"Churchill on the Members of the Yishuv who Stand on Guard for the Homeland, " a poster calling for members of the Jewish population in Palestine to enlist in the British army. HaPoel HaTza'ir Cooperative Press Ltd., Tel Aviv, [early 1940s]. Design: Otte Wallish. Signed in the plate: "MW" [Atelier Machner-Wallish]. Hebrew.
A portrait of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill appears at the top of the poster, followed by a quote excerpted from a speech he delivered at a protest rally held at Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1942: "The Jews were Hitler's first victims, and ever since they had been in the forefront of resistance to Nazi aggression. All over the world Jewish communities have made their contribution to the cause of the United Nations… I acknowledge the eager support which the Jews of Palestine above all are already giving […] His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom took risks in the dark days in 1940 to discharge their obligations in the Middle East and they have throughout been animated by the determination that the Jewish population in Palestine should in all practicable ways play its part in resistance of the United Nations to oppressions and brutalities of Nazi Germany."
Appearing underneath this quote is the emblem of the Center for the Enlistment of the Jewish Yishuv of Palestine. Printed at the bottom of the poster are the words "The Homeland calls out to you / Enlist!"
Some 40,000 members of the Jewish Yishuv enlisted in the ranks of the British army in the course of the Second World War, accounting for roughly ten percent of the Jewish population of Palestine at the time. The first of the draftees, 12 soldiers in all, reported for duty already in September 1939, just one week after the outbreak of the war. Subsequently, thousands of individuals enlisted for service, performing a host of different duties in a host of different units, including the Royal Pioneer Corps, the Royal Artillery, the Infantry, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Air Force (years later, soldiers from these regiments would become the commanders of the Israel Defense Forces in Israel's War of Independence). The draft was encouraged by the Yishuv's national institutions, who circulated posters, flyers, and other forms of promotional material, and went as far as declaring a draft order for young men up to the age of 30. In 1944, the Yishuv managed to realize one of its most long-standing aspirations, with the establishment of a Jewish fighting unit with a flag of its own, known as the Jewish Brigade.

47.5X63 cm. Good condition. Fold lines and minor creases. Minor stains.