64 Friday, December 9, 1977 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Memories of Early Zionism Kept Alive by Nahum Sokolow's Daughter
By MAURICE SAMUELSON
(Copyright 1977, JTA, Inc.)
LONDON — From the
outside it looks like any
other large, old family
house in London. But the
door opens to reveal the
enchanted home of a Polish
Jewish princess. I had come
to interview Dr. Celina
Sokolow, last surviving
child of Nahum Sokolow,
the great Hebrew writer
and journalist, - collaborator
of Chaim Weizmann and
one-time president of the
World Zionist Organization.
"Celina cannot walk now
so she will receive you
upstairs," said a smiling
elderly gentleman. "But
first I will show you
around." My guide is Dr.
Emil Goldstein, a neighbor
who had first met Sokolow
in Bulgaria half a century
ago and takes a protective
interest in his daughter. He
conducted me into a huge,
dark reception room with
vaulted ceiling, its walls
lined with pictures and
books. It vibrated with the
NAHUM SOKOLOW
spirit of the man who lived
here from 1921 to his death
in 1936.
"That portrait of Nahum
Sokolow was painted by
Leonid Pasternak, father of
Boris Pasternak, in Berlin
in about 1932," Goldstein
explained. "At this grand
piano, Artur Rubinstein,
another close friend of the
Sokolows, used to play." I
was soon to hear a host of
other legendary names
whose spirits still inhabit
Number 43 Compayne Gar-
dens,-Swiss Cottage.
At the top of the broad
sweeping staircase another
door opens, and there, enth-
roned in a blaze of sunlight,
is a smiling, white-haired
Celina. "So you want to
know about the Balfour
Declaration," she says, her
blue eyes sparkling with
delight. Open on the large
table before her is a volume
of her father's monumental
—"History of Zionism: 1600-
1919." She has written a
brief note of what she wants
to say. Although in her late
80s, her voice is as clear
and firm as her memory:
"What you have to under-
stand, my dear, is that the
Balfour Declaration was the
end of a chapter in Zionist
history. I remember as
though it is today the great
celebration in the London
Opera House on Dec. 2,
1917, one month after the
declaration was signed.
There was such enthusiasm
and it was all so solemn.
People had come from all
over England, and from
France, too. I was so proud
for my father. As a humble
daughter, I can say that he
worked with all his heart for
the revival of the Jewish
people, and his work was
crowned on that day."
She herself had been a
medical student in Switzer-
land when, during World
War I she had been asked
by her father to join him- in
London where, with Dr.
Yehiel . Tschlenov, another
leader of the World Zionist
Organization; he was seek-
ing British support, together
with British Zionists led by
Weizmann.
Although she was to work
intermittently as a doctor.as
well, she was to remain her
father's assistant, medical
adviser and companion
throughout his world-wide
travels until his death. Dur-
ing World War I, Sokolow
lived in the Regent's Palace
Hotel, near the Zionist
office at Empire House, 175
Piccadilly. The German
zeppelins dropped bombs
nightly and the Sokolows
often rushed from the office
to the hotel for shelter.
Sometimes Celina joined
her father on his frequent
crossings to Paris for
meetings of the Inter-Allied
Conference. The ferries
from Southampton were
completely blacked out
because of the danger of
enemy submarines. On one
occasion, the whole British
War Cabinet was on board
the same ship.
Just as she recalls her
father with gratitude and
pleasure, so Celina speaks
of many other great figures
— Balfour, Lloyd George,
Thomas Masaryk, among
them. On Weizmann, she
recalls how he was often
threatening to resign in
exasperation and how her
father would always talk
him out of it-. "Chaim
Yevsherevitch! How can
you resign? A captain of a
ship that sinks can never
resign!" he would exclaim.
And Weizmann always
demurred. Her father was
always loyal to. Weizmann,
and they understood each
other, Celina adds. While
Sokolow excelled in
addressing large gatherings
and - winning sympathizers
for the cause, Weizmann
was more effective as a
fund-raiser and in smaller
gatherings.
For Sir Mark Sykes, MP,
an assistant secretary to the
War Cabinet, she retains a
special affection. "He was a
great and sincere friend and
did more than any other
British official to secure the
Balfour Declaration. When-
ever the telephone rang
very early in the morning,
my father would say: 'That
must be Sir Mark telling me
he had just had another of
his brain storms.' " Sykes
died shortly after World
War I, but Celina is still in
touch with his son, Christo-
pher Sykes, the author of
"Crossroads to Israel," the
biography of Wingate, and
other books of Jewish
interest.
Sir Mark and Sokolow
were at the meeting,
together with Harold Nicol-
son, to discuss how General
Allenby should formally
enter Jerusalem after the
Turks had fled. "Some
wanted to have all kinds of
fanfares. But my father sug-
gested that Allenby should
enter the city quietly, as a
private Englishman, holding
a Bible in his hand, and that
is what happened."
Celina's memories also
embrace the decades before
and after the Balfour Decla-
ration. When she was a
child her father was already
the famous editor and col-
umnist in the Hebrew Polish
newspaper, "Ha Zefira,"
whose press was adjacent to
the house in which she was
born. She recalls how the
workers, many in the tradi-
tional Jewish garments of
the "heim," set the type by
hand, one letter at a time.
In particular, she remem-
bers Reb Elle, the only one
permitted to set her father's
articles. She herself some-
times acted as "copy boy."
Then came the exciting
day when loud type-setting
machines and rotary
presses were introduced,
causing consternation to the
other inhabitants of the
quiet Jewish street. The
paper's circulation rose to
its peak, she recalls, during
the Dreyfus trial in the
1890s.
After Theodor Herzl's
death, Sokolow was asked to
become the secretary gen-
eral of the World Zionist
Organization. He was also
the first person to address a
Zionist conference in mod-
em Hebrew. In 1905, a
group of Russian Zionists,
headed by Meir Dizengoff,
said they were going to
build a new settlement out-
side Jaffa and asked Soko-
low to propose a name for
it. He told them to built it
first and then give it a
name. But they insisted, so
Sokolow suggested "Tel
Aviv," the title of his
Hebrew translation of
Herzl's novel,
"Altneuland."
After World War I, Celina
accompanied her father on
his world-wide travels on
behalf of the World Zionist
Organization, including a
tour of North America and
two visits to South Africa. It
was during these tours, she
says, that she became a
Zionist in her own right.
"The reaction of the Jewish
communities we visited con-
vinced me of the strength of
the Zionist idea," she said.
But it was a two-way traf-
fic. Just as Sokolow toured
the Jewish world, so many
of the leading Zionists of the
1920s and 1930s gravitated
around him in his London
home. Zalman Shazar, later
to be Israel's third presi-
dent, lived on the top floor
giving Hebrew lessons while
a student at the London
School of Economics. "Are
you really still living in the
same house?" Shazar asked
her incredulously when she
visited him shortly before
his death..
Other frequent visitors
were Vladimir Jabotinsky,
Moshe Sharett and David
Ben-Gurion and "the whole
of the Labor Zionist lead-
ership. For 'Jabotinsky,
Sokolow had had a special
respect and was very sorry
when his Revisionist Party
seceded from the World
Zionist Organization. 'It was
important for us to have an
opposition,' he used to say."
And suddenly we were
talking about the Israel of
1977. What did Celina think
about Israel being governed
by Jabotinsky's political
heirs? Her face brightened
with enthusiasm: :`Oh, I
know Menahem Begin very
well and he embraced me
warmly when I visited
Israel. I admire him for his
honesty, his straight-
forwardness and devotion to
the cause. I was very
pleased when he became
prime minister because I
respect a person who is true
to himself, even though not
everybody agreed with his
methods in the independ-
ence struggle. I pray for his
health and that his efforts
will be crowned with
success."
Our conversation con-
cluded as it began — on the
subject of her father. She
_uch of
was grieved that so m
his writings were
inadequately known by the
present generation and that
many of his literary proj-
ects had remained uncom-
pleted. Among them were
his Hebrew Dictionary, con-
ceived on the scale of the
Grande Larousse. She
reached for a copy of his
Hebrew biography of the
philosopher Baruch Spinoza.
Years ago, Ben-Gurion had
written to her saying it
should be translated and
published in English. But
this had still not been done,
although 1977 had been
widely marked as the 300th
anniversary of Spinoza's
death.
Above all, she hoped that,
after years of pro-
crastination, the Israel gov-
ernment would at last cre-
ate a Sokolow Institute to
house her father's library
and archives, including
many unpublished manu-
scripts, which had left this
house many years ago to be
stored in Jerusalem. "Have
I beeri talking too much?"
she suddenly asked as her
niece brought in coffee and
ginger cake. "My trouble is
that I have so many memo-
ries. I am embarrassed
because I remember too
much." I excused her with
gratitude and was led- out,
past another portrait of her
father, back into a world
which remembers too little.
However, Celina Soko-
low's hopes for an institute
to house her father's memo-
rabilia may go unfulfilled,
for as Josef Fraenkel, the
Zionist historian, said, the
role of the late Dr. Nahum
Sokolow in securing British
support for Jewry in the
first World War had been
"pushed into the shadows."
This, he said, was largely
the fault of successive
Israeli governments.
Although the Tel Aviv
press center and a kibutz
bear Nahum Sokolow's
name, no suitable home has
yet been provided for Soko-
low's writings and docu-
ments which are so vast
that the poet Bialik once
said it would require 300
camels to collect them
together. By contrast,
thanks largely to the late
Meyer Weisgal, the memory
of Weizmann has been kept
green by the Weizmann
Foundation and the Weiz-
mann Institute of Science.
"An appropriate me_morial
to Sokolow is now shame-
fully overdue," Fraenkel
said.
Some 20 years ago Fraen-
kel was instrumental in
acquring Sokolow's papers
from Celina. They were
transferred to Israel on the
understanding that eventu-
ally they would be housed in
a building to be erected on a
plot in Jerusalem originally
owned by Sokolow.
However, when Fraenkel
reminded the Israeli author-
ities of this promise he was
told that money was not yet
available. While Fraenkel
accepted this in years of
extreme austerity, he found
it hard to understand during
the boom years which
immediately followed the
Six-Day War.
Meanwhile, the Sokolow
papers—together with the
other central Zionist
archives—have remained in
cramped and unsuitable
conditions in the Jewish
Agency building on Jerusa-
lem's King George Street_
Fraenkel believes
besides being unfair to
Sokolow's memory, Israel
has also acted against her
own interests by not housing
the Zidnist archives prop-
erly. By thus stinting
research facilities for mod-
em Jewish historians, Israel
is failing fully to develop an
important element in • her
present political battle. At
the same time, the Arabs
are pouring money into such
bodies as the Beirut
Institute for Palestine Stud-
ies, which is producing an
ever growing list of presti-
gious publications.
He is hopeful, however,
that the new government in
Israel may be more respon-
sive than its predecessors.
Menahem Begin, Fraenkel
CELINA SOKOLOW
agreed, "has a greater
sense of history than any
other Israeli prime minister
since Ben-Gurion."
Sokolow was the editor of
the famous Hebrew daily
Ha Zefira and author of
more than 30 books on sci-
ence, Jewish history and
philosophy.
Fifteen years older than
Weizmann, he was also his
political senior during the
negotiations for the Balfour
Declaration, being the
resentative of the
Zionist Actions Committee,
whereas Weizmann repre-
sented only the British Zion-
ist Federation.
In the summer of 1917, it
was Sokolow who secured
historic statements of sup-
port for the Zionist cause by
France, Italy and the Vati-
can, which the British' had
demanded as a precondition
for their own statement in
November of that year. In
1920, Sokolow headed the
Zionist delegation to the
Pari Peace Conference.
In 1956, Sokolow's remains
were transferred to Jerusa-
lem, and buried near the
body of Herzl and other
founding fathers of the Jew-
ish state.