Every April 25th in Milan they occur complaintsby left-wing anti-Israeli activists, against the demonstrators taking part in the Liberation Day procession with the insignia of Jewish Brigadea formation of Zionist fighters who participated in the Italian campaign against the armies of the Third Reich and their fascist allies alongside the Anglo-American forces.
To reconstruct the story it is necessary to go back to eve of the Second World Warwhen in Holy Landat the time below mandate of Great Britainone had already been formed organized Zionist presence of around 400 thousand people, determined to found their own state by attracting Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution.
This activity had aroused a harsh reaction from the Arab population in previous years, with bloody riots. And the government of London, which with the Balfour statement of 1917 had supported the Zionist project, had changed course to appease the Palestinians, issuing in 1939 a White paper which severely limited Jewish immigration to the region. As a result, relations between the British authorities and the Zionist movement were quite tense.
The Jews of Palestineonce the Second World War broke out, they insisted for a long time establish their own autonomous military units in order to fight against the Third Reich, but Great Britain preferred don’t indulge the request, in fear that the members of these armed groups would then rise up against his mandate in the Middle East to found what would become the State of Israel.
Only in September 1944, when the conflict had entered its final phase, did the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to please the Zionist leaders. And so it was created Jewish Brigade, which was attended mainly by soldiers from the Holy Land, but also from Commonwealth countries, Poland and the Soviet Union. Made up of approx 5 thousand menwas entrusted to the command of the Canadian brigadier general Ernest Frank Benjamin.
Trained first in Alexandria, Egypt, then controlled by the British, and then in Italy, the Jewish Brigade arrived at the front in Romagna in March 1945. Her insignia was a blue and white banner with the star of
David, rather similar to the flag that would be adopted by the State of Israel in 1948. His soldiers participated in the spring of 1945 breakthrough of the Gothic linewhich allowed the Allies to advance in the Po Valley while in the cities of Northern Italy the partisans rose up against the Germans and fascists.
The Jewish Brigade took part in the fighting approximately 70 injured and 30 dead, who are buried in the cemetery of Piangipane, a hamlet of Ravenna. At the end of hostilities he played an important role inassistance to the Jewish population who escaped Nazi extermination, working to encourage their transfer to the Middle East. After demobilization in 1946, the soldiers of that unit the majority of them left for the Holy Landwhere many of them participated in the first Arab-Israeli warfought between 1948 and 1949.
In 2018 a museum on the Jewish Brigade, to which exhibitions were dedicated in Rome (2014) and at the Lombardy Regional Council (2020). The memory of her experience is part with full rights of the ideal heritage linked to the anti-fascist war. But those who brand Zionism as a form of racism refuse to accept this fact.
