1,400 illegal Jewish immigrants who arrived at Tel Aviv on the S.S. Tigerhill on Sept 4 were released from Sarafend concentration camp. The Tigerhill, famous as a blockade breaker during the Spanish war had attempted to ram a Coast Guard cutter in order to land its passengers, drawing the cutter’s fire and causing the death of two passengers.

The Jewish Agency asked the Government to reassign to countries from which immigration is still possible the entry certificates allocated for countries now at war.

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