World War I
The number of Jews who served in the American military during World War I was disproportionate to their representation in the American population at large. The 250,000 Jews who served represented approximately 5% of the American armed forces whereas Jews only constituted 3% of the general population. As early as 1914, the American Jewish community mobilized its resources to assist the victims of the European war. Cooperating to a degree not previously seen, the various factions of the American Jewish community—native-born and immigrant, Reform, Orthodox, secular, and socialist—coalesced to form what eventually became known as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. All told, American Jews raised 63 million dollars in relief funds during the war years and became more immersed in European Jewish affairs than ever before.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Jews In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words war i, world and/or war:
““... War is for everyone, for children too.
I wasn’t going to tell you and I mustn’t.
The best way is to come uphill with me
And have our fire and laugh and be afraid.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“I have lived in both worlds. And I think I prefer, to the indifferent, haphazard, money- mad hurry of the Outside World, that of my world; that sympathy and understanding grown shadowy since I have been away from it so long, still is more real to me than the world I am in now. Not only the spangles and the gay trappings made it colorful; there was an inner color that warmed the soul. And that I miss.”
—Josephine Demott Robinson (1865–1948)
“Stiller ... took part in the Spanish Civil War ... It is not clear what impelled him to this military gesture. Probably many factors were combined—a rather romantic Communism, such as was common among bourgeois intellectuals at that time.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)