“Your obedient servants,

Swaythling
Chas. S. Henry
Matthew Nathan
Lionel Abrahams⁠[¹]
Isidore Spielmann
Edward D. Stern
Israel Abrahams
Leonard L. Cohen
Ernest L. Franklin Israel Gollancz
Michael A. Green
H. S. Q. Henriques
Joshua M. Levy
Laurie Magnus
Edmund Sebag-Montefiore
Arthur Reginald Moro
Philip S. Waley
Albert M. Woolf

“May 29th.”

[¹] “Sir Lionel Abrahams signs subject to the opinion that, in view of the statement made by the President of the English Zionist Federation on May 20, a further attempt at co-operation between the Conjoint Committee and the Zionist organisations in the United Kingdom is now desirable.”

There were soon widespread signs that the congregations supposed to be represented by the Board of Deputies did not agree with the views expressed in the manifesto. Thus the seatholders of the New Synagogue, Stamford Hill, carried a motion calling upon their representatives at the Board of Deputies and the Conjoint Committee to resign. This was passed with only two dissentients. Synagogues in Manchester and Liverpool and the Committee of Deputies in Manchester, Yorkshire and Cheshire expressed regret at the action of the President of the Board of Deputies in “committing the Board to a policy for which the Board has given him no kind of authority.” The Belfast Congregation passed a similar resolution and also expressed confidence in Dr. Weizmann and the Zionist movement. Congregations in Birkenhead, Cardiff, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Limerick, Merthyr Tydvil, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Newport (Mon.), Swansea and Wallasey took similar action. In Leeds a meeting was held representative of all the Jewish congregations and organizations; in Manchester the Jewish representative Council condemned the action of the Conjoint Committee. Indeed, throughout the United Kingdom Synagogues, Friendly Societies, Jewish Charitable Organizations and nearly every kind of Jewish institution made a public protest against the Manifesto, and declared in favour of Zionism.

These widespread signs of dissatisfaction with the existing leadership of the body which had hitherto claimed to be the official spokesman for Jewish opinion in England, was destined to lead to a complete change of government in that body.

It is true that at the meeting of the Anglo-Jewish Association on June 3rd Dr. Gaster’s resolution of censure was not put to the vote. But on Sunday, 17th June, at a meeting of the Board of Deputies a resolution of censure on the Conjoint Committee, calling upon the representatives of the Board to resign from the Conjoint Committee, was carried by fifty-six votes to fifty-one. Mr. H. S. Q. Henriques, the Vice-President of the Board, spoke in defence of the Manifesto. In his speech he said the Conjoint Committee had on the 17th May granted permission to the Presidents to publish the statement when they thought it advisable to do so, but he had himself been surprised that they had published it so soon. Mr. Gilbert said that in October he had asked if any Manifesto then existed or was contemplated and had been told that the suggestion was “malicious and wicked.” Sir Philip Magnus, Bart., said he had heard of the Manifesto a week or so before Mr. Henriques. From these statements it becomes clear that the document was compiled by a few of those thoroughly Anglicized Jews who, themselves very comfortably off in England, and about equally ignorant of the main currents of life in that country and of the main currents of Jewish life anywhere, were in their complacent self-satisfaction of opinion that they expressed the views of English Jews, when in reality they did not in the slightest degree represent the views of the overwhelming majority.

In consequence of the vote of censure, the Honorary Officers, Mr. David L. Alexander, K.C., the President; Mr. H. S. Q. Henriques, M.A., B.C.L., the Vice-President; and Mr. Joshua M. Levy, the Treasurer, resigned.

The Board of Deputies later attempted to restore the irresponsible power of a non-elective and unrepresentative committee having power to speak for the Jews of England. This new Conjoint Committee was to consist of the Foreign Committees of the two bodies, the Board of Deputies and Anglo-Jewish Association, meeting together to deal with Foreign affairs affecting the Jews. “Except in matters of routine or urgency,” the parent bodies have to be consulted before any action is taken. The question of Zionism was declared outside the province of the Joint Committee unless specially delegated to such Committee by both parent bodies. This scheme was adopted at a meeting of the Board of Deputies held on January 20th, 1918.

Meantime the question of a general manifesto in favour of Zionist aims, not only by organized adherents of the movement but by the Anglo-Jewish Community generally, having become of urgent importance, the Council of the English Zionist Federation issued an appeal to Jewish organizations throughout the country to convene meetings in order to pass resolutions in the following terms:⁠—