Fighting in National Armies 97

cantonist be considered valid, even if it may have simply represented a way out for an unwilling soldier? Various responsa dealt with this issue and the related ramifications.*

These and responsa on other issues demonstrate that military service in foreign armies was acknowledged as obligatory by the Orthodox community. The Reform community faced the issues discussed above by accepting the testimony of the state for a soldier’s death. If missing, the declaration of death after a suitable period was also considered sufficient to solve issues surrounding his widow.

Many other halakhic issues were raised and a broad range of answers given. Some national armies made an effort to provide properly for the Jewish soldiers, both in religious services and kashrut.®” David Hoffmann (1843-1921) wrote a number of lenient responsa on these matters. Rabbis counseled recruits, who came to them, to quietly observe as much of kashrut, and other commandments as possible. Issues surrounding kohanim were also treated.®®

By the middle of the nineteenth century tens of thousands of Jewish soldiers were serving in national armies. National loyalties had become so powerful by the twentieth century that Jews left Palestine in order to fight in the armies of their former home land. There were Jewish heroes even in the Czarist armies. Jews rose in the ranks of many armies for example the Jewish general Monash (1865-1931) commanded the Australian Expeditionary Force.”

We should note that no national Jewish community made any effort to provide a common approach to the practical questions surrounding military service by Jewish personnel. Nor were there halakhic discussions about the appropriateness of volunteering for military service. In contrast to the lengthy controversies over the organ in a synagogue, vernacular prayers, the role of women in Jewish life and a host of other matters, compulsory and voluntary military service was quietly and universally accepted as part of full citizenship or even without it. The new pattern of life prevailed and Was incorporated into Jewish communal life.