Jewish Legion

[Andrew85]

Hello all,

My g.g.uncle Morris Goldsand immigrated with his family from the Ukraine to New York in 1913. A few years ago, I found another immigration record for him on Ellis Island dating from Oct 1919, in which he, along with around 60 other men, are described as "demobilized British soldiers". Their tickets are listed as having been paid by the British government. Curiously, almost every one of them was recorded as "Hebrew". The same manifest gave Morris' departure date from the US as Sep. 1918.

I suspected that Morris may have been in the Jewish Legion- three Jewish battalions formed from the Royal Fusiliers in WWI- but without any more information, couldn't really do anything with it. So I put it aside.

Until a few days ago, when, following a link to the British Archives website, I found Morris' name in the Medal Index Rolls. His MIC gives the following information:

Private in Royal Fusiliers. Regiment number: J/8756. Awarded the British War Medal.

Someone from another forum was able to confirm that the J prefix among the Royal Fusiliers did indeed designate the "Judeans". So now at least I know that my hunch about the Jewish Legion was correct.

So, now to my big question:

Is there any way to determine what battalion my relative was in, based on the reg. number? Are they sequential ((I.e., was battalion 38 J/1 through J/5000, then battalion 39 J/5001 through J/whatever)? If so, I might be able to figure out his battalion by doing some detective work, looking up specific individuals whose battalions I know (David Ben-Gurion, for instance, was in the 40th)...

A related question would be how I find out where Morris was stationed. Presumably, finding one will give me the other.

I'm curious, though, as I understand it the British War Medal was given to all soldiers who "left home" for service (making Morris, as an American, an automatic qualifier). Other medals were given for being in action. Also, Morris' MIC doesn't have anything written under "theater of war". I'm guessing this may mean he never saw any action/ was never deployed?


Basically, I'm wondering if there's any way I can get more information short of the Kew Archives (particularly since I have no way of knowing if any data on Morris survived WW2).

Thanks for any help people can offer.

Andrew

[mark24]

I am not sure if this will help

Near the city of Netanya in Isreal is a small village where only descendants of the original inhabitants can own property.

There is a Military Museum situated there which linked to what I understand was a Jewish Regiment- not sure if it was WW1, but they have an archive of letters etc written by relatives.

Or this was the case when we visited there some 12 years ago.
It may be possible to find information on the web from Israel

[GreySquirrel]

This page might help in some way:

http://regiments.org/regiments/mideast/il-regts/JewLeg.htm