7. The Armed Services

As with immigration and naturalisation records, the National Archives holds substantial collections of records which deal with all aspects of wartime and peacetime defence. Such a panorama of material is beyond the scope of this guide and what is provided here is a comprehensive sampling of series in which items of Jewish interest have been identified. Although occasional reference is made to individuals who attained distinction in the peacetime militia or army reserves (Major Isidore Isaacson, for instance), coverage is limited mainly to Australian Jewish participation in three major conflicts – the Boer War (1899–1902), World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945). Documents are cited which reflect Federal Government perspectives on what Lucy Dawidowicz and other historians call Hitler’s ‘war against the Jews’ in Chapter 8. Series are also identified which contain material on the Australian Jewish military chaplaincy. For a full listing of series relating to defence (including civilian services and national service), see Finding Families and relevant Fact Sheets published by the National Archives.

General Sir John Monash, Melbourne, 1931. NAA: A1200, L39602

This chapter summarises the Jewish contribution to national defence, and identifies key records which deal with that contribution. Records which deal (in a general way) with Jewish participation in the forces are covered first, followed by records which highlight contributions made by individual Jews.

A small number of Jewish recruits appear to have been in the contingents sent to avenge General Gordon in the Sudan (1885),[68] and there was a small but solid Australian Jewish presence in the Boer War (1899–1902). Prominent among the soldiers were Major Walter ‘Karri’ Davis (who endured two years as a prisoner of war), Myer Blashki, Louis E Phillips, Alfred Saunders (son of Rev Moses Saunders of Melbourne) and two sons of Ballarat’s Rev Israel M Goldreich. A Jewish woman, Rose Shappere, was notable among nurses who volunteered to tend the sick and wounded on the South African front.[69]

Harold Boas, the YMCA’s Jewish representative to the troops in Europe and compiler of Australian Jewry Book Of Honour – the Great War (1923), estimated that 2 304 Jewish males enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces in World War I, ie 13 per cent of the Jewish community at that time. Of these, some 300 made the ‘supreme sacrifice’. Of Western Australian recruits alone, 47 died out of a total enlistment of 180 (when the WA community numbered less than 2000 in all). More than 100 Australian Jews earned military honours or were mentioned in despatches, and one was awarded the Victoria Cross: Leonard Keysor served with the AIF First Battalion at Gallipoli and was decorated for the ‘most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty’ at the Battle of Lone Pine. He subsequently served at Pozières in France, and attained the rank of Lieutenant. Another Australian, Issy Smith (formerly Israel Shmulevitch), who served with the British in the First Battalion of the Manchester Regiment, was also awarded the VC (for heroism at Ypres in 1915). Smith joined the Australian Civil Aviation Department in the late 1930s.

Other prominent Australian Jewish servicemen were Eliezer Margolin, who was awarded a DSO for his part at Gallipoli, commanded the 39th Battalion Royal Fusiliers in Palestine, and (following the Armistice) organised the ‘First Jewish Battalion of Judea’. Lieutenant Philip Harris edited the trench magazine Aussie. Leon Goldberg claimed credit for both inventing the military tank and for inspiring the Balfour Declaration (by which the British Government voiced its commitment to a Jewish state in Palestine following recovery of the Holy Land from the Turks in 1917). Harry Bernstein found fame as a machine-gun expert and, later, as an explorer in South America. Dr Simon Crownson Joel of Western Australia was commissioned as a medical officer and attained the rank of captain. Sydney solicitor Arthur Wellesley Hyman served as a captain in the Light Horse and on the staff of the Fourth Australian Division, was awarded an OBE for his service, and later attained the rank of Colonel with the Army Legal Corps. Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Cohen commanded units in the Middle East, Britain and France, was highly decorated, and (like Hyman) twice mentioned in despatches.

A number of Jewish women emulated the South African experience of Rose Shappere and served at the front with distinction, among them Leah Rosenthal who earned the Royal Red Cross decoration ‘for conspicuous application to duty whilst in the danger zone’.

Without doubt, the greatest and most revered of all Australian Jewish servicemen was former engineer John Monash who commanded the Fourth Infantry Brigade of the AIF in 1914–15, the Second Australian convoy (landing in Egypt in 1915), the Third Australian Division in 1916, and was appointed Lieutenant-General and commander of the Australian Army Corps in 1918. Following the Armistice, Monash directed the general repatriation and demobilisation of the AIF. He was honoured with the KCB (1918), GCMG (1919), France’s Legion d’Honneur and Croix de Guerre, and the American Distinguished Service Medal. In 1930 he was conferred with the full rank of General, the first Jew in any army to attain that rank. Monash was once described by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George as ‘the most resourceful General in the British army.’ The Times correspondent Liddell C Hart assessed that Monash would have become commander-in-chief of the combined Allied forces had the war lasted beyond 1918.[70]

Australian Jews were similarly conspicuous during World War II when some 4000 enlisted in the various services. Nearly 200 died in action: 40 were decorated for gallantry and 30 more mentioned in despatches. Prominent Jewish servicemen included Major-General [Sir] Paul Cullen, Brigadier Alexander Roby, Major Hedley Freedman, Brigadier Philip Masel and Captain Colin Pura (who emulated Philip Harris by editing and publishing a serviceman’s journal, Guinea Gold). Lionel Van Praag, Eric Silbert, Julius Cohen, Julius Epstein and Peter Isaacson all served in the RAAF with distinction. [Sir] Asher Joel, [Sir] Zelman Cowen and [Judge] Trevor Rapke were all lieutenants with the Royal Australian Navy. Again, several Jewish nurses served with distinction, among them Rachel Reuben and Adeline Marks, while Sydney science graduate Edna Goulston attained the rank of Second Officer with the WRANS and Doris Selby, a medical practitioner, attained the army rank of captain.[71]

For full details of Australian Jewish participation in World War II, see Australian Jewry’s Book of Honour World War II in Appendix 2.

General records

The following records provide general information on the participation of Australian Jews in the Armed Services.

Personnel records – Boer War and early 1900s

The following records relate to specific Australian Jews who served in the Boer War and in the period before World War I.

Personnel records – World War I (and the interwar period)

The following records relate to specific Australian Jews who served in World War I and the period up to the outbreak of World War II.

Personnel records – World War II

The following records relate to specific Australian Jews who served in World War II.

Chaplaincy and ‘spiritual welfare’

Rabbi Raymond Apple, currently spiritual leader of Sydney’s Great Synagogue and Senior Jewish Chaplain to Australia’s Armed Forces since 1988, has analysed the ‘paradox’ of military chaplaincy as the attempt to balance armed power with divine spirit:

War is sometimes necessary; defence preparedness is essential to a nation; and a defence force needs a religious advisory arm to watch over the morality of its policies and the morale of its troops.[72]

Jewish chaplains have been attached to the Australian Army since 1908 and the appointment to the Commonwealth Military Forces of Rev (later Rabbi) Jacob Danglow of the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation.

Sydney’s Rabbi Francis Lyon Cohen, who had the distinction of being the first Jewish chaplain appointed by the British Military Forces (in 1892), involved himself similarly with the Australian national defence following his arrival in NSW in 1905, and served as chaplain from 1909 until his death in 1934. Cohen inaugurated an annual military service at the Great Synagogue during the festival of Chanukkah in 1907, was outspoken in favour of conscription during World War I because he saw support of the war effort as ‘an act of religious virtue’, and once exhorted the community’s youth:

May they never forget that they are called upon to uphold not only their country’s political independence, but still more her moral ideals of liberty and equal opportunity.[73]

On another occasion, Cohen declared unequivocally: ‘We British Jews... who love the privilege of fully serving the Empire over which this flag waves, can none of us be too zealous, too devoted in her service’.[74]

Other clergy who have emulated the example of Danglow and Cohen, both in and out of wartime, include Rev Solomon Marks Solomon of Melbourne (who, by virtue of age and length of service, was officially senior Hebrew chaplain in Victoria from 1910 until his death), Rabbi Leib Isack Falk (a World War I veteran and long-serving assistant minister at the Great Synagogue, who was a chaplain with the Commonwealth forces from 1935), Rabbi Ephraim Moses Levy (Sydney), Rabbi Harry Freedman (Melbourne), Rev Isaac Amber Bernstein (Adelaide), Rev Nathan Levine and Rev Joseph Wolman (Brisbane) and, more recently, Rabbis Chaim Gutnick, John Levi, Edward Belfer and Jeffrey Kamins. No Jew has yet held a chaplaincy with the RAN and, to date, only one chaplain, Rabbi Dr Shalom Coleman of Perth, has been attached to the RAAF.

A number of Jewish clergymen saw active army service overseas during the two World Wars, most notably Rabbi David Freedman of Perth, who was at Gallipoli and the Mediterranean and French theatres of war, and Danglow, who succeeded Freedman in France in 1918 and also completed several tours of duty in the Pacific and New Guinea in the 1940s. Rabbi Louis Rubin-Zacks, of Adelaide and Perth, ministered to American and Australian troops in the jungles of New Guinea and Rabbi Lazarus M Goldman, of Melbourne, spent six years in the Middle East, South Pacific, North Africa, Northern Territory and New Guinea.

Given the courtesy rank of Colonel, Rabbi Danglow held office as Senior Jewish chaplain of the Commonwealth from 1942 until his death in 1962. His achievements in that capacity included the compilation of a field service in English as an aid to Christian chaplains who might be called upon to conduct Jewish funerals and an official visit in 1948 to study the morale of occupying troops in Japan. Remembered with considerable affection by Jewish ex-servicemen, Danglow was awarded both the OBE and CMG for his military contributions. He was succeeded in office by Rabbi Dr Alfred Fabian and, from 1988, by Rabbi Apple.[75]

A number of National Archives records have been identified which deal with aspects of the Jewish military chaplaincy and matters of Jewish religious observance in wartime. These include: