Nottingham. Mass Meeting, 21st Oct., representing Nottingham Hebrew Congregation, Palestine Association, Order of Ancient Maccabeans (Mount Ephraim Beacon), Independent Order B’nei Brith (Jacob Lasker Lodge), Grand Order of Israel (David Snapper Lodge), United Garment Workers of Great Britain (Nottingham Branch).
Belfast. Belfast Synagogue.
Dublin. Mass Meeting of Dublin Jewry, 21st Oct.; Independent Order of B’nei Brith (King Solomon Lodge No. 17); Order of Ancient Maccabeans (Mount Carmel Beacon No. 10); Agudas Hazionim; and Dublin Daughters of Zion.
The Times, on Oct. 23rd, noticed these demonstrations of sympathy with Zionism under the heading, “Palestine for the Jews: British support of the proposal”; and on Oct. 26th, in an editorial strongly urged on the Government the necessity of making an announcement of its policy in favour of Zionism.
The anti-Zionist views of the representatives of a small section of English Jewry were not only in opposition to Jewish public opinion, but even more in striking contrast with non-Jewish opinion, as revealed by the press of the United Kingdom.
The Westminster Gazette, in its issue of August 26th, 1916, published an article on “Zionism,” in the course of which the writer emphasized that:—
“All they ask for is for a home for the Jewish people—not for all the Jews of the world, but only for the nucleus of the Jewish people, and above all, for their special type of civilization, for Judaism. They have no desire to dispossess any other people. They point to a land, to the land which is historically theirs, which to-day is lying vacant for want of a people to rejuvenate it. There, they say, Judaism will find that freedom which is unattainable elsewhere: at their hands the land which has languished for centuries can again be restored to the circle of bountiful regions, and become as of old, a granary for other nations.”
Lord Cromer, writing in the Spectator on August 12th, 1916, said:—
“What is it that Zionists want? The idea that they wish the Jews of all races to be congregated together in Palestine may at once be dismissed as absurd. Nothing of the sort is proposed. Neither do they want to establish a mere colony in the sense in which that term is usually employed. Zionism stands for a national revival.”
The New Statesman, on July 8th, 1916, dealt editorially with “The Meaning of Zionism”:—