The Jewish War Services Committee

The Jewish War Services Committee, minute book, 1915-1918

000/358/1, 1 volume

The Jewish War Services Committee, London 1915-1918: minute book. In 1918, a Jewish recruiting committee was established with the purpose of promoting the enlistment of Jews. Edmund Sebag-Montefiore was appointed chairman of the Jewish War Services Committee with Lionel de Rothschild as vice-chairman; the site of operations of the committee was New Court. The honorary secretary was Samuel Stephany, a senior clerk at the Bank. Pasted into the volume is a circular letter signed by Lionel's father Leopold de Rothschild (1845-1917) to encourage the recuitment of Jewish soldiers. 

The Jewish War Services Committee: sundry papers concerning finances, 1917-1920

000/358/2, 1 file

The Jewish war Services Committee: Sundry papers concerning committee finances and war aid to Jewish soldiers: receipt books, vouchers and correspondence.

The Jewish War Services Committee, sundry publications, 1915-1919

000/2240/1-4, 4 items

The Jewish War Services Committee, sundry publications, 1915-1918:

• Jews and the War by Gabriel Costa, (London: Central Committee for National Patriotic Organizations, 1915). This colour copy of an original pamphlet contains a preface by Leopold de Rothschild (1845-1917), written most likely at the request of his son Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882-1942), who was a member of The Jewish War Services Committee;
• Experiences of a Jewish Chaplain on the Western Front (1915-1918) by Rev Michael Adler DSO. This colour copy of this essay was originally published in The Jewish Guardian, in the Lewes Press in 1920 and in the British Jewry Book of Honour. The Reverend Michael Adler (1868-1944) was the leading figure in British Jewish military chaplaincy, in the years from 1905 to 1914 and throughout and after the First World War. He was the first chaplain to be granted commissioned rank. The family was not the same family as Chief Rabbis Nathan and his son Hermann Adler. Born in London of Russian-German family, Adler was educated at the Jews’ Free School, Jews’ College and London University and ordained in 1890 at the age of twenty-two. He served for thirteen years as the first minister of the newly established Hammersmith Synagogue in London, taught Hebrew at the Jews’ Free School and published three Hebrew grammar text books. In 1900 Adler became a chaplain to the Jewish Lads’ Brigade, On 31 May 1903 he took up what was to become his appointment of thirty-one years, until his retirement in 1934, as the minister at the Central Synagogue in London.
• The Jews of the Empire and the Great War by Rev Michael Adler, (published for The Jewish War Services Committee, London 1919)
• Newspaper cutting from an unknown publication showing 'Major Lionel de Rothschild and a number of recruits outside the bank in St Swithin's Lane', c.1915. 

See also The Ascott Collection, 000/2019/18 for a scrapbook entitled The War of 1914 compiled by Leopold de Rothschild (1845-1917) which contains a newspaper article by Lionel de Rothschild about the Jewish War Services Committee and its work.