The Office of Jewish War Records of the American Jewish Committee has made a remarkably interesting preliminary study of the number of Jews in the American forces. The office possesses 150,000 individual records, gathered by extensive cooeperation with national and local Jewish organizations. The success of certain local efforts at intensive covering of the field indicate that the total number of American Jews in service during the War may amount to as much as 200,000. Of these about 40,000 came from New York City, 8,000 from Philadelphia and 5,000 from Chicago. Instead of their quota of three per cent., according to the proportion of Jews throughout the nation, the Jews in service actually constituted fully four per cent. of the men in the army and navy. The causes of this excess are not easy to establish. The draft may have been more fully enforced in cities than in many rural districts, and the bulk of the Jews are city dwellers. The proportion of young men among the various groups of our population would apply only if the Jews have more than their quota of young men, and we possess no facts to confirm that. But certainly the number of volunteers was an element in causing this large number of Jews in the service. The records show 40,000 volunteers among the Jewish men, practically one-fourth of the total Jewish contingent and a far higher record than that of the army as a whole. In certain outstanding cases this record is even more conspicuous. The little colony of immigrant Jewish farmers at Woodbine, N. J., not over three hundred families altogether, contributed forty-three men to the service, of whom seventeen men, or forty per cent., were volunteers. Of the students at the rabbinical seminaries, who were all exempt by law, a conspicuously large number volunteered for service in the line, in addition to the chaplains among the graduates and the large number of both students and graduates who acted as representatives of the Jewish Welfare Board, lecturers in the training camps and similar capacities. In fact, the seminaries were almost empty for a year. Eleven students of the Hebrew Union College and four of the Jewish Theological Seminary waived exemption for regular service in the army and navy, including a number of men with very exceptional records. Jacob Marcus, now Rabbi and Instructor at the Hebrew Union College, volunteered in the Ohio National Guard and won his lieutenancy by brilliant work in the ranks. Three of the students there entered the Marine Corps during the first weeks of the war and served for over two years in that branch. One, Michael Aaronson, serving in the 31st Division overseas, was completely blinded while helping a wounded comrade in No Man's Land; now he is finishing his studies at the College with the same spirit which he showed in entering the service and in his work as a soldier.