Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

January 7, 2020

How Judaism Came to the American Military

The Star of David men.

When the U.S. entered World War I, the War Department gave the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)—at the time a distinctly Protestant organization with an evangelizing mission—an official role in coordinating cultural and religious activities for men in uniform. The result, writes Allan Arkush, was that “Protestant Christianity was to be the de-facto religion of the American servicemen.” To counteract this trend, a group of prominent Jewish figures organized the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB), whose activities are the subject of a new book titled Making Judaism Safe for America. Arkush writes in his review:

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