In the midst of WWI, residents of Jerusalem witnessed a horrific spectacle: the hanging of five local citizens by the Ottoman authorities. A photograph of the scene has since become a Jerusalem legend linking Christians, Jews and Muslims.
“He was like a character out of a book. He was like something somebody wrote.”
From medical school to the battlefield, he wound up in Siberia and China before America
A century after World War I, people are still surprised to learn the extent of Jewish participation in the military.
Some 100,000 Jewish soldiers fought in the ranks of the German army, approximately 12,000 of whom died on the battlefield
Rathenau was a classic example of a German Jew who tried to become integrated into society-at-large, and even contributed to the strengthening of nationalist views
Abraham Adolf Fraenkel, a doctor of mathematics, served in the German army during the Great War and organized a Passover Seder for his fellow Jewish soldiers.
Almost all of the large countries involved in the war appealed to their citizens to help achieve victory by donating their private money through the purchase of the bonds.
In 1886, a young man named Albert Ballin (1857-1918) of Jewish origins joined the company. Ballin had inherited from his father an emigration agency that operated in Hamburg. The agency helped European emigrants obtain tickets for sailing from the various European ports to America.
