Armée Juive

{{Short description|WWII resistance movement}}

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[[File:OJC.jpg|thumb|right|Maquisards of the Armée Juive at Espinasse

(Puy-de-Dôme, France)]]

The Armée Juive (Jewish Army), was a Zionist resistance movement in Nazi occupied Vichy France during World War II which was created during January 1942 in Toulouse. It was established and led by Abraham Polonski and his wife Eugénie, the socialist Lucien Lublin,{{cite web|title=Jewish Resistance Groups and Leaders|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/resistgroup.html|publisher=The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise|access-date=6 March 2013}} Russian poet David Knout, and his wife Ariadna Scriabina{{Citation | last = Berenbaum | first = Michael J. | last2 = Peck | first2 = Abraham J. | title = The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined | publisher = Indiana University Press | year = 1998 | pages = 835 | isbn = 978-0-253-33374-2}} (daughter of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin).

Armée Juive was originally called the Mouvement des Jeunesses Sionistes (M.J.S.). Its intention was to protect threatened Jews and take their fighting skills back to Palestine to help create a Jewish State there. At its height,{{when|date=March 2021}} it had over 2,000 members{{Citation | last = Edelheit | first = Hershel | last2 = Edelheit | first2 = Abraham J. Edelheit | title = History of Zionism: A Handbook and Dictionary | publisher = Westview Press | year = 1998 | pages = 672 | isbn = 978-0-8133-2981-9}} and was primarily concerned with helping Jews escape to Spain via the Pyrenees although it also conducted attacks and sabotage operations.

The first members of the AJ were recruited from a Torah study group headed by Rabbi Paul Roitman (1920). They included Arnold Mandel, Elie Rothnemer, Claude Strauss (writer Claude Vigée) and Maurice Hausner. They received funds to finance their activities from Marc Jarblum, the socialist president of the refugee Zionist Organization of France which operated from Switzerland.{{cn|date=March 2021}}

The Army became the Organisation Juive de Combat{{when|date=March 2021}} and was officially registered under the French Forces of the Interior (FFI).{{cn|date=March 2021}}

Placing my right hand on the blue and white flag,

I swear fidelity to the Jewish Army

And obedience to its leaders.

May my people live again,

May Eretz-Israel be reborn.

Liberty or death. - the oath of the Armée Juive.