The author has written this article independent and unaffiliated with any veterans, military, or social organization.
We live in contentious times. However, even a glancing look at the history of the United States teaches us that contentious times are nothing new to the Jewish people or the United States. The American Revolution was in many respects a bloody civil war, since roughly a third of the population of the colonies remained loyal to the king. The presidential election of 1800 – only the second national election – threatened to pull the country apart. The decade of the 1850s was charged with the possibility of a civil war. The Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history and came in the 1860s. Yet the Jewish people and our Union manage to continue. One of the common unifying factors in the United States throughout our 250-years history is that Jewish men and women serve in all wars and campaigns.
The domestic upheavals of the 1960s and 1990s, to which the present political and social events bear some resemblances were possibly worse from a political standpoint than anything we are experiencing today.
The author John Dos Passos in “Land of Hope” gave a version of change which encouraged us to remember the past to live in the future:
In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifetime across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional now that blocks good thinking. That is why, in times like ours, when old institutions are caving in and being replaced by new institutions not necessary in accord with most men’s preconceived hopes, political thought has to look backwards as well as forwards.
Jewish men and women have served in the American militia and military since before the American Revolution in a higher percentage than the greater population. In fact, during the Second World War at least 550,000 Jewish men and women put on the U.S. military uniform. Worldwide during the Second World War nearly 2,000,000 Jewish men and women put on the military uniform of their country to fight the Axis nations.
In the United States there is one preeminent military and veterans services organization the “Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America (JWV)”. The JWV was formed in 1896 and is one of the oldest Jewish organizations and the oldest continuously operating Veterans Service Organizations in the US. JWV was established by a few Jewish Civil War veterans in New York City to counter the antisemitic trop that Jews did not serve during the Civil War. Jewish men and women served in the Union and Confederate armies in the tens of thousands.
In the mid-1930’s JWV World War One members in New York City, led a huge protest march and boycott of NAZI German products, which was joined by other Veterans Services Organizations like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars. After the Second World War the JWV worked with Black-Americans to physically, in court and economically fight the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society.
Recently, JWV has taken the lead to correct the bigoted and antisemitic wrong of deigning Black and Jewish military members who served during the World War One, Two, and the Korean Wars the Congressional Medal of Honor. There are now 18 Jewish Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. The JWV is actively combating antisemitism by teaming with organizations like FJMC, StandWithUs, ADL, CAMERA, CSS and others. We are working closely with the two Jewish Rabbi certifying agencies: the Jewish Welfare Board and The Aleph Institute to jointly investigate and combat antisemitism complains within the Department of War and Department of Veterans Affairs.
We should follow the advice of Dos Passos, when the challenge facing us, although formidable, we have every reason to treasure our history, and use those successes to move forward. We have every reason to be hopeful!
NLM.08.30.2026A
“Jewish American Military and Veterans Serve in the United States Military” published in Catalyst: October 7th Edition, Fall 2026.
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