Soldiers, Angels, and Avengers: A History of the Jewish Brigade (McGill-Queen's Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies Series)

Soldiers, Angels, and Avengers tells the compelling story of the Jewish Brigade Infantry Group (JBG), a five-thousand-strong military unit, recruited primarily from the Jewish population of Palestine, and the only exclusively Jewish military unit to fight under the British flag during the Second World War.Gianluca Fantoni reconstructs the military and human experience of the brigade in Italy and investigates its enduring and controversial place in memory and public debate. Formed in 1944, the JBG saw combat in the final stages of the Italian campaign, where its soldiers fought with distinction against German forces.After the war, many of its members - who often had little or no military training, and included artists, scientists, and farmers - engaged in clandestine efforts to smuggle Holocaust survivors and weapons into Palestine, laying the groundwork for the future Israeli state.Others sought retribution against Nazis and collaborators in acts that revealed both the trauma of genoci