The Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX)

Remembrance Parade 1933

Front cover of magazine of The Jewish Exserviceman 1946

Original documents giving details of Jews serving in the second world war were burnt

Ajex members serving lunches to nurses at University college Hospital

Tribute to Jews who lost their lives fighting in the second world war written by Henry Morris

Throughout history, Jews have been liable to forced conscription into the armies of their overlords. In 19th century Russia and Eastern Europe, the sons of many families were forcibly removed for up to 25 years' service in brutal and dangerous conditions. The desire to avoid conscription was one of the principal motivations behind the mass emigration of Jews towards the end of the century.

It is not surprising therefore that a number of recent-immigrant Jews from Britain in the First World War objected to serving in the British army, much as they would have done in Russia. The majority of young Jewish males, however, were willing to serve in the British Army, many of them volunteering in the first wave, before conscription became necessary. Many gave distinguished service, as the British Jewry Book of Honour attests.

Jewish servicemen were able, if they wished, to join exclusively Jewish battalions. This was nothing unusual in the First World War. In the push to encourage mass volunteering, many battalions were formed from close geographic communities (like the Accrington Pals), or occupations (like the Artists Rifles). In the case of the Jewish battalions, it had the added advantage of making it possible to have kosher food, follow Jewish observances and have access to Jewish chaplains. At the end of the War, those who had survived had formed tight bonds that they preserved in what later became the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX).

In the inter-war years, the Association began the practice of an Annual Remembrance Parade, which it still observes today, and concerned itself with practical issues like war disability pensions, and the re-absorption of veterans into civilian employment. A monthly magazine, The Jewish Ex-Serviceman, appeared for many years between the wars and again for some time after 1945. The Association also had to contend, however, with darker developments, mobilising to counter the propaganda of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and making representations to the British Mandatory Authority about the murder of Jews in Palestine.

As war approached again, AJEX participated in the national recruiting campaign for the Territorial Army. In the event, some 60,000 Jews served in the armed forces in the Second World War, and AJEX maintains records on nearly all of them in a card index laboriously put together by the Jewish Military Chaplains after many of the original documents were destroyed by bombing.

	Download this item from our catalogue Catalogue Reference: () MEPO2/8649	Once again, after the War the association had to contend both with the welfare problems of returning veterans and with the re-emergence of fascism around Britain. In the 1960s it organised security teams to guard synagogues and cemeteries from anti-Jewish slogans and desecration. And in the same way as in the inter-war years the Association had pressed the Government on the plight of Jews in Palestine, so now it found itself having to press the Government on the plight of Jews who were refused the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel. When a small group of AJEX members travelled to Moscow to lay a wreath, they were denied permission - on the grounds that (following AJEX's own emblem) it took the form of a Star of David. Ex-servicemen and women at home, meanwhile, were living in sometimes very poor conditions, and the AJEX Housing Association, formed in 1970, showed that the Association was as capable of practical help as it was of campaigning. AJEX has not, however, been an inward-looking body, and a significant part of its charitable work has been aimed as much at the wider community as at Jews. Since the 1950s it has been organising outings for the disabled of all faiths and none. In appreciation of the wartime dispensation that allowed Jews in the forces to take leave for the High Holy Days, in the 1960s AJEX initiated Operation Goodwill, under which Jewish volunteers relieve hospital staff on Christmas Day so that they can spend the day with their families. As the AJEX members themselves have grown older, young people have been drafted in to keep up the effort. In recent years, the Association has developed a mobile exhibition for schools illustrating the Jewish contribution from the Napoleonic Wars to the present day; and it now maintains a Military Museum at AJEX House that serves as a resource centre for students, the media and general inquiries. Its key mission is to keep alive the memory of all British Jews who have served their country - and that is a task that never finishes.
	Download this item from our catalogue Catalogue Reference: () MEPO2/8650