Morris and Harry Zeital were living in east London when the war started in 1914. As both members of a Jewish family that had been persecuted in Russia and committed socialists they had several reasons for objecting to war. In 1916 both were married with children. Morris, the elder of the two, was not conscripted as officially he was a Russian citizen. His younger cousin, Harry, was and, as an absolutist, quickly found himself in prison. Morris may have become eligible for conscription in 1917, when the Administration of Allied Aliens came into law - a punitive bill aimed squarely at London's Jewish community.