The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group (more commonly known as the Jewish Brigade Group or Jewish Brigade) was a military formation of the British Army composed of Jews from the Yishuv in Mandatory Palestine commanded by British-Jewish officers that served in Europe during World War II. The brigade was formed in late 1944, and its personnel fought the Germans in Italy. After the war, some of them assisted Holocaust survivors to emigrate illegally to Mandatory Palestine as part of Aliyah Bet.

Background

After World War I, the British Empire and the French Empire replaced the Ottoman Empire as the pre-eminent powers in the Middle East. This change brought closer the Zionist movement's goal of creating a Jewish state. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 signified the first official approval of this proposal, and led to a surge of Jewish emigration in 1918–1921, known as the "Third Aliyah". The League of Nations incorporated the Declaration in the British Mandate for Palestine in 1922. Jewish immigration continued through the 1920s and 1930s, and the Jewish population expanded by over 400,000 before the beginning of the Second World War.