Jewish Brigade, Jewish Chaplains or "Unidentified" Cap Badge?

[leigh kitchen]

The badge as shown at post no. 10 has recently been sold on the "Historama" site as a Jewish Chaplain's badge.

Historama held in previous discussion of this design of badge that it was a Jewish Chaplain's badge, although others disagreed.

[Igor Ostapenko]

Palestinian Regiment's cap badge

[Igor Ostapenko]

obverse

[Igor Ostapenko]

Jewish brigade

[MattGibbs]

"Jewish Cap Badges: British/Palestine and Israel Defense Forces' 2nd edition 2006" by Alex Friedman shows the voided badge as "Jewish Rabbi British Army 1915", & the unvoided badge as "Jewish Rabbi British Army 1915-1940".

According to the author the "original" unvoided badge was too fragile a design & so it was changed to an unvoided one.

The implication is that the RAChD had to bull their Other Ranks quality cap badges then?

The implication has to be impossible. The RAChD has always been an officer's corps only, it has no Other Ranks. The lowest rank is Chaplain 4th Class, equivalent to Captain, and uses the same 3 pip rank style. The additional inference to draw would be that there was a vast need for such a badge from the end of 1918 up to 1940 which also isn't the case because the RAChD had no official Jewish Chaplain at this time. Dayan Gollop, Senior Jewish Chaplain to H.M. Forces was administering to the Jewish armed forces personnel as an honourary office, with so few practising Jews in the ranks there would hardly be a need for a plethora of badges.

In WW1 by mid 1915 there was only 2 Jewish chaplains, and by the close of hostilities in 1918 there were only a total of 16 commisioned chaplains. Hardly enough to warrant a big badge order from a supplier.

Edited November 6, 2008 by MattGibbs

[leigh kitchen]

The implication has to be impossible. The RAChD has always been an officer's corps only, it has no Other Ranks. The lowest rank is Chaplain 4th Class, equivalent to Captain, and uses the same 3 pip rank style. The additional inference to draw would be that there was a vast need for such a badge from the end of 1918 up to 1940 which also isn't the case because the RAChD had no official Jewish Chaplain at this time. Dayan Gollop, Senior Jewish Chaplain to H.M. Forces was administering to the Jewish armed forces personnel as an honourary office, with so few practising Jews in the ranks there would hardly be a need for a plethora of badges.

In WW1 by mid 1915 there was only 2 Jewish chaplains, and by the close of hostilities in 1918 there were only a total of 16 commisioned chaplains. Hardly enough to warrant a big badge order from a supplier.

Exactamundo

[leigh kitchen]

Jewish brigade

Ah, the badge which, in it's different metals, is the subject of this thread.

Is it or isn't it Jewish Brigade? Many opinions either way but nothing conclusive that I've seen to show that this is Jewish Brigade.

[leigh kitchen]

This thread is about the badge as shown in post no. 29. They exist in yellow metal, white metal & bronzed finish.

They are sometimes sold as British army Royal Army Chaplain's Department Jewish Chaplain's badges & also sold as Jewish Brigade badges.

They are similar in design to badges of some countrie's police & prison service badges.

There are some people who are adament that they are one or the other, & it seems that nothing will persuade them otherwise, despite the lack of any real evidence.

My opinion is that whatever they are, & it appears that some at least are fairly recently made, they do not appear to be British army Jewish Chaplain's badges.

There is no reliable reference that I'm aware of that refers to them being such, & they break away from the general similarity of design of Christian & Jewish Chaplain's badges (similarity other than crosses & stars, that is), & the metals are "wrong", the yellow metal & white metal badges are of Other Rank's quality materials which need cleaning with Brasso & the like, not the sort of thing that the handfull of Jewish Chaplains would be expected to do, the bronzed "OSD" finish is unusual, as Chaplain's badges if not in gilt, silver & enamel etc would be of blackened brass. And as there were few Jewish Chaplains there would be no requirement for the quantity of badges that are found.

I've seen nothing that I regard as conclusive to show that this badge is Jewish Brigade either.

Opinions differ.

Edited November 8, 2008 by leigh kitchen

[leigh kitchen]

Sorry jj08, I accidently added my post to yours instead of clicking the button to "quote", hence the "edited" entry above.

No, the crown design should merely place them in use between certain dates maximum about 1902 - early 1950's, as it's the King's / Tudor / Imperial Crown, in use after Queen Victoria's reign & before Queen Elizabeth II.

I don't see any evidence that they're anything in particular at the moment. But they don't appear in any reference except as quoted above as Jewish Chaplain's, & AJAX etc say they're not. Not much evidence that they're Jewish Brigade either, though that's more realistic an assumption than Jewish Chaplain.

Perhaps they're Trinidad & Tobago police or whatever, I don't know.

[Chris Boonzaier]

They are really, really, really close to the Nigerian design.

Why not ask JR Gaunt?

[MattGibbs]

They are really, really, really close to the Nigerian design.

Why not ask JR Gaunt?

Brilliant point Chris and such a simple idea. However J R Gaunt and son were taken over by Firmin in the 90's. So I emailled them instead, awaiting with interest their reply

regards

Matt Gibbs