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 The Jews

The Jews: A History is a comprehensive and accessible text that explores the religious, cultural, social, and economic
diversity of the Jewish people and their faith.
Placing Jewish history within its wider cultural context, the book covers a broad time span, stretching from ancient
Israel to the modern day. It examines Jewish history across a range of settings, including the ancient Near East, the age of
Greek and Roman rule, the medieval realms of Christianity and Islam, modern Europe, including the World Wars and the
Holocaust, and contemporary America and Israel, covering a variety of topics, such as legal emancipation, acculturation,
and religious innovation. The third edition is fully updated to include more case studies and to encompass recent events
in Jewish history, as well as religion, social life, economics, culture, and gender.
Supported by case studies, online references, further reading, maps, and illustrations, The Jews: A History provides
students with a comprehensive and wide-ranging grounding in Jewish history.

John Efron is the Koret Professor of Jewish History at the University of California at Berkeley. His specialty is the cultural
and social history of German Jewry. His most recent book is German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic (Princeton
University Press, 2016).

Matthias Lehmann is Professor of History and Teller Chair in Jewish History at the University of California, Irvine. He
has written about the history of Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire and around the Mediterranean. His most recent
book is Emissaries From the Holy Land (Stanford, 2014).

Steven Weitzman directs the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where
he also serves as the Abraham M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures. A scholar of ancient
Jewish culture and religion, his recent publications include a biography of King Solomon from Yale University Press and
The Origin of the Jews: The Quest for Roots in a Rootless Age (Princeton University Press, 2017).
The Jews
A History

John Efron
University of California, Berkeley

Matthias Lehmann
University of California, Irvine

Steven Weitzman
University of Pennsylvania

THIRD EDITION
This edition published 2019
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2019 Taylor & Francis

The right of John Efron, Matthias Lehmann and Steven Weitzman to be identified as authors of this work
has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

First edition published by Pearson Education Inc, 2009

Second edition published by Routledge, 2018

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Efron, John M., author. | Weitzman, Steven, 1965– author. | Lehmann, Matthias B., 1970– author.
Title: The Jews : a history / John Efron, Matthias Lehmann, Steven Weitzman.
Description: Third edition. | New York, NY : Routledge ; Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2019. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015595 |
Subjects: LCSH: Jews—History. | Judaism—History.
Classification: LCC DS117 .E33 2019 | DDC 909/.04924—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015595

ISBN: 978-1-138-30311-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-29844-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-01787-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Minion Pro

by Apex CoVantage, LLC
 CONTENTS

List of Figures ix Biblical Stories the Bible Doesn’t Tell 52

List of Maps xi Modern Encounters With Mount Sinai 56
Preface to the Third Edition xiii
The Bible and the Birth of Jewish Culture 59
Publisher’s Acknowledgments xv
Acknowledgments xvii Five Questions About the Jewish Bible 60
Notes on Spelling and Transliteration xix
3. Jews and Greeks 62
1. Ancient Israel and Other Ancestors 1 From Alexander to Ptolemaic Egypt 63
Searching for Israel’s Origins 2 Exile or Diaspora? 68
BCE and CE: The Religious Background of How Seleucid Rule and the Maccabean Revolt 71
We Think About History 3 Did Antisemitism Originate in Hellenistic Egypt? 72
The Origins and Meaning(s) of the Name Israel 6 Is Martyrdom a Jewish Invention? 75
The Biblical World in Brief 8 Forgotten Heroines of Hanukkah: Were the True
A Confirmable Chronology of Ancient Israelite Heroes of the Maccabean Revolt Women? 78
History 13 Emerging Religious Differences 80
Fitting the Bible Into History 14 Answering Some Questions About the Dead Sea
Political Awakenings 14 Scrolls 84
The Search for Solomon’s Temple 17 The Afterlife of Jewish Hellenistic Culture 86
Family Ties 18
Biblical Archaeology: A Controversial Quest 20 4. Between Caesar and God 89
Surviving Mesopotamian Domination 22 Roman Rule and Its Jewish Allies 90
Sex and Death in Ancient Israel 24 The Jews in Roman Eyes 95
The Early History of God 27 Resisting Rome—and the Aftermath 95
Where Does God Come From? 30 Who Were the Zealots? 98
From the Historical Israel Back to Biblical Israel 31 The Mass Suicide at Masada 100
2. Becoming the People of the Book 33 Letters From a Rebel 102
Jewish Life Before and After the Temple’s
Restoration? 34 Destruction 104
Intermarriage: Biblical Arguments for and Christianity’s Emergence From Jewish Culture 110
Against 38 The Quest for the Historical Jesus 112
Stage 1: The Composition of Biblical Literature 39 The Origin of Satan 114
On Why the Bible Is Not a Book 40 From the Sabbath to Sunday 116
How Does the Hebrew Bible Differ From Other Did the Jews Kill Jesus? 117
Ancient Near Eastern Texts? 44 The Transition to Late Antiquity 118
A Snapshot of the Hebrew Bible in the
Making 46 5. From Temple to Talmud 120
Stage 2: The Canonization of the Bible 47 The Late Antique Context of Rabbinic Judaism 121
A Crash Course in the Jewish Bible 51 Jewish Life in a Christianized Roman Context 121
v
vi Contents

Converting the Land of Israel Into the Christian Rabbinic Culture in Medieval Ashkenaz 192
Holy Land 126 The Ashkenazi Pietists 194
Jewish Life in Sasanian Babylonia 127 Crusades 195
A Synagogue in a War Zone 129 A Jewish Polemic Against Christianity 198
Putting the Rabbis Into the Picture 131 A Disastrous Fourteenth Century 198
The Emergence of Rabbinic Culture 132 Sefarad 199
What Became of the Priests After the Temple’s Life on the Frontier 199
Destruction? 135 The Blood Libel and Other Lethal
The Age of the Mishnah 136 Accusations 200
The Other Ancient Jewish Language 139 Sefarad and the Rise of Kabbalah 204
The Babylonian Talmud and Beyond 141 Toward Expulsion 207
Wading Into the Sea of Talmud 142 Banning Jewish Philosophy 208
Arguing With God 146 A People Apart? 209
The Impact of the Rabbis on Jewish Culture 146 In the Byzantine Empire 210
A Who’s Who of the Ancient Rabbis 147
8. A Jewish Renaissance 213
Cracking the Bible’s Code Rabbinically 150
Iberian Jewry Between Inquisition and
A Brief Introduction to Jewish Prayer 152 Expulsion 215
The Hebrew Printing Revolution 216
6. Under the Crescent 154
Sephardim and Ashkenazim 217
The Jews and Early Islam 155
Muhammad and the Jews 155 The Sephardi Jews of the Ottoman Empire 221
The Umayyad Caliphate and the “Pact of Ottoman Safed in the Sixteenth Century 224
Umar” 157 The Jews of the Moroccan Mellah 226
The Qur’an and the Jews 158 Coffee and Kabbalah 227
The Abbasid Caliphate and the Babylonian Between Ghetto and Renaissance: The Jews of Early
Geonim 159 Modern Italy 228
The Gaonic Standardization of Jewish A Jewish Renaissance 232
Prayer 163
Christian Humanism, the Protestant Reformation,
Egypt, Palestine, and the Karaite Challenge 163 and the Jews 234
The “Golden Age” of Muslim Spain 165
The Cairo Genizah 166 9. New Worlds, East and West 238
Medieval Messiahs 169 In the Nobles’ Republic: Jews in Early Modern
Eastern Europe 238
Jewish Thought in the Islamic Middle Ages 171
The Jewish Community in Poland-Lithuania 241
How to Become a Jewish Philosopher in the Middle
Ages 175 Early Modern Ashkenazi Culture 243
Jewish Lives Under Islamic Rule 176 Keeping Time in Early Modern Europe 246
Jewish Slave Trading 179 The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), Mercantilism, and
the Rise of the “Court Jews” 248
7. Under the Cross 183 Glickl of Hameln and Her Zikhroynes 249
From Roman Law to Royal Serfdom 184 Questions of Identity: Conversos and the “Port Jews”
Medieval Charters and Royal Authority 186 of the Atlantic World 250
The Thirteenth Century 189 Rich and Poor 251
Conversion to Judaism 190 The Lost Tribes of Israel 258
Ashkenaz 190 Shabbatai Zvi: A Jewish Messiah Converts to
Jewish Communities in Northern Europe 190 Islam 260
 Contents vii

10. The State of the Jews, the Jews and the Positive-Historical Judaism 330
State 262
Religious Reforms Beyond Germany 331
Changing Boundaries in the Eighteenth Century 264
New Synagogues and the Architecture of
Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia and the Jews 265
Emancipation 331
Jews and Boxing in Georgian England 269
Jews Through Jewish and Non-Jewish Eyes 271 12. The Politics of Being Jewish 335
Jews and the French Revolution 275 A Shtetl Woman 336
Napoleon’s Jewish Policy 276 The Move to Cities 336
The Anglophone World 278 Modern Antisemitism 338
An Old Language for a New Society: Judah Monis’s The Jewish Question 339
Hebrew Grammar 279 Antisemitism in Germany 341
Jewish Emancipation in Southern and Central Antisemitism in Austria 344
Europe 280 Antisemitism in France 346
Antisemitism in Italy 350
Status of the Jews Under Ottoman Rule 283
Antisemitism in Russia 351
Russian Jewry and the State 284
The Paths Jews Took 355
The Rise of Modern Jewish Politics 356
11. Modern Transformations 290
Jewish Socialism 356
Partitions of Poland 290 Jewish Nationalism 358
Frankism 291 Philanthropy and Acculturation 368
Hasidism 292 The Pursuit of Happiness: Coming to America 370
Uptown Jews: The Rise of the German Jews in
Mitnaggdism 298
America 370
The Volozhin Yeshiva 300
Bertha Pappenheim and the League of Jewish
Israel Salanter and the Musar Movement 302 Women 371
Incipient Modernity in Sephardic Amsterdam 303 Downtown Jews: Eastern European Jewish
The Haskalah in Central Europe 304 Immigrants 371
Moses Mendelssohn 305 A Meal to Remember: “The Trefa Banquet” 372
Educational Reforms in Berlin 306
Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem 307 13. A World Upended 378
Literature of the Berlin Haskalah 307 World War I 378
Jews on the Eastern Front 379
The Sephardic Haskalah 309
Jews on the Western Front 379
The Haskalah in Eastern Europe 309 British Jewry 381
The Galician Haskalah 310
The Jews of Interwar Europe 382
The Russian Haskalah 312
Interwar Jewry: The Numbers 383
Haskalah and Language 314 Soviet Russia Between the Wars 385
Wissenschaft des Judentums (Academic Study of Poland Between the Wars 388
Judaism) 317 Romania Between the Wars 390
Sholem Aleichem 318 Hungary Between the Wars 391
The Rise of Modern Jewish Historiography 319 The Balkans Between the Wars 391

Linguistic Border Crossing: The Creation of Jewish Cultural Life in Interwar Central
Esperanto 320 Europe 392
Interwar Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany 392
The Rise of Reform Judaism 321
Interwar Jewish Culture in Poland 395
Jewish Women in Domestic Service 322
Jews in Austrian Culture 396
The New Israelite Hospital in Hamburg 324
Miss Judea Pageant 400
Rabbinical Conferences 325
Zionist Diplomacy Between the Wars 401
Neo-Orthodoxy 328
Sporting Jews 402
viii Contents

Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky and Revisionist Exodus 1947 461

Zionism 404 In the State of Israel 463
Zionist Culture 405 The Canaanites 463
Zionism and the Arabs 405 Israel’s Wars 467
Mandate Palestine Between the Wars 406 The Eichmann Trial 468
Building Zionist Culture 409
At Home in America 479
Tensions With the Palestinian Arabs 410
Suburbanization 480
The Jews of the Eastern Levant and Muslim
The Impact of the Holocaust 481
Lands 413
Rebelling Against American-Jewish
14. The Holocaust 418 Suburbia 482
The Jews in Hitler’s Worldview 418 The Jews and the Blues 484
American-Jewish Cultures 485
Phase I: The Persecution of German Jewry
American Judaisms 485
(1933–1939) 420
American Jews and the State of Israel 489
Responses of German Jews 424
German Public Opinion 428 Eastern Europe After the Shoah 494
The Economics of Persecution 428 Soviet Union 494
The Night of Broken Glass 431 Poland 497
Romania 498
Phase II: The Destruction of European Jewry
Hungary 499
(1939–1945) 434
The Ghettos 437 Western Europe After the Shoah 500
France 500
The Holocaust and Gender 440
Mass Shootings in the Soviet Union 443 Jews and the Invention of Postmodernism in
The Extermination Camps 446 Postwar France 501
Jewish Resistance 451 Germany 501
Other Western European Countries 502
Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto 453
The Jews of the Southern Hemisphere 503
The Model Concentration Camp:
Contemporary Antisemitism 505
Theresienstadt 454
The Road to the Future 515
Awareness of Genocide and Rescue
Attempts 455 Postscript 515
Anne Frank 456

15. Into the Present 459 Timeline of Jewish History 519

In the Aftermath of the Holocaust 460 Glossary 533
The Rise of the State of Israel 460 Index 555
 FIGURES

1.1 An image of the ancient Israelites? 10 3.3 A coin depicting Antiochus Epiphanes (Antiochus
1.2 A bronze figurine of a male deity, probably the IV) being crowned king by the goddess Athena. 76
Canaanite storm god Baal, dating from c. 1400– 3.4 Judith holding the head of General Holofernes, as
1300 BCE. 11 illustrated in the “Dore Bible” from 1866. 79
1.3 Philistine pottery, very similar in its decoration to 3.5 Members of the contemporary Samaritan
pottery from the Aegean world. 12 community of Nablus in the act of offering a
1.4 A reconstruction of Solomon’s Temple. 17 Passover sacrifice. 81
1.5 An inscribed pomegranate-shaped ornament once 3.6 Aerial view of an ancient settlement at Qumran near
thought to be the only known relic of the Temple of the Dead Sea, where, according to many scholars,
Solomon until its inscription was discovered to be a the sect that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls once
forgery. 17 lived. 83
1.6 An ivory plaque from the royal palace in Samaria, 4.1 Statue of Augustus, the first Roman emperor. 92
capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, dating to 4.2 A modern reconstruction of Herod’s Temple
the ninth or eighth century BCE. 18 complex. 94
1.7 A reconstructed layout of a typical Israelite house in 4.3 A reconstruction based on a foot found with a nail
the period before the sixth century BCE. 19 piercing its heelbone, discovered in a Jerusalem
1.8 Panel from the black obelisk of King Shalmaneser suburb in 1968. 97
III, from Nimrud, c. 825 BCE, showing the tribute of 4.4 The fortress of Masada. 101
King Jehu of Israel, who is on his knees at the feet of 4.5 A coin minted by the Bar Kochba rebels. 102
the Assyrian king. 23 4.6 The earliest dated mikveh, or ritual bath, found
1.9 Does this photo capture an ancient Israelite in a Hasmonean palace at Jericho, believed to
representation of God? 29 have been in use in the period between 150 and
2.1 The Cyrus Cylinder. 36 100 BCE. 106
2.2 Relief sculpture of King Darius the Great. 39 4.7 A 2,000-year-old religious symbol. 107
2.3 Fragments of a silver scroll inscribed with 4.8 An ossuary (a box where the bones of the dead were
portions of the priestly benediction known from gathered) inscribed with the name Caiaphus. 113
Numbers 6. 41 5.1 A mosaic floor from a sixth-century synagogue at
2.4 One of the tablets of the Gilgamesh Epic. 42 Beth Alpha, near Beth Shean in modern-day Israel,
2.5 A researcher from the Israeli Antiquities Authority depicting a Greco-Roman zodiac. 123
examines 2,000-year-old fragments of the Dead Sea 5.2 A relief found in Iran depicting Shapur I’s victory
Scrolls at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Israel, on over the Roman emperor Valerian. 124
December 18, 2012. 46 5.3 The “Madaba map” was part of a mosaic floor
2.6 A page from the “Aleppo Codex,” the oldest known discovered in the nineteenth century in a Byzantine
manuscript of the complete Hebrew Bible, written church at Madaba, Jordan. 126
around 930 CE. 53 5.4 A scene from the wall painting of the Dura-Europos
3.1 A depiction of a fateful battle, the battle of Issus, synagogue depicting Mordechai and Haman from
fought between Alexander the Great and the Persian the book of Esther, dressed in Persian garb. 129
king Darius III in 333 BCE, from a first-century BCE 5.5 A bowl with an Aramaic magical inscription used to
mosaic found in the Roman city of Pompey. 64 protect individuals from evil spirits. 130
3.2 An image from a mosaic in late Roman Palestine 5.6 An inscription from a synagogue in Rehov, Israel,
depicting a gate from the city of Alexandria. 69 from the sixth or seventh century CE. 140

ix
x Figures

6.1 The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, built under 11.1 Frontispiece of Sholem Aleichem’s three-volume
the Umayyad caliph Abd al Malik ibn Marwan work, Tevye the Dairyman and Other Stories
(r. 685–705) on the site of the Temple. 162 (1912). 319
6.2 Statue of Maimonides (1135–1204), the eminent 11.2 The New Israelite Hospital in Hamburg was founded
medieval scholar of rabbinic law and philosopher, in in 1841 by the Jewish merchant and philanthropist
Córdoba, Spain, where he was born. 174 Salomon Heine (1767–1844), in memory of his wife,
7.1 The statue on the left is a medieval representation of Betty. 324
the Church (i.e., Christianity), depicted as a proud 11.3 Modern Orthodoxy, of which Samson Raphael
and victorious woman. On the right, the synagogue Hirsch was the founder, was just as keen to change
(i.e., Judaism) is depicted as a blindfolded woman Judaism’s aesthetic as was Reform Judaism. 328
bearing a broken scepter. 187 12.1 Election poster for Adolphe-Léon Willette. 349
7.2 Interior of El Transito Synagogue. 201 12.2 Burying Torah scrolls after the Kishinev pogrom
7.3 An illuminated Hebrew manuscript of the Jewish (1903). 354
prayer book from Spain (c. 1300). 202 12.3 Satirical cartoon depicting the process of Jewish
7.4 A diagram of the ten sefirot, or emanations of God assimilation. 363
in Kabbalistic tradition, and their relationship to one 12.4 Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874–1925) was a Galician
another. 206 illustrator and photographer. 366
8.1 Portuguese Inquisition at work: the burning of 13.1 Youngsters at a Jewish summer camp in interwar
heretics after an auto-da-fé in Lisbon, as depicted in Poland. 399
an eighteenth-century print by Bernard Picart. 219 13.2 Zofia Oldak, winner of the Miss Judea Pageant,
9.1 Page from a Hebrew sefer evronot, a book on the 1929. 400
Jewish calendar, depicting the zodiac sign of Pisces. 13.3 Judah Bergman, aka Jack “Kid” Berg, aka “The
Halberstadt, Germany, 1716. 247 Whitechapel Windmill” (1909–1991). 403
9.2 Barukh (Benedict) de Spinoza (1632–1677), the 13.4 The “White City” in Tel Aviv (1930s). 412
first modern Jewish intellectual—and one of the 14.1 “Exodus of the Chosen People Out of Kassel.” 423
great philosophers and political thinkers of the 14.2 Welding instruction for prospective Jewish
seventeenth century. 257 emigrants (1936). 427
9.3 Shabbatai Zvi (1626–1676), the messiah of 14.3 The burned-out interior of Berlin’s Fasanenstrasse
Izmir. 259 Synagogue after Kristallnacht. 435
10.1 The document pictured here is one of the scores 14.4 Persecution of an Orthodox Jew in Warsaw,
of regularly published edicts in eighteenth-century 1941. 438
Prussia that attempted to regulate the movement of 14.5 Jewish money from Theresienstadt. 454
Jews 265 15.1 Camp trunks. 467
10.2 On May 6, 1789, Daniel Mendoza knocked out 15.2 Exterior of Beth Sholom Congregation,
Richard Humphrey after 35 minutes. 269 Philadelphia. 483
10.3 Frontispiece of Judah Monis’s A Grammar of the 15.3 Logo of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries
Hebrew Tongue Being an Essay to Bring the Hebrew (JJAC). 488
Grammar Into English, to Facilitate the Instruction of 15.4 Itsik Fefer, Albert Einstein, and Shlomo Mikhoels
All Those Who Are Desirous of Acquiring a Clear Idea (1943). 495
of This Primitive Tongue by Their Own Studies. 279
 MAPS

Map 1.1 Canaan in the context of the Ancient Near Map 7.2 The expulsion and migration of Jews from
East 5 Western Europe, 1000–1500 209
Map 2.1 The Persian Empire ruled by the Achaemenid Map 8.1 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, with
dynasty (539–332 BCE) 35 major Sephardi communities in the Ottoman
Map 3.1 The Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms prior Empire 220
to the former’s conquest of Judea around Map 9.1 Jewish communities in the Polish-Lithuanian
200 BCE 65 Commonwealth 239
Map 4.1 The Roman Empire in the second/third Map 10.1 The emancipation of European Jewry,
centuries 90 1790–1918 281
Map 6.1 The expansion of Islam, from Muhammad Map 11.1 The spread of Hasidism and Mitnaggdism in
to the beginning of the Abbasid the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries 294
caliphate (750) 160 Map 12.1 The Jewish Pale of Settlement, 1835–1917 338
Map 6.2 The Christian reconquest (Reconquista) of Map 13.1 The Jews of Interwar Europe 384
Muslim Spain 170 Map 14.1 Deportation routes to death camps,
Map 6.3 The trading circuit of the Jewish traders known 1942–1944 449
as the Radhanites 178 Map 15.1 Jewish immigration to the State of Israel,
Map 7.1 The route of the First Crusade, 1096 196 1948–1950 465

xi
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

A decade has passed since the publication of the first

edition of The Jews: A History, and we are older, per-
haps a bit wiser, and certainly more mindful of the chal-
Chapters 1–5, covering ancient Jewish history until the
rise of Islam, was written by Steven Weitzman, and he has
introduced a number of substantive changes, including:
lenges of undertaking a history like this. Our original goal (1) a revised and expanded discussion of the foundational
was not just to provide a reliable account of Jewish history texts produced in this period, especially biblical literature
that would be accessible and engaging for readers, but to and rabbinic literature; (2) a broadened discussion of reli-
do so in a way that helped readers to learn that history—to gion and culture, including more attention to topics like
understand it for themselves, to remember it, to be able to sexual/mating practices, language, and prayer; and (3) the
question what scholars claim about it, and to feel motivated addition of new boxes meant to make the narrative more
to go deeper. That has proven a humbling challenge, and interesting and varied and that incorporate new research,
this third edition is an acknowledgment that our efforts such as the genetic study of Jewish ancestry. More than in
remain a work in progress, a project that needs to develop earlier editions, he has sought to call attention to some of the
in dialogue with students. challenges of reconstructing ancient history and to highlight
Like the two earlier editions of The Jews, this one is an how our assumptions shape our understanding of the past.
attempt to balance between different goals. We wanted a Chapters 6–9, written by Matthias Lehmann, introduce
narrative that would help readers navigate through 3,000+ the medieval and early modern periods, covering the mil-
years of history, but we did not want to gloss over the chal- lennium from the rise of Islam in the 600s to the end of
lenges of reconstructing and interpreting that history. We the seventeenth century. Chapters 6 and 7 were completely
wanted to be as inclusive as possible, incorporating the rewritten for the second edition, and Chapters 8 and 9
experiences of women, slaves, workers, and others over- expanded. The changes to this middle part of the book
shadowed in earlier accounts, but at the same time we did are modest in the third edition, including improvements
not want to sleight the efforts of the intellectual and cul- and corrections throughout and additional material in
tural elites that produced works like the Bible, the Talmuds, Chapter 9.
and other important texts. We wanted to be faithful to the Chapters 10–15, covering modern Jewish history,
scholarship, to register areas of debate or uncertainty and roughly from the era just prior to legal emancipation in
to capture new developments, but we also want our narra- Europe in the eighteenth century until today, were writ-
tive to be digestible and comprehensible, to not turn away ten by John Efron. Among the expanded and new subjects
or overwhelm readers new to the study of history. It is for he has introduced are (1) greater attention to questions of
readers to decide how successful we have been in balancing gender in modern Jewish history; (2) the incorporation
between these goals, but we have certainly benefited from of new research on Hasidism and Mitnaggdism; (3) a dis-
having the chance to reflect on the shortcomings of ear- cussion of changed Israeli attitudes toward the Holocaust
lier editions, and from the feedback we have received from and Holocaust survivors; (4) a fuller account of the Israeli-
users. Palestinian peace process; and (5) an entirely new discus-
Each of us was responsible for roughly a third of the sion of the rise of contemporary antisemitism in Europe
book, and we wanted to lay out the changes we have made and the United States as well as campus politics surround-
that distinguish this volume from earlier editions. ing Israel and Jews.

xiii
 PUBLISHER’S
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T he publishers are grateful to the following for permis-

sion to reproduce copyright material:
Princeton University Press for excerpts from James B.
Press, 1999, pp. 229–230, 215–216, 186–188, 224–225;
Princeton University Press for excerpts quoted from Mark
Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of
Pritchard, Ancient Near Easter Texts Relating to the Old Tes- Medieval Egypt, Princeton: Princeton University Press,
tament, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958, reprint 2005, 94, 119; Koninklijke Brill NV for an excerpt from I.G.
1973; Yale University Press for excerpts from James H. Marcus, Piety and Society, Leiden: Brill, 1981, 93; University
Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume of Pennsylvania Press for Song of the Cid, quoted from
2: Expansions of the Old Testament and Legends, Wisdom Medieval Iberia, ed. Olivia Constable, Philadelphia: Univer-
and Philosophical Literature, Prayers, Psalms and Odes, sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, 113; Behrman House Inc.
Fragments of Lost Judeo-Hellenistic Works, Yale University for excerpts from Church, State, and Jew in the Middle Ages,
Press, 1985; Harvard University Press for an excerpt from ed. Robert Chazan, West Orange: Behrman House, 1980,
Manetho, cited in Josephus, The Life. Against Apion, trans- 58–59, 131 Penguin Random House LLC for an excerpt
lated by H. St. J. Thackeray, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni- from Zohar / From Kabbalah by Gershom Scholem, copy-
versity Press, 1926, reprinted 1993, pp. 260–1; Harvard right © 1949 and copyright renewed © 1977 by Penguin
University Press for excerpts from Josephus, The Jewish Random House LLC. Used by permission of Schocken
War, Volume I: Books 1–2, translated by H. St. J. Thackeray, Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927, reprinted Group, a division of Penguin Random House LC. All rights
1989; The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities for reserved; Princeton University Press for letter from Isaac
translations from Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors Zarfati, quoted in Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, Prince-
on Jews and Judaism, Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sci- ton: Princeton University Press, 1984, 135–136; The Jewish
ences and Humanities, vol. I (1974), pp. 210, 197–198, 431; Theological Seminary for an excerpt from Samuel de
vol. II (1980), p. 26. © The Israel Academy of Sciences and Medina, English translation from Morris Goodblatt, Jewish
Humanities. Reproduced by permission.; Harvard Univer- Life in Turkey in the XVIth Century, New York: Jewish Theo-
sity Press for excerpts from Philo, On the Decalogue. On the logical Seminary, 1952, pp. 187–188; Stanford University
Special Laws, Books 1–3, translated by F. H. Colson, Cam- Press for an excerpt from Physician of the Soul, Healer of the
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937, reprinted 1984; Cosmos: Isaac Luria and his Kabbalistic Fellowship by Law-
WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co for translation of Genesis rence Fine © 2003 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland
Rabbah, adapted from Gary Porton, “Rabbinic Midrash”, A Stanford Jr. University. All rights reserved. Used by permis-
History of Biblical Interpretation, vol. 1, eds. Alan Houser sion of the publisher, Stanford University Press, sup.org;
and Duane Watson, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerd- Paulist Press for an excerpt from Lawrence Fine, Safed Spiri-
mans, 2003, pp. 215–216; Hackett Publishing for an excerpt tuality: Rules of Mystical Piety, the Beginning of Wisdom,
from a Spanish scholar in Baghdad, in Alexander Altmann, Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1984, 62; Princeton University
introduction to Sa’adya Gaon, The Book of Doctrines and Press for excerpts from Leon Modena, The Autobiography
Beliefs, Oxford: East and West Library, 1946, 13; Cricket of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena’s
Media for an eleventh-century Arabic poem, translation Life of Judah, trans. Mark Cohen, Princeton University
from Bernard Lewis, Islam in History, revised ed., Peru, Illi- Press, 1988, 108, 107; Yale University Press for excerpts from
nois: Open Court, 167–170; Koren Publishers Jerusalem for Azariah de’Rossi, The Lights of the Eyes, trans. Joanna Wein-
an excerpt from Judah Halevi, Kuzari, translated by Isaak berg, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001, 86, 241, 386–
Heinmann, in Three Jewish Philosophers, New York: Athe- 388; University of Pennsylvania Press for an excerpt from
neum, 1969, 28; Hebrew Union College Press for excerpts Alexander Marx, “A Seventeenth Century Autobiography”,
from Jacob Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World: A Jewish Quarterly Review 8: 288–291; Hebrew Union College
Sourcebook, rev. ed., Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press for excerpt quoted from Edward Fram, Ideals Face
xv
xvi Publisher’s Acknowledgments

Reality: Jewish Law and Life in Poland, 1550–1655, Cincin- Holocaust, Yad Vashem and University of Nebraska Press,
nati: Hebrew Union College Press, 199, 70; Liverpool Uni- 1981, 2831; Behrman House Inc. for a poem from Lucy S.
versity Press for an excerpt quoted in Elchanan Reiner, “The Dawidowicz, A Holocaust Reader, 1976, 207; Simon &
Ashkenazi Elite at the beginning of the Modern Era: Manu- Schuster, Inc. for an excerpt from Scroll of Agony: The War-
script Versus Printed Book”, Polin 10, Oxford: Littman, saw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan by Abraham I. Katsh, Trans-
1997, 86; Penguin Random House LLC for excerpts from lator and Editor. Copyright © 1965, 1973 by Abraham I.
The Memoirs of Glückel of Hamelin by Marvin Lowenthal, Katsh. Reprinted with permission of Scribner, a division of
translation copyright © 1932, renewed copyright © 1960 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved; University of
Rosamond Fisher Weiss. Used by permission of Schocken California Press for “How” in A. Sutzkever: Selected Poetry
Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing and Prose, ed., and trans., Barbara and Benjamin Harshav,
Group, a division of Penguin Random House LC. All rights Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991; Scholastic
reserved; Simon & Schuster, Inc. for an excerpt from Jews of Library Publishing, Inc. for an excerpt from Abba Kovner
Spain: History of the Sephardic Experience by Jane S. Gerber. speech at Vilna 1/1/1942 quoted in Yehuda Bauer, A History
Copyright © 1992 by Jane S. Gerber. Reprinted with per- of the Holocaust, New York: Franklin Watts, 1982, 250–251;
mission of The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Walter de Gruyter and Company for an excerpt from Joseph
Inc. All rights reserved; Columbia University Press for an Leftwich, An Anthology of Modern Yiddish Literature, The
excerpt quoted in Michael Meyer, ed., German-Jewish His- Hague: Walter de Gruyter, 1974, 306; Princeton University
tory in Modern Times, vol. 1, New York: Columbia Univer- Press for an excerpt from Yuri Slezkine, The Jewish Century,
sity Press, 1996, 97; Liverpool University Press for an excerpt Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004, 341; www.
quoted in Daniel Swetschiniski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans: BibleLandPictures.com / Alamy Stock Photo for figures 1.1,
The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 2.3, 2.4, 2.6, 3.2, 3.6, 4.2, 4.6, 4.7,
Oxford: Littman, 2000, 246; Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an 5.1, 5.3, 5.6 and 9.3; Z. Radovan / Bible Land Pictures for
excerpt from Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Slave, translated by figures 1.9, 2.1, 2.2, 3.3, 3.5, 4.3, 4.8 and 5.4; epa european
the author and Cecil Hemley, New York: Avon Books, 1961, pressphoto agency b.v. / Alamy Stock Photo for figure 2.5;
92; The University of Pennsylvania Press for an excerpt by Ivy Close Images / Alamy Stock Photo for figure 3.1; Stefan
Isaac Marcus Jost, noted in Michael A. Meyer, “New Reflec- Schorch for figure 3.4; Erin Babnik / Alamy Stock Photo for
tions on Jewish Historiography”, the Jewish Quarterly figure 4.1; Duby Tal / Albatross / Alamy Stock Photo for
Review, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Fall 2007); Indiana University Press figure 4.4; The Trustees of the British Museum for figures
for an excerpt from Moritz Siegel, quoted in Moika Richarz, 4.5 and 5.5; Sonia Halliday Photo Library / Alamy Stock
ed., Jewish Life in Germany: Memoirs from Three Centuries, Photo for figure 5.2; Lessing images for figure 6.1; Linda
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991, 121; Jewish Whitwam / DK Images for figure 6.2; bpk / Kunstbiblio-
Gen.org for an excerpt from Benjamin Bialostotzky from thek, SMB / Knud Petersen for figure 7.1; Roy Lindman for
an account of Pumpian, http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/ figure 7.2 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribu-
lita/lit1203.html; Columbia University Press for Hayim tion-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License; bpk / Staatsbiblio-
Nahman Bialik, “Be-Ir ha-Haregah”, quoted in Alan Mintz, thek zu Berlin / Ruth Schacht for figure 7.3; Chronicle /
ed., Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature, Alamy Stock Photo for figure 7.4; De Agostini / G. Dagli
New York: Columbia University Press, 1984, 135; Penguin Orti / Getty Images for figure 8.1; Granger / Granger for
Random House LLC for an excerpt from Letter to the figure 9.1 – All rights reserved; Archive Photos / Stringer /
Father / Brief an den Vater: Bilingual Edition by Franz Kafka, Getty Images for figure 9.2; bpk for figures 10.1, 11.3, 12.3,
translated by Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins, edited by 14.4, 14.5; Jewish Museum London for figure 10.2; The
Max Brod, copyright © 1953, 1954, 196 by Penguin Random Library of Congress for figures 10.3 and 13.4; John Efron
House LLC. Used by permission of Schocken Books, an for figures 11.1, 12.4 and 15.4; Leo Baek Institute for figures
imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a divi- 11.2 and 14.3; the Archives of the Yivo Institute for figures
sion of Penguin Random House LC. All rights reserved; 12.2, 13.1 and 13.2; Central Press / Stringer / Getty Images
University of California Press for an excerpt from Joseph for figure 13.3; bpk / E.K. Baumgart for figure 14.1; bpk |
Hall, cited in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution, Abraham Pisarek for figure 14.2; Arcaid Images / Alamy
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, 17; the Yad Stock Photo for figure 15.2.
Vashem Library for an excerpt from Rumkowski, Speech of Every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders.
9/4/42 in I. Trunk, Lodz Ghetto, translated in Yitzhak Arad, Please advise the publisher of any errors or omissions, and
Israel Gutman, Abraham Margaliot, eds., Documents on the these will be corrected in subsequent editions.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T he authors wish to express their gratitude to several

individuals whose behind-the-scenes efforts made this
volume possible. Eve Setch, the editor who brought this
also wish to acknowledge the efforts of two others who were
crucial to the process of making the book a reality: produc-
tion editor Bonita Glanville-Morris and Sheri Sipka, project
project to Taylor and Francis, has been a wonderfully resil- manager at Apex CoVantage. As we have moved from one
ient champion, always remaining enthusiastic even in the edition to another, we have come to appreciate that there is
face of formidable challenges that have surfaced along the much more to producing a text book than what its authors
way. We are grateful as well for the patience and attention contribute, and we feel indebted to all those whose efforts
to detail shown by her editorial assistant Zoe Thomson. We have made the current edition possible.

xvii
 NOTES ON SPELLING
AND TRANSLITERATION

T he spellings of many place names that appear in

the history of the Jews have multiple variants, reflect-
ing the different languages spoken by the people who
chapter because they originate with different authors. Yid-
dish words typically follow the YIVO (the Yiddish acronym
for the Yiddish Scientific Institute, the major institution for
inhabited them. In cases such as Vilna/Wilno/Vilnius (the the study of Yiddish and Eastern European Jewish history
modern-day capital of Lithuania), we have chosen the and culture) system of transliteration. Hebrew expressions
name used by the place’s Jewish inhabitants. Wherever less familiar to nonspecialists are transliterated to ensure
possible, the authors have transliterated Hebrew terms accurate pronunciation of the words. We have followed a
using those forms most familiar to them and to lay read- similar procedure for terms drawn from other languages,
ers. These forms may occasionally vary from chapter to such as Greek and Arabic.

xix
 CHAPTER 1

Ancient Israel and

Other Ancestors

J ews have long traced their origin to the Five Books of

Moses in the Bible, to the story of Abraham and Sarah
and their descendants, the Exodus from Egypt, and the rev-
the Bible do not call themselves Jews, but Israelites, or the
“sons of Israel” to be more precise, and their culture and
religion differ from that of later Jews in many ways. Per-
elation at Mount Sinai. We suspect that this is where many haps the beginning of Jewish history should be placed at
readers would expect a book like this to begin, and one has the point at which the ancient Israelites become the Jews,
to admit that stories like those told in Genesis and Exodus but when exactly does that transformation take place?
make for a great opening, one of the most memorable ori- Many scholars place it at the end of the period described
gin stories ever told. But there is a complication that pre- by the Hebrew Bible, in the wake of the Babylonian Exile
vents us from beginning in this way. in 586 BCE. Some place it even later, after the conquests
Over the last few centuries, scholars have come to ques- of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BCE, and
tion the traditional account that traces the Jews back to the some still later, in the age of Roman rule and the ascen-
people and events described in the Bible, just as scientists dancy of Christianity. Depending on which account you
came to question the Bible’s explanation of how the world happen to read, the story of the Jews begins 4,000 years ago
began, and they have developed many alternative recon- in the Middle Bronze Age, or 2,000 years ago in the same
structions of ancient Jewish history, some directly at odds age that produced Christianity, and some would go so far
with the biblical account. Since our goal in this book is to as to argue that we cannot really speak of “the Jews”—as
share the fruits of modern historical research, should we not opposed to the Israelites or the ancient Judeans—until
begin with these scholarly accounts? Perhaps, but scholars medieval or modern times.
do not agree among themselves about how the Jews origi- Why is it so difficult to fix a clear starting point for Jew-
nated. They have been successful in raising doubts about ish history? One reason is that we simply do not have a lot of
the stories of Abraham, Moses, and David—thanks to mod- evidence for the earliest periods of Jewish history, but that is
ern historical and archaeological research, we can no lon- not the only complication. Another is that scholars do not
ger be certain that such figures even existed—but they have agree about what Jewish means exactly and how it relates to
not settled on an alternative understanding of how the Jews or differs from overlapping terms used in the Bible, such as
originated. We have to struggle not only with how little we Israelite and Hebrew. The term Jew derives from the name
know about ancient Jewish history but also with how many “Judah” or Yehuda, but even in the Hebrew Bible that term
possible ways there are to understand that history. has several possible meanings, referring to an Israelite tribe,
Consider how difficult it is to resolve when to begin to a territory in the southern part of Canaan, and also to
Jewish history. Before we can begin recounting the his- the kingdom based in this territory and ruled by David and
tory of the Jewish people, we must obviously decide when his descendants. After the end of the biblical period, the
exactly to begin it, and it is not easy to commit oneself to a terms translated as Judean and Jewish acquired still other
particular date or even a century as a starting point. As we connotations, signifying a particular way of life or adher-
have noted, Jews themselves have long believed their his- ence to particular beliefs. The term’s ambiguity continues to
tory begins with Abraham’s sojourn to the land of Canaan this day, with Jewish signifying a religion for some, for oth-
and the Exodus from Egypt, but we do not know when ers a cultural or ethnic identity that may not be religious in
these events occurred, if they occurred at all, and there are orientation, and for still others a national identity, such as
other problems as well. The people described in much of French, Turkish, or American. To fix a single starting point

1
2 Ancient Israel and Other Ancestors

for “Jewish” history would commit us to a specific defini- We are speaking here of religious Jews but even secularized
tion of Jewishness at the expense of other definitions that Jews—Jews who are not animated by faith in God and do
also have merit. not see their identity as a religious one—can look to the
Still, we must begin somewhere, and this book has Bible to understand themselves or draw on it as a source
opted to begin where Jews themselves have long looked to for poetry, art, and other forms of cultural expression. Even
understand their origins—with “history” as described in if the Bible had no value whatsoever as a historical source
the Hebrew Bible. We put the word history in quotes here (and we will see that it actually has great value as such a
because it is not clear that the biblical account corresponds source), it is important to know what it says about the past
to what counts as history for a historian, the past as it actu- if only to understand how Jews throughout the centuries
ally happened. Modern scholarship has expressed doubts have seen themselves.
about the Hebrew Bible’s value as a historical document, Keeping these points in mind, we have settled on not
questioning whether the people described in the Bible, one but two starting points for Jewish history. The first is
such as Abraham and Moses, really existed and whether ancient Israelite history prior to the Babylonian Exile in
key events, such as the Exodus and the revelation at Mount 586 BCE. Where did the Israelites come from, and what
Sinai, really occurred. The skepticism of scholars has alien- is the historical connection between them and later Jews?
ated some Jews and Christians who believe in the Bible as The present chapter will attempt to answer these questions
an accurate account of how reality works, but the reasons by drawing on the Hebrew Bible, but its testimony will not
for this skepticism cannot be dismissed out of hand if one be sufficient by itself since according to modern scholar-
is willing to approach the evidence with an open mind. ship, its account is questionable, concealing the true ori-
Mindful of what modern scholarship has concluded about gins of the ancient Israelites. What this chapter introduces,
the Bible, one of our goals in this chapter is to open the therefore, is ancient Israelite history as reconstructed by bib-
question of what really happened, to ask whether the bibli- lical scholars, their best attempt to explain the genesis of
cal account of Israel’s history—its stories of Abraham and the ancient Israelites within the context of what is known
his family, the Exodus from Egypt, Joshua’s conquest of the about history from other ancient Near Eastern sources and
land of Canaan, the rule of King David—corresponds to the archaeological excavation.
past as reconstructed by historians and archaeologists. Our second starting point, and the focus of Chapter 2,
Even as we question the biblical account, however, we will is the emergence of the Hebrew Bible itself: where does
also try to provide a sense of how it tells the story of ancient biblical literature come from, and how did it become so
Israel because, regardless of whether that story corresponds important to Jewish culture? It is no easier to answer these
to what actually happened, it is crucial for understanding the questions than it is to reconstruct ancient Israelite history,
development of Jewish culture. For one thing, Jewish culture for there remains much uncertainty about who wrote the
did not suddenly appear one day; it evolved out of an earlier texts included in the Hebrew Bible, and when and why they
Israelite culture from which it inherited beliefs, practices, were written. It is also unclear when these texts acquired
language(s), texts, and patterns of social organization. Why the resonance and authority they would enjoy in later Jew-
do Jews worship a God who they believe created the world? ish culture. Despite the many gaps in our knowledge, how-
Why are Canaan and Jerusalem so central in Jewish culture? ever, there is evidence to suggest that the emergence of the
What are the origins of Jewish religious practices such as Bible marks a watershed moment in the transition from
circumcision, resting on the Sabbath, and keeping kosher? Israelite to Jewish culture; indeed, we will argue that the
Why is Hebrew such an important language in Jewish cul- formation of Jewishness and the formation of the Hebrew
ture? These questions cannot be answered without referring Bible are inextricably intertwined.
to pre-Jewish Israelite culture, and biblical literature is our
richest source for understanding that culture.
A second reason for beginning with the Bible is that the Searching for Israel’s
perception of the Bible as the starting point for Jewish his- Origins
tory is a historical fact in its own right, and an important one For modern scholars who approach the Bible as a text com-
for understanding Jewish identity. For the last 2,000 years at posed by humans, nothing is sacred about the history it tells.
least, Jews have looked to the Hebrew Bible to understand Consider a story that may already be familiar to you—the
who they are and how they are to behave. To this day, in Bible’s account of how David defeated the Philistine Goliath:
fact, many Jews trace their lineage back to patriarchs such
as Abraham and Jacob; during Passover, they recount the A warrior came out of the Philistines’ camp, Goliath
Exodus as if in Egypt themselves, and many look forward by name, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a
to the coming of a messiah from the line of King David. span. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and was
 Ancient Israel and Other Ancestors 3

BCE AND CE: THE RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND OF

HOW WE THINK ABOUT HISTORY

As is true of history books in general, this volume employs Era” and “Before the Common Era,” not originally to purge
the abbreviations BCE and CE to help date events in the past, them of their religious association with Jesus but to indicate
especially the ancient past, but their use to understand Jewish dates common to all humanity, Christian and non-Christian.
history in particular raises some issues worth thinking about. To use dates like 586 BCE or 70 CE to describe Jewish his-
There is something ironic about applying the abbrevia- tory is thus to frame it in terms of a calendar introduced by
tions BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common another religious community.
Era) to the Jews: both terms are tied to a Christian con- For their part, Jews have longed used their own calendar,
ception of time. CE is a modern equivalent to AD, anno which counts from the creation of the world as dated in
domini—“the year of our Lord”—namely, the year of Jesus’s Jewish tradition.The origins of this calendar are obscure, but
birth. The idea of dating history in relation to the year of the use of creation as a starting point seems to have been
Jesus’s birth was first developed in the sixth century CE embraced by Jewish communities by the tenth or eleventh
by a Christian monk named Dionysius Exiguus, and we do century CE, perhaps as a reaction against the growing influ-
not know how he was able to calculate the year of Jesus’s ence of the Christian calendar, and is still in use to this day
birth, though scholars think he wasn’t far off (many scholars (as I write this sentence, in 2018, it is the year 5778 accord-
think that Jesus was probably born sometime between 6 and ing to the Jewish calendar). While the application of the
4 BCE). Historians developed the abbreviation BC, “Before abbreviations BCE and CE to Jewish history has scholarly
Christ,” more recently, in the seventeenth and eighteenth value, allowing historians to situate the history of the Jews
centuries, counting backward from 1 BC (there is no year within a broader history of humanity, the use of this chrono-
zero) in order to encompass their growing understanding of logical framework is also a reminder that the way scholars
events that took place before the onset of Christianity. AD think about the past is shaped by the Christian European
and BC were later changed to CE and BCE, “The Common context in which the field of history arose.

armed with a coat of mail; the weight of the coat was struck Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was
five thousand bronze shekels. He had greaves of bronze like a weaver’s beam.
on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his (2 Samuel 21:19)
shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s
beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shek- Goliath is still the enemy here, described the same way
els of iron . . . as in the more famous version of the story (cf. 1 Samuel
As the Philistine drew near to David, David rushed 17:7: “the shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam”). The
toward the battle line toward the Philistine. David put hero who slays Goliath is not the young shepherd David,
his hand in his bag, took from there a stone, slung it, however, but an otherwise obscure warrior named Elhanan.
and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone Interpreters have long recognized this problem and tried to
sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the reconcile the discrepancy by suggesting that Elhanan was
ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with a another name for David, but this solution ignores the Bible’s
sling and a stone. claim that David and Elhanan were two different people, a
(1 Samuel 17:4–7, 48–50) king and his servant. Yet a third reference to this battle in
the Bible—this time in a narrative called Chronicles—tries
For thousands of years people have accepted this story
to solve the problem by claiming that David killed Goliath
as true, but is it true in a historical sense? Did David really
while Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother (1 Chronicles 20:5),
fight such a battle? Did he win in the way that this episode
but Chronicles was written much later than 1–2 Samuel by
suggests? Underdogs do occasionally prevail in real life, so
an author trying to resolve the contradictions that he found
the improbability of David’s victory isn’t enough reason to
in these earlier sources, and his solution too is rather con-
reject the story. There is, however, at least one specific rea-
trived. Scholars have therefore proposed another possibil-
son for skepticism: another reference to the defeat of Goli-
ity. Perhaps there is no way to reconcile the discrepancy.
ath tucked away elsewhere in the Bible that attributes the
One or the other of the two accounts is simply wrong, and it
giant’s defeat to someone else:
seems more likely, given how the biographies of important
There was another battle with the Philistines at Gob; political figures often become embellished over time, that
and Elhanan son of Jaareoregim, the Bethlehemite, it is 2 Samuel 21 that records the name of the real slayer of
4 Ancient Israel and Other Ancestors

Goliath, not David but the long forgotten Elhanan, and that so much in the last century from other sources, like archae-
the more famous version of the story in 1 Samuel 17 is a ology, biblical scholarship today is marked by a lively and
later development, an attempt to boost King David’s heroic unresolved debate about what really happened in Israelite
image by giving him the credit for another man’s victory. In history. Some argue that there is much that can be learned
other words, the battle of David and Goliath as depicted in from the Bible about ancient Israel, but others have pro-
the Bible, while making for a very memorable story, proba- posed alternative accounts of Israelite history that diverge
bly isn’t an accurate reflection of history, the past as it actu- from or even contradict the biblical account. These alter-
ally unfolded. native reconstructions are invariably hypothetical, and you
Modern scholars raise such possibilities not because they may not find them persuasive, but the most productive
want to undermine people’s religious beliefs but because response in that instance is to study the evidence oneself,
they are committed to a particular way of knowing real- honestly wrestle with the problems and questions that it
ity that bases itself not on tradition—on what people have raises, and try to develop a more persuasive understanding
believed in the past—but on empirical evidence, unfettered of what really happened.
questioning, and reasoned explanation. Like judges in a Let us begin this particular reconstruction with the
trial, the modern scholar wants to hear from multiple wit- question of where Israelite history begins. The Hebrew
nesses and to cross-examine them about how they know Bible acknowledges that people were living in Canaan
what they claim to know, before rendering a judgment well before the Israelites arrived there, and their existence
about what happened. This is how scholars approach his- has been confirmed by both literary and archaeological
tory in general, and applying the same basic approach to evidence. The region that would come to be known as
the Bible has led scholars to challenge much of what the Canaan, a name that is known in pre-biblical sources and
Bible says about history, and not just particular episodes whose original meaning is unclear, has been continuously
like David’s victory over Goliath but also sometimes even inhabited by humans since prehistoric times, and is the site
more basic claims—that David did any of the things attrib- of some of the earliest known settlements, including the
uted to him in 1–2 Samuel, for instance, or even that there site of the later city of Jericho, which was settled as early
was a King David. as 9000 BCE. The cultures of the peoples living in Canaan,
From the perspective of modern historical scholarship, including the Israelites, has always been tied to the area’s
what the Hebrew Bible says about the past becomes much diverse topography and ecology: a coastal region in the
more credible when other witnesses can back up its testi- west; fertile valleys and rugged hill country in the interior;
mony, when one can point to other independent sources desert to the east and south. In the period just before the
that can provide corroboration. Since we are not talking emergence of the Israelites, a period known now as the Late
about witnesses in a literal sense, what we mean here is Bronze Age (c. 1550–1200 BCE), Canaan was dominated
corroboration provided by (1) written testimony com- by various city-states in places like Hazor, Megiddo, and
posed independently of the Bible and/or (2) the discipline even Jerusalem, cities ruled by kings who controlled not
of archaeology, the retrieval and interpretation of physi- just the city itself but also the surrounding territory and
cal evidence generated by the activities of earlier humans. its villages, while the lower classes consisted of farmers,
The written testimony at our disposal includes inscriptions craftspeople, and some nomads and brigands on the mar-
from Israel itself and texts from other ancient Near Eastern gins of society. There were conflicts among these kings, but
cultures that refer to Israel. The archaeological evidence they were also connected in various ways, and all mutually
consists of pottery, the remnants of buildings, tools, weap- beholden to the king of Egypt, who ruled the region as part
ons, jewelry, and so forth. The written evidence can tell us of its empire (see Map 1.1).
what people thought and how they expressed themselves, This was the geographical context in which Israelite cul-
and sometimes responds to specific historical events. The ture would develop, and it is one that is accurately regis-
archaeological evidence can shed light on what people did— tered in biblical texts. The Bible contains stories situated
the food they ate, the work they did, the battles they fought, throughout the land of Canaan: some stories are set in the
the dead they buried. Sometimes all this evidence confirms southern desert region, in the Negev. Others take place in
what the Bible says about history, and it certainly links it to the rugged and mountainous interior, the vicinity of Jerusa-
the geography, language, and culture of the broader ancient lem, and still others take place in the north, in the vicinity
Near East, but more frequently it challenges our sense of of the Sea of Galilee or the mountain range known as Mt.
what really happened, or speaks to aspects of Israel’s history Carmel. It is clear that whoever produced the stories pre-
simply not reflected in biblical literature. served in books like Genesis, Judges, and 1–2 Samuel was
Partly because people have such strong feelings about familiar with the terrain, weather conditions, animals, and
the Bible for and against, partly because we have learned plant life of ancient Canaan.
 Ancient Israel and Other Ancestors 5

Bla c k S e a

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r Sea
Miles

Map 1.1 Canaan in the context of the ancient Near East.

But there is so much else about the Bible’s description as conquering the Canaanites, but it doesn’t tell us when
of reality that is unclear or does not match up neatly with exactly this conquest happened. We can be confident that
what we know from other sources of information. When Israel existed by this point because, in addition to the
did the Israelites first appear in the land of Canaan? Is Gen- Hebrew Bible’s testimony, a people known as Israel is men-
esis correct to describe them as migrants or refugees from tioned in another source that we can date to a specific time,
other places, or did they develop from within the indige- a victory hymn from the reign of the Egyptian king Merne-
nous population of Canaan, as the archaeological evidence ptah (c. 1213–1203 BCE) inscribed on a stele or stone slab.
might suggest? Does their history in the land begin with an The relevant part of the inscription reads as follows:
act of violent conquest, the destruction of Canaanite cit-
ies and the massacre or expulsion of their inhabitants, or is Plundered is the Canaan with every evil;
there reason to reject the narrative of that conquest in the Carried off is Ashkelon;
book of Joshua, as again many biblical scholars and archae- Seized upon is Gezer;
ologists are inclined to do based on evidence which seems Yanoam is made as that which does not exist;
to contradict the biblical account? There is so much we do Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.
not know about the early history of the Israelites, but we
can be certain of two points: (1) many scholars are skeptical The peoples listed here are various enemies defeated
of what the Bible claims about the early history of Israel; by Merneptah in the land of Canaan, including a people
(2) whatever accurate information it may contain, the Bible known as Israel, allegedly annihilated by the king (thank-
does not tell us the whole story. fully, that claim was exaggerated or else this book would
In our effort to find a starting point for our history, we have been a very short one). Beyond confirming that Israel
can latch on to at least one fairly solid fact: we can be fairly lived in Canaan in the time of Merneptah, the inscription
confident that a people known as “Israel” was already pres- may also contain a clue about Israel’s social organization
ent in Canaan as early as the thirteenth century BCE. How at this stage in the development. The Egyptians used spe-
is it that we can know this? The Bible depicts the Israelites cial signs to indicate what kind of thing a word was, and
6 Ancient Israel and Other Ancestors

THE ORIGINS AND MEANING(S) OF THE NAME ISRAEL

The Merneptah Stele suggests that the name Israel existed subject or vassal in order to signal he is changing their status,
as early as the thirteenth century BCE, but it does not tell and that seems analogous to what God is doing here, reas-
us how the name originated. Our only explanations from serting power over Jacob by renaming him. While the Bible’s
an Israelite source come from the Bible, from the book of explanations are culturally plausible, however, it seems likely
Genesis, which claims that Israel was an alternative name that it records later understandings of a name whose origi-
for Jacob, the ancestor from whom the Israelites descended. nal meaning had been forgotten by that point, and scholars
Genesis actually contains two accounts of how Jacob have suggested other explanations rather different from
acquired this name. In Genesis 32, God bestows it on him those in Genesis. In pre-Israelite Canaan, El could signify not
after wrestling with Jacob in a struggle where Jacob actually God but a Canaanite god named El, and it is possible that
gets the better of God. Unable to defeat Jacob, God declares, the name Israel originated as a description of that deity’s
“You shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel, for you have activities, the subject rather than the object of the verb: “El
striven (sarita in Hebrew) with God (Elohim) and men have prevailed” or “El fought” or “El protected.” This is just an
won.” The Hebrew words here were meant to imply an educated guess, but we will see other evidence that Israel
explanation for the name Israel: “the one who strove with inherited some of its culture from earlier Canaanite culture,
God.” Elsewhere, Genesis suggests another explanation for including traditions connected to the god El.
the name, in Genesis 35 where God names Jacob Israel at a Whatever its origins, the name Israel, though after the
place later known as Bethel. This time there is no reference Bible always associated with Jacob, eventually acquired other
to a struggle. Apparently, there was more than one under- meanings. After the first century CE, for example, there
standing of the name Israel within Israel itself. were Jews who believed that it meant “the man (ish) who
Does Genesis reveal the true origins of Israel’s name? saw (raah) God (El ),” taking it as a reference to Jacob and
Personal names constructed from a mini-sentence about a his descendants’ special status as people to whom God had
deity were common in the Near East of this period, so it revealed himself. Much more recently, Israel has taken on
is possible that Israel was once the name of an individual nonreligious significance as the name for the modern state
like Jacob. We also know of cases where a ruler renames a of Israel.

the names “Ashkelon,” “Gezer,” and “Yanoam” in the inscrip- Abraham and his family retain their sense of connection
tion are all written with a sign that indicates they were city- to Mesopotamia even after they settle in Canaan. When it
states, whereas “Israel” is written with a sign used to signal comes time to find a wife for his son Isaac, for example,
a people or an ethnic group. The difference in signs may Abraham shuns the Canaanites and sends his servant back
indicate that the early Israelites were not associated with to Mesopotamia, where the servant meets Rebecca, the
a specific city as were other peoples, but were a rurally woman who will marry Isaac. That is also where Abraham’s
based or nomadic people, which is consistent with how grandson Jacob, or Israel as he would come to be known
Genesis describes the ancestors of the Israelites—Abraham, after God changes his name, finds his two wives, Leah and
Isaac, and Jacob—in the earliest stages of Israelite history Rachel. According to the Bible, in other words, the Israel-
as described by the Bible (see the box “The Origins and ites did not originate from Canaan itself; they are immi-
Meaning(s) of the Name Israel ”). grants from Mesopotamia who retain a sense of connection
Who is this Israel, and from where did it come? No writ- to their homeland long after they leave it (for more on Mes-
ten sources exist for Israel’s history after the Merneptah opotamia, see the box “The Biblical World in Brief ”).
Stele until the ninth century BCE, leaving a documentary Regardless of whether figures like Abraham existed,
gap in precisely the period when Israelite society was tak- the Bible does register an understanding of ancient Near
ing shape in the land of Canaan. As the Bible depicts events, Eastern geography consistent in many ways with what has
the Israelites did not begin as Canaanites but originated as been learned from other sources. Mesopotamia was host to
outsiders to the land who migrated to Canaan from abroad. a succession of civilizations, including the Sumerians, one
Genesis traces the Israelites’ ancestry back to a single person of the earliest civilizations in the world, and the Assyrians
named Abraham, who is said to have traveled with his wife and Babylonians, who play a major role in later biblical his-
Sarah to Canaan at God’s behest from a region between the tory. Mesopotamia was home to some of the earliest cities
Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, referred to by later Greek of the Near East, such as Ur, which was probably the very
authors as Mesopotamia (from the Greek for “between city mentioned in Genesis 12 as the birthplace of Abraham,
the rivers”), a region located in present-day Iraq and Syria. and Babylon, the ill-fated Babel described in Genesis 11.
 Ancient Israel and Other Ancestors 7

Whoever composed this latter story seems to have known embroiled in the conflict between Israel and the Palestin-
something about Babylon. The story’s mention of a large ians, but that identification, developing among Jews and
tower constructed in the city of Babel, a tower “with its Christians in antiquity, isn’t based on any actual evidence
top in the heavens,” seems a reference to a large, towering that it is really Abraham and his descendants buried there).
temple that was built in Babylon in honor of its chief god, But on the other hand, one cannot prove that Abraham
though the fact that this temple was built much later than didn’t exist, and scholars looking for something historical
Abraham would have lived suggests that the story of the in Genesis have pointed to circumstantial evidence. Names
Tower of Babel was composed at a relatively late date. resembling Abram (Abraham’s name before God changed
Is there evidence to support a Mesopotamian origin for it) and Jacob (Abraham’s grandson) appear in Mesopota-
ancient Israel? Scholars have tried to establish the historical mian sources from the early or mid-second millennium
plausibility of Abraham and his family by connecting them BCE, and the description in Genesis of the patriarchs’ family
to a Mesopotamian people known in ancient Near Eastern life—Abraham’s adoption of a servant as his heir, the details
sources as the Amurru. A related name, translated as Amor- of how marriages are arranged, the importance of death-
ite in English, is used in the Bible to describe a Canaanite bed blessings—also seemed at first to fit the culture of this
people, but its meaning is different in this context, a much period as known from texts discovered at Mesopotamian
narrower reference to a specific group living in the land of sites such as the city of Nuzi. When these parallels came to
Canaan just before the Israelites’ arrival. The Amurru are light, they were seen as evidence that Genesis preserves to
mentioned in various Mesopotamian sources as a people some degree a memory of Israel’s emergence from an earlier
associated with the West (the word means “western” in nomadic people with links to Mesopotamia.
fact)—that is, the region of Syria, Phoenicia, and Canaan, But this is little more than educated guesswork. No spe-
which are Western from a Mesopotamian perspective. cific event in Genesis can be corroborated, and even the
They seem to have originated as a nomadic or migrant peo- effort to connect Abraham to the Amorites has proven
ple, growing particularly prominent in the period between unpersuasive in the end. Maybe there was an Abraham, but
2000 and 1600 BCE, which is roughly the period in which such a figure could have as easily lived 1,000 years after the
one might place Abraham if one starts with, say, a date of Amurru since his name and the nomadic lifestyle he led
1000 BCE for King David and then tries to count backward have parallels as well from later periods of Near Eastern his-
using the chronological information that the Bible provides tory. In fact, indications can be found within Genesis itself
(David’s son Solomon built the Temple 480 years after the that it was composed at a later time. According to Genesis
Israelites left Egypt; the Israelites were slaves in Egypt for 11, Abraham’s family migrated from a place called “Ur of
400 years, etc.). As depicted in the Bible, Abraham and his the Chaldeans.” As we have noted, Ur is a well-known city
descendants travel from Mesopotamia to Canaan and back, in Mesopotamia, but the Chaldeans, a people from south
wandering from camp to camp, never settling in a single Mesopotamia who are known only from sources dating to
place. Their lifestyle fits well with the alleged nomadism of the ninth century BCE and later, could not have been living
the Amorites, suggesting to some scholars that the Israelites in Ur at the time of Abraham if he came from the period
might have been the descendants of the ancient Amurru, between 2000 and 1600 BCE. Other details in Genesis—its
with a memory of this experience preserved in the book of reference to the Philistines, for example—also reflect reali-
Genesis. This effort to frame Abraham’s migration as part ties that emerge in Canaan only after about 1200 BCE, com-
of the larger Amurru migration came to be known as the plicating attempts to place a historical Abraham in the early
Amorite hypothesis. centuries of the second millennium BCE. While it is con-
There is no way to prove such a hypothesis. Searching ceivable that Genesis preserves memories of real people and
for a specific individual like Abraham in the scant textual events, it seems those memories have been framed within a
and archaeological remnants that survive from the distant narrative from a later age that projects the circumstances of
past—a sheep and goat herder who lived in tents and moved the author’s day—sometime after 1200 BCE—onto Israel’s
from place to place—is much harder than looking for a past. To date, there is no agreed-upon way to distinguish
needle in a haystack since one at least knows in the latter between genuine historical experience and fictionalized
instance which haystack to look in, whereas for Abraham, it invention in the book of Genesis, though many scholars are
is not clear in what historical period one should look or what skeptical of much of what it claims about the past.
one should expect to find. There is thus no way to confirm What of the other historical experience that plays such
his existence, much less connect him to a known historical an important role in the Bible’s account of Israel’s origins:
people like the Amurru (in the West Bank city of Hebron, the Exodus from Egypt? In the days of Abraham’s grand-
there is a site venerated by religious Jews today as the tomb son Jacob, Genesis relates, Jacob’s son Joseph was brought
of Abraham, the Cave of Machpeleh, a site that has become down into Egypt as a slave. Thanks to his skills as a dream
8 Ancient Israel and Other Ancestors

THE BIBLICAL WORLD IN BRIEF

To better understand the history of ancient Israel, it is the Great, ancient Egyptian history is divided into Old, Middle,
extremely helpful to know something about the political, and New Kingdoms, with three “intermediate periods,” when
social, and cultural context in which it emerged, including the Egypt experienced political division and economic decentral-
various peoples with whom it interacted. The following is a ization. Israel emerged at the end of the era dominated by
brief introduction to some of those peoples and their rela- the New Kingdom (at its height under Ramses II, who reigned
tionship to the Israelites. between 1279 and 1212 BCE) as it gave way to the Third
Mesopotamia is a plain between the Tigris and Euphra- Intermediate Period.
tes Rivers where the first civilization emerged. The rivers In contrast to the relative stability of Egyptian history,
flooded in the summer and receded in autumn, leaving Mesopotamia was dominated by a number of different peo-
behind sediment for growing crops in the winter, to be har- ples. Toward the end of the third millennium, the Sumeri-
vested in spring. The earliest known Mesopotamian civiliza- ans were overtaken by the Akkadians, based in the city of
tion is Sumerian. Advanced irrigation systems formed larger Akkad—this was where Sargon was from—and they replaced
settlements, and as the local farm economy grew to include the Sumerian language with a Semitic language now known as
trade, towns emerged, one of the earliest of which is known Akkadian. From the remnants of that empire developed two
as Uruk. Towns that grew powerful became city-states with major cultural variants of Mesopotamian civilization, a cul-
dynastic rulers. Eventually one ruler called Sargon founded ture based in northern Mesopotamia (what is now northern
the first empire in history. According to legend, Sargon, Iraq) known as Assyria and a southern Mesopotamian cul-
like Moses, was sent down the river in a basket, found and ture based in Babylon in what is now southern Iraq. Empires
raised by a royal gardener or water-drawer, and grew up in from Assyria and Babylon, known as the Neo-Assyrian and
the royal house, where he eventually rose to the position Neo-Babylonian empires respectively, appear prominently in
of king. the history described in the Bible as major threats to ancient
Sometime in the same period as the rise of Mesopotamian Israel. The Assyrians exiled 10 of Israel’s 12 tribes, the famous
civilization, another civilization arose on the Nile River in 10 lost tribes, while the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, and
Egypt. Unlike the Tigris and Euphrates, the Nile flooded reg- the population that it exiled to Babylonia were the ancestors
ularly and predictably and there were relatively fewer migra- of the people later known as Jews.
tions and invasions into the region as well, and thus Egypt Other peoples also play an important role in the history
achieved a greater degree of political stability than Mesopo- of ancient Israel.
tamia did, though it too underwent periods of fragmentation. The Philistines appear to have been part of a larger
From the beginning of the third millennium until Alexander movement of seafaring raiders known as the Sea Peoples who

interpreter, he eventually arose to a position of power in occurring historical event? Is there evidence that the Israel-
Egypt, second only to the Egyptian king, and was reunited ites were slaves in Egypt? That there was a Moses who lib-
with his 11 brothers and father, who joined him in Egypt erated them? That the Israelites had to trek across the Sinai
during a famine in Canaan. Their descendants, the 12 wilderness before settling in the land of Canaan?
tribes of Israel, thrived in Egypt for some time, but at a cer- Egypt itself was real enough. Like Mesopotamia, Egyptian
tain point a new king came to power who did not remem- civilization was a river culture, forming on the banks of the
ber Joseph and became fearful of the Israelites as they grew Nile River. Its development is roughly parallel to that of Mes-
more populous, enslaving and oppressing them. It was dur- opotamia: a pictographic writing system (hieroglyphics, or
ing this period that Moses, an Israelite but one who grew their cursive equivalent hieratic) developed there sometime
up in the house of the Egyptian king’s daughter, emerged to in the fourth millennium BCE, as did the institution of the
rescue his people from their plight. Wielding divine power, kingship, temples, and other attributes of early Near Eastern
he inflicted ten plagues on the Egyptians that compelled civilization. From an early period, even before the invention
their king to release the Israelites, and they left for the land of writing, Egypt was in contact with Canaan. Egyptians
of Canaan, though not before crossing the Red Sea, which came to Canaan as travelers, soldiers, traders, and—in peri-
God parted to allow their passage and then closed in order ods when Egypt controlled Canaan—administrators, while
to drown their Egyptian pursuers. Their escape from Egypt Canaanites traveled to Egypt as migrants, slaves, and traders
has come to be known in English as the Exodus, from the (in fact, the word Canaan might originate from the word for
Greek word meaning “going out” that was used by Chris- “trader”). The Bible’s description of the Israelites as wander-
tians as a title for the biblical book that tells this story. Can ing back and forth between Canaan and Egypt, serving as
any of the biblical Exodus be confirmed as an actually agents of the Egyptian government or becoming its slaves, is
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night during nearly the whole time. Taking a lesson from this, in later
attacks only half the men were put in the line in the first place, no
matter if certain sectors had to be omitted. Fully as good results
were obtained because, as the men became worn out, fresh ones
were sent in and the others given a chance to recuperate. Officers
relate many different occurrences showing the discipline and
character of these gas troops. On one occasion where a battalion of
infantry was being held up by a machine gun nest, volunteers were
called for. Only two men, both from the gas regiment, volunteered
though they were joined a little later by two others from the same
regiment, and these four took the guns. While it was not considered
desirable for gas troops to attempt to take prisoners, yet the
regiment took quite a number, due solely to the fact that they were
not only with the advancing infantry but at times actually in front of it.
On another occasion a gas officer, seeing a machine gun battalion
badly shot up and more or less rattled, took command and got them
into action in fine shape.
At this stage the Second Army was formed to the southeast of
Verdun and plans were drawn for a big attack about November 14.
The value of gas troops was appreciated so much that the Second
Army asked to have British gas troops assigned to them since no
American gas troops were available. Accordingly in response to a
request made by the American General Headquarters, the British
sent 10 companies of their gas troops. These reached the front just
before the Armistice, and hence were unable to carry out any attacks
there.
This short history of the operations of the First Gas Regiment
covers only the high spots in its organization and work. It covers
particularly its early troubles, as those are felt to be the ones most
important to have in mind if ever it be necessary again to organize C.
W. S. troops on an extensive scale. The Regiment engaged in nearly
200 separate actions with poisonous gases, smoke and high
explosives, and took part in every big battle from the second battle of
the Marne to the end of the War. They were the first American troops
to train with the British, and were undoubtedly the first American
troops to take actual part in fighting the enemy as they aided the
British individually and as entire units in putting off gas attacks, in
February and March, 1918. It would be a long history itself to recite
the actions in which the First Gas Regiment took part and in which it
won distinction.[16]
No better summary of the work of this Regiment can be written
than that of Colonel Atkisson in the four concluding paragraphs of his
official report written just after the Armistice:
“The First Gas Regiment was made up largely of
volunteers—volunteers for this special service. Little
was known of its character when the first
information was sent broadcast over the United
States, bringing it to the attention of the men of our
country. The keynote of this information was a
desire for keen, red-blooded men who wanted to
fight. They came into it in the spirit of a fighting unit,
and were ready, not only to develop, but to make a
new service. No effort was spared to make the
organization as useful as the strength of the limited
personnel allowed.
“The first unit to arrive in France moved to the
forward area within eight weeks of its arrival, and,
from that time, with the exception of four weeks,
was continuously in forward areas carrying on
operations. The third and last unit moved forward
within six weeks of its arrival in France, and was
continuously engaged until the signing of the
Armistice.
“That the regiment entered the fight and carried
the methods developed into execution where they
would be of value, is witnessed by the fact that over
thirty-five percent of the strength of the unit became
casualties.
“It is only fitting to record the spirit and true
devotion which prompted the officers and men who
came from civil life into this Regiment, mastered the
 details of this new service, and, through their
untiring efforts and utter disregard of self, made
possible any success which the Regiment may have
had. It was truly in keeping with the high ideals
which have prompted our entire Army and Country
in this conflict. They made the motto of ‘Service,’ a
real, living, inspiring thing.”

Supply
As previously stated it was decided early that the Chemical
Warfare Service should have a complete supply service including
purchase, manufacture, storage and issue, and accordingly separate
supply depots were picked out for the Gas Service early in the fall by
Col. Crawford. Where practicable these were located in the same
area as all other depots though in one instance the French forced
the Gas Service to locate its gas shell and bomb depot some fifteen
miles from the general depots through an unreasonable fear of the
gas.
Manufacture of Gases. Due to the time required and the cost of
manufacturing gases, an early decision became imperative as to
what gases should be used by the Americans, and into what shells
and bombs they should be filled. As there was no one else working
on the subject the sole responsibility fell upon the Chief of the Gas
Service. The work was further complicated by the fact that the British
and French did not agree upon what gases should be used. The
British condemned viciously Vincennite (hydrocyanic acid gas with
some added ingredients) of the French, while the French stated that
chloropicrin, used by the British principally as a lachrymator, was
worthless. Fries felt the tremendous responsibility that rested upon
him and finally after much thought and before coming to any
conclusion, wrote the first draft of a short paper on gas warfare. In
that paper he took up the tactical uses to which gases might be put
and then studied the best and most available gases to meet those
tactical needs.
 Without stating further details it was decided to recommend the
manufacture and use of chlorine, phosgene, chloropicrin,
bromoacetone and mustard gas. As the gas service was also
charged with handling smoke and incendiary materials, smoke was
prescribed in the proportion of 5 per cent of the total chemicals to be
furnished. The smoke material decided upon was white phosphorus.
The paper on Gas Warfare was then re-drafted and submitted to
the French and British and written up in final form prescribing the
gases above mentioned on October 26. Following this a cable was
drawn and submitted to the General Staff. After many conferences
and some delay the cable went forward on November 3.

Cable 268, November 4, 1917

Paragraph 12. For chief of Ordnance. With
reference to paragraph 2 my cablegram 181, desire
prompt information as to whether recommendation
is approved that phosgene, chloropicrin,
hydrocyanic acid, and chlorine be purchased in
France or England and filling plants established in
France for filling shells and bombs with those gases.
Subparagraph A. Reference to your telegram
253, recommend filling approximately 10 per cent all
shells with gases as given below, but that filling
plants and gas factories be made capable of filling a
total of 25 per cent. Unless ordinary name is given,
gases are designated by numbers in chemical code
War Gas investigations. Of 75 millimeter shells fill 1
per cent Vincennite, 4 per cent phosgene or
trichloromethyl chloroformate, 2 per cent
chloropicrin, 2½ per cent mustard gas, ½ per cent
with bromoacetone and ½ per cent with smoke
material. According to French 75 millimeter steel
shells should not be filled with Vincennite more than
three months before being used. No trouble with
other gases or other sized shells except that
bromoacetone must be in glass lined shells. Of 4.7
inch shells fill 5 per cent with phosgene or
trichloromethyl chloroformate, 2 per cent with
chloropicrin, 2½ per cent with mustard gas, ½ per
cent with bromoacetone and ½ per cent with smoke
material. Provide same percentage for all other
shells up to and including 8 inch caliber as for 4.7
inch shells. 4 inch Stokes’ mortar will use same
gases and smoke shells and in addition thermit. 8
inch projector bombs will use the same as the
Stokes’ mortar and also oil to break into flame on
bursting. Cloud gas cylinders will be filled with 50 or
60 per cent phosgene, mixed with 40 to 50 per cent
chlorine, or phosgene and some other gas. Renew
recommendation that filling plants be established in
France to provide sudden shifts in gas warfare of all
kinds, as well as for filling all 4 inch Stokes’ mortar
bombs, 8 inch projector bombs and cloud gas
cylinders. It is strongly recommended that efforts be
made to produce white phosphorus on large scale
for its usefulness both as smoke screens and to
produce casualties.
Subparagraph B. For the Adjutant General of the
Army. With reference to paragraph 2, my cablegram
181, desire information as to whether
recommendation is approved that an engineer
officer assisted by Professor Hulett be assigned to
Gas Service in Washington to handle all orders and
correspondence concerning gas.
Subparagraph C. For Surgeon General. With
reference to paragraph 2 your cablegram 205, and
paragraph 2, my cablegram 181, what is status of
chemical laboratory for France? Also have the 12
selected Reserve Officers for training in gas
defense sailed for France?
Subparagraph D. With reference to paragraph
17 your cablegram 165 and paragraph 2 my
 cablegram 181, Tissot has constructed simpler
model of his mask for attachment to any box. Have
ordered 6 which will be completed in two weeks, 3
of which will be forwarded at once. A simple type
such as this may prove useful for large number of
troops. Letter of permission to manufacture Tissot
masks being forwarded.
Subparagraph E. With reference to paragraph 8
your cablegram 143, and paragraph 4 your
cablegram 247, in considering charcoal and other
fillers for canister of box respirator it should be
remembered that the front is very damp, the air
being nearly saturated during greater part of winter,
fall and spring.

This cable is given in full to show that not later than November 4,
1917, it was known in the United States not only what gases would
be required but also in what shells, bombs, guns and mortars each
would be used. While a small quantity of Vincennite was
recommended in this cable, another cable sent within a month
requested that no Vincennite whatever be manufactured. This
decision as to gases and guns in which they were to be used, while
very progressive, proved entirely sound and remained unchanged,
with slight exceptions due to new discoveries, until the end of the
war. Without a thorough understanding of tactics a proper choice of
gases could not have been made. This fact emphasizes the
necessity of having a trained technical army man at the head of any
gas service.
Due to the absence of a Chemical Warfare Service in the United
States at this time, a very great deal of the information sent from
France, whether by cable or by letter, never reached those needing
it.
Smoke. About the first of December after a study of results
obtained by the British and the Germans in the use of smoke in
artillery shells for screening purposes, the Gas Service decided that
much more smoke than had been stated in cable 268 to the United
States was desirable. The General Staff, however, refused to
authorize any increase, but did allow to be sent in a cable a
statement to the effect that a large increase in smoke materials
might be advisable for smoke screens, and that accordingly the
amount of phosphorus needed in a year of war would probably be
three or four times the one and a half million pounds of white
phosphorus stated to have been contracted for by the Ordnance
Department in the United States. This advanced position of the Gas
Service in regard to smoke proved sound in 1918, when every effort
was made to increase the quantity of white phosphorus available
and to extend its use in artillery shells including even the 3 inch
Stokes’ mortar.

Fig. 16.—Troops Advancing Behind a Smoke

Barrage (Phosphorus).

Overseas Repair Section No. 1. During the latter part of

November, 1917, Overseas Repair Section No. 1, under the
command of Captain Mayo-Smith, Sanitary Corps, with four other
officers and 130 men, arrived in France. Since mask development
and manufacture in the United States was still under the Medical
Department, this mask repair section was organized as a part of the
Sanitary Corps. As there were at that time no masks to be repaired
and no laboratory equipment or buildings for that purpose on hand
and none likely to be for months to come, Captain Mayo-Smith was
assigned to duty under Colonel Crawford, Chief Gas Officer with the
Line of Communication, in Paris. A site for a mask repair plant was
located at Châteauroux, and a site for a gas depot at Gievres was
investigated. Inasmuch as there was at that time greater need for
men to learn the handling of poisonous gases than to repair masks,
some 40 or 50 of the company were put in gas shell filling plants at
Aubervilliers and Vincennes in the suburbs of Paris, while later still
others were assigned to Pont de Claix near Grenoble. The
remainder of the company were used in the Gas Depot at Gievres
and in the office in Paris.
It was not until the latter part of June, 1918, that the mask repair
plant began operations. In the meantime these men did very
valuable work in shell filling and in learning the manufacture of
gases. Several of them were sent to the United States, some of them
remaining throughout the war to aid in gas manufacture and in shell
filling.
Construction Division, Gas Service. The Construction Division
under Colonel Crawford in Paris made complete plans for phosgene
manufacturing plants, for shell filling plants and for the Mask Repair
Plant. These plans included a complete layout of the work for all
persons to be employed in the plants. During this same time a very
careful study of the possibilities for manufacturing gas for filling shell
in France was made.
Finally about March 1, in accordance with the strong
recommendations of these men, Fries reported to General Pershing
in person that the manufacture of gas as well as the filling of shell in
France was inadvisable from every point of view and accordingly he
recommended that gas manufacture and shell filling in France be
given up. General Pershing strongly approved the recommendation
and a cablegram was at once sent to the United States to that effect.
The main reason for this action was the lack of chlorine, since
chlorine was the principal ingredient of nearly all poisonous gases
then in use. Chlorine takes, besides salt, electric power and lots of it.
Electric power requires coal or water power. Neither of the latter
sources were available in France. This question was gone into very
thoroughly. The only place where power might have been developed
was in a remote spot near Spain, and the outlook there was such
that it appeared impossible to begin the manufacture of chlorine
under two years. On the other hand the shipment of chlorine from
the United States required from 75 per cent to 100 per cent of the
tonnage required to ship the manufactured gases themselves, to say
nothing of the labor, raw materials, and the machinery that would
have had to be shipped in order to manufacture gas in France.
Mustard Gas. As previously stated Mustard Gas was first used
by the Germans against the British at Ypres on the nights of July 11
and 12, 1917. It was not used much against the French until more
than two months later. Indeed, gas was never used by the Germans
to the same extent against the French as against the English. There
are probably two reasons for this; first, the Germans had a deeper
hatred for the British than the French; second, the British morale was
higher than the French in 1917, and the German thought that if he
could break down this British morale, he could win the war.
The first attack came as a surprise and accordingly got an
unusually large number of casualties. As previously stated the
casualties numbered about 20,000 in about six weeks. This number
was considered so serious that the beginning of the series of attacks
against Ypres in the fall of 1917, was delayed by the British for 10
days or two weeks until they could study better how to avoid such
great losses from mustard gas. While the composition of the gas was
known within two or three days, as well as the laboratory method by
which it was first manufactured by Victor Meyer in 1886, it took some
11 months to develop reliable and practical methods of
manufacturing it on a large scale. The Inter-allied Gas Conference in
September, 1917, gave a great deal of attention to mustard gas and
methods of combating it both from the view point of prevention and
of curing those gassed by it.
Just following the close of that conference a cable was sent to
the United States asking the possibility of manufacturing ethylene
chlorhydrin, the principal element in the manufacture of mustard gas
by the only process then known. Later, that is about the middle of
October, a cablegram was sent urging investigation into the
manufacture of this gas. It is believed a great deal of time might have
been saved had the policy of undue secrecy not been adopted by
the British and others before the Americans entered the war. In fact
we were only told in whispers the formula for mustard gas, and
where a description of it could be found in German chemistries. This
was arrant nonsense since if the Germans had gotten all mustard
gas information then in the hands of the British they would have
received far less information than they already possessed on
mustard gas.

Fig. 17.—“Who Said Gas?”

Whether the information sent to the United States on mustard

gas ultimately proved of any great value is an open question since
the methods adopted in the United States were very greatly superior
to those used in England and in France. It probably helped by
suggestion rather than by actual details of design. Anyhow it all
emphasizes the difficulties encountered in war when so vital a
substance as mustard gas must be investigated after the enemy has
begun using it on a large scale.
Delay of British Masks. As December 1 approached, and as
nothing further had been heard of the order for 300,000 British
Respirators placed about the middle of October, a telegram was sent
to England asking if deliveries would be made as required in the
order for the masks. This order required the first 75,000 to be
delivered December 1, 1917. In reply it was stated that the British
could not furnish these masks, and that they understood that the
Americans were just beginning a large output of masks in the United
States. An exchange of cablegrams with the United States showed
that no masks could be expected from there for 3 to 5 months.
Moreover it became increasingly evident that the Americans were
going into the battle line sooner than at first contemplated. Another
cablegram was then sent to England urging the delivery of these
masks. The reply was to the effect that the English Government
could not deliver the masks because they did not have enough for
their own use. This situation was very serious. Unless the order for
300,000 masks placed with the British could be filled, we were facing
the necessity of sending American troops into the front line with only
the French M-2 mask. While the M-2 mask was then the only mask
used by the French, it was well known to afford practically no
protection against the high concentrations of phosgene obtained
from cloud or projector attacks. And it was just such attacks as these
that our men would encounter in the front line during training.
Accordingly arrangements were made for a hurried trip to England.
Colonel Harrison of the British Royal Engineers was in charge of
the British manufacture of masks and it is desired here to express
appreciation of his uniform courtesy and great helpfulness. He
exhibited their methods and facilities and assured us they could
meet any requirements of ours for masks up to a half million, or even
more if necessary, provided they were given time to establish
additional facilities. Finally after a further exchange of cables the
masks were obtained.
 During December, 1917 and January, 1918, when every effort
was being made to hurry a lot of masks from Havre—Havre being
the British supply base in France from which the masks were issued
to the United States, the severe cold and snow had so disorganized
French traffic that it was extremely difficult to get cars moving at all.
In an effort to get the masks, priority of shipment was obtained and
two or three officers were assigned to convoy the cars.
Notwithstanding convoying, one carload of 4,000 masks, mainly
threes and fours, became lost and only turned up five weeks later. To
make matters worse the British were sending us very many more of
the small sized No. 2 masks than we could use. The loss of this
carload of 4,000 number threes and fours was all but a tragedy.
Indeed, in order to get the First Brigade of the First Division
equipped in time it was necessary to take a large number of masks
already issued to men of the Second Brigade. These masks were
first thoroughly washed and disinfected and then re-issued.
This all emphasizes the great difficulties that are encountered
when a new and vital service must be organized in war 4,000 miles
overseas without material, home supplies, or men to draw from. This
struggle to get sufficient masks to keep all men fully equipped
remained very acute until in July, 1918, when the arrival of hundreds
of thousands of masks from the United States made the situation
entirely safe. Even then the necessity of weakening the elastics and
shortening the rubber tubing of the mouthpieces on some 700,000
masks, doubled up our work tremendously, and added enormously
to our troubles in getting masks to the front in time.
Notwithstanding these troubles the Chemical Warfare Supply
Service never failed and finally forged to the very forefront of all
American supply services. Its method of issuing supplies to troops at
the front has been adopted as the standard for American field armies
of the future.

Technical
Gas Laboratory in Paris. Early in January, 1918, the first
members of the Chemical Service Section, National Army, under the
command of Colonel R. F. Bacon, arrived in France and reported for
duty. Previously, a laboratory site at Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, had
been selected. This plant had been built by a society for investigation
into tuberculosis. Previous to the arrival of the Chemical Service
Section, information had been requested from the United States by
cable as to the size of the laboratory section to be sent over. The
reply stated that the number would probably total about 100
commissioned and enlisted. The site at Puteaux was accordingly
definitely decided upon. Just following this decision two cables, one
after the other, came from the United States recommending certain
specified buildings in Paris for the laboratory. It was found upon
investigation in both cases that the buildings were either absolutely
unsuited or unfinished. This was another case of trying to fight a war
over 4,000 miles of cable. Colonel Bacon was made head of the
Technical Division, which position he held throughout the war.

Fig. 18.—Shaper for Opening Captured Gas Shell.

 Technically Trained Men. In January, 1918, in response to a
cable from the United States a request had been made on the
French Government to send six of their ablest glass blowers to the
United States to aid in making glass lined shells. The French Gas
authorities said that it would be impossible to send those or indeed
any other men trained in the manufacture or handling of poisonous
gases or gas containers as they did not have enough such men for
their own work. Accordingly a cablegram was drafted and sent to the
United States, requesting that 50 men experienced in various lines of
technical and chemical work be sent to France. The French
authorities said they would put them in any factories, laboratories or
experimental places that the Chief of the Gas Service desired. A
second inquiry about these men was sent but nevertheless no
answer was ever received and no men were sent.
Protection Against Particulate Clouds. Just at this time, about
the first of February, 1918, the danger that the Germans might
devise some better method of sending over diphenylchloroarsine
than by pulverizing it in high explosive shell was felt to be serious.
The British had just then perfected protection against
diphenylchloroarsine by employing unsized sulfate wood pulp paper
—48 to 60 layers being required. This number of layers was found to
be necessary as they are very thin and porous. The British had
developed a method of putting this paper around a canister and yet
keeping the canister small enough to fit into the knapsack by
reversing its position therein; that is, putting the canister in the
compartment of the knapsack made for the face piece and putting
the face piece in the other compartment. Some of our own officers
and enlisted men were sent to England to work with the British on
this and an order given them for 200,000 of the protected canisters.
They improved on the methods of the British and as it was found that
sulfate paper was very scarce, investigations were made to see if
any of it could be manufactured in France. Very soon thereafter such
a place was located near the city of Nancy. Following this a
cablegram was sent to the United States giving complete
specifications for making this diphenylchloroarsine protection. From
this cablegram successful samples were made though somewhat
more bulky than those developed in England. Very few, however, of
these were made in the United States due, we were informed, to the
poor quality of the sulfate paper. Work was however begun
energetically in the United States on other methods of protection
against diphenylchloroarsine.
Numbers of Chemists Needed. It was figured that out of a total
force of some 1,400 gas officers there would be needed in the A. E.
F., exclusive of those in regiments, approximately 200 chemists, i.e.,
about 15 per cent of the whole. We arranged to have a good chemist
on each Division, Corps and Army Staff, and a certain number with
the gas troops. It was proposed to put 20 to 40 in the laboratory in
Paris and not to exceed 20 at the experimental field. This subject of
personnel is touched on for the reason that a few people seem to
have the idea that the Chemical Warfare Service should be made up
of chemists exclusively. This is very far from being true. It was and is
believed that the Chemical Warfare Service should be composed of
men from every walk of life. In three positions out of every four in the
field a good personality combined with energy, hard work and
common sense count for more than mere technical training.
Hanlon (Experimental) Field. As early as December 15, 1917, it
was decided that an experimental field in France was necessary, and
a letter was written to the General Staff requesting authority to
establish one. After considerable delay the authority was granted
and search for a site begun. This was no easy task. While the
French were loading millions of gas shells at the edge of Paris, they
appeared unwilling at first to have us establish a gas experimental
field except in abandoned or inaccessible spots. Finally a very good
site was found and agreed to by the French some 7 miles south of
General Headquarters. Just when we were ready to start work the
French discovered that the proposed field included a portion of one
of their artillery firing ranges. They then suggested another site
within 3 miles of General Headquarters. This was a rather fortunate
accident as the site suggested was a better one than at first picked
out. The field was roughly rectangular from 7 to 8 miles in length,
and 3 to 4 miles in width. The total area was about 20 square miles.
The work of this experimental field proved a great success and was
rapidly becoming the real center of the Gas Service in France.
 The old saying that the history of a happy country is very brief
applies to this story of the Technical Section of the Gas Service in
France. Its work did not begin as early as that of the other sections,
and as considerable of it was of a nature that could be put off without
immediate fatal effects, the Section was enabled to grow without the
very serious drawbacks encountered by other Sections of the Gas
Service.
Nevertheless its usefulness was very great. Those of the
Technical Section either at the experimental field or at the laboratory
were charged with the opening of all sorts of known and unknown
gas and high explosive shells, fuses and similar things to determine
their contents and their poisonous or explosive qualities. This was
work of a very technical nature, and at the same time highly
dangerous.
As stated elsewhere, the determination of the life of the masks
became one of the problems which the laboratory was trying to
solve. Hundreds of canisters were tested, and hundreds per month
would have continued to have been tested throughout the remainder
of the war had the war gone into 1919. It was on the Technical
Section that devolved the duty of determining at the earliest possible
moment the physical properties as well as the physiological effects
of any new gas.
Also on that Section fell the preliminary reports as to the probable
usefulness in war of a new gas whether sent over by the enemy or
suggested by our own Technical men, or those of our Allies. This
was indeed a task by itself, as it required a wide knowledge of the
methods of using gases, methods of manufacturing them, and
methods of projecting them on the field of battle.
In addition, it was the duty of the Technical Section to keep the
Chief of the Service fully informed on all the latest developments in
gases and to get that information in shape so that the Chief with his
increasingly wide range of duties would be enabled to keep track of
them without reading the enormous amount ordinarily written.
A much earlier start on technical work would have proved of
immense advantage. In case of another war, the technical side of
chemical warfare should be taken up with the very first expedition
that proceeds to the hostile zone. Had that been done in France, we
would have had masks and gases and proper shells and bombs at
least six months before we did.

Intelligence
While Intelligence was for a long time under the Training or
Technical Divisions, it finally assumed such importance that it was
made a separate Division. It was so thoroughly organized that by the
time of the Armistice the Chief of the Division could go anywhere
among the United States forces down to companies and immediately
locate the Gas Intelligence officer.
Intelligence Division. This work was started by Lieutenant
Colonel Goss within a month after he reported in October, 1917. The
Intelligence Division developed the publication of numerous
occasional pamphlets and also a weekly gas bulletin. So extensive
was the work of this Division that three mimeograph machines were
kept constantly going. The weekly bulletin received very flattering
notice from the British Assistant Chief of Gas Service in the Field. He
stated that it contained a great deal of information he was unable to
get from any other source.
Among other work undertaken by this Intelligence Division was
the compilation of a History of the Chemical Warfare Service in
France. This alone involved a lot of work. In order that this history
might be truly representative, about three months before the
Armistice both moving and still pictures were taken of actual battle
conditions, as well as of numerous works along the Service of
Supplies.
Without going into further detail it is sufficient to say that when
the Armistice was signed there were available some 200 still
pictures, and some 8,000 feet of moving picture films. Steps were
immediately taken to have this work continued along definite lines to
give a complete and continuous history of the Chemical Warfare
Service in France in all its phases.
 The intelligence work of the Gas Service, while parallel to a small
extent with the General Intelligence Service of the A. E. F., had to
spread to a far greater extent in order to get the technical details of
research, manufacture, development, proving, and handling
poisonous gases in the field. It included also obtaining information at
the seats of Government of the Allies, as well as from the enemy and
other foreign sources.
The most conspicuous intelligence work done along these lines
was by Lieutenant Colonel J. E. Zanetti, who was made Chemical
Warfare liaison officer with the French in October, 1917. He gathered
together and forwarded through the Headquarters of the Chemical
Warfare Service to the United States more information concerning
foreign gases, and foreign methods of manufacturing and handling
them, than was sent from all other sources combined. By his
personality, energy and industry he obtained the complete
confidence of the French and British. This confidence was of the
utmost importance in enabling him to get information which could
have been obtained in no other way. Suffice to say that in the 13
months he was liaison officer with the French during the war, he
prepared over 750 reports, some of them very technical and of great
length.
As a whole, the Intelligence Division was one of the most
successful parts of the Chemical Warfare Service. Starting 2½ years
after the British and French, the weekly bulletin and occasional
papers sent out by the Chemical Warfare Service on chemical
warfare matters came to be looked upon as the best available
source for chemical warfare information, not alone by our own troops
but also by the British.

Medical
The Medical Section of the Chemical Warfare Service was
composed of officers of the Medical Department of the Army
attached to the Chemical Warfare Service. These were in addition to
others who worked as an integral part of the Chemical Warfare
Service, either at the laboratory or on the experimental field in
carrying out experiments on animals to determine the effectiveness
of the gases.
The Medical Section was important for the reason that it formed
the connecting link between the Chemical Warfare Service and the
Medical Department. Through this Section, the Medical Department
was enabled to know the kinds of gases that would probably be
handled, both by our own troops and by the enemy, and their
probable physiological effects.
Colonel H. L. Gilchrist, Medical Department, was the head of this
Section. It was through his efforts that the Medical Department
realized in time the size of the problem that it had to encounter in
caring for gas patients. Indeed, records of the war showed that out of
224,089 men, exclusive of Marines, admitted to the hospitals in
France, 70,552 were suffering from gas alone. These men received
a total of 266,112 wounds, of which 88,980, or 33.4 per cent, were
gas. Thus ⅓ of all wounds received by men admitted to the hospital
were gas. While the records show that the gas cases did not remain
on the average in the hospitals quite as long as in the case of other
classes of wounds, yet gas cases became one of the most important
features of the Medical Department’s work in the field.
The Medical Section, through its intimate knowledge of what was
going on in the Chemical Warfare Service as well as what was
contemplated and being experimented with, was enabled to work out
methods of handling all gas cases far in advance of what could have
been done had there been no such section. One instance alone
illustrates this fully. It became known fairly early that if a man who
had been gassed with mustard gas could get a thorough cleansing
and an entire change of clothing within an hour after exposure, the
body burns could be eliminated or largely decreased in severity. This
led to the development of degassing units. These consisted of 1,200
gallon tanks on five-ton trucks equipped with a heater.
Accompanying this were sprinkling arrangements whereby a man
could be given a shower bath, his nose, eyes and ears treated with
bicarbonate of soda, and then be given an entire change of clothing.
These proved a very great success, although they were not
developed in time to be used extensively before the war closed.
 There is an important side to the Medical Section during peace,
that must be kept in mind. The final decision as to whether a gas
should be manufactured on a large scale and used extensively on
the field of battle depends upon its physiological and morale effect
upon troops. In the case of the most powerful gases, the
determination of the relative values of those gases so far as their
effects on human beings is concerned is a very laborious and
exacting job. Such gases have to be handled with extreme caution,
necessitating many experiments over long periods of time in order to
arrive at correct decisions.