Derek J. Penslar is the Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History at the University of Toronto and the Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford. His many books include "Shylock's Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe", "Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective", and "The Origins of Israel, 1882-1948: A Documentary History".

List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chapter One - The Jewish Soldier between Memory and Reality 17 War in Premodern Judaism 19 Premodern Jews in War 22 Jews in the Tsar's Army: Conscription as National Tragedy? 27 Chapter Two - Fighting for Rights: Conscription and Jewish Emancipation 35 New Thinking about Jews as Soldiers in the Eighteenth Century 38 Absolute Conscription: Jews and the Draft in the Habsburg Empire 41 Willing Bodies: Jewish Soldiers in Western Europe 47 The Jew as Rebel 56 Integration and Accommodation of Jewish Soldiers 61 Celebrating the Jewish Fighter 68 Jewish Fighters at the Fin de Siecle: Proletarian Rebels and Shock Troops of Empire 74 Chapter Three - The Military as a Jewish Occupation 83 Jewish Military Officers as Social Barometers 84 The Armed Juif d'Etat 94 Lives Reconstructed: French-Jewish Officers at Home and Abroad 103 Chapter Four - When May We Kill Our Brethren? Jews at War 121 Civil Wars within Civil Wars 122 Jews and War Finance: Between Patriotism and Internationalism 145 World War I: The End or Pinnacle of Jewish Transnationalism? 152 Jewish Veterans as a Transnational Community 160 Chapter Five - The Jewish Soldier of World War I: From Participant to Victim 166 Chapter Six - The World Wars as Jewish Wars 195 The Jewish Legion and Palestine: The First Global Jewish War? 196 Mobilized Jewish Internationalism: The Spanish Civil War 200 The Second World War: Fighting Amalek 207 Chapter Seven - 1948 as a Jewish World War 225 The Global Battle for a Jewish State 226 1948: The View from America 248 Epilogue 254 Notes 263 Bibliography 317 Index 337