The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory. Let us help to will our own better future and the better future of the world—not renounce our higher gift and say, ‘Let us be as if we were not among the populations’; but choose our full heritage, claim the brotherhood of our nation, and carry into it a new brotherhood with the nations of the Gentiles. The vision is there; it will be fulfilled.
GEORGE ELIOT, 1876,
in ‘Daniel Deronda’.
No British Jew would be less British because he looked upon the cradle of his race with pride, and at the religious centre of his faith with happiness and reverence.
SIR MARK SYKES, 1918.
A JEWISH NATIONAL HOME[61]
FOREIGN OFFICE,
November 2, 1917.
DEAR LORD ROTHSCHILD,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:—