Closing a Historical Episode

My father served in the US Army Air Force during World War II.  One of the momentos of that period I still possess is a small, no, tiny chess set.  Another is a small book, Israel in the Ranks, that was distributed to all servicemen of the Jewish faith.  Based on the 1881 book by Israel Meir Kagan of Radun, the Chafetz Chaim, entitled Machaneh Yisrael (The Camp of Israel), which was originally composed to assist Jewish soldiers in the army of the Czar and other countries in Eastern Europe, the editor, Moshe Yosher, who already published a biography of the Chafetz Chaim in 1937, produced a short guide which was undoubtedly helpful:

The fact is that my father, a proud Jew, but not Orthodox, kept the book throughout his service of over three years in the South Pacific as welll as training.  An English translation of the original is also now available.

Recently, a new edition of the original book in Hebrew was published.

It rejoins a long list of books produced here in Israel on the needs of the Jewish soldier, from Rav Goren's Meishiv Milchama, to that of Rav Nahum Rabinowitz and others.

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