During World War II, some 20,000 Jews, 6 percent of the country’s overall Jewish population, served in Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF), of whom 900 gave their lives. The proportion of Jews among those who fought in the Battle of Britain—the epic aerial confrontation in which the RAF successfully repelled Germany’s efforts to bomb the United Kingdom into submission—was twice Jews’ proportion in the total population. But, notes Robert Philpot, the story of Anglo-Jewry’s contribution to the war efforts is little known:

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz came to Washington and met with his American counterpart Mark Esper to discuss the possibility that the U.S. will sell its top-of-the-line F-35 jets to the United Arab Emirates. Despite the breakthrough in relations between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi, many Israelis fear that selling the aircraft to the UAE would erode the Jewish state’s qualitive military edge over its neighbors—which the U.S. is required to by an act of Congress to uphold. Shimon Arad explains these concerns: