On November 11, 1918, 11:00 AM, an agreement signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiegne France, ended hostilities on the Western front and signified the end of the First World War.
When the war initially broke out in early August 1914, few thought that it would become a destructive conflagration that it did, taking the lives of millions of soldiers and civilians. Finally, its end was near, but there would be many consequences.
Jews were devoted to their host nations and served in every army. On the Eastern Front, Jewish civilians suffered enormous casualties due to pogroms and expulsions which resulted in a severe refugee crisis causing starvation and disease.
In the Land of Israel, Jews suffered under the brutal rule of the Ottoman Turks who had joined the Central Powers a few months after the war’s outbreak.
The end of the war raised hopes among Jews that their patriotism and sacrifices would end age old anti-Jewish hatreds, but that hope would not be realized.
Many Jews also hoped that after two thousand years of exile, they would achieve independence, in their ancient homeland.
In March 15, 1917, as a direct consequence of the fighting on the Eastern front between Russia and the Central Powers, Russia collapsed and the Czar, who abdicated the throne, was replaced by the provisional government under the control of Alexander Kerensky. The new leader denounced anti-Semitism and granted emancipation to the Jews.
Some Jews enthusiastically hailed the changes as a long awaited moment of liberation for oppressed Russian Jewry. But Kerensky would not last, and the nightmare of Czarist Russia would soon become that of Soviet rule. With Russia’s transformation, under communism, anti-Semitism morphed into a brutal 
The end of the war raised the hopes among Jews that their patriotism and sacrifices would end age old anti-Jewish hatreds, but that hope would not be realized.
war against Judaism that would last for decades.
At the conclusion of the war, the Ukraine, where well over one million Jews resided was the scene of a bloody three way civil war between Ukrainian Nationalists, Bolshevik forces, and the anti-Bolshevik White Army under Anton Denikin.
In the fighting, all parties committed atrocities against the Jews. The forces under Simon Petliura massacred tens of thousands. Pogrom survivors fled their homes and as refugees often perished from starvation and disease.
This catastrophe, comparable to that perpetrated by the Cossacks under Bogdan Chmielniski in 1648-1649, is directly connected to the First World War and the fall of the Russian regime.
The war also had a role in heightened levels of xenophobia in the US and other Western nations which contributed to the enactment of legislation drastically reducing immigration. The quotas imposed in the USA in 1921, and in the 1924 Johnson Reed Act would remain in effect even as Jewish refugees were desperately seeking asylum from Germany in the late 1930’s.
The defeat of the Ottoman Turkish-German forces in the Middle East campaign by British and Anzac troops paved the way for the British pronouncement of Jewish Statehood, the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917.
Excitement enveloped the Jewish world. Could this gesture signify the long awaited amelioration of Jewish suffering? Was the dream of a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel to be realized in the immediate future?
Following the war, attempts by the British who were given the mandate over the Land of Israel, to accommodate promises made to both Jews and Arabs concerning the future of the land, were met with fierce Arab opposition including waves of terror and violence.
The British responded with acquiescence to Arab opposition by imposing restriction upon Jews while still seeking some form of compromise until the final act of appeasement, the MacDonald White Paper of 1939, which negated the original Balfour Declaration. High hopes became bitter disappointment- another catastrophic blow to Jewry.
The First World War led to the Second World War: Provisions in the Versailles treaty ratified after the war infuriated the German people. The Versailles treaty also helped damage the German economy, and desperate Germans turned to the extremism of Adolf Hitler.
Another factor which significantly contributed to the rise of Nazism was that the hyper-nationalism which had gripped Germany in its pre-World War One days had persisted among the people despite their defeat to the allies. The years 1918 to 1939 can be seen as a respite in the fighting--between Germany and the allied nations.
The era following the First World War was ominous for Jewry.
The Jews of Russia, now under Soviet rule, would be forced to endure another long era of persecution.
Polish Jewry residing within the recently declared independent nation of Poland would face a new wave of persecution.
The horrific massacres of Jews in the Ukraine in 1919-1920 were a presage to mass murder of Jews during the next Nazi invasion of Eastern Europe.
After the war, Nazism was already taking root, soon to threaten the Jews of Europe who would be denied sanctuary by the nations of the world and the British controlled mandate over the Land of Israel.
The Balfour Declaration was nullified by the British, but it could not be erased. It did not create Jewish Statehood as so many Jews had fervently hoped, but it did engender international support which helped bring about its eventuality.