“I have no desire to ask for space in your columns to examine with what justification these two gentlemen and the school they speak for claim that they have always hoped and worked for a Jewish regeneration in Palestine. But I am anxious to correct two statements which might possibly generate serious misconception in the minds of those not well informed as to Zionism and Zionist projects.
“1. It may possibly be inconvenient to certain individual Jews that the Jews constitute a nationality. Whether the Jews do constitute a nationality is, however, not a matter to be decided by the convenience of this or that individual. It is strictly a question of fact. The fact that the Jews are a nationality is attested by the conviction of the overwhelming majority of Jews throughout all ages right to the present time, a conviction which has always been shared by non-Jews in all countries.
“2. The Zionists are not demanding in Palestine monopolies or exclusive privileges, nor are they asking that any part of Palestine should be administered by a chartered company to the detriment of others. It always was and remains a cardinal principle of Zionism as a democratic movement that all races and sects in Palestine should enjoy full justice and liberty, and Zionists are confident that the new suzerain whom they hope Palestine will acquire as a result of the war will, in its administration of the country, be guided by the same principle.
“In conclusion I should like to express my regret that there should be even two Jews who think it their duty to exert such influence as they may command against the realization of a hope which has sustained the Jewish nation through 2000 years of exile, persecution, and temptation.”
These letters of protest led to the publication of a leading article entitled “The Future of the Jews” in The Times of 29th May, which showed that this paper is firmly convinced of the justice of the Zionist cause. The article was of so much importance that it is quoted in full:—
“The important controversy which has sprung up in our columns upon the future of the Jews deserves careful and sympathetic attention. The war has given prominence to many questions that seemed formerly to be outside the range of practical politics. None of them is more interesting than that of the bearing of Zionism—that is to say, of the resettlement of a Jewish nationality in Palestine—upon the future of the Jewish people. In the statement which we published last Thursday from the Conjoint Committee of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association exception was taken to Zionist plans for the creation of a national Jewish community ‘in a political sense,’ and pointed arguments were directed against them. In the opinion of the Committee, such plans are ‘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.’ Against this theory the Committee ‘strongly and earnestly protest,’ on grounds which, in so far as they are set forth in the statement, are sufficiently clear. The Committee claim that they are fully alive to the special meaning of Palestine for the Jewish race. They are anxious that in Palestine the civil and religious liberties of Jews should be secured. But they affirm that ‘emancipated Jews’ in this country have no ‘separate national aspirations in a political sense.’ Such Jews regard themselves ‘primarily as a religious community,’ and have always ‘based their claims to political equality with their fellow-citizens of other creeds on this assumption.’ They fear lest the establishment of a Jewish nationality in Palestine stamp the Jews as strangers in their native lands and undermine ‘their hard-won position as citizens and nationals of those lands.’ The Committee proceed to argue that since ‘the Jewish religion’ is ‘the only certain test of a Jew, the Jewish nationality must be founded on, and limited by religion.’ It follows, they believe, that a Jewish nationality would be obliged to ‘express itself politically’ by religious intolerance, and would thus undermine the very principle which Jews have invoked to secure their emancipation. The Committee further insist that the bestowal by Charter of ‘certain special rights in excess of those enjoyed by the rest of the population’ would be a questionable boon to a Jewish community in Palestine, because in all the countries in which Jews live ‘the principle of equal rights for all religious denominations’ is vital to them.
“It seems to us that in attempting to define Jewish nationality in terms of religion the Committee come dangerously near to begging the question which they raise; and no question can be solved by begging it. As Dr. Weizmann, the President of the English Zionist Federation, observes in the letter which we published yesterday, it may possibly be inconvenient to certain individual Jews that the Jews do constitute a nationality. The question is one of fact, not of argument, and the fact that the Jews are a nationality ‘is attested by the conviction of the overwhelming majority of Jews throughout all ages.’ This conviction, he rightly says, ‘has always been shared by non-Jews in all countries.’ But more immediately important than this discussion of a point which cannot seriously be disputed is the denial by eminent and influential Jewish leaders like Lord Rothschild and the Chief Rabbi of the title of the Conjoint Committee to speak for British Jewry, or, indeed, for ‘the larger mass of the Jewish people.’ Lord Rothschild writes: ‘We Zionists cannot see how the establishment of an autonomous Jewish State, under the ægis and protection of one of the Allied Powers, can be considered for a moment to be in any way subversive of the position or loyalty of the very large part of the Jewish people who have identified themselves thoroughly with the citizenship of the countries in which they live.’ The Chief Rabbi insists that the statement of the Conjoint Committee does not represent in the least the views held ‘either by Anglo-Jewry as a whole or by the Jewries of the Oversea Dominions.’
“Authoritative declarations such as these dispose of the contention that Zionism is not representative of Jewish aspirations. We believe it in fact to embody the feelings of the great bulk of Jewry everywhere. The interest of the world outside Jewry is that these aspirations, in so far as they may be susceptible of realization, should be fairly faced on their merits. It is too often imagined that the Jewish question can be solved by the mere removal of all artificial restrictions upon Jewish activities. Even a superficial acquaintance with the conditions of life in the congested Jewish communities of Galicia and Russia suggests the inadequacy of that solution. The truth is that the Jewish question cannot be exhaustively defined either in terms of religion or of race. It has important social, economic, financial, and political sides. The importance of the Zionist movement—apart from its territorial aspect—is that it has fired with a new ideal millions of poverty-stricken Jews cooped up in the ghettoes of the Old World and the New. It has tended to make Jews proud of their race and to claim recognition, as Jews, in virtue of the eminent services rendered by Jewry to the religious development and civilization of mankind. Only an imaginative nervousness suggests that the realization of territorial Zionism, in some form, would cause Christendom to round on the Jews and say, ‘Now you have a land of your own, go to it!’ The Jews who feel themselves to be British, French, or American would, doubtless, tend to identify themselves more than ever with the lands of their political allegiance and to become more and more a solely religious community. The rapid changes of nationality that have been so noticeable among Jews in the past would become increasingly discredited. The international solidarity of Jews would undoubtedly persist—though, with a lessening of the danger of religious persecution, the leading Jews of all countries might feel freer to make a public stand against tendencies which sometimes bring the Jewish name into disrepute. We note with satisfaction the assurance of the Conjoint Committee that, if their specific misgivings can be removed, ‘they will be prepared to co-operate in securing for Zionist organizations the united support of Jewry.’ It is in this direction, we believe, that progress lies.”
On the 1st of June The Times contained a letter adding the names of the Anglo-Jews who supported the view taken by the Conjoint Presidents. The letter read as follows:—
“Sir,—As the representative character of the Jewish Conjoint Committee has been publicly challenged, we, being Jews of British birth and nationality, actively engaged in public work in the Anglo-Jewish community, desire to state that we approve of, and associate ourselves with, the statement on the Palestine question recently issued by the committee, and published in The Times of the 24th inst.