Lot 188
"Der Rekhter Veg" – Brochure Issued by the "Committee for the Jewish Future" Headed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky – London, 1916 – Call to Enlist in the Jewish Legion of the British Army
Der Rekhter Veg [The Right Way], a publicity paper calling upon the Jews of England to enlist in the ranks of the Jewish Legion of the British armed forces. Issued by the "Komitet far Yiddishe Tzukunft" (Committee for the Jewish Future) headed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. [London]: Publisher not indicated, [1916]. Yiddish.
The first page contains a message to Jews who left Russia for England at the start of the First World War: You must choose between joining either the Russian army or the English army. Subsequently, there is a grim depiction of the life that awaits a Jewish soldier in the Russian army (the brutal behavior of commanding officers, the anti-Semitism rampant in Eastern Europe, soldiers' meager salaries, German submarines ambushing and sinking ships en route to Russia), in contrast to a far rosier picture of the treatment of Jewish soldiers in the English army (serving under a Jewish flag and other Jewish symbols, allowance for the observance of the Sabbath and of Jewish dietary laws, participation in the campaign for the conquest of the Land of Israel).
The document ends with the printed signature of the "Komitet far Yiddishe Tzukunft" (Committee for the Jewish Future), founded in London in 1916 by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. This committee actively campaigned among British Jewry to promote the idea of joining the ranks of the so-called Jewish Legion. As an organization, the committee was short-lived; it was disbanded in 1916, the same year it was established.
8 pp., 21 cm. Good-fair condition. Fold lines. Numerous stains. Minor tears to edges. Handwritten notation to first leaf.
Rare document. Not in OCLC.
