Your reading comprehension is faulty. I did not write that "any religion constitutes only 1% of the US military"--I wrote that only 1% of the US population that is eligible to serve in the all volunteer US armed forces actually does so and that includes people of all religious and ethnic groups. American Jews constitute a little over a percent of the US population as a whole, and at the moment less than 1% of the US military is composed of Jews. In the past, Jews were about 2% of the US population, and their numbers in the military exceeded their percentage in the general population. Admittedly today, the % of Jews who volunteer for the US military (remember, there is no draft in the US) is less than the % of Jews in the US population. However, the % of American Jews who become Israeli citizens (which is their right to do so, the US is not the ex-USSR and does not prevent its citizens from leaving the country if they so wish) and comply with Israeli law by joining the IDF which is their responsibility as Israeli citizens, is even less.

You assert that US Jews constitute 2% of the US population--the US census doesn't ask for religious identification, so it's hard to get an exact fix on this. A lot of people who are not Jewish by the traditional standards of Jewish law declare themselves Jewish in the National Jewish Population Survey, then again, there may be many people who are Jewish by ancestry who don't self-identify as such. A good guess is that the source for the 2.2% Jewish population in the US , something called National Jewish Population Survey, inflates the number and counts as Jews anybody who has one Jewish grandparent and declares him or herself as Jewish. So the actual figure of US Jews, people who are actively affiliated with a Jewish community and have strong identification as Jews, is most likely not much more than 1%.

I hope no one missed the comment at the end where one of those brothers complained about missing football sunday. i guarentee that that kid is back here within the year and watching all the football he can handle after a year without any. by that time kolb will be seasoned and before he enlists into the american army he can enjoy watching the eagles go on to win the superbowl! God bless American and Israel, and lets home these boys make it home safe

You write that " a lion share of the enlisted are not in combat units". FYI, a lion's share of any of the enlisted of any religion, whether in the US military or any major military don't serve combat units. It's a fact that the bulk of any modern major army is composed of support and logistical units, which the combat units rely on to do their fighting. I myself served in the IDF in a non-combat position and am proud of that.

" That begs the question then, are American Buddhists more patriotic than American Jews? You answer that for me. " As you well should know, if you served for 29 years in the US military, since the abolition of the draft in the early 1970s, the US has an all-volunteer military. People join many reasons, including patriotism, to be sure, but a large % of Americans who enlist do so for socioeconomic reasons, college money, job-training skills, to escape small-town life or inner-city slums, etc. Many US Jews (certainly not all) in 21st century America are fortunate enough to not have such socioeconomic pressures. In the past, Jews in the US military exceeded the % of Jews in the US population as a whole. During WW1 and WW2, Jews were 5% of the US military (whereas Jews in the overall US pop. were less than 2%)--today, when only about 1% of Americans fit for duty volunteer overall, "only" 2/10 of that 1% are Jewish. Wow, you got them good! Meanwhile, you are irked by the fact that a few hundred American-born Israeli citizens move here and comply with Israeli law, which requires that they serve in the IDF of fit for duty. As a Zionist, I certainly hope that more Jews, whether from the US, UK, Brazil, wherever, move here and serve, but the fact is despite what the article says, you don't find so many Americans in the IDF.

Like it or not, such a thing as dual citizenship exists, it's not against US law, and there are many US citizens who are citizens of other countries--most of them are not US-Israeli citizens. I have known dual Canadian/US citizens, UK-US citizens, German-US citizens, Greek-US citizens and French-US citizens. Many countries, not only Israel, require MANDATORY military duty for their citizens. This is NOT required in the USA. I have a friend, born in Boston MA, whose father and grandparents on his mother's side were Greek-born.From the age of 8-21, my friend lived in Greece and had to be in the Greek army because he was a Greek citizen, as someone of Greek heritage although he and his mom were born in the USA. As a natural-born American he also kept his US citizenship and came back here for college and a job in his 20s. Germany and Turkey have similar laws regarding military duty for their citizens, they don't care if you are also an American. But the Jewhaters here are only irked at American Jews who serve in Israel. What's up with that?

Well if they declare themself and wish to be counted as a Jews then who the hell are you to decline them that right ? Anyway even with 1% of the population their count in armed forces compared to representation in Congress and Senate gives you a better picture of their real love. Forget it.

That I lashed at you innstead to say thank you for the info but it ticks me off when I read or hear that another person decides who I'm and how my relationship with God suppose to look like. This is not about the faith this is about control.

In Nazi Germany, anyone with one Jewish grandparent, even if he was a devout Christian and considered himself 100% German, would be considered a Jew and eventually be sent to the camps. My point was that although the National Jewish Population Survey is probably the most accurate source of the US Jewish population, it probably still overestimates the Jewish population for various reasons. It may be true that in the USA of 2010, Jewish participation in the US military falls below the % of Jews in the general population (although in the past Jews in the military exceeded their percentage in the general population), but just as the % of Jews in the US population may be overcounted, the % of Jews in the military may be undercounted. For example, I have a relative who is serving in the US Marines. Her Mom (my cousin) is Jewish(and according to Orthodox Jewish law, that makes her Jewish), her dad is Italian Catholic, therefore her last name isn't stereotypically Jewish-sounding. Because she considers herself agnostic,she didn't actively identify as Jewish in the USMC for the first 2 years of her service--and didn't "come out" as a Jew until later. There are probably many other ""marginal" Jews in the US military like her. The number of marginal Jews who do enlist in the US military exceeds the number of strongly identified American Jews who prefer to move to Israel and serve in the IDF. As a Zionist who moved to Israel and served in the IDF myself, I would prefer that more US Jews move to Israel, but I don't see what you are so upset about--there are still more American Jews in the US military than there American Jews in the IDF.

Mikey, a Jew is a follower of judaism. An agnostic person can not be a jew. Jews are not a race. Jews are from all over the world, just like Muslims and Christians. There is no such thing as an ethnic jewish nation. The jewish nation is a religious nation like the Christian nation or Muslim nation. When Israel was created, all the immigrants (except the minority religious ones) were taught hebrew because they didnt speak it. The only reason to why some of the religious ones spoke it was because of religious reasons to read the torah just like pakistani and other non-arab muslims learn arabic for the sake of the Quran. Moreover, there were tons of jew-on-jew racism and the polish jew was seen as better than the iraqi jew etc. So how can you guys sit here and pretend like there is a jewish ethnic people when there is no such thing? A russian jew looks like the russian christian, the iraqi jew looks like the Iraqi Muslim and the Ethiopian jew looks like the Ethiopian. Prior to the establishment of israel, these jews not only looked the same as people from their native country, they also had/have the same culture and the same type of names (it wasent until they came to "israel" that they were told to change them to more hebrew sounding names. Its like the non-arab muslims tell people they are arab just because they are Muslims. How can a greek who follows judaism over a day and night change his identity to "israeli" just because of his religion? what about his family history, his name, language and greek culture? He just throws that away and change everything about him, his entire identity to participate in the zionist charade of inventing a new jewish race in order to take Palestine? The sad thing is that you not only succeded in fooling others, you succeded in fooling yourselfs.

I don't mind if you moved abroad, live there and join their Armed Forces but if you live in US, have chance to join our forces but chosed to serve in foreign army that's wrong. You're the only minority in this country to do this and get away with it. Where did you get this? although in the past Jews in the military exceeded their percentage in the general population),

You stated "a Jew is a follower of judaism. An agnostic person can not be a jew. Jews are not a race." While Jews are not a "race" and have never claimed to be one ("race" is a modern racist concept), we are indeed a nation. There is indeed such a thing as an agnostic Jew, I happen to be one. The fact that I am skeptical of much of the dogma and practice of religious Judaism makes me agnostic, nevertheless my ancestry and heritage, the Hebrew language I speak and my self-identification make me 100% Jewish. I am born of a Jewish mother and descended from a Jewish family, my personal religious beliefs or lack thereof do not affect my Jewish status. You ramble and digress about Russian Jews looking like Russian Christians--to be sure, some do, but the fact is actually often Jews from Russia do look distinctively different than Russian Christians (it's natural, since they largely traced their descent to the Middle East). My grandparents on one side of the family were olive-skinned Mediterranean -looking people, their Ukrainian Christian neighbors could tell with one glance that they were Jews. Only in the last 80 years or so (under Soviet Communism) has there been any significant intermarriage between Jews who lived in Russia and the non-Jewish Russians.Some of my Syrian-Jewish and Iraqi-Jewish family, one branch of which had lived in Jerusalem since the 1700s, on the other hand, were fair-skinned and blue-eyed, so much for the silly stereotype that European Jews were fair and Middle Eastern Jews were "dark". Of course, there never has been such thing as a pure Jewish race. That's a racist fantasy that Hitler believed in and people like you invert the Nazi racism and have decided that the non-existence of a Jewish "race" rules out the existence of Jewish *peoplehood*. However, Jews around the world over the past 2 millenia,have had a consciousness of nationhood and a sense of common national identity and are largely related to each other. The Jew whose ancestors lived in Poland shares closer common ancestry with the Jew whose ancestor lived in Iraq than he does with the Gentile Poles, this has been established by genetic studies. To be sure, non-Jews have always entered the Jewish nation through conversion and marriage and thus become part of our people. As a Greek, you should know that your ancestors did not consider the Jews living in your midst as "fellow Greeks"--most of them spoke either Ladino or Romaniote until recently and had a separate ethnic identity from the Greek people. Jews are a nation, and have always been so and like every nation deserve the right to self-determination in their historic homeland, Eretz Yisrael. (We have no interest in "Palestine" or any other fictional place.)

To All those that have a problem with USA Citizens volunteering to Israel lets go back i n history...when we became a nation struggling for freedom we had FRENCH AND POLISH General fighting along side our soldiers against England ( you consider them Heros) when Spain had a civil War alot of Americans went to fight against Franco and died for the liberty of Spain( (when they came back to the USA they all lost their citizenship) but they were heros and fought for their beleives When World War II Came thousands of American boys went over to England or Canada and joined the Royal Airforce against Hitler how about the American boys the volunteered and joined the CHINESE airforce known as the FLYING TiGERS they fought like HELL and gave the Japanese a fight on their hands even though they were out numbered Remember these boys and girls who are volunteering to IDF do not have a DOUBLE STANDARD ...they love the USA also ..but the usa is not in Danger of innihalation Israel,london spain. china and the American Revolution) These Jewish Volunteers do not fight against American interest. Israel is an ally of the USA .why don't you look at the Pentagon most of our Joint Chief of Staff have close relationship with the Israeli generals and on a personal level. Israeli intelligence work together with the USA on terrorist threats against USA Citizens So it takes a special breed of person with true grit to make his or her choice to sacrifice everything for their beleives and people like yourself are coward because you criticize these young brave people for what they stand for in the past or the present and people like you do not have the cou8rage to stand up you would even permit the USA to be bombed by Terror and as long as you are safe in the little world you live in ...you would want America to get out of Afganistan and let the Taliban come back and support AL QUAIDA to rebuilt and strike the U.S.A. again. I will even go further ...you are against Israel or the USA to Bomb Iran...but what if i tell you that Iran has plans to sent regular missiles to destroy all the OIL REFINERIES in the Middle East..It will Cost about $7.00-10.00 a gallon of gas for the USA ...That is without Israel attacking Iran....What do you say now I you ready to sent our American boys to fight IRAN so your gas will be a little cheaper Remember 1991 -when Saddam invaded Kwuiat he was no threat to theUSA is just threatened the Gas .that it he was not part of al QUAIDA so to show you what you are you are what the 3rd world calls you an impearilist for economic reasons you justify going and taking over a country( Kwuiat is still a monarch kingdon and Iraq even though they had election they still have secterain violenceSunni againt shite and in Afgahasta you got a gangster and dope dealer running the country so wher is the Demcoracy our soldiers are dying for. The reason we are their is to fight the battle of terror of their soil not on our simple. So these couages volunteer go to Israel to fight the same war because that is what they feel in their souls they have to do to fight the injustice. If one of them happens to kill a terrorist of Hamas,Hizballah or other terror organization How do we know that if this guy lived maybe he would volunteer for special terror polt in the free world. Look at all the terror cells they are all connected somehow...so Israel is also fighting s frontline War on terror and I am 62 year ols and i no longer can fight for the right of people to live free...I say to you young one go volunteer and millions of people who love freedom and liberty bless you. You have others who walked the path before you, But remember a nations is created from the dreams of its founders .But it exist mainly from nameless individuals like yourselves sacrificing their lives that the dreams of its founder can come tr

for their commitment to their people, its a healthy self esteem, although I'm not Jewish or even religious in any way, but I believe in Israel's right to exist and maintain its sovereignty. I greatly admire how Israel has resurrected the Hebrew language, they've managed to obtain something most American Indians only dream about; resurrect their language from near extinction. I would love for more native tribes to establish a relationship with Israel, and learn from them somehow on how to accomplish such a thing here. Preserving those languages should be a priority to the US government who tried to wipe them out. Am Yisrael Chai xoxo

I agree with *almost everything, well said!! And if it were possible for me to volunteer in the IDF as an American, non Jew, I would, simply because I believe in their mission more than the mission my own govt is involved in now, which is a foolhardy campaign to spread democracy in the middle east, which only replaces one dictatorship and one theocracy with another(never ending war). At least Israel is simply fighting for its survival, I can respect that.