An Epic Story of Vengeance - and WWII - The Brigade

I was inspired by this important part of Jewish history that took place primarily in the late days of WWll. I was unaware of much of the activity involving these heros in there attempts to save so many concentration camp survivors while facilitating their return to Israel.

A highly researched insiders' look at the formation of the Israeli military that reads like a well-developed novel. It makes abundantly clear why Israelis are so adamant when they say, "Never again."

An interesting presentation of a page of history that I marginally knew about but wanted to know more detailed information concerning the events and people. I enjoyed it and recommended it to friends.

a wonderful author-enjoyed every thing that I have read by him. Factual, and easy to comprehend without a massive amount of detail. A great history that should be read by any one interested in WWII.

a wonderful author-enjoyed every thing that I have read by him. Factual, and easy to comprehend without a massive amount of detail. A great history that should be read by any one interested in WWII.

This was a story well worth telling, but I thought the writing was geared to a 10th grade reader rather than a serious studier if the subject. A WW II brigade probably consisted of 5,000 soldiers, more or less, but the story line was carried by only a few. There is no indication whether their post-war activities were unique to them or typical of the entire brigade. The evolution of the modern day exodus was new to me and very interesting.

i bought this book as a gift on the recommendation of a friend who found it to be an amazing, little known story - a book that could not be put down easily (even at bedtime). it is well written and caused this friend to seek other other books by the author that sound equally interesting. well worth the cost, i am told.

Pretty disgusting to learn how these political ideologues used an allied uniform to go on their clandestine murder jaunts. Glad I learned about it. Par for the course with the terrorists of irgun and haganah - you know, the original terrorism that led to today's Palestinian desperation. So glad that murdering people instead of being different from the Nazis by following the rule of law helped them feel better.

We read a narrative given by 3 soldiers Israel Carmi, Johanan Peltz and Arie Pinchuk woven into the story of the Jewish Brigades 5000 soldiers recruited in Palestine. Ben Gurion wanted Jews to learn the skills of war but the British saw a problem and only after Normandy did Churchill arrange for them to go into battle in Europe. They were kept training in Benghazi and at the time realized that the British were more interested in keeping Jewish fighters out of Palestine until the were shipped to Italy.
In central Italy they were based in Fiuggi for winter and training, Bernard Caspar was the army chaplain there, he later became chief Rabbi of South Africa. From Ravenna, River Sieno they were on the front against the Germans who were under Kesselring's command.
Haim Laskov was one of the officers there later became the 2nd Chief of Staff of IDF. Italy capitulated and later Germany and they were based in Tarvisio from where they met Jewish refugees coming out of Austria and reporting on the holocaust. Carmi and Peltz describe going into Austria and later Germany and clzim to have executed about 300 Nazis.
Abba Kovno leader of the Vilna partisans and later Hebrew poet wanted to mass murder Germans and they met him in Tarvisio Italy. Moshe Sharett visited them also he later became the 2nd Israeli PM
They now started working with the Jewish agency to bring refugees to Italy and from there on to Palestine, while the British tried to stop them. The brigade was now transferred to Belgium to get them away from helping the refugees but they were still involved as well as gun running. The British decided to return the Brigade home in June 1946. Soldiers returned home were ready to fight in Israel's War of Independence and by building a successful Jewish State they go their revenge.

"The Brigade" is an exciting tale that tells the story of the Jewish brigade (in the British army) that was formed from Palestinian Jews to fight in WW II. It is inextricably linked to the Jewish fight for a country of their own, a fight that took on greater urgency after the Holocaust. The author is unapologetically pro-Israel, but even readers who have no opinion on the issue or are somewhat opposed, will be impressed with the bravery of the brigade as they fought the Nazis in northern Italy and struggled to rescue Jewish orphans. The men were without a doubt dedicated, courageous, and valuable to the British army. This was a part of WW II history that I knew nothing about and that is essential to anyone interested in understanding WW II and the formation of the modern Middle East.

It is almost hard to believe that The Brigade: An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and WWII is a true story. The study of the Jewish Brigade was quite exciting. I don’t remember where I first heard of the Jewish Brigade, but wherever it was, it couldn’t have been more than a paragraph in some book. I was quite glad to read that certain member of the group were vigilantes after the war’s end. There were so many great stories of courage and bravery in the book that is not fair to single out any one story. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in how segments of the Jewish society prepared for the birth of the state of Israel.

Since I'm retired military I enjoyed reading how three Jews outfoxed the British and managed to get a few thousand desperate Jews into Palestine (before Israel was a sovereign country) and before Britan managed to stop the immigration of Jews into the promised land. These men had courage. This would make a great movie. Some readers may not want to read about how they hunted down Nazi's after the war and determined they were guilty of crimes during WWII and shot them. What these men did after the war saved Israel when she became a nation in 1948 and was attacked. I regret the book ends when they began to fight Muslims who attacked the infant Israel in 1948. I Google Carmi and read about him after I finished the book.

Howard Blum has written a compelling true narrative of a small group of Jewish soldiers who fought the Nazis along side the British Army in WWII. This little known slice of history is conveyed persuasively in The Brigade.

Blum discovered this small piece of history by accident when visiting the US Holocaust Museum. After he pulled together scores of interviews, he chose to tell the story through the eyes of three soldiers and one survivor, the sister of one of the soldiers. This telling is what gives this book its potency.

The strength of The Brigade is that it reads as a novel, and the reader cannot turn the pages fast enough to find out what happens next. Blum's accurate portrayal and attention to details is what keeps us focused on the reality of this amazing story of courage and perserverance. He reminds us through his excellent storytelling that this did happen.

The book is not another war novel that expounds on the accounts of military victories. It shows the sacrifices and the souls of these men who risked their lives to save their people. It reveals their struggles and their doubts as well as their triumphant spirits.

The Brigade is a must read. It is uplifting and demonstrates the human spirit at its best.

This a compelling true story in which anyone who reads it will be swept up.
It is about three men , Israel Carmi , Jochanan Pelz and Arie Pinchuk, who form the Jewish Brigade , a division of Jewish soldiers from Israel, in the British army-"the first official Jewish fighting force since the fall of the Judea to the Roman legions". At the time when Jews are being victimized and lead like sheep to the slaughter , the Jewish Brigade , with a yellow Star of David emblazoned to their uniform , fighting for the Jewish people , and their homeland of Israel, shows the world that Jews can fight back and win.
It also tells the remarkable story of Arie Pichuk's sister Leah , and her escape from the Nazis , surviving as a fugitive in the Ukraine , before joining the anti-Nazi Partisans.
After the war , the men witness first hand what the Nazis have done to their people, and set off on a course of identifying , finding and killing Nazi officers who have participated in the holocaust.
Their hatred and ferocity threatens to overwhelm them , until a chance encounter with an orphaned Jewish girl sets them on a more constructive course-smuggling Jewish boys and girls into Israel, despite the British blockade which tires to prevent Jews from entering the ancient homelnd from which they where forced out by the Romans two thousand years before.
It is therefore a true narrative about the re-establishment of the State of Israel , where Jewish children can grow up insafety and live as free men and women , in a free homeland of their own.
That is Zionism , which has been so maligned by evil forces , who want the Jews to fall pray to genocide again.
Every descent person , Jew or Gentile , needs to dedicate themselves to ensuring that Israel survives as a Jewish State in which Jews can live freely and safely.
Anything else will guarantee another holocaust.
Israel and the Jewish people are faced with the same genocidal hate today , that the Jews where faced with during World War II
Our heroes play a role in defending Israel after the fledgling state is attacked by five Arab armies , hellbent on genocide.
Am Israel Chai.
The People of Israel live!

Rarely does a history interweave compelling personal histories and enormous social/moral themes as does Howard Blum's moving and convicing "The Brigade." This work does far more than describe the formation, engagements and ultimate triumphs of the first organized Jewish armed forces in two millenia; it firmly places the five thousand Jewish Palestinian volunteers who fought with the Star of David proudly placed on their shoulders in the center of Jewish history. The men who would don British uniforms would fight for a myriad of purposes: out of anger against the unspeakable evil of the Holocaust, from an awareness that they were living rebukes to the notion that Jews served as deseerving recipients of passive suffering, with a sense of their historical purpose of establishing a Jewish homeland and becoming ironic adversaries of the very nation (Britain) which enlisted their service.
Though "The Brigade" nobly treats the themes of Jewish armed resistance, vengeance and ultimate salvation, this memorable history above all signals the profound development of a renewed Jewish identity, forged in battle against the background of genocide and ruin, tested by personal sorrow and fortified by a messianic vision of a Jewish homeland for the shattered remnants of European Jewry. The Jewish fighters are proud, heroic and consecrated to their vision; they become increasingly aware of their role in a Jewish future. Initially consumed by rage and the obvious need to crush their German enemy, the three members of The Brigade on whom this history focuses evolve morally. From muderous avengers of the crime of mass murder, these men ultimately perceive their role as guardians of those Jews who survived the Holocaust, especially the children, as central to their lives' meaning.
Rich in specific military detail, "The Brigade" is at its best when depicting the personal transformation of its three featured soldiers. Each comprehends a remarkable epiphany during Passover in 1945; each becomes acutely aware of his Jewishness, his place in the enormous task confronting him. The aloof, aristocratic Johanan Peltz discovers his "inescapable and defining" bond with common Jews. "He could neither hide from nor deny it...He was another Jew walking down a long corridor toward a communal destiny." Studious and devoted to his family, Arie Pinchuk finds the moral strength to reconsecrate himself to the search for his family. The contentment of Passover contrasts painfully with that which "had been taken from him," and he resolves that only by redeeming and reclaiming his family could he once again recapture the peace of the holiday. Israel Carmi, a brilliant tactician and resourceful leader of the Jewish Palestinian underground, celebrates the Passover under fire. Yearning for his family in Palestine, Carmi is struck with the awareness "that this makeshift seder in a trench crowded with Jewish soldiers was making all the future seders possible."
Blum also deftly interstitches the remarkable story of Leah Pinchuk, Arie's sister. Leah's survival quietly and convincingly emerges as a methaphor of the Holocaust. She is a living embodiment of the modern state of Israel. Mr. Blum is also capable of eloquence as well. His description of Carmi and Peltz's encounter with Jewish survivors of Mauthausen devastates the reader. The survivors "found it easier to imagine that angels, not Jewish soldiers, were standing in front of them." When one weak, old man steps towards Peltz and touches "the tip of his finger tentatively to the skin of Peltz's outstretched hand," it is as if time and history stop. "Bound by their deep shared sorrow," the men embrace and mourn together.
"The Brigade" is an especially important history given the peril of Israel's existence today. At a time when Holocaust denial and distortion are perniciously used against Israel, at a time when many in the world are still profoundly ignorant of the moral imperative of that beleaguered nation and at a time when much of the world is more comfortable with Jews who suffer than Jews who fight back, "The Brigade" serves as a reminder of Jewish strength, resolve and hope.

Blum focuses on three men -- Israel Carmi, Johanan Peltz, and Arie Pinchuk -- and one incredible woman -- Leah Pinchuk -- in weaving a story of political, military, personal, and cultural triumph.
Formed in 1944, the brigade plays a small yet perhaps pivotal role in Italy in the closing days of World War II. Some Allied officers and politicians feared the creation of a Jewish brigade; the Allies knew that there would be more than a late contribution to the Allied war effort from these highly motvated soldiers. And the year following victory in the European theater of war showed just how well-organized, focused, and effective a small number of well-trained and committed soldiers could be. They rooted out Nazi murderers, stole weapons from right under the noses of the Allies, and organized the exodus of Jewish war victims.
Blum uses a variety of military, historical and personal sources to construct his tale. By the time the reader reaches the end notes, Blum's choice of the three featured heroes makes good sense, among all of the heroics that made up this brigade. Of course, the memories of the people he interviewed were imperfect and incomplete, fifty years following the events. It should make a good movie. Perhaps that explains why the chapters have more of an outline format than the details some would like to see. And the first few chapters take some time to get the story up and running.
Leah Pinchuk has the most remarkable story of survival among the four. Her story epitomizes the terror of the war, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the ultimate triumph of human nature.
A strong historical and personal record worth reading.

An Israeli "Band of Brothers"
All those who loved the recent HBO miniseries (and Stephen Ambrose book) "Band of Brothers" will also enjoy "The Brigade" by Howard Bloom.
"The Brigade" is the story of the Jewish Brigade Group, a unit made up of Jews - mostly from the then-British mandate of Palestine. Also known as the Jewish Fighting Brigade, it was formed in 1994 and played a critical role in the defeat of the Nazi armies in Northern Italy in 1945 as integral part of the British 8th Army.
Like "Band of Brothers", "The Brigade" not only gives us a history of the unit as a whole, but also allows us to get a better understanding of some of the individual members. In place of Dick winters, Lewis Nixon,Carwood Lipton, etc. we have Sgt. Israel Carmi, Cap't Johanthan Peltz, and Lt. Arie Pinchuk.
And while "Band of Brothers" reaches it's anticlimax in May of 1945 (or even in earlier in '45, after the victory at Bastogne), the story of the Jewish Brigade only gets more interesting after the war "officially" ends.
Though nominally part of the British army, the loyalty of most members was to the Jewish people. Service in the British army was seen merely as a means to an end. It was in this spirit, that the Brigade (aided by elements of American intelligence) started to carry out a campaign to identify and eliminate Nazi war criminals that had evaded Allied arrest. Their efforts as infiltrating and destroying a secret Nazi cabal that was spiriting former SS officers into hiding in South America was as exciting and as filled with intrigue as anything that could come out of the imagination of John Le Carre.
The adventure, however, doesn't stop there. The Brigade soon turned to rescuing the remaining Jews of Europe and making sure that they returned to their historical homeland in Palestine. Despite the active opposition of the British and in defiance of British colonial immigration laws, the Brigade was able to help around 68,000 Jews reach the Middle East. Another 50,000 or so were
captured by the British en route but were able to enter Israel after it had achieved independence in 1948. (The Jewish population of Palestine was about 600,000 in 1945.)
The Brigade was the first organized Jewish Army since the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 CE/AD and Howard Bloom captures well their struggles, anguish and triumphs.

"Before setting out for revenge, one must first dig two graves"
-ancient Chinese proverb
Like many Americans, I was completely ignorant of the small Isreali brigade mobilized by the British in the closing days of WW II. Howard Blum, in interviewing three key players, brings to life the stunning, action-packed and bloody history of this brigade which fought not just for freedom, but for vengence as well. Blum captures the complex history of British Palestine, the disinigration of post-war Europe, the survival of concentration camp refugees as well as the iron will it took all Isrealis to forge a nation in a just a few pages. Through the words of the survivors he also paints a vivid picture of the slow soul assissination that occurs when one seeks vengence. A lightening fast read that finally flashes some light on a nearly forgotten piece of history. A must read!

I had not heard or read anything about the Jewish Brigade. An intriguing part of WWII history and the narrative was more like a novel than a dry history book. I also learned a lot about the politics of pre-war Palestine and Great Britain.

The history of the Jewish Brigade Group and the soldiers who served in it is not always pretty. The Brigade did distinguish themselves in battle but they also wrote their own rules after the war. They knew what their mission was and did everything they could to accomplish it. Blum tells all of the details and does not sugar-coat anything. It is a very well written history and makes to attempt to apologize for nor glorify the actions of the men who served.

Informative. Weaves an excellent story of several strong characters. Really enjoyed the story. Very well written and reads easily. Leaves one with a sense of satisfaction despite the difficult subject matter.

I never knew about the Palestine Brigade and it's role in the roots of the nation of Isreal. extraordinary story and so we'll told. Brilliant and courageous people. So important for the world to know this story.

The turning point of this masterpiece is a short scene in a church. Two soldiers, wearing their Jewish Brigade uniforms, show up to assassinate a Nazi in hiding. Instead, one of the congregants, a young girl, sees them and confesses to them in broken Herbew that she is a Jewish orphan and wants to leave with the soldiers. Suddenly, the soldiers see a shift in their mission from being assassins to rescuing Jews and smuggling them to Israel. This noble mission is completed, at times at odds with the British Army and at times with their tacit aid. This story how one chance encounter leads to the rescue of tens of thousands is a magnificant story that should stand alongside the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

"Fair" is the suitable adjective I can use to describe this book: a fair average between thread and history deeds, between thoroughness and narrative speed. It is an interesting story in the environment of WWII, matching military issues and Holocaust items, which can be seen as the convergence of several witnesses, on the landscape of birth of the Israel nation. It is an advisable reading, even if not a milestone, written by a very flowing style. It is not an ideological issue, nor a propaganda pamphlet. It is a plain witness, as simple as taking part to a world war can be, and facing, and an unusual Jewish point of view of the Holocaust. However, I have been disappointed by discovering that the photo collection inside the paperback edition is as half as the hardcover one.

A very good, informative story of the Jewish Brigade which fought in the Italian theatre in 1945 then later crisscrossed Europe exacting revenge on SS troops and rescuing Jewish refugees. I only wish a little more detail was included as the book is a rather quick read. Despite that, a very good book that left me wanting to go out and read more on the founding of modern Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflicts which followed.