Volunteers of the 39th Jewish Legion Encounter the Jews of Palestine during the Mandate

Abstract

The article focuses on relations between the American volunteers of the 39th Battalion and the Jewish community of the Yishuv, one of the earliest encounters between the two groups following the Jewish migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Two questions regarding the nature of this encounter are addressed here: 1. What was the attitude of the Jewish community to the Jewish Legions in general and to the American battalion in particular? 2. Were the American soldiers received with open arms or were they criticized for their behavior and conduct in the Yishuv, and why was the promise to settle them over a 13-year period accepted only after many of them had already left the country? Answers to these questions emerge from the Tel Hai incident of 1920 and the indifference expressed by the Yishuv community as a whole towards the American Jewish volunteers.