Zionism/Zionism and the Jewish Community
§15. Zionism and the Jewish Community
During the war, there have been cross-currents in Jewry which have resulted in a distinct triumph for the Zionists. The Palestine question is one of the great problems for the Peace Congress. The Governments of the Allied Powers, especially Great Britain, the United States, France, and Italy, are believed to see its solution in some government by or for the Jews. Most Zionists hope for this under the aegis of Great Britain. The great Jewish communal bodies, especially in England, have kept aloof from the Zionists. Russian pogroms and Rumania's disregard of the Treaty of Berlin inspired them with horror and indignation. But the Zionists, somewhat unfairly, taunt them because their feelings of generosity and philanthropy had diverted the Hirsch millions to South America rather than to Palestine, because their philanthropy was blind, and they seemed opposed to any scheme which went beyond almsgiving. As a matter of fact such communal bodies have done good and great work for their brethren. The co-operation of English and French Jews in the Damascus affair of 1840, when the Jewish quarter was sacked and Montefiore, Crémieux, and Munk were delegated to Alexandria and Constantinople, to intervene for their oppressed co-religionists, marked a turning-point in Jewish history. It was the first time that Western Jews had worked together for the protection of Jewish interests all over the world. A more recent instance of persecution, the forced abduction and baptism of Mortara in Rome, led to the establishment in 1860 at Paris of the Alliance Israélite Universelle. And, when the position of this international body was threatened by the Franco-Prussian War, it was deemed advisable, to found in England the Anglo-Jewish Association to carry on the work. The Association started as an English branch of the parent institution, but has, ever since 1871, maintained a separate existence, though the two have always preserved friendly and indeed intimate relations. Its successive presidents have been Jacob Waley, Baron H. de Worms. Sir Julian Goldsmid, M.P., and Claude G. Montefiore.
The Jewish Board of Deputies was founded in 1846 to watch the interests of the Jews of Great Britain and Ireland. Originally composed only of ‘'Deputies of the Portuguese Nation', it now consists of representatives of various Metropolitan and Provincial Synagogues, and may be taken to be fairly representative of the Jewish community in this country, although a considerable number of Jews resident in England are not members of such Synagogues. Among its presidents have been Sir Moses Montefiore, his nephews, J. M. Montefiore. Sir Joseph Sebag Montefiore. and Arthur Cohen Q.C., D. L. Alexander, K.C., and now Sir Stuart Samuel. The Board is concerned, inter alia, with the protection of rights of the Jews in this country in respect to such matters as marriages, Sabbath observance, &c. But, especially in Sir Moses' time, it never failed, in cases of emergency, to invite and beg the intervention of the Government when foreign Jews were being flagrantly persecuted.
The Anglo-Jewish Association was founded in 1871, to continue the work of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, which, before the Franco-Prussian War, had interested itself in the welfare of persecuted Jews all over the world. Its aims were 'to aid in promoting the social, moral, and intellectual progress of the Jew', and 'to obtain protection for those who may suffer in consequence of being Jews'. Accordingly, when any grave case of persecution arose, the Anglo-Jewish Association, like the Board of Deputies, sought the intervention of the British Government. This produced a certain amount of overlapping; and, from the year 1886, the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association appointed a 'conjoint' committee of both bodies to deal with the British Government in such cases. Its meetings were presided over alternately by the presidents of its constituents, and its political secretary was Mr. Lucien Wolf. This Conjoint Committee was composed of leading English Jews, and its relations with the British Government were always highly satisfactory. The Foreign Office never turned a deaf ear to its representations: and the Jews gratefully acknowledged that the Government could always he relied upon to bring its powerful influence to hear in lessening, and often preventing, the sufferings of Jewish victims of persecution. The Committee was in close touch with similar Jewish committees abroad, especially the American Jewish Committee, and its labours were attended with considerable success, so that, before the war, they had almost persuaded the Governments of Russia and Rumania to relax their Anti-Semitic legislation and administration. When the war broke out everything was altered. The persecuting Governments became our friends, and Palestine was a most important factor in the war policy of the Allies. To Zionists and non-Zionists alike the future of the country had become a matter of vital interest. On October 1, 1916, the Conjoint Committee submitted to H.M. Government the following formula in regard to Jewish interests in Palestine:
In the event of Palestine coming within the spheres of influence of Great Britain or France at the close of the war, the Governments of those Powers will not fail to take account of the historic interest that country possesses for the Jewish community. The Jewish population will be secured in the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, equal political rights with the rest of the population, reasonable facilities for immigration and colonization, and such municipal privileges in the towns and colonies inhabited by them as may be shown to be necessary.
Meantime the Zionists had entered into direct relations with the Foreign Office, and attempts were not wanting to bring the Conjoint Committee into line with them. But its formula fell short of the Basle programme, and no agreement could be arrived at. The Conjoint Committee instructed their two presidents to make the following public statement of their views as to Jewish resettlement and their objections to the Nationalist policy of the Zionists:
In view of the statements and discussions later published in the newspapers relative to a projected Jewish resettlement in Palestine on a national basis, the Conjoint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association deem it necessary to place on record the views they hold on this important question.
The Holy Land has necessarily a profound and undying interest for all Jews as the cradle of their religion, the main theatre of Bible History, and the site of its sacred memorials. It is not, however, as a mere shrine or place of pilgrimage that they regard the country. Since the dawn of their political emancipation in Europe, the Jews have made the rehabilitation of the Jewish community in the Holy Land one of their chief cares; and they have always cherished the hope that the result of their labours would be the regeneration on Palestinian soil of a Jewish community worthy of the great memories of their environment, and a source of spiritual inspiration to the whole of Jewry. Accordingly, the Conjoint Committee have welcomed with deep satisfaction the prospect of a rich fruition of this work, opened to them by the victorious progress of the British Army in Palestine.
The 'Cultural' Policy.—Anxious that on this question all sections and parties in Jewry should be united in a common effort, the Committee intimated to the Zionist organizations as far back as the winter of 1914 their readiness to co-operate with them on the basis of the so-called 'cultural' policy which had been adopted at the last two Zionist Congresses in 1911 and 1913. This policy aimed primarily at making Palestine a Jewish spiritual centre by securing for the local Jews, and the colonists who might join them, such conditions of life as would best enable them to develop the Jewish genius on lines of its own. Larger political questions, not directly affecting this main purpose, were left to be solved as need and opportunity might render possible. Unfortunately. an agreement on these lines has not proved practicable; and the Conjoint Committee are consequently compelled to pursue their work alone. They are doing so on the basis of a formula adopted by them in March 1916. in which they proposed to recommend to His Majesty's Government the formal recognition of the high historic interest Palestine possesses for the Jewish community, and a public declaration that at the close of the war 'the Jewish population will be secured in the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, equal political rights with the rest of the population, reasonable facilities for immigration and colonization. and such municipal privileges in the towns and colonies inhabited by them as may be shown to be necessary'.
That is still the policy of the Conjoint Committee.
Meanwhile the Committee have learnt from the published statements of the Zionist leaders in this country that they now favour a much larger scheme of an essentially political character. Two points in this scheme appear to the Committee to be open to grave objections on public grounds.
Nationality and religion.—The first is a claim that the Jewish settlements in Palestine shall be recognized as possessing a national character in a political sense. Were this claim of purely local import, it might well be left to settle itself in accordance, with the general political exigencies of the reorganization of the country under a new sovereign power. The Conjoint committee, indeed, would have no objections to urge against a local Jewish nationality establishing itself in such conditions. But the present claim is not of this limited scope. It is part and parcel of a wider Zionist theory which regards all the Jewish communities of the world as constituting one homeless nationality, incapable of complete social and political identification with the nations among whom they dwell; and it is argued that for this homeless nationality a political centre and an always available homeland in Palestine are necessary.
Against this theory the Conjoint Committee strongly and earnestly protest. Emancipated Jews in this country regard themselves primarily as a religious community, and they have always based their claims to political equality with their fellow-citizens of other creeds on this assumption, and on its corollary—that they have no separate national aspirations in a political sense. They hold Judaism to be a religious system with which their political status has no concern; and they maintain that, as citizens of the countries in which they live, they are fully and sincerely identified with the national spirit and interests of those countries. It follows that the establishment of a Jewish nationality in Palestine founded on this theory of Jewish homelessness must have the effect throughout the world of stamping the Jews as strangers in their native lands, and of undermining their hard-won position as citizens and nationals of those lands. Moreover a Jewish political nationality carried to its logical conclusion must in the present circumstances of the world he an anachronism. The Jewish religion being the only certain test of the Jew, a Jewish nationality must he founded on, and limited by, the religion. It cannot he supposed for a moment that any section of Jews would aim at a commonwealth governed by religious tests and limited in the matter of freedom of conscience; but can a religious nationality express itself politically in any other way? The only alternative would he a secular Jewish nationality recruited on some loose and obscure principle of race and ethnographic peculiarity; but this would not be Jewish in any spiritual sense, and its establishment in Palestine would be a denial of all the ideals and hopes by which the revival of Jewish life in that country commends itself to the Jewish consciousness and Jewish sympathy. On these grounds the Conjoint Committee deprecate most earnestly the national proposals of the Zionists.
Undesirable privileges.—The second point in the Zionist programme which has aroused the misgivings of the Conjoint Committee is the proposal to invest the Jewish settlers in Palestine with certain special rights in excess of those enjoyed by the rest of the population, these rights to be embodied in a Charter and administered by a Jewish Chartered Company. Whether it is desirable or not to confide any portion of the administration of Palestine to a Chartered Company need not he discussed; but it is certainly very undesirable that Jews should solicit or accept such a concession on a basis of political privilege and economic preferences. Any such action would prove a veritable calamity for the whole Jewish people. In all the countries in which they live the principle of equal rights for all religious denominations is vital for them. Were they to set an example in Palestine of disregarding this principle, they would convict themselves of having appealed to it for purely selfish motives. In the countries in which they are still struggling for equal rights they would find themselves hopelessly compromised, while in other countries where those rights have been secured they would have great difficulty in defending them.
The proposal is the more inadmissible because the Jews are, and will probably long remain, a minority of the population in Palestine. and because it might involve them in the bitterest feuds with their neighbours of other races and religions, which would seriously retard their progress. and would lind deplorable echoes throughout the Orient. Nor is the scheme necessary for the Zionists themselves. If the Jews prevail in a competition based on perfect equality of rights and opportunity, they will establish their eventual preponderance in the land on a far sounder foundation than any that can be secured by privileges and monopolies.
If the Conjoint Committee can be satisfied with regard to these points they will be prepared to co-operate for securing for the Zionist Organization the united support of Jewry.
(Signed)DAVID L. ALEXANDER,
President, Board of Deputies of British Jews.
CLAUDE G. MONTEFIORE,
London. May 17th, 1917.
This statement appeared in The Times of May 24, 1917, and raised a storm of protest in the Jewish community. Among the dissentients who wrote to The Times were the Chief Rabbi, Lord Rothschild, and a member of the Conjoint Committee, E. N. Adler, who pointed out that the statement did not represent the views of the majority either of Jews or non-Jews or even of the constituent assemblies which the Conjoint Committee represented. The Jewish Board of Deputies denounced the treaty with the Anglo-Jewish Association, and the Conjoint Committee came to an end. After considerable discussion, its place was taken by a 'Joint Committee' with a mandate to represent its constituents on all matters except Palestine; but in November 1918 this embargo was removed, and it is hoped that, in view of the moderation of present Zionist demands, these may be supported, or at any rate not opposed, by the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association. The irreconcilables formed themselves into a 'League of British Jews' so as to protect each other against the insinuation that they are aliens in the land of their birth, and that, as Jews, they cannot be Englishmen! The League is believed to have achieved no great success; and the Zionists, while denying that there is any ground for their fears, retort that those who wish to stay in the wilderness may stay there.
In Germany the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden was founded in 1901 for the relief of oppressed Jews abroad, and ultimately ousted the German branch of the Alliance Israelite. The Hilfsverein founded and supported schools in Palestine, and, largely owing to the liberality of two of its prominent members, Herr Jacob Simon and Dr. Paul Nathan, acquired very considerable influence there. At first it encouraged the use of the Hebrew language as the vehicle of instruction, but eventually it demanded, perhaps at the instigation of the Wilhelmstrasse, that Hebrew should for the most part be replaced by German. This method of German propaganda was attacked in August 1913 by a meeting of the Palestinian Teachers' Union held in Jaffa. Over a hundred teachers from all parts of Palestine attended, and almost unanimously passed a resolution that 'the principles of national education demand that all subjects of instruction shall he taught in the Hebrew language. and this meeting pledges the members of the Teachers' Union to fight with all energy against the instruction of secular subjects in a foreign language'.[1] In January 1914 the new Haifa Technical Institute, which drew its support from Jewry all over the world, especially from America, Russia, and Germany, was threatened with ruin by the bitter controversy which ensued. A suggested compromise only succeeded in fanning the indignation of the Zionists and young colonists and students of Palestine. Imposing demonstrations against the Hilfsverein were made in Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa, and also in Europe and the United States. Many of the teachers in the Hilfsverein schools resigned their posts or were dismissed. The war put an end to the controversy by stopping educational activities in Palestine for the time; but, as Mr. Israel Cohen observes,
It is not unreasonable to suppose the change of policy of the Hilfsverein was due to secret pressure exercised by the German Government, with a view to making the Jewish schools nurseries of Prussian Kultur. This sinister intention was ignominiously defeated through Palestinian Jewry rising to the defence of the Hebrew language as of its most holy possession.
- ↑ The German Attack on the Hebrew Schools in Palestine, by Israel Cohen (London, 1918)