Shmuel M. Tamir was a prominent Israeli independence fighter, lawyer, patriot and Knesset member. After a successful career fighting the British he entered the Knesset from 1965 to 1980, rising to become Minister of Justice in the government of Menachem Begin from 1977 until 1980. Tamir was an ardent anti-Nazi leading proactive legal cases to prosecute perpetrators of the Holocaust and war criminals. Tamir's maverick politics finally led him into an independent politician after several attempts of coalition with nationalist right-wing parties.

The Jewish Legion was an unofficial name used to refer to five battalions of the British Army's Royal Fusiliers regiment, which consisted of Jewish volunteers recruited during World War I. In 1915, the British Army raised the Zion Mule Corps, a transportation unit of Jewish volunteers, for service in the Gallipoli campaign. Two years later in August 1917, the decision was made to raise an infantry battalion of Jewish soldiers which would be integrated into an existing British Army regiment.