The plight of the Jews and their need for a homeland was recognised among some thinkers, such as John Toland, an Irish-born rationalist philosopher and freethinker. In 1718, he wrote a wise summary of the journey of the Jews:
‘Whether without having recourse to miracles, or to promises drawn from the Old Testament (which is the same thing, if you don’t take those promises for wise foresight) it can be demonstrated by the intrinsic constitution of the Government of Religion of the Jews, how, after the total subversion of their State for almost seventeen hundred years and after the dispersion of their nation across the whole habitable earth; being neither favoured nor supported by any potentate, but rather exposed to the contempt and hatred of all the world: they have nevertheless preserved themselves a distinct people with all their ancient rites.’
His solution was obvious to him and he advocated it to other thinkers around him; the Jews needed to return to their homeland and have an independent state:
‘Now if you will suppose with me (till my proofs appear) the pre-eminence and immortality of the MOSAIC REPUBLIC in its original purity, it will follow: that, as the Jews known at this day, and who are dispersed over Europe, Asia, Africa, with some few in America, are found by good calculation to be more numerous that either the Spaniards (for example) or the French: so if they ever happen to be resettled in Palestine upon their original foundation, which is not at all impossible: they will then by reason of their excellent constitution, be much more populous, rich and powerful than any other nation now in the world. I would have you consider, whether it be not both the interest and duty of Christians to assist them in regaining their country’
This was an amazing prophetic insight into the reality that the Jews had been uplifted from their roots over the centuries and should be assisted to return to their own State. However, Toland was a voice crying in the wilderness and the grotesque religious persecution of the Jews continued, showing no respect for age. In 1721, in a Spanish Inquisition auto-da-fé at Madrid, Maria Barbara Carillo, aged 95, was executed for heresy for reverting to her original faith of Judaism. Peter the Great of Russia had welcomed Jews and the money they could bring, but that welcome was not extended by others. Borukh Leibov, a Jew who had prospered and was a customs and excise officer, built a synagogue in Zverovich in 1727, which raised the anger of the local Greek Orthodox priest, and began a series of rumours and slander about the Jews trying to convert Christians, ultimately leading to protests to the Holy Synod in St Petersburg. Subsequently, Catherine of Russia, on coming to the throne, issued a ukase (decree) through the Supreme Secret Council, that removed Borukh from his employment and expelled him from Russia. This was followed later by the expulsion of all Jews, who were forbidden to take any gold or silver coins out of the country. Simon Dubnow noted:
‘The Jews, both of the male and the female sex, who have settled in the Ukraina and in other Russian cities, be deported immediately from Russia beyond the border, and in no circumstances be admitted into Russia, of which fact they shall in all places be strictly forewarned.’
Many of these Russian Jews had moved out of the Russian borders proper into Poland, but even there they were not allowed to settle peacefully. In 1737, bands of haidamacks (rebels), who were peasants from the Greek Orthodox Church led and organised by Cossacks, devastated many towns and villages, killing and robbing many Jews. This continuing narrative of suffering was further seen in the activities of the Inquisition even as far away as Peru, where autos-da-fé, often illegal, sought out Jews and those who were alleged to have reverted from Christianity to Judaism. The idea of Aliyah was once more raised in the consciousness of Jews, as was the concern for the physical and spiritual condition of their brethren in Palestine, and a group of around thirty of them led by Hayyim ben Moses Attar, a Moroccan Jewish teacher made their way there. They eventually, after delays, reached Jerusalem in 1742 and Hayyim established a Yeshiva (Jewish learning academy), that became the prodigious, Midrash Keneset Israel Yeshivah. His greatest hope was to see the Aliyah of as many Jews as possible come to the Holy Land and re-establish the Jewish people in their homeland. He was not alone in his hopes. Dr. Arie Morgenstern, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, noted:
‘Recently discovered historical sources from the period indicate that the messianic expectations that preceded the year 1740 sparked a mass immigration to Palestine lasting many years. These immigrants, whose numbers reached several thousand within a decade, arrived in Palestine from all over the diaspora, and particularly from within the Ottoman Empire and Italy. They settled mostly in Tiberius and Jerusalem, two cities that the Talmudic tradition had singled out for a central role in the redemption.’
There is no doubt that this caused two things to happen in Palestine: The lot of the Jews themselves improved but their Arab neighbours became alarmed at the rising number of Jews around them. Encouragement to the Jews was also given when Ottoman authorities invited Rabbi Haim Abulafia, the renowned Kabbalist and Rabbi of Izmir, to rebuild the city of Tiberius, after 70 years of ruin. Amidst the Messianic fervour this was one more sign of the coming of the Messiah and restoration of Israel. Elsewhere, there was also a change of attitude towards Jews (and others) in England in 1740 with the Naturalisation Act for the American colonies. This allowed Jews to become naturalised English without taking specifically Christian oaths:
‘The law provided that any person born out of allegiance of the king of England who had resided in the colonies for seven years, and during that period had not been out of them at any one time for more than two months, could be naturalised by taking the oaths and subscribing to the declaration. Then act permitted Quakers to affirm and in the administrating oaths to Jews the words “upon the true faith of a Christian” were to be omitted.’
A small step and which still left a long way to go for Jews in England but at least it was recognition of the rights of a Jew to be part of a country without forsaking the Jewish religion. Yet in England, a law had been passed to force Catholics and Jews to have their children taught in Protestant schools and the Naturalisation Act would run into difficulty later when it was attempted to introduce it on English soil.
In 1472, Elizabeth of Russia turned once more against the Jews stating, ‘they [the Jews] will not be admitted to Our Empire for any purpose’. Despite protests from some quarters, the expulsion was approved and a note from Elizabeth was adamant, ‘from the enemies of Christ, I desire no profit’. In 1744, Frederick the Great, of whom the German associate of Hitler, Hanfstangl, noted, ‘For years the great Frederick was his [Hitler’s] hero and he never tired of quoting examples of the king’s success in building up Prussia in the face of overwhelming odds.’ The ‘king’s success’ was in increasing civic disabilities and imposing severe laws, restrictions and taxes on the Jewish people, and only tolerating and protecting them for their financial benefit to Prussia. Frederick issued an edict, Revidiertes General Privilegium und Reglement vor die Judenschaft, (Revised General Privileges and Regulations on the Jews) which declared the ‘protected’ Jews had an alternative to ‘either abstain from marriage or leave Berlin’. In Austria, the Archduchess Maria Theresa made funds available for an anti-Semitic newspaper, Oesterreichischer Volksfreund (Friend of the People); this would be used to spread the anti-Jew message in Austria. She also believed that Jews were the embodiment of the Antichrist and in 1744 expelled them from Bohemia and Moravia, although after pressure from abroad she changed her mind but made them pay a tax to re-enter the country. Her bitterness towards the Jewish people even extended to Jewish family life when she introduced a law in 1752 limiting each Jewish family to one son.
England also was the scene of struggle for the Jews, when two acts of parliament were introduced in 1753, one for Naturalisation of Jews and one on the prevention of clandestine marriage. The occasion brought out much anti-Semitic views with strong arguments against the Jewish people and the uttering of many slanders in parliament. Speaking in favour of the Jews, Lord Lyttleton declared, ‘he who hated another man for not being a Christian, was not a Christian himself’. Others argued, ‘that it was flying directly in the face of God and of prophecy which had declared that they should be scattered over the face of the earth, without any country or fixed abode’. The passing of the bills was irrelevant as outside parliament, a crowd created a disturbance against the Jews, so much so that a repeal bill was passed within days. It is therefore no wonder that Aliyah to the improving situation in Palestine under the Ottomans became more and more attractive to many Jews.
However, there was the interruption of peace in Palestine as a Bedouin chieftain rose up against the Ottomans and established an independent state under Arab control. Zahir al-Omar, held a prominent position in the Bedouin community and had seized territory in Upper Galilee. The Pasha of Sidon, responsible for the area under the Ottomans, allowed him to collect taxes, hoping this would prevent any expansion by al-Omar. This was not to be as instead he used the taxes to extend his military might and took control of more areas even up to Haifa with access to the sea routes. Despite attempts to defeat him, al-Omar continued his drive for independence, which was improved when the Ottomans were diverted by the war against Russia in 1768. Further encouragement was given when an Egyptian Mameluke Governor of Cairo, Mohammed Ali Bey, also rebelled against Ottoman rule and allied with al-Omar. At one point the whole of Palestine, with the exception of Jerusalem, was under al-Omar’s control. Eventually the defeat of his ally, Ali Bey, and the overwhelming might of the Ottomans defeated him and the area returned to Ottoman control. One intriguing event at this time occurred at Leghorn in Italy. Ali Bey met with the Jewish community there and made them an amazing offer; to sell them Jerusalem. Apparently at that time, around 1771/2, he did control areas of Jerusalem. A group of German officers, allied with the Russians, conducted the negotiations; the price was exorbitant and also included a demand that Russia assist Ali Bey in his ambitions. The latter was agreed, and the Jews of Leghorn approached other European Jews to assist in raising the money. The purchase would not have allowed an independent state for the Jews, but they had controversial plans to rebuild the Temple with Messianic hopes underlining their actions. The defeat of Ali Bey in 1772 brought an end to his ambitions and to the negotiations and once more Jewish hopes of a return to their roots met with disappointment.
In Palestine, many Jews relied heavily on their fellows in the Diaspora and life was not always easy. There were also outbreaks of hostility in some areas, like Hebron, where in 1775 a case of Blood Libel was made and the Jews were falsely accused of murdering the son of a local sheikh. Despite there being no grounds for the charges, the community was made to pay a heavy fine, which depleted their meagre resources. Despite these occasional outbursts, the Palestinian Jewish community still preferred to live in the Holy Land rather than in the European hot bed of persecution. This was reinforced when Pius VI issued an edict concerning the Jews, an edict that set back the Jewish situation by two centuries and would last twenty-five years. The edict was harsh; a Jew found outside the ghetto at night would be condemned to death and the humiliating ‘yellow sign’ was now to be carried within the town-walls of the ghetto whereas, until the edict, it had to be carried only outside the ghetto. Their religion was also attacked as the study of the Talmud was forbidden and the funeral cortei was no longer allowed when burying the dead. The employment of domestic Christians, women who went in into Jewish homes to light fire on Shabbat, was prohibited as was the making of the Menorah (lamps of seven arms for ritual use) by Christian silversmiths. This, along with the inability to work other than in rag collecting and other measures to restrict trade made life very difficult. The Jewish people could not even maintain good relations with their Christian neighbours as all relationships with them came under the ban. These were some of the forty-four clauses that were intended to humiliate and destroy the Jewish religion and traditions. It did not succeed but only increased the longing for the Messiah in the hearts and minds of the Jews in Catholic dominated countries.
This Messianic passion for the Holy Land was also found in a sect of Judaism that emerged and they were great enthusiasts for moving to Palestine. The Hassidim (pious ones), was founded by Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Ba’al Shem Tov, (Master of the Good Name). They especially would spread their message across Europe. Their existence had come about because of the terrible conditions of Jews in Ukraine and Poland and spurred on by the constant pogroms and heavy penalties imposed by the authorities. One of their parables explained the situation and why spiritual reform was needed:
‘An apprentice blacksmith, after he had learned his trade from the master, made a list for himself of how he must go about his craft. How he should pump the bellows, secure the anvil, and wield the hammer. He omitted nothing. When he went to work at the king’s palace, however, he discovered to his dismay that he could not perform his duties, and was dismissed. He had forgotten to note one thing – perhaps because it was so obvious – that first he must ignite a spark to kindle the fire. He had to return to the master, who reminded him of the first principle which he had forgotten.’
The Jewish people, it was believed, needed the spark of revival to flourish and this led to a flowering of piety and spiritual renewal and also an awakening of Messianic fervour. However, such religious enthusiasm was not well received by Orthodox Jews, particularly in White Russia (Belarus), who vigorously opposed the movement. Over the next twenty years many groups made plans to make Aliyah and sought to settle in the Holy Land and continued to look to the return of the Messiah. In 1777, a group of 300 made the journey and reached Safed, where there was great joy and excitement at their success of standing on holy ground and the possibilities of a settled future. The adjustment to life in Palestine was not easy as they experienced changes in culture and religious practice of the Jews there and the continuing need for employment. In Safed another problem arose from the opponents in White Russia, who sent letters to the older traditional Jews causing a campaign of resentment against the Hassidim, and the necessity to move to other areas, such as Tiberius. The Hassidim still put down deep roots and the group flourished, with the ongoing persecution in the Diaspora, causing many more to join them in Aliyah.
Despite the relative security provided by the Ottomans there were still some Moslems who did not have the same outlook. In Morocco, the situation was tragic for the Jews, as it had been on a number of occasions over the centuries, and they were required to live in walled ghettoes. In the time of the emperor, Sidi Mahomet, heavy taxation was imposed on the Jews, who Sidi believed were ‘not being in the road to salvation’ and he demanded that his son, Muley Ali, impose it. Muley Ali was in many ways a benevolent man, and tried to persuade his father not to impose any further burdens on the Jews:
‘Sire, the Jews are so poor that they are incapable of supporting their present taxes, and it is impossible I should exact from them new ones. Should you so please, you may dispose of the revenues of my government for the benefit of my brothers; but I earnestly supplicate you will not require me to oppress these people, and thus oblige me to increase wretchedness already too great.’
The plea did not change the heart of the man as the conditions of the Jews were difficult, as one traveller through Morocco noted:
‘… the Moors hold them [Christians] not in the least respect, and the Jews in still less, had they have power freely to make their aversion known. … The Jews possess neither lands nor gardens, nor can they enjoy their fruits in tranquillity; they must wear only black, and are obliged, when they pass near mosques, or through streets in which there are sanctuaries, to walk barefoot. The lowest among the Moors imagines he has a right to ill-treat a Jew, nor dares the latter defend himself, because the Koran and the Judge are always in favour of the Mahometan.’
In 1789, after the death of Sidi, the Sultan Moulay el Yazid carried out a massacre against the Jews, in the course of which there was the torture and rape of many women. It is remarkable that despite all the suffering and persecution the Jews endured, they continued passionately in their religion and some even prospered in service to more considerate Moroccan sultans.
The Ottomans continued to be the object of opposition from Christian Europe and the Jews became the centre of attention from both sides; on one hand, Christian Messianists, still seeking the return of the Messiah, saw the establishment of a strong Jewish state leading to the defeat of the Ottomans, whilst the Ottomans believed the building up of a strong Jewish community in Palestine would strengthen their rule in the area. Anti-Moslem politicians were also keen to exploit the situation as was an emerging leader of France, Napoleon Bonaparte. His agenda was the defeat of the British by first conquering Egypt, Syria and Palestine and from there to attack India, and he looked to the Jews to assist his plans. The Jews of France numbered around 36,000 before the revolution, which brought in the concept of the rights of man and equality of all people. This of course had an immediate impact on the Jews who now expected to have full liberation as citizens of France. There were two communities within the Jewish population, the community at Avignon, around 3,000, and the Sephardim, who were not assimilated into the French culture and language. The Avignonnais Jews on the other hand were not as observant as the Sephardim and had adopted most of the French way of life. They gained their equal status immediately, but the Sephardim had to fight for nearly a year to gain the same freedoms, which came in 1791. Freedom was a two-edged sword and came with the Socialist Republican attitude of a secular France, which sought even to restrict the Jewish right of circumcision. Churches and synagogues were closed down as the terror of the revolution spread and even though there was a measure of freedom for Jews, there were the concerns for the loss of identity as a distinct people. Napoleon’s arrival deepened their anxiety, as they were concerned that another Empire would bring them further suffering. However, Napoleon’s ambitions initially brought a French desire to keep the Jews on the French side and a newspaper article appeared in the Décade newspaper in 1798, known to favour the government. It began the discussion of the Jews as a nation and the possibility of the establishment of a State in Palestine as a base to threaten England using emotional pulls, ‘We know how much they long for their ancient fatherland and the city of Jerusalem’. It continued to reveal the true purpose of the article that the French, ‘can scarcely doubt that they will be strongly attached to the nation which will have restored them’. Shortly after this, an anonymous letter appeared in the Aim des Lois, entitled ‘A Jew’s Letter to his brethren’ in which the arguments of the history of Jewish suffering supported the right of the Jews to their own State. Many historians have taken the letter as a genuine Jewish cry for independence, but recent research has thrown doubt on that and points to the whole thing being a manipulation of the Jews for French purposes. Napoleon did proceed with his invasions of Egypt and Syria but his attempt to conquer Palestine failed, with the British assisting the defence of Acre with a shipping blockade and supply of cannon to the Acre defenders. Another letter surfaced from, ‘General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th, 1799, in the year 7 of the French Republic’, purporting to come from Napoleon. It included:
‘Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have been able to be deprived of their ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence!
Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled! A war unexampled In the annals of history, waged in self-defence by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by its enemies as plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by a stroke of the pen of Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of the remotest nations, long forgotten under the yoke of slavery, and also, the almost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon you; and, while time and circumstances would seem to be least favourable to a restatement of your claims or even to their expression ,and indeed to be compelling their complete abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, Israel’s patrimony!’
Whilst many have referred to this letter as an expression of Napoleon’s attitude towards the Jews and an independent State, it has been demonstrated that the letter is in fact not genuine and an attempt to find the original of the letter failed when a collection of Napoleon’s papers were bought. Indeed, Napoleon seems to have had an indifferent approach to Jews and only became involved in Jewish issues when claims against them arose in France There is no support for his wanting to establish a Jewish State in Palestine, however, the various documents discussed does reflect the continuing Messianic desires of both Christian and Jews that was now increasing as the persecution of the Jews continued in places such as Algeria, within the Franco-Ottoman Alliance; in 1808, Ahmed Khodja massacred hundreds of Jews.
One clergyman, James Bicheno, saw the French revolution as one of the signs of the return of the Messiah in his book published in 1808. In the work, The Signs of the Times, apart from his religious interpretations, he reprises the experience of the Jews and the turmoil across the various countries and looked to a ‘political resurrection’ of the Jews in Palestine. In 1810, a prominent member of the Belgian/Spanish aristocracy, Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne, published his ideas of a Jewish State. An opponent of Napoleon, de Ligne came from a very different point of view than Bicheno, seeing the establishment of a Jewish State as a support of the Ottoman Empire. As a soldier and well-travelled man, he outlined great plans for the return of the Jews to a homeland, including technological and agricultural revolutions and the restoration of Jerusalem into a great city. He was not alone in his ambitious thoughts on the Jews and many Frenchmen – Laharanne, Salvador, Dunant and Dumas amongst others – began to advocate similar ideas. In England, their voices were echoed by Lord Shaftesbury, who would become a great advocate for the Jewish people and their rights to be re-established in their ‘ancient country’. He had written an anonymous article in the Quarterly Review, advocating a ‘National Home for the Jews, with Jerusalem as its capital’. Shaftesbury was naïve as it did not address the protection of Jews in Europe and that it was suspect in that it had the conversion of the Jews to Christianity as a motive. The Hebrew Review would later carry an article in which it posed such questions:
‘His Lordship is extremely kind in advocating our nationality, but is this consistent with the efforts of the London Society to convert us to Christianity, and destroy our nationality? Again, we are at a loss to understand how our return to the Holy Land will be conducive to the safety and peace of Europe. Does he think that the Jews in Europe endanger its safety and peace, or that the return to the East can have any influence upon that safety and peace? Is not, besides, his Lordship aware of the impracticalities of the plan so long as there is no political protection whatever for the life and property of the Jews?’
These concerns were legitimate as in 1815 Pope Pius VII re-established the ghetto in Rome after Napoleon’s defeat. His defeat also was the occasion for further trouble in Germany, trouble that would spread into Denmark, Latvia and Bohemia. These outbursts would become known as the Hep-Hep riots, after the cries made by the rioters (It is believed that this cry was from the initials of the Latin phrase, Hieroslyma est perdita, which means ‘Jerusalem is fallen’ first used by the Crusaders), who following a claim or ritual murder by Jews, went on a campaign of destruction against Jews. Anti-Semitic tracts, newspaper articles and plays, were produced that fired up the riots that saw Jews, their houses and businesses attacked. Further confirmation of Jewish concerns was seen in a dispute between two British politicians, Daniel O’Connor and Benjamin Disraeli - descended from a Jewish family – in 1832, in which O’Connor, whilst attacking Disraeli, wanted to make sure he was not seen as anti-Semitic and wrote:
‘There is a habit of underrating that great and oppressed nation the Jews. They are cruelly persecuted by persons calling themselves Christians — but no person ever yet was a Christian who persecuted. The crudest persecution they suffer is upon their character, by the foul names their calumniators bestowed upon them before they carried their atrocities into effect. They feel the persecution of calumny severer upon them than the persecution of actual force, and the tyranny of actual torture.’
While anti-Jewish outbursts sporadically continued throughout Europe, the situation in Palestine was also deteriorating for many Jews. In 1834, there was an uprising against the Ottomans by Arabs and Bedouins, in what became known as the ‘peasant war’. This resulted in the deaths and destruction of Jewish property and the Jews were only saved by the intervention of the Ottoman forces. Indeed, even Jerusalem was entered for a short period by the rebels and one eye-witness records that only the actions of a rebel chief prevented mass bloodshed and the eventual retaking of the city relieved the fears of the Jewish people.
The following year, Russia also became difficult for the Jewish people when Czar Nicholas I of Russia introduced an oppressive constitution for the Jews. The Jews had been paying an annual sum that excused them from military service for Russia, however, Nicholas continued to take the money but forced Jews into army service. Boys as young as 12 and under (given the name ‘cantonists’) were herded like cattle to various parts of Russia into the hands of peasants to be made ready for an army unit. Many died en route or during resistance to forced conversions. Jewish communities were moved to remote parts of Russia and still they continued to refuse to be downtrodden and increased their numbers. By 1838, an Expatriation Law came into force witch deprived 50,000 families of their homes and means of living. Protests from within and without were raised to little effect.
Sir Moses Montefiore, a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London, was a tireless supporter of the Jewish cause, arguing their case for justice across the world. Indeed, he was very keen to have Jews move to Palestine and create an agricultural revolution. His diary notes his ambition:
‘By degrees I hope to induce the return of thousands of our brethren to the Land of Israel. I am sure they would be happy in the enjoyment of the observance of our holy religion, in a manner which is impossible in Europe’
He negotiated with Mehemet Ali, who ruled Palestine, and his efforts had the support of many in England. In May of that year, The Times had printed an article giving an enthusiastic backing to the Jewish people and their homeland:
‘… public attention to the claims which the Jewish people still have upon the land of Israel as their rightful inheritance, and their consequent political importance in the progress of that great struggle … The subject may be new to many of our readers, but it is one deserving the solemn consideration of a people possessing an oriental empire of such vast extent … No people on the face of the earth has been so little understood and so grossly misrepresented as the Jewish people.’1
The Times also reported the following year on a conference in London concerning the protests at the treatment of Jews in Europe:
‘A memorandum has been addressed to the Protestant monarchs of Europe on the subject of the restoration of the Jewish people to the land of Palestine. The document in question, dictated by the peculiar conjuncture of affairs in the East, and the other striking “ signs of the times,” reverts to the original covenant which secures that land to the descendants of Abraham and urges upon the consideration of the Powers addressed what may be the probable line of duty on the part of Protestant Christendom to the people in the present controversy in the East.’2
Lord Shaftesbury approached Lord Palmerston, a leading political figure in England, to assist in the restoration of the Jewish people to their homeland. Shaftesbury noted in his diary, ‘Everything seems ripe for their return to Palestine’.
Colonel Charles Henry Churchill, an officer in the British army, born in India to British parents, rose to distinction in many military campaigns, which eventually would bring him to Syria. He had contact with Sir Moses Montefiore, who sought his views on the Jewish question. When he was marching into Damascus in 1841, he had in his possession various documents from Montefiore for the Jewish community there, who welcomed his arrival with great enthusiasm because they had endured great distress under the Ottoman Pasha who governed the city. The Hebrew Elders of the city had written to the Rothschild family and Lady Montefiore noted in her diary, the letter (dated 27 March 1840), which described their anxieties about a false Blood Libel (the Damascus Affair) that became notorious throughout the world:
‘Upon this the Governor replied that, as he had accused other persons [Jews] of killing them, he must know who the murderers were; and in order that he should confess, he was beaten to such an extent that he expired under the blows. After this, the Governor, with a body of six hundred men, proceeded to demolish the houses of his Jewish subjects, hoping to find the bodies of the dead, but not finding anything, he returned, and again inflicted on his victims further castigations and torments, some of them too cruel and disgusting to be described. At last, being incapable of bearing further anguish, they said that the charge was true!’ [Sir Moses noted in his own diary that he raised this matter with the Sultan in October of the same year and this brought about the release of the imprisoned Jews and a firman [edict] that gave protection to Jews throughout the Turkish world.]’
In this climate of fear and concern, Churchill gave an emotional address to a gathering of Jews, in which he expressed his support for the hopes of Jews being restored to Palestine. He was not an advocate of Jews for religious conversion purposes but rather as a humane reality he felt they needed this in such a terrible existence of persecution. However, he was a realist and knew that any move to establish the Jews again in their homeland needed the leadership from Jews themselves. He wrote to Sir Moses Montefiore from Damascus and this letter is worthy of attention as here was a man who was passionate about a Jewish homeland and was in a position to influence events:
My dear Sir Moses, — I have not yet had the pleasure of hearing from you, but I would fain hope that my letters have reached you safe. I enclose you a petition which has been drawn by the Brothers Harari, in which they state their claims and their earnest desire to be immediately under British protection. I am sorry to say that such a measure is much required even now, not only for them, but also for all the Jews in Damascus. They are still liable to persecutions similar to those from which, through your active and generous intervention, they have so lately escaped. The Christians still regard them with malevolence, and the statement in the petition enclosed is perfectly correct.’
This petition setting out the issues facing Jews was rightly appreciated by Churchill who was unashamed in his passion:
‘I cannot conceal from you my most anxious desire to see your countrymen endeavour once more to resume their existence as a people.’
Not a man who took to flights of fancy but a down to earth worldly-wise character, he had made an assessment of the possibility of a Jewish State in Palestine. However, there were conditions needed for success:
‘I consider the object to be perfectly attainable. But, two things are indispensably necessary. Firstly, that the Jews will themselves take up the matter universally and unanimously. Secondly, that the European Powers will aid them in their views. It is for the Jews to make a commencement. Let the principal persons of their community place themselves at the head of the movement.’
He believed that the Jewish community had the necessary resources:
‘Were the resources which you all possess steadily directed towards the regeneration of Syria and Palestine, there cannot be a doubt but that, under the blessing of the Most High, those countries would amply repay the undertaking, and that you would end by obtaining the sovereignty of at least Palestine.’
Foreshadowing the British Mandate that would come later he wrote:
‘Syria and Palestine, in a word, must be taken under European protection and governed in the sense and according to the spirit of European administration.’
His own enthusiasm was not enough; he looked to the Jews:
‘… to be ready and prepared to say: “Behold us here all waiting, burning to return to that land which you seek to remould and regenerate. Already we feel ourselves a people. The sentiment has gone forth amongst us and has been agitated and has become to us a second nature; that Palestine demands back again her sons. We only ask a summons from these Powers on whose counsels the fate of the East depends to enter upon the glorious task of rescuing our beloved country from the withering influence of centuries of desolation and of crowning her plains and valleys and mountain-tops once more, with all the beauty and freshness and abundance of her pristine greatness.”’
He knew the task was not an easy one:
‘but a beginning must be made - a resolution must be taken, an agitation must be commenced, and where the stake is “Country and Home” where is the heart that will not leap and bound to the appeal?
I am the Resident Officer at Damascus until further order.
Believe me to be, Dear Sir Moses,
Yours very faithfully,
Chas. H. Churchill.’
He added a postscript to his letter, calling on Montefiore to secure the backing of the ‘Five Great Powers’, (Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia) to secure self-rule for the Jews in Palestine and that they should be exempt from military service to any power ‘except on their own account as a measure of defence against the incursions of the Bedouin Arabs’. He cautioned Montefiore:
‘In all enterprises men must be prepared to make great sacrifices, whether of time, health or resources. To reflect calmly before commencing an undertaking and once begun to carry it through, vanquishing, surmounting, triumphing over every obstacle, this is worthy of man’s existence and carries with it its own reward, if the judgment is sound, the head clear and the heart honest. I humbly venture to give my opinion upon a subject, which no doubt has already occupied your thought - and the bare mention of which, I know, makes every Jewish heart vibrate. The only question is - when and how.’
He ended with a reinforcement of the Jews own efforts being necessary:
‘Political events seem to warrant the conclusion that the hour is nigh at hand when the Jewish people may justly and with every reasonable prospect of success put their hands to the glorious work of National Regeneration.’
Once more history offered a resolution for the trials and tribulations of the Jews on their terrible journey, but incredibly, Montefiore did not support Churchill and passed the matter to the Jewish Board of Deputies in London to make their own response which was to procrastinate; Churchill’s plans failed and the area returned to Ottoman control. Despite Churchill continuing to prompt Montefiore towards a Palestine state for the Jews, his efforts were wasted and the Jewish leaders of the day lost an opportunity that possibly could have changed the course of history and the tragic ongoing journey of the Jewish people.
The failure to grasp this opportunity did not deter the ongoing concern of many in Britain, who still held the ambition to see the Jews restored to their rightful home. Many continued to press for the government to take action on their behalf. One such man was George Gawler, a former governor of South Australia, who looked to the Jews to return to Palestine and colonise it under the authority of the British. In a book arguing for the emancipation of Jews, he wrote:
‘First, it would be part payment of a heavy debt of retribution that England owes to the Hebrew race, for bye-gone centuries of cruelty and oppression. Westminster Abbey itself, was rebuilt by money extorted from the Jews and secondly, it would be taking a part, WHICH IT IS TO THE HONOUR AND INTEREST OF THE BRITISH NATION TO PERFORM, in assisting in the great movement of deliverance from oppression and bondage that for many years past has been in operation throughout the whole civilised world, in behalf of the ANCIENT PEOPLE OF GOD.’ [Styling as in the original book]
Gawler had travelled with Montefiore through Syria and Palestine and had earlier written a tract, Tranquilisation of Syria and the East, in which he set out his ideas. He was not alone in his aspirations and was joined with other clergy and respected British military leaders and eventually politicians like Disraeli would also join in advocating a home for the Jewish people. Included among these men was Edward Ledwich Mitford, of the British Colonial Office, who argued that it was in Britain’s interests to support the Jewish re-settlement in Palestine. In 1845 he wrote:
‘The re-establishment of the Jewish nation in Palestine under British protection would retrieve our affairs in the Levant, and place us in a commanding position from whence to check the progress of encroachment, to over-awe open enemies, and if necessary, to repel their advance, at the same time that it would place the management of our steam communication entirely in our own hands.’
Mark Twain, writing in 1869 about his experiences travelling through Palestine, found a desolate place:
‘Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are un-picturesque in shape. The valets are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent.’
There are criticisms of this interpretation of Twain’s views but there was also a later survey by the Palestine Royal Commission (in 1913):
‘The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts … no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]… Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen….The ploughs used were of wood….The yields were very poor….The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist…. The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert…. The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.’3
Mitford, a colonial man, was certain that the Ottoman Empire, with its own troubles with Egyptians, Arabs and Bedouins, could be persuaded to agree to his plan. He, like Montefiore, saw the agricultural revolution in the desolate Palestine that Twain had found, would result. Although unsuccessful in his arguments, he was part of a growing swell that would one day reach a response along similar lines from the British government.
Whilst these attempts to assist the Jewish journey were proceeding, elsewhere in Europe the anti-Semitic attitudes were still abroad. In Germany, under the guise of discussing art, Richard Wagner wrote a repulsive work in which he displayed his anti-Semitism:
‘The Jew - who, as everyone knows, has a God all to himself - in ordinary life strikes us primarily by his outward appearance, which, no matter to what European nationality we belong, has something disagreeably foreign to that nationality: instinctively we wish to have nothing in common with a man who looks like that. [….] the peculiarity of the Jewish nature attains for us its climax of distastefulness. … Who has not been seized with a feeling of the greatest revulsion, of horror mingled with the absurd, at hearing that sense-and-sound-confounding gurgle, yodel and cackle, which no intentional caricature can make more repugnant than as offered here in full, in naive seriousness?’
These obnoxious views were rightly condemned in newspapers of the time and indeed the revulsion they caused brought many to consider the sanity of Wagner, though he was not the only one around Europe who still held these views. Many later commentators saw his writings as a basis for German anti-Semitism and indeed the Nazis would embrace him as a German hero. It was therefore a time of great contrasts, with ideas such as Wagner’s being espoused, persecutions in Russia; on the other hand, Norway opened its doors to Jews, and England began their emancipation. The first real shoots of Jewish Zionism also began to emerge with men like Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leon Bibas, a Gibraltar-born Sephardic Rabbi from Corfu, who cooperated with Montefiore and travelled around Europe, He advocated the creation of a Jewish assembly and the purchase of land in Palestine to which all Jews should make Aliyah and begin to colonise the area. Like many, he saw the writing on the wall for the Ottoman Empire and its approaching collapse and believed that the spiritual renewal of the Jewish people was linked to a return to their homeland. Whilst his writings and insights would be picked up later by other Zionists, at the time they did not make a great impact. His ideas of a return to Eretz Israel found resonance in a different form with a Jewish philosopher Zvi Hirsch Kalischer who approached life in a more modern way. He had talked with Muhammed Ali, when the Egyptian ruler governed Palestine, and in 1862 produced an important work that would bear fruit, Derishat Tzion (Zion’s Call). In this work he wrote:
‘The Redemption of Israel, for which we yearn, is not to be thought of as a sudden miracle. The Almighty, blessed be His Name, will not suddenly descend from on high and command his people to go forth. He will not send the Messiah from heaven in a twinkling of an eye, to sound the great Shofar [Trumpet] for the scattered of Israel and gather them into Jerusalem. He will not surround the Holy City with a wall of fire or cause the Holy Temple to come down from the heavens. The bliss and miracles that were promised by his servants, the prophets, will certainly come to pass – everything will be fulfilled – but we will not flee in terror and flight, for the Redemption of Israel will come by slow degrees and the ray of deliverance will shine forth gradually.’
He foresaw an agricultural settlement in which the Jews who supervised the actual labourers would be participating in religious duties and that ‘Jewish farming would be a spur to the ultimate Messianic Redemption’. His vision began to take shape in 1870 when the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a Paris-based international Jewish organization founded in 1860 by the French statesman Adolphe Crémieux, established an agricultural school, Mikeh Israel (Hope of Israel) under Charles Netter. Kalischer’s vision was enthusiastically supported by the German Jewish philosopher, Moses Hess, who wrote at a time when Germany in the midst of enlightenment that was causing a struggle within German minds as to identity and the conflict with an alien presence, the Jews. In turn, the Jews were also struggling with religion and humanism and their role and destiny. Hess moved between Socialism and Individualism and struggled to define his own view of the world and concluded that Judaism was a humanitarian religion and that Jews had taught humanity true religion. He arrived at the conclusion that it was necessary for Jews to be a nation in Palestine and also held to the idea of love as a motivational force that would one day unite humanity. Hess looked to a day when the Jews would lead the world of science and reconciliation between nations and in his book, Rome and Jerusalem – A Study in Jewish Nationalism, published in 1862, he set out his ideas. His work opens with a preface that directly addresses anti-Semitism:
‘From the time that Innocent III4 evolved the diabolical plan to destroy the moral stamina of the Jews, the bearers of Spanish culture to the world of Christendom, by forcing them to wear a badge of shame on their garments, until the audacious kidnapping of a Jewish child from the house of his parents,5 which occurred under the government of Cardinal Antonelli, Papal Rome symbolizes to the Jews an inexhaustible well of poison. It is only with the drying up of this source that Christian German anti-Semitism will die from lack of nourishment’
Hess was clear that the journey of Israel over 2000 through years of suffering did not mean the nation did not exist:
‘Among the nations believed to be dead and which, when they become conscious of their historic mission, will struggle for their national rights, is also Israel – the nation which for two thousand years has defied the storms of time, and in spite of having been tossed by the currents of history to every part of the globe, has always cast yearning glances towards Jerusalem and is still directing its gaze thither.’
His argument was that Palestine was the ‘ancestral home’ of the Jewish people and for any country to deny them that right was for that country to deny its own right to exist. Furthermore, the reason for the denial of a Jewish right to a homeland, particularly in Germany, was to avoid recognising civil rights for Jews in the countries in which they lived. He admits with a heartfelt passion that he had drifted from his religion but now he had returned with a new and illuminated understanding, an understanding that he now realised meant that there was a need to move from a selfish individualism and look to a common understanding of mutual responsibility one for another. The Jewish religion centred in its own land would be a teacher to the world and would transform it just as the Jew Yeshua (Jesus) looked to do. In a prophetic insight he recognised the struggle for a ‘pure German race’ was in conflict with the existence of a Jewish people and therefore ‘Jewish national aspirations are antagonistic because of his [the German] racial antipathy’. This understanding was brought to him by a German publisher who would not publish a book on Jewish aspirations saying it ‘is contrary to my pure human nature’. Hess wrote of the then Jewish practice of righteous Jews being buried with a pouch of soil from Palestine, noting it was not just a pious religious tradition but an acknowledgement of the importance of the soil of Palestine to the Jews. He recounts the Biblical reference of Jeremiah:
‘When the children of Israel were led into captivity by the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar, their road lay past the grave of our Mother Rachel. As they approached the grave, a bitter wailing was heard. It was the voice of Rachel, weeping for her children.’
Rachel’s wailing had a cause and Hess recalling the Damascus affair in a footnote, quotes from a German newspaper, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums, ‘Europe has spared the followers of the religion of Israel neither pain, nor tears, nor bitterness’. After a reprise of the struggles of the Jewish people and a call for the reform of the minds of Jews about their religion and purpose in the world, Hess again with prophetic insight states:
‘..the organisation of a Jewish State … will express itself in the founding of Jewish colonies in the land of their ancestors … in spite of its having been torn from its own soil and left to wither in foreign lands. So will Israel bloom again in youthful splendour; and the spark, at present smouldering under the ashes, will burst once more into a bright flame.’
Hess noted the ‘tottering’ Ottoman Empire and rightly forewarned of the outcome of the advancing world wars:
‘But if they continue to conjure themselves, as well as the German people with the might and glory of the “German Sword” they [German Patriots] will only add to the old unpardonable mistakes, grave new ones: they will only play into the hands of the reaction, and drag all Germany along with them’
Hess was an important voice, again not greatly recognised at the time but who gave a cogent view of the Jewish issues and rightly argued for the restoration of the Jewish people in their homeland. He was able to see the beginnings of his vision with the agricultural developments of Mikeh Israel but it would be many years before his aspirations reached fulfilment through others.
The ideas of Jewish autonomy in Palestine was also raised in 1876 by General Sir Charles Warren, associated with the Palestine Exploration Fund. The fund ostensibly was for the archaeological exploration in Palestine, but it passed information to the British Intelligence community. Warren was struck by the need for the development of Palestine, as it was becoming a desolate country. Lord Palmerston in 1875, addressing a meeting of the fund, said, ‘We have there a land teeming with fertility and rich in history, but almost without an inhabitant – a country without a people, and look! Scattered over the world, a people without a country!’ To this end, Warren issued a book, The Land of Promise or Turkey’s Guarantee. In it, he proposed a scheme similar to the British Empire’s East India Company. The Jews would eventually grow into the government of the country and Turkey would be paid revenues from the productivity created. He was aware of issues that could cause conflict and very much like today he cited the Moslem Arab population, but his experience suggested they were a small minority with a greater population composed of Canaanites, Greeks, Romans and Crusaders who had become Moslem or Christian. His military view was that the greater conflict would come from Christians, but he also noted, as is the case today, that there may be problems between Russia and the United States over any proposals for Palestine. His belief was that because so much of the land was desolate, the Jews and Arabs, who had a harmonious relationship, could make good use of the land for production. He cited small developments he had seen (possibly the Mikeh Israel project) which were showing success and indeed the soundings he had taken suggested that the people of the land would welcome such developments and Palestine should be given back to ‘whom it belongs by inheritance – viz., the present natives of Palestine and the Jews scattered throughout the world’.
These promising signs sat alongside the ongoing struggles of the Jewish diaspora. A German Lutheran pastor, Adolf Stoecker, founded a political party on 3 January 1878, the Christian Social Party. He declared his aims were peaceful, but his rhetoric was deep anti-Semitism. In 1880, Stoecker instigated an Anti-Semitic Petition which contained a tirade of accusations and abuses against the Jews declaring, ‘the Jewish hypertrophy conceals within itself the most serious dangers to our national way of life’. As with many anti-Semites, they tried to argue that the Jew does not labour and exploits the Christians, which was not the case. A straw man argument was proposed:
‘What future is left our fatherland if the Semitic element is allowed to make a conquest of our home ground for another generation as it has been allowed to do in the last two decades?’6
The ideas raised, were of an ‘Aryan world’ that was threatened by the Jews. The echoes of Nazism are also heard in the cry that, ‘the Germanic ideals of honour, loyalty, and genuine piety begin to be displaced to make room for a cosmopolitan pseudo-ideal’. He was not a lone voice in Germany. Heinrich von Treitschke, a German historian, whilst distancing himself from the ‘filth and savagery’ of certain types of anti-Semitism, nonetheless wanted to see the Jews moved out of Germany. He declared, ‘There is only one way to satisfy our wishes: emigration, creation of a Jewish State somewhere overseas, after which we will see if it will earn the acceptance of the other nations of the world’. Indeed, the Nazis would also look to this idea of sending the Jews to Madagascar.
In Russia, the death in 1881 of Nicholas’ successor, Alexander II by a bomb thrown by members of a socialist political revolutionary party, brought Alexander III to power and under his reign began a repression of the Jews and a wave of pogroms swept across Russia. The barbaric horror and the wave of Jews fleeing from Russia sent tremors of concern and revulsion across Europe and once more, in England, Lord Shaftesbury took up the cause of the Jews, demanding approaches be made to the Czar on their behalf. He denounced the brutal acts of terror and again saw the need for a homeland for the Jews as over 100,000 Jews swelled the population of the East End of London and in the United States a law was passed to stop immigration from the East and Russia. As a result of these persecutions in Russia, which were spreading to Romania, and the threats of immigration being blocked in the USA and Britain, a congress for the colonization of Palestine was held in Romania and became known as the Focsani Zionist Congress. Zionism was not really at its heart. More concern was expressed about Aliyah to Palestine and indeed a group was organized in 1882 when the Thetis carried 228 Jews from Moinesti, a city in Bacau County, Romania. On arrival in Palestine they founded two settlements, Rosh Pinah and Zikron Ya’akob. The Jews were not the only ones holding congresses and in September 1882 in Dresden, the First International Anti-Jewish Congress was held. Sir Moses Montefiore was cited in their literature and wrongly accused of a critical address at a Rabbinical Assembly at Krakau in 1840. They published a manifesto to ‘Governments and peoples of Christian States endangered by Judaism’, which demanded an end to Jewish immigration from Russia into Germany and that all Jewish emancipation should end. They wanted to take control of the press using terms that the Nazis would also employ, stating that ‘Christian Aryan natives’ should reconquer the press. This continued hatred towards Jews brought more Blood Libel allegations in Europe and in 1892 Russia once more expelled 20,000 Jews, creating more tensions in other countries as they sought sanctuary. The need now for a permanent Jewish homeland in Palestine was becoming more and more apparent to those who wanted to see.
1894 witnessed an incident in France that would once and for all set the course for the founding of a Jewish State. The Roman Catholic newspaper, La Croix, described the Jewish soldier involved, ‘the Jewish enemy betraying France’.7 The cause of the remark was the discovery of a spy giving French secrets to Germany. The French army intelligence had seen a handwritten note, in which the handwriting was claimed to be that of a French Jewish army officer, Alfred Dreyfus. The fact that he was a Jew made him a target of fellow French anti-Semitic members of the French army such as Colonel Sandherr, who, when challenged that there were loyal and patriotic Jewish officers in the French army, replied ‘I distrust them all’. Dreyfus protested his innocence but he was brought before a military court and in a secret trial was convicted after the judges were given a secret file that the defence were not allowed to see. Crowds ran through Paris, shouting, ‘death to the Jews!’ His dismissal from the army in a secret ‘drumming out’ ceremony saw him then exiled to Devil’s Island in French Guiana off the coast of South America. Jewish lawyer Theodor Herzl was present at that ceremony, which convinced him that society would never allow the Jews to assimilate successfully into any country – a Jewish State was the only answer. Herzl was born in Budapest and was heavily influenced by his mother, who impressed upon him all things German and he considered himself a liberal and an Austrian patriot. He was a lawyer but also a poet and dramatist and throughout his education and early life had experienced and seen anti-Semitism affect the lives of Jews. Herzl may have been considered by many as a dreamer and visionary, but he was also a passionate man who knew the realities of the Jewish existence and the desperate need for a State of their own in order to survive. The Dreyfus affair was one more of many incidents which reinforced in him the need to do something.
As to the Dreyfus affair, in 1898, Georges Picquart, head of the army intelligence, uncovered evidence of Dreyfus’ innocence and the guilt of a Major Esterhazy who was tried and acquitted. There was clear evidence of forgery of documents against Dreyfus and Émile Zola, the French writer, took up the case and wrote J’Accuse, which laid out the charges and evidence against the French officers involved in the forgeries and mistreatment of Dreyfus that showed his innocence. It was a damning document which sent shockwaves around the world and landed Zola in court charged with defaming the military. He was sentenced to jail so he fled to England. He wrote:
‘I shall not chronicle these doubts and the subsequent conclusion reached by Mr. Scheurer-Kestner. But, while he was conducting his own investigation, major events were occurring at headquarters. Colonel Sandherr had died and Lt. Colonel Picquart had succeeded him as Head of the Intelligence Office. It was in this capacity, in the exercise of his office, that Lt. Colonel Picquart came into possession of a telegram addressed to Major Esterhazy by an agent of a foreign power. His express duty was to open an inquiry. What is certain is that he never once acted against the will of his superiors. He thus submitted his suspicions to his hierarchical senior officers, first General Gonse, then General de Boisdeffre, and finally General Billot, who had succeeded General Mercier as Minister of War. That famous much discussed Picquart file was none other than the Billot file, by which I mean the file created by a subordinate for his minister, which can still probably be found at the War Office. The investigation lasted from May to September 1896, and what must be said loud and clear is that General Gonse was at that time convinced that Esterhazy was guilty and that Generals de Boisdeffre and Billot had no doubt that the handwriting on the famous bordereau was Esterhazy’s. This was the definitive conclusion of Lt. Colonel Picquart’s investigation. But feelings were running high, for the conviction of Esterhazy would inevitably lead to a retrial of Dreyfus, an eventuality that the General Staff wanted at all cost to avoid.’
Following the publication, Esterhazy, later when living in England, confessed to be the spy for money to pay off debts, and many argued for a quashing of Dreyfus’ conviction, which happened but he was returned to France for another trial in 1889 and in the presence of 400 journalists from around the world, he was dramatically convicted again and given ten years imprisonment. This was despite the French politician Jacques Godefroy having forced the army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry, to confess that certain letters bearing on the Dreyfus case were indeed forgeries, and Godefroy still refused to believe Dreyfus innocent. The French President had to intervene and pardon him ten days later. In 1906, he was completely exonerated and promoted and given the Legion D’ Honour award. On the Dreyfus affair, Herzl concluded:
‘The Dreyfus case embodies more than a judicial error; it embodies the desire of the vast majority of the French to condemn a Jew, and to condemn all Jews in this one Jew. Death to the Jews!, howled the mob, as the decorations were being ripped from the Captain’s coat.. Where? In France? In republican, modern, civilized France, a hundred years after the Declaration of the Rights of Man? The French people, or at any rate the greater part of the French people, does not want to extend the rights of man to Jews. The edict of the great Revolution had been revoked.’
Herzl subsequently wrote The Jewish State, which laid out his views on the future for the Jewish people. This was one of the most important milestones on the Jewish journey to a homeland. In this work, he describes his vision, which was breath-taking in its scope. It involved the setting up of a Jewish Society and a Jewish Company, both of which would oversee the moving of Jews from all over the world to the new State. He outlined in great detail his plans for agriculture, infra-structure, housing, even going into the working hours and wages of workers. He gave his ideas for the styles of housing and how the State would develop business and science ventures that would benefit the whole world. The groups that would travel would all have their own rabbi and the Jewish Society would take care of them and their assets and their land and housing to provide for them when they arrived in their new homeland. He detailed how the judicial system would be set up and how the State would be run. In turning to the idea of a Jewish State he made very clear that:
‘It [the idea of a Jewish homeland] is no longer - and it has not been for a long time - a theological matter. It has nothing whatsoever to do with religion and conscience. What is more, everyone knows it. The Jewish question is neither nationalistic nor religious. It is a social question’
His concern was now simply for his people, not a religion, and in his diary, he noted a conversation with Count Goluchowski, an Austrian statesman who was foreign minister of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1895 to 1906, in which the count expressed surprise at the number of Jews not being reflected in the natural population growth that should be expected. Herzl replied, ‘We have sustained grievous losses in the course of our history, especially during the Middle Ages.’
The social and political aspects were also addressed by Herzl, who saw the State having a constitution that would safeguard the rights of its citizens and there would be no allowing what had happened to the Jews, because of their religion, happening to anyone else who was not a Jew and lived in the new State:
‘Every man will be as free and undisturbed in his faith or his disbelief as he is in his nationality. And if it should occur that men of other creeds and different nationalities come to live amongst us, we should accord them honourable protection and equality before the law.’
These lofty ideals, for Herzl, could not be maintained in a fully democratic State and he envisaged an ‘aristocratic republic’. His concern was the experience of Jews down the ages and the anti-Semitism that had occurred had to give lessons to the new adventure.
One book that Herzl read particularly alarmed him and confirmed the urgency of a place of refuge for his people was The Jewish Problem as a Problem of Race, Morals and Culture by Eugen Dühring. He wrote, ‘The Jews are, on the other hand, the most vicious minting of the entire Semitic race into a nationality especially dangerous to nations’. He was a virulent anti-Semite and his words were ‘a blow between the eyes’ to Herzl and he realised that if such attitudes were to persist, the very lives of Jews were at risk with Dühring’s comments such as, ‘It is, in the meanwhile, easier to drive out the Jews than to invite these guests once again to one’s table’. For Dühring, the issue was worldwide but he emphasised that for him the problem was greatest in Germany and he even saw the Jews as ‘hostile to the human race’. The work goes on to slander and disparage the Jews and their religion in a tirade of false accusations and misunderstandings, giving no credit for any good thing the Jewish people have done. The book ends chillingly:
‘Precisely this situation must however urge the determined component of better humanity only so much more to act in order to create communities and communal life whose principles extend over the earth and thereby also, obviously, do not leave any room for Hebrew life’
Every Nazi who was to come would willingly and heartily embrace Dühring’s poisoned views and whilst not directly the cause, they have an echo in the Nazi ‘Blood and Soil’ mentality and the forming of the notorious Nuremberg ‘Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of the German People’ which sought to exclude Jews from inter-racial marriage and any role in German life and eventually attempts at their total extermination. The Thule Society formed after the First World War embraced these ideas and in turn influenced many prominent Nazis. Even today, there is a Thule Society, influenced by his ideas, which claims to be religious, with Adolf Hitler as their object of veneration. The Society’s website carries much anti-Jewish rhetoric and images and in one section there can be read that they aspire, ‘to follow the policies of Adolf Hitler unless new information available to us in the 21st century, indicates they it would be wisest to do otherwise.’8 Herzl noted in his diary about Dühring’s book:
‘An infamous book … If Dühring, who unites so much undeniable intelligence with so much universality of knowledge, can write like this, what are we to expect from the ignorant masses?’
When Herzl thought of anti-Semitism he believed that the elements in it were ‘of vulgar sport, of common trade jealousy, of inherited prejudice, of religious intolerance, and also of pretended self-defence’. He argued that no one could deny the gravity of the situation of the Jews, wherever they were found in groups they were persecuted and even when countries granted some concessions and protection in law, these were ignored and were ‘dead letters’. Jews had been barred from high office, in the various armies they suffered discrimination and their businesses were boycotted with cries of, ‘Don’t buy from Jews!’ He had seen all of these in one form or another throughout his life and he had also seen:
‘..attacks in Parliaments, in assemblies, in the press, in the pulpit, in the street, on journeys - for example, their exclusion from certain hotels - even in places of recreation, become daily more numerous. The forms of persecutions varying according to the countries and social circles in which they occur. In Russia, imposts are levied on Jewish villages; in Rumania, a few persons are put to death; in Germany, they get a good beating occasionally; in Austria, Anti-Semites exercise terrorism over all public life; in Algeria, there are travelling agitators; in Paris, the Jews are shut out of the so-called best social circles and excluded from clubs. Shades of anti-Jewish feeling are innumerable.’
Herzl was aware that anti-Semitism was changing its face, no longer being mainly about religion. Rather there was now a jealousy against the Jews who were prospering and against their attempts to be considered as equals within society. He believed that this anti-Semitism would never cease until the Jews had their own State. Therefore, the urgency for a homeland burned within him. Herzl was convinced this was the only way the Jewish people could ever be secure and free. To this end he turned to a fresh idea of Zionism which he presented at the Zionist conference in Basle in 1897 and in his diary he noted:
‘Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word – which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly – it would be this: At Basle I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, and certainly fifty, everyone will know it.’
He was not the only one to have such a prophetic view, Adolph Dessauer, an Austrian Jewish banker, when walking with Herzl in the park, remarked, ‘In fifty years’ time, [I] believe the Jewish State will already be in existence’. They were both one year out. The Congress adopted the motion, ‘Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally secured home (or homeland) in Palestine’. In the opening to his work, Herzl was clear:
‘Everything depends on our propelling force. And what is that force? The misery of the Jews. I shall therefore clearly and emphatically state that I believe in the practical outcome of my scheme, though without professing to have discovered the shape it may ultimately take. The Jewish State is essential to the world; it will therefore be created.’
This set in motion a ripple throughout the Jewish world. Not all Jews received the idea with enthusiasm with some fearing the uprooting of their lives was too much whilst others feared the implications for Jews who did not go to the new State. Herzl tried to reassure their anxieties:
‘The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish State. The world resounds with outcries against the Jews, and these outcries have awakened the slumbering idea. Am I stating what is not yet the case? Am I before my time? Are the sufferings of the Jews not yet grave enough? We shall see.’
Unfortunately, Herzl was wrong, worse was to come but many just did not grasp the whole idea of his arguments about the Jewish question within the world and the anti-Semitism that he had described:
The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers. Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally move to those places where we are not persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution. This is the case in every country, and will remain so, even in those highly civilized - for instance, France - until the Jewish question finds a solution on a political basis.’
He declared to them, ‘If the present generation is too dull to understand it rightly, a future, finer and a better generation will arise to understand it’.9 Herzl also had another problem, as there were countries that had other plans for a Jewish State that did not include Palestine but suggested Argentina and Uganda as options. When Argentina was proposed, Herzl found himself with the political reality and had to deal with the Turks, Egypt, France and Britain. He noted:
‘Here two territories come under consideration, Palestine and Argentine. Shall we choose Palestine or Argentine? We shall take what is given us, and what is selected by Jewish public opinion. The Society will determine both these points.’
Aware that the Zionist Congress had passed a resolution for Palestine, he was wise enough to acknowledge:
‘Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvellous potency. If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey.’
Herzl made play of the new State being good for Turkey and good for Europe as it would make a border against any threats from Asia. After all, the Jewish State would be an ‘outpost of civilisation as opposed to barbarism’. Then there were the British, still Empire-minded and offering their own imperialistic solutions. Joseph Chamberlain, the Colonial Secretary, met with Herzl in England to discuss his ideas, with Chamberlain being questioned as to Syria/Palestine and Cyprus. Both were discounted by him as he believed the Turks would object in Sinai and the Moslems and Greeks would oppose in Cyprus. He also suggested that Lord Lansdowne of the Foreign Office and Lord Cromer, British Consul General in Egypt, would need to be consulted regarding Syria.
Eventually both gentlemen would be consulted and a survey carried out on Herzl’s proposals and a reply was received on December 18, 1902 which was the usual diplomatic fudge:
‘Lord Lansdowne had heard from Lord Cromer, who favoured the sending of a small commission to the Sinai Peninsula to report on conditions and prospects, but Lord Cromer feared that no sanguine hopes of success should be entertained, but if the report of the Commission turned out favourable, the Egyptian Government would certainly offer liberal terms for Jewish colonization.’
The British Government had recognized Herzl as the Zionist leader, and the person they could negotiate with, but Chamberlain was still to be heard. He had been on his travels and had passed through Uganda, ‘I thought to myself, that is just the country for Dr. Herzl. But he must have Palestine, and will move only into its vicinity’. He was still determined to try a colonial solution and spoke glowingly of the potential of Uganda, even being prepared to give the new British controlled area the name ‘New Palestine’. Two problems arose, the first being that the English colonists in East Africa made their opposition to scheme well known and it became less attractive to the British government and secondly the Zionists, led by a Russian, Menahem Ussishkin, were vociferous in their opposition, threatening to withhold finances from Herzl. He was stung by the opposition, who were now making demands that the Uganda plan be abandoned and only Palestine considered. Herzl had to use all his political skills to hold things together and the matter was resolved because he had one abiding vision:
‘We shall give a home to our people. And we shall give it, not by dragging them ruthlessly out of their sustaining soil, but rather by transplanting them carefully to a better ground. Just as we wish to create new political and economic relations, so we shall preserve as sacred all of the past that is dear to our people’s hearts.’
He even reached the stage of the new State’s flag:
‘I would suggest a white flag, with seven golden stars. The white field symbolizes our pure new life; the stars are the seven golden hours of our working-day. For we shall march into the Promised Land carrying the badge of honour.’
Herzl was passionately moving the Jewish people along on their journey to return to their homeland. He himself would never see it as he died on 3 July 1904, but his significance in this journey was seen when Herzl Day was created as a national holiday in Israel to honour him. Despite Herzl’s thrust for a Jewish State being framed in terms of a political and social necessity, in his heart he held that religious conviction of a Jew in his God being with him in his work, writing in his diary, ‘For God would not have preserved our people for so long if we did not have another role to play in the history of mankind’.
The trouble for the Jews continued just as Herzl had predicted and in England the Jews fleeing persecution were not entirely welcomed. An ‘Aliens Bill’ was brought before Parliament and typical of the hysterical opposition to the Jews was voiced by some MPs:
‘It was all very well to talk about its being the traditional policy of this country to give to political refugees a domicile, but if that policy was to be carried to its logical conclusion nowadays, it meant that we were inviting 5,000,000 oppressed Russian Jews to come to this country, and it was idle to say that because a wrong had been inflicted upon these people in their own country, we were entitled to inflict a further wrong upon our own people by allowing them to come here.’10
Thanks largely to Winston Churchill, the restrictions were not imposed, and he was clear in his support of the Jewish people:
‘Some people like Jews and some do not: but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world’
The Jewish people were mainly coming from Russia where another series of pogroms was being conducted and the 1905 Russian revolution further exacerbated the problem. Churchill again was prominent in their cause, understanding:
‘..the supreme attraction to a scattered and persecuted people of a safe and settled home under the flag of tolerance and freedom … Jerusalem must be the only ultimate goal. When it will be achieved it is vain to prophesy: but that it will someday be achieved is one of the few certainties of the future.’11
In Germany, anti-Semitism was once more displaying its ugly face as it was in Ukraine. The cause of the Jewish people was growing more urgent but a darker cloud was gathering over the world. On 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia and the world erupted in the Great War. The Jewish journey would have to come to a halt until the carnage of the war was over.