New Material: * New Foreword by Field Marshall The Lord Guthrie GCB LVO OBE DL * Completely updated with new profiles, data and appendices * New material on the Spanish Civil War * Extended material on the role of Jewish personnel involved in the Fire Service * New chapter on Glider Pilots, one of the elite units of the British forces in WWII * New chapter on Barnett (‘Barney’) Lewis, Jewish George Medal hero of the London Blitz *** This book is a response to the oft-perpetrated myths of British Jewry’s lack of fighting spirit and its failure to participate in the Second World War. British Jewry has never formed more than about one half of 1 per cent of the population, yet the figures show that their contribution to the armed forces has always been out of proportion to their numbers. Fighting Back provides an insight into the Anglo-Jewish contribution to the Allied victories over the Nazi and Japanese threats. The book also highlights the role of the Jews in the Spanish Civil War and the Korean War. Its wide-ranging approach to the contributions that Jews made looks at, among other things: the paratroopers at the Battle of Arnhem; the much neglected and almost forgotten Auxiliary Services of Civil Defense; the Jews at Bletchley Park; and the Jewish-Palestinian volunteers from Israel. Anglo-Jewry, together with Jews from Israel, may thus be deeply and justly proud of this history of fighting back, fighting for democracy, and fighting for peace. *** In a war where ordinary people became extraordinary and the exceptional seemed commonplace, the unique circumstances and remarkable character of Britain’s Jews nevertheless merit them additional honor…Sugarman’s volume admirably fills a gap in both Jewish (particularly Anglo-Jewish) history and in the scholarship of World War II. – NYMAS Review [Subject: Jewish Studies, Military History, World War II]
