In addressing the Unit in Paris, M. Tardieu, High Commissioner of the Government of the French Republic in the United States, said:—
“Vous savez avec quel intérêt sympathique le gouvernement français a suivi le progrès de l’idéal sioniste. De cet intérêt, le gouvernement français a donné des preuves dès le printemps de 1916, aussitôt que l’amélioration de la situation en Palestine nous a permis de regarder du côté de l’avenir. J’ai à peine besoin, ensuite, de vous rappeler la déclaration publique et officielle que le Ministre des Affaires Étrangères, M. Pichon, publiait si heureusement l’année dernière. S’il existe une nation naturellement faite pour comprendre la cause des Juifs et l’idéal juif, cela a été assurément toujours la nation française.”
Shortly before they left England the American Zionist Medical Unit were received by Mr. Balfour, who said he was very happy to be able to address the deputation of the Unit on their way to Palestine, where they were going to contribute their share to the beginnings of a great National undertaking. The far-reaching importance of the idea represented by Zionism was not sufficiently understood; the influence of that great National revival would be felt not only by those Jews who would settle in Palestine, but also by Jewry in every country of the world, and even by the other nations of humanity, for though Palestine was but a small country, the good which it had done for mankind was immeasurable. The destruction of Judea nineteen centuries ago was one of the great wrongs which the Allied Powers were trying to redress. This destruction was a national tragedy. It deprived the Jews of the opportunities enjoyed by other nations, to develop their national genius and their own spirit to the full extent of which it was capable. The Jews occupied a unique position among nations of the present day, because they lacked that element of nationality which appeared to be indispensable to a complete National life—to the possession of a National Home. The present moment witnessed the entrance on the world’s stage of great and important National factors, and he felt sure that among these the Zionist idea, which had already accomplished so much in Palestine, would play a noble and beneficial part. He congratulated the members of the Unit on their great humanitarian mission. He knew they were moved by a high idea and not by any self-seeking. Nothing, he said, could be accomplished in this world except under the inspiration of a great ideal. He wished them Godspeed and complete success.
Direct evidence of the spread of Zionism in America was furnished by a resolution of the American Jewish Committee, a body which has hitherto been held to represent the assimilated American Jews and to be hostile to Jewish nationalism, at a special meeting held on Sunday, April 28th, which was attended by, among others, Mr. Jacob Schiff, Mr. Louis Marshall, Dr. Cyrus Adler, ex-Judge Mack, and ex-Judge Sulzberger.
The Committee declared by the resolution that it could not be unmindful of the fact that there are Jews everywhere throughout the world who, moved by traditional Jewish sentiment, yearn for a Home in the Holy Land for the Jewish people. This hope, which has been nurtured for centuries, had the Committee’s whole-hearted sympathy. When therefore, the British Government made the Declaration which is now supported by the French Government, that it views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People, and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, the announcement was received by the members of the Committee with profound appreciation.
The Committee regards as of essential importance the conditions annexed to the Declaration, “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” The latter of these conditions corresponded entirely with the general principles on the basis of which the Committee had ever striven to attain civil and political rights for Jews the world over, and with the ideals of all American Jewry.
The opportunity foreshadowed by Mr. Balfour’s letter was welcomed by the Committee, which would help to the best of its power to realise in Palestine, placed under such protectorate or suzerainty as the Peace Congress may determine, the objects set forth in the Declaration; and the Committee resolved to co-operate with all those who, attracted by religious or historic associations, shall seek to establish in Palestine a centre for Judaism for the stimulating of our faith, the pursuit and development of literature, science, and art in a Jewish environment, and the rehabilitation of the Land.
The British and Italian Governments indicated to the Zionist Organization their interest in the welfare of the Jewish people by the opinion they expressed with regard to the clause in the Rumanian-German Treaty referring to Jewish rights. Ever since the Treaty of Berlin, the position of the Rumanian Jews had been one of the scandals of Europe. That Treaty forbade all legal discriminations on account of religious faith. This clause was made a useless “scrap of paper” by Rumania considering its Jews “aliens not subject to alien protection.” The Jew has been prevented from living in country districts or owning land outside towns. This does not prevent it from being a standing accusation against the Jews of Rumania that they do not work as agricultural labourers. They have been excluded from the civil service and the liberal professions; they have been disfranchised; factories and mills were forbidden to employ more Jewish workers than one quarter of their entire staff. Yet the Jews in Rumania by no means gave rise to this state of affairs by obvious separatism; the younger generation all spoke Rumanian, both at home and in intercourse with the outer world, and they wore no distinctive dress.
It should be stated that the Rumanians are a peasant people; the landowners, all Christians, are largely an absentee class, spending their money in Western Europe. Anti-Semitism has been a convenient safety-valve for diverting the discontent of the peasants from the real authors of their misery.
These anti-Jewish laws have caused an immense exodus of Jews from Rumania.