On Sunday, the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and women ('AJEX') marched along Whitehall, and were reviewed by the Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Boyce.
In The Teeth of Beasts it is made clear that Sam Velludo, as a veteran of the Great War, attends the AJEX parade every year. His brother went missing at Loos, which reflects the arguable reality that in parallel to the wider community, established Anglo-Jewish families lost a generation of putative young leaders.
In 'real life', the AJEX march has taken place every year since 1928, when an elderly Corporal Jessel took part, having fought at Balaclava in 1854.
The popularity and attendance at the late November event - a conscious rebuke, then and now, to denigrators of Jewish loyalty and martial spirit - grew from obscurity as the 1930s went on and the threat to Jews everywhere intensified.
Here is a silent Pathé clip of an AJEX march from between the wars (but not 1932, when Major General Sir Frederick Maurice, who was to inspect the veterans, had to stay away due to illness - in the film, it is Sir Frederick who inspects the men).
In The Teeth of Beasts it is made clear that Sam Velludo, as a veteran of the Great War, attends the AJEX parade every year. His brother went missing at Loos, which reflects the arguable reality that in parallel to the wider community, established Anglo-Jewish families lost a generation of putative young leaders.
In 'real life', the AJEX march has taken place every year since 1928, when an elderly Corporal Jessel took part, having fought at Balaclava in 1854.
The popularity and attendance at the late November event - a conscious rebuke, then and now, to denigrators of Jewish loyalty and martial spirit - grew from obscurity as the 1930s went on and the threat to Jews everywhere intensified.
Here is a silent Pathé clip of an AJEX march from between the wars (but not 1932, when Major General Sir Frederick Maurice, who was to inspect the veterans, had to stay away due to illness - in the film, it is Sir Frederick who inspects the men).
A few points:
Not prominent, and possibly not even in the film, is Mr. William Hurwitz. I do not know what Hurwitz looked like, nor what he did in the Great War, what rank he held or even which branch of the Services he served in. But the Jewish Chronicle makes clear that as Honorary Organiser, Hurwitz was the driving force behind the AJEX parade. Two certainties are that Hurwitz lived in Briardale Gardens in Hampstead and that he was the Managing Director of a firm of leather merchants when the second war with Germany began in 1939. Another is that the following year Hurwitz died, aged 46, when the SS City of Benares, which was taking him (and hundreds of evacuated children) to the United States, was sunk by a German U-boat. As the Jewish Chronicle reported when Hurwitz was not listed among survivors, he had probably "...lost his life at the hands of the unspeakable enemy he fought in the last war."
"If in trouble, ask William Hurwitz" was a common comment among ex-servicemen and their organisations, stated Mr. A. Gordon, Secretary of AJEX, on Hurwitz's death.
As Honorary Secretary of the Jewish War Services Committee from shortly before his death, Hurwitz was also responsible for organising the framework of Jewish welfare for servicemen posted to unfamiliar parts of the country: Shabbat hospitality, kosher food and so on. For anyone whose grandfather met their grandmother when one or both were guests at a Jewish home in Llandudno, or Derby, then Hurwitz should get some credit for the shidduch.
Let us not forget Cohen, White, Keysor, or Hurwitz, or any of the other approximately 100,000 Jews who served in the British armed forces across the wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45. Whether the political or legal situation remains conducive to Jewish life here or not in years to come, the memory of the men and women who served - those who fell and those who lived - should be for a blessing.
- a man in an electric bathchair can be seen: this is almost certainly Major Sir (Benn) Jack Brunel "J.B." Cohen, Tory politician of the Anglo-Jewish 'cousinhood', founding treasurer of the British Legion, and a man who lost a brother and his own legs in the Great War. He was a very early pioneer of constructive employment for ex-servicemen with terrible wounds. I have read Cohen's quite detailed autobiography, Count Your Blessings, and I don't remember reading anything about Sir Jack's disability, which I think shows a spectacular lack of self-pity.
- The men carrying the wreath in the film, if they are the same men who ordinarily had this duty, were two of the five Jewish winners of the Victoria Cross in the 1914-1918 war: (Pvt.) Jack White and (Lt.) Leonard Keysor. Their citations are worth reading.
- The band is probably (i.e., was usually) that of the Scots Guards.
Not prominent, and possibly not even in the film, is Mr. William Hurwitz. I do not know what Hurwitz looked like, nor what he did in the Great War, what rank he held or even which branch of the Services he served in. But the Jewish Chronicle makes clear that as Honorary Organiser, Hurwitz was the driving force behind the AJEX parade. Two certainties are that Hurwitz lived in Briardale Gardens in Hampstead and that he was the Managing Director of a firm of leather merchants when the second war with Germany began in 1939. Another is that the following year Hurwitz died, aged 46, when the SS City of Benares, which was taking him (and hundreds of evacuated children) to the United States, was sunk by a German U-boat. As the Jewish Chronicle reported when Hurwitz was not listed among survivors, he had probably "...lost his life at the hands of the unspeakable enemy he fought in the last war."
"If in trouble, ask William Hurwitz" was a common comment among ex-servicemen and their organisations, stated Mr. A. Gordon, Secretary of AJEX, on Hurwitz's death.
As Honorary Secretary of the Jewish War Services Committee from shortly before his death, Hurwitz was also responsible for organising the framework of Jewish welfare for servicemen posted to unfamiliar parts of the country: Shabbat hospitality, kosher food and so on. For anyone whose grandfather met their grandmother when one or both were guests at a Jewish home in Llandudno, or Derby, then Hurwitz should get some credit for the shidduch.
Let us not forget Cohen, White, Keysor, or Hurwitz, or any of the other approximately 100,000 Jews who served in the British armed forces across the wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45. Whether the political or legal situation remains conducive to Jewish life here or not in years to come, the memory of the men and women who served - those who fell and those who lived - should be for a blessing.