rlistoric Balfour Declaration

By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

;tory have attracted
the Balfour Declar-
behalf of the British
f State for Foreign

.rnational statesman-
ation for the Jewish
h history. of Jewish
roDhecy. the rebirth
indomitable will to
'wish people. Legal-
he first background
n that wastaken on
Palestine Partition

our Declaration was
e Jewish people for
ly Jews have prayed:
*an with mercy . . ."
berachamim . . .")
i by the Britich gov-
d Lloyd George and
i ablished in the sixth
exiles to Judea was
King of Persia:

All the kingdoms

f heaven, given me;

'1, an house in Jeru-
'there is among you

L and let him go un

build the house of
God) which is in
anl.1 place where he
ely him with silver,
with beasts. beside
God which is Jeru-

-Ezra 1, 2:4.
_
wersial storms that
on were marked by
fl.
eing whittled down
eventually fulfilled.
etrayal attempted by
pts to destroy the
white paper after
ish governments, re-
of paper. American
ionist leaders not to
of political chicanery

Tame the first Presi-
state. in his capacity
for Palestine. at the
ay 2, 1943. that "we
t jacket of the White
There was a grave
his declaration: "We
eat, to be satisfied
f a generous under-
.
such understanding
r, on the occasion of
Balfour Declaration,
port for the Zionist
as easier to be .pro-
a of Jewish national
Nevertheless, retro-
e sentiments of the

'Y of the Members of
Drs Prentis M. Brown
I sentatives Fred Brad-
li'rank E. Hook. Bartell
and Roy 0. Woodruff
on its twenty-fifth
of civilized mankind
government's attempt

list included Senator
sident of the United
l o recognize the State
at the Balfour Decla-
aditional policy of the
,of the Jewish Nation-

In an address to the

[8, thus evaluated the

y to nationhood: "The

ineteen centuries ago
le Allied Powers are

`is, in February 1919,
trouble for Jewry, as
gave approval to the
in behalf of the Arab
Stated:

"Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted
with the proposals submitted. by the Zionist Organization
to the Peace Confererce and loo regard them as moderate
and proper. We will do OUT hest. in so far _ts we are
concerned. to help the' n throw•h.• u)e will wish the Jews a
most hearty welcome horn- . . IxTe are working together
for a reformed and reviro- 7 igen , Fast. and our two move-
ments complete one anotl-er. The Jewish movement is
rationalist and not imni,r'eliQt.. and there is room in
S''ria for us bath. 1'17 o T 1-1“ -rtk that neither can be a
other."
real success Witb 0/it

-AMERICAN POLTCY has consistently sunnorted the
principles of the Balfour neclaration. A Joint :Resolution
was unanimously • adopted - by both .Houses of Congress,
June 30. 1922. declaring, that "the United states of A merica
favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home
for the Jewish People . . ." It was -signed by President
Warren G. Harding.
This was consonant with American traditions. Our
Presidents, dating back.to John Adams, believed. in Adams'
words. that "Jews should he a nation again in Jurl-a." Other
Presidents have declared their support for a Jewish Nation-
al Home.
ON MARCH 5, 1891, President Beniamin Harrison was
presented with the famous Plackstone Petition, which fa-
vored a Jewish Palestine. Revolted by the Pogroms in
Russia and other Eastern European countries. rhri-tian.
leaders joined with the in'tiator of the petition, the Rev.
William E. Blackstone, a Chicago clergyman, in saying to
President Harrison:
". . . Why not dive Palestine back to them (the Jews).
again? According to God's distribution of nations it is
their home — an ina/ieneme possession from which they
were exvelled by force. Under th,er cultivation it was a
remarkably fruitful
sustei'n,ina millions of Israel4 1:es,
who industriously tilled its hillsides aryl valleys. They
were agriculturists and Producers as well. as a nation of
great commercial importance — the center of civilization
and religion.
"Why shall not the powers which under the treaty
of Berlini in 1878. gave Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and
Servia to the Servians. now give Palestine back to the

Jews? . . . If they could .have .autonomy in government,
the Jews of the world would rail/ to transport and estab-
lish their suffering brethren in their time-honored habi-
tation. For over seventeen centuries they have patiently
waited for such a privileged opportunity . .
"We believe this is an appropriate ti ,n.e for all nations,
and especially the Christian nations of Europe. to show
kindness to .Israel. A million of exiles, by their terrible
sufferings, are piteously appealing to our sympathy. jus-
tice, and hunianitY. Let us now restore to them the land
of which they were so cruelly despoiled by our Roman
ancestors."

THIS PROPHETIC PETITION, which was issued six
years before Dr. Theodor Herzl convened the First World
Zionist Congress, carried the signatures of such disting-
uished men as the Ohio Congressman, William McKinley,
who later became President; Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court Melville W. Fuller, prominent members of Congress,
editors, clergymen, writers and leaders in all fields of en-
deavor in this country.
Writing in the American Jewish Chronicle, in 1940, the
late Lt. Col. J. H. Patterson, who, in 1917, led the Jewish
Legion into Palestine, revealed this interesting fact:
"I recall that while I was a quest of the late Theodore
Roosevelt at the White House, long before the great war,
we spoke otthe Jewish problem and of Palestine. He then
expressed 'the opinion that the Jewish problem would

never be solved. until the Jewish National Homeland was
re-established."

THEODORE ROOSEVELT recognized that there was a
Jewish problem that "needed elimination — through the
recreation of Jewish nationhood. The indisputableness. of
this view was re-emphasized on Oct. 29, 1942, by Supreme
Court Justice. Felix Frankfurter, who stated on a message
on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Balfour
Declaration:
"Some twenty-five years ago he who gave the Balfour
Decalration its historic name, wrote that the effects of Zion-
ism would not be limited to a narrow strip of territory on
the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, they would be
world-wide. Zionism was no mere local adventure but a
serious attempt to mitigate age-long miseries created for
Western civilization by the existence of the unsolved Jewish
problem. Surely for this, if for no other reason, said Lord
Balfour, Zionism should be supported by all men of good-
will whatever their country and whatever their creed. Lord
Balfour's, prophecy has been underwritten by events never
contemplated even by his imagination. But these events
have also underscored the wisdom that underlies the Bal-
four Declaration and the civilized purposes at which it
aimed."

PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON played an impor-
tant role in the formulation of the Balfour Declaration. He
would have supported the stronger wording of an origin-
ally-planned statement, which was whittled down later due
to pressure from anti-Zionist Jews.
President Wilson, on Aug. 31, 1918, in a letter to Dr.
Stephen S. Wise, then chairman of the Provisional Execu-
tive Committee for General Zionist Affairs, stated: "I wel-
come an opportunity to express the satisfaction I have felt
in the progress of the Zionist movement in the United
States and in the Allied countries since the declaration of
-Mr. Balfour on behalf of the British government. of Great
Britain's approval .of the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people . . ."And on March 3,
1919. President Wilson said to a Jewish delegation:
"I am . . . persuaded that Allied Nations, with the
fullest concurrence of our Government and peovle are
agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of

a Jewish. commonwealth."

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE. who was the British Prem -
ier at the time the Balfour - Declaration was issued, and .
who had supported the idea. was among the great states-
men who .molded_ the plan.. In 1936_ testifying before the
(Peel) Palestine Royal Commission. he said, with regard to
the plans for the Jewish National_ Horne:
"The idea was. and this was the interpretation rut
upon it at the time that a Jewish State was to be set up
irnmediateill by the Peace Treat?' without ref , rence to the
wishes of the majority of the inhabitants. On the other
hand. it was contemplated that when the time arrived for

,

according representative institutions in Palestine, if the
Jews had meanwhile responded to the onportunitu afford-
ed them by the idea of a national home and hod become
then Palestine
a defirqe majority of the
would thus become a Jewish Commonwealth."

That is how the great Christian leaders constantly
spoke of a Jewish State or a Jewish Commonwealth.
WINSTON CHURCHILL'S name will - live indelibly in
the story of Israel's rebirth: It is true that serious difficul-
ties were imposed upon the Jews in Palestine during his
administration. But by his own asseverations he always was
and remains a Zionist. His
-f vision on the subject was
expressed in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, Feb. 8, 1920,
when he declared:
• should be created in
"If. as may well happen. there
our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish
State under the protection of the British Crown which
mioht comprise three or four million.s of Jews. an event
will have occurred in the history of the world which
tvould from every point of view be beneficial, and would
be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the

British Ernnire."

STEPHEN S. WISE. LOUIS D .BRANDEIS and AREA
HILLEL SILVER are names that will always be linked with
the story of Israel redemption. An entire volume would
hardly do justice to a report on their activities in support
of Zionism.
Dr. Wise had labored in behalf of the cause in the days
of the two great Democratic Presidents — Woodrow Wilson
and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Mr. Justice Brandeis was the movement's benefactor
and was the author of the historic statement which ex-
plained the compatibility for Jews of being both Zionists
and Americans - — of being. in fact, better Americans by
being good Jews and good Zionists.
Dr. Silver was the dramatic and eloquent pleader for
just rights for Jewry and for a Jewish Palestine in the most
Irving days experienced by the movement in the period
of British attempts to scuttle the entire idea of Jewish
Statehood. .
IT MAY TRUTHFULLY be said about the men who
have re-created Israel — Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizrnann,
David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Sharett. Itzhak Ben-Zvi, and
the heroic pioneers who built the National Home that
they matched the mountains in their great stature and
vision.
They were men who overcame great obstacles. The most
serious obstruction to them was the opposition of Jews
themselves, who looked upon Zionists as visionaries, who
ridiculed The Dream of Zion Reborn. Some of these people
fought in diplomatic quarters the people who dreamt of
freedom for. their brethren. They wrote a sad note to that
great chapter in Jewish history that marked the Return
to Autonomy and to Freedom.

=

Now all Jews are united in a .paean of liberation, and
there is reality in the 126th Psalm:.
"When the Lord broUghf baCk those that returned to Zion,
We were like unto them that dream.

Then was our mouth filled with laughter, .
And our tongue with. singing; •
- -
Then said they among the nations:
`The Lord hath done great things with these.'
The Lord hath done - great things With us;
We rejoice."

25 -THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS—Friday, November 1, 1957

Joggle for the Fulfillment of the Dream of Zion