700: The Karaite Synagogue in Jerusalem is the oldest of Jerusalem’s active synagogues, having been built in the 8th century. It was destroyed by the Crusaders in 1099 and Jews were not allowed to live in the city for 50 years. In 1187 Saladin restored the site to the Karaite Jews, who promptly rebuilt the synagogue. It has been active continuously since its foundation, except during the Crusades and Jordanian occupation of the city (1948-1967). In 1967, the Israeli government returned the synagogue to the Karaite community, who finished renovating it in 1982.
1267: Moses ben Nahman, commonly known as Nachmanides, and also referred to by the acronym Ramban and by the contemporary nickname Bonastruc ça Porta, was a leading medieval Jewish scholar, Sephardic rabbi, philospher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator. He was raised, studied, and lived for most of his life in Girona, Catalonia. He is also considered to be an important figure in the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Jerusalem following its destruction by the Crusaders in 1099. In seeking refuge in Muslim lands from Christian persecution, he made aliyah to Jerusalem. There he established a synagogue in the Old City that exists until present day, known as the Ramban Synagogue.
1267: The Ramban Synagogue, is the second oldest active synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was founded by the scholar and rabbi Nachmanides (also known as Ramban) in 1267, to serve the local Jewish community, which expanded because of the synagogue’s presence.
1535: Joseph ben Ephraim Karo was author of the last great codification of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch, which is still authoritative for all Jews pertaining to their respective communities. After the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497, he made his way to the holy city of Safed, in the land of Israel. There he founded a house of learning, a yeshiva, which is still commemorated to this day.
1561: Joseph Nasi is best known to history for his attempt to resettle the towns of Tiberias and Safed. He was the first person to attempt to settle Jews in the cities of what was then Southern Syria by practical means, as opposed to waiting for the Messiah.
April 20, 1799: Napoleon Bonaparte issued a letter offering Palestine as a homeland to the Jews under French protection. During Napoleon’s siege of Acre in 1799, Le Moniteur Universel, the main French newspaper during the French Revolution, published on 3 Prairial, Year vii (French Republican Calendar, equivalent to 22 May 1799) a short statement that: “Bonaparte has published a proclamation in which he invites all the Jews of Asia and Africa to gather under his flag in order to re-establish the ancient Jerusalem. He has already given arms to a great number, and their battalions threaten Aleppo.”
NOTE: From the days of the Reformation to the ascent of Napoleon III in France and the digging of the Suez Canal, there were no Jewish leaders in the Zionism movement, despite repeated British and French attempts to recruit them. The non-Jewish origin of Zionism is further illustrated by the simple fact that the ideas of Restoration developed first in England (with no Jewish population) instead of Germany, Poland, or Russia (where the bulk of European Jewry lived). It took about one hundred years after Oliver Cromwell for the number of Jews to reach 12,000 in England and another hundred years to reach 25,000, while the census of 1897 showed 5,189,401 Jews (4.13% of total population) in the Russian Empire.
1838: A quote from the Quarterly Review reveals one of the first major British Zionist plans to settle Jews in Palestine “for the maintenance” of the British Empire. The growing interest manifested for these regions, the larger investment of British capital, and the confluence of British travellers and strangers from all parts of the world, have recently induced the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to station there a representative of our Sovereign, in the person of a Vice-Consul. This gentleman set sail for Alexandria at the end of last September—his residence will be fixed at Jerusalem, but his jurisdiction will extend to the whole country within the ancient limits of the Holy Land; he is thus accredited, as it were, to the former kingdom of David and the Twelve Tribes. The soil and climate of Palestine are singularly adapted to the growth of produce required for the exigencies of Great Britain; the finest cotton may be obtained in almost unlimited abundance; silk and madder are the staple of the country, and oil-olive is now, as it ever was, the very fatness of the land. Capital and skill are alone required: the presence of a British officer, and the increased security of property which his presence will confer, may invite them [the Jews] from these islands to the cultivation of Palestine; and the Jews, who will betake themselves to agriculture in no other land, having found, in the English Consul, a mediator between their people and the Pasha, will probably return in yet greater numbers, and become once more the husbandmen of Judæa and Galilee.
NOTE: Napoleon knew well the value of an Hebrew alliance; and endeavoured to reproduce, in the capital of France, the spectacle of the ancient Sanhedrim, which, basking in the might of imperial favour, might give laws to the whole body of the Jews throughout the habitable world, and aid him, no doubt, in his audacious plans against Poland and the East. That which Napoleon designed in his violence and ambition, thinking “to destroy nations not a few,” we may wisely and legitimately undertake for the maintenance of our Empire.
August 1838: Britain instructed its Ambassador to Turkey to encourage the Sultan to allow the Jews of Europe to “return” to Palestine.
June 14, 1841: Colonel Charles Henry Churchill, also known as ‘Churchill Bey’, (first cousin of John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, the grandfather of Winston Churchill). He was a British officer and diplomat and a British consul in Ottoman Syria who created the first political plan for Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel in the region of Ottoman Palestine. The proposal correspondence with Sir Moses Montefiore, the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, in which Churchill proposed a strategy for the creating of a Jewish state, pre-dating formal Zionism by approximately half a century.
Churchill wrote to Montefiore (an excerpt from the letter):
“I cannot conceal from you my most anxious desire to see your countrymen endeavor once more to resume their existence as a people. 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. Let them meet, concert and petition. In fact the agitation must be simultaneous throughout Europe. There is no Government which can possibly take offence at such public meetings. The result would be that you would conjure up a new element in Eastern diplomacy–an element which under such auspices as those of the wealthy and influential members of the Jewish community could not fail not only of attracting great attention and of exciting extraordinary interest, but also of producing great events. 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. 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”
1845: Lieutenant-Colonel George Gawler wrote a memorandum in which he suggested that Jews be allowed to establish Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine as compensation for their suffering under Turkish rule. In 1849 he toured Palestine with Moses Montefiore. In a further work, Syria and its Near Prospects, (1853) he made four arguments for the proposition that Jewish settlement was already underway. Gawler conveniently claimed that 90% of the land of Palestine lay waste and unprofitable, waiting for the “civilized” settlers to make it productive. He was perhaps the first Zionist to conceptualize and articulate the Zionist myth that “Palestine is a land without a people” waiting for “the Jews, a people without a land”.
NOTE: Gawler sums up his Zionist colonial plan in these words: Reduced to its practical form the question [of the tranquillization of Syria] becomes one of colonization [of Palestine]. THERE is a fertile country, nine-tenths of which lies desolate. ELSEWHERE, are civilized men, for whom it is desired to make of that almost forsaken country, an established home. For successful colonization three things are, in the highest degree, indispensable. The probability of SAFE SETTLEMENT in the colony—the facility of TRANSIT to it—and the will, or the obligation to embrace these opportunities. … On any other principle, the will of the proposed settler would be wanting. No members of the Jewish persuasion, worth sending to Palestine, would accept the boon so tauntingly proffered. We cannot, if we would, force them into colonization as convicts, under the moving agency of compulsory obligation, and must therefore carefully consult their feelings as well as our own desires. The colony should be formed of three classes of settlers, who would receive protection and land privileges: (1) persons possessing sufficient capital to provide entirely for themselves would receive up to 300 acres, (2) persons with a small amount of capital, providing wholly their own passages and means of transit to the location, would receive up to 50 acres, and (3) persons of very small means, receiving a free conveyance for themselves, their families, and a regulated weight of luggage, would receive up to 10 acres.
1850: According to Alexander Scholch, Palestine had about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews. According to Ottoman statistics studied by Justin McCarthy, the population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000, in 1860 it was 411,000 and in 1900 about 600,000 of which 94% were Arabs. McCarthy estimates the non-Jewish population of Palestine at 452,789 in 1882, 737,389 in 1914, 725,507 in 1922, 880,746 in 1931 and 1,339,763 in 1946.
NOTE: A major source of information about the Yishuv, or Jewish community in Palestine during the 19th century is a sequence of censuses commissioned by Montefiore, in 1839, 1840, 1849, 1855, 1866 and 1875. The censuses attempted to list every Jew individually, together with some biographical and social information (such as their family structure, place of origin, and degree of poverty).
1852: American writer Bayard Taylor traveled across the Jezreel Valley, which he described in his 1854 book The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain as: “one of the richest districts in the world. The soil is a dark-brown loam, and, without manure, produces annually superb crops of wheat and barley”
1854: Judah Touro, a wealthy American Jew, died having bequeathed money to fund Jewish residential settlement in Palestine. Moses Montefiore was appointed executor of his will, and used the funds for a variety of projects aimed at encouraging the Jews to engage in productive labor. In 1855, he purchased an orchard on the outskirts of Jaffa that offered agricultural training to the Jews.
1857: Rabbi Judah Alkalai published his work, Goral la-Adonai (A Lot for the Lord), in Vienna; a treatise on the restoration of the Jews, and suggests methods for the betterment of conditions in Palestine. Rabbi Alkalai thought it would be possible to buy part or even most of the Holy Land from the Turkish government; dreamed of establishing a world-wide organization along the lines of the various national organizations then prevalent among other nations of Europe. The purpose of these organizations would be to buy and reclaim land, as well as providing loans for new settlers.
NOTE: Along with the Ashkenazi Rabbi Zvi Kalischer of Prussia, the Sephardic Alkalai was an early forerunner of Zionism. If Kalischer was a forerunner of practical Zionism and agricultural settlement, Alkalai was perhaps the founder of Political Zionism. Alkalai devoted himself to spreading the idea of Jewish restoration through writing and speeches. Alkalai was not quite a Zionist in the modern sense and should not be understood as a direct father of Zionist ideas. He believed that the coming of the Messiah would be hastened by return of the Jews to the land of Israel and their settlement there.
Zionism is a form of nationalism of Jews and Jewish culture that supports a Jewish nation state in the territory defined as the Land of Israel. Zionism supports Jews upholding their Jewish identity, opposes the assimilation of Jews into other societies and has advocated the return of Jews to Israel as a means for Jews to be a majority in their own nation, and to be liberated from antisemitic discrimination, exclusion, and persecution that had historically occurred in the diaspora. Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in central and eastern Europe as a national revival movement, and soon after this most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
1860: The first Jewish neighborhood, Mishkenot Sha’ananim is built outside the Old City walls, in an area later known as Yemin Moshe, by Sir Moses Montefiore, as part of the process to “leave the walls”
1862: Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer; in 1862 he published his book Drishat Tzion. He suggested to Moses Montefiore and to the Rothschild family of bankers, that the land of Palestine should be bought from the present ruler. “Therefore, he viewed the developments of rising nationalism among the Jewish people as one of the first stages in the process of natural redemption, i.e., that process by which man himself would help bring about the beginning of redemption in which at least some Jews would return to Eretz Israel. Kalischer apparently first expressed his Zionist ideas in a letter he wrote in 1836 to the head of the Berlin branch of the Rothschild family. He explained that the beginning of messianic redemption would be brought about by human effort and by the will of the governments to gather the scattered of Israel into the Holy Land.”
1862: Moses Hess publishes Rome and Jerusalem, arguing for a Jewish homeland in Palestine centered on Jerusalem. Moses (Moshe) Hess was a Jewish philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism. His book calls for the establishment of a Jewish socialist commonwealth in Palestine, in line with the emerging national movements in Europe and as the only way to respond to antisemitism and assert Jewish identity in the modern world.
1868: Mahane Israel becomes the second Jewish neighborhood outside the walls. of the Old City. Mahane Israel is a “communal neighborhood” and was built by and for Maghreb (western North Africa) Jews. It was built by the Moroccan leader Rabbi David Ben-Shimon. Although the neighborhood was very small and the houses were poorly built, the residents were spirited and courageous. Men studied in different shifts throughout the night in the central Shul – Tzuf Devash.
1868: Benjamin Disraeli becomes prime minister of Great Britain, the first prime minister of Jewish descent in Europe. He was a devout Anglican since his baptism at age 12, though also Britain’s only prime minister of Jewish birth.
1869: Nahalat Shiv’a becomes the third Jewish neighborhood outside the walls, built as a cooperative effort. It was founded as a cooperative effort by seven Jerusalem families who pooled their funds to purchase the land and build homes. Lots were cast and Yosef Rivlin won the right to build the first house in the neighborhood. In 1873, milk cows were imported from Amsterdam and a dairy was opened in Nahalat Shiv’a. A carriage service to Jaffa Gate was inaugurated that summer.
1873–1875: Mea Shearim is built, the fifth Jewish neighborhood outside the walls. It is populated mainly by Haredi Jews and was built by the original settlers of the Yishuv haYashan, by a building society of 100 shareholders. Pooling their resources, the society members purchased a tract of land outside the Old City, which was severely overcrowded and plagued by poor sanitation, and built a new neighborhood with the goal of improving their standards of living.
1874: The Moses Montefiore Testimonial Fund is founded in London following Monteiore’s 90th birthday; aim is to aid settlement in Palestine. They established, Mazkeret Moshe, the neighborhood was intended for Ashkenazi Jews, while the adjacent neighborhood Ohel Moshe, also funded by Montefiore’s foundation, was intended for Sephardi Jews.
1876: Daniel Deronda is a novel. The work’s mixture of social satire and moral searching, along with its sympathetic rendering of Jewish proto-Zionist and Kabbalistic ideas. On its publication, Daniel Deronda was immediately translated into German and Dutch and was given an enthusiastic extended review by the Austrian Zionist rabbi and scholar David Kaufmann. Further translations soon followed into French (1882), Italian (1883), Hebrew (1893), Yiddish (1900s) and Russian (1902). Written during a time when Restorationism (similar to 20th century Christian Zionism) had a strong following, Eliot’s novel had a positive influence on later Jewish Zionism. It has been cited by Henrietta Szold, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, and Emma Lazarus as having been influential in their decision to become Zionists. Daniel Deronda emphasized the notion that the Jews are descendants of Biblical Israelites and that “a whole Christian is threefourths a Jew.” It also stressed the idea of “the necessity of requiting a moral debt owed to the Jews”. Some even consider that Deronda created a Jewish nationalist spirit for Zionism and a role model that inspired Theodor Herzl.
1877: Michael Yehiel Pines was a writer, an early exponent of religious Zionism, and yishuv leader. Pines was asked by the Moses Montefiore Testimonial Fund in London to serve as its representative in Ereẓ Israel.
1878: a group of Orthodox Jews, also known as the Old Yishuv, from Jerusalem purchased a tract of land in the Sharon Valley, six miles from Jaffa. The 26 families built mud huts to live in and called the farming community, Petah Tikvah. It became a permanent settlement in 1883 with the financial help of Baron Edmond de Rothschild.
NOTE: The name of this city, located east of Tel Aviv means “Gateway to Hope.” Three entrepreneurial families initially established the settlement, one of which was Rabbi Moshe Yoel Salomon’s family, from Jerusalem. Additional families joined them in 1880. The settlers’ intention was to establish a new settlement in the Achor Valley – near Jericho. They purchased some land there, but the Turkish Sultan cancelled the purchase and forbade them from settling there. Located in what was a swamp area near the source of the Yarkon River – the land was purchased from the village of Mulabbis. For a time, the settlers had to move to a nearby location (site of modern day Savyon), until the swamps were dried, with the help of Baron Edmond de Rothschild. Like Degania Alef, which was known as the “Mother of the Kevutzot,” Petah Tikvah was known as the “Mother of the Moshavot” – or small cooperative villages. It was really the first modern agricultural settlement in Israel.
1881: Chief Rabbi of Paris, Izakel Antwerp, influenced the Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild to begin supporting the Hibbat-Zion movement and the initial organization of groups who tried establishing new colonies in Palestine.
NOTE: Hovevei Zion (Those who are Lovers of Zion), also known as Hibbat Zion, refers to a variety of organizations which began in 1881 in response to the Anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire and were officially constituted as a group at a conference led by Leon Pinsker in 1884. The organizations are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism. Many of the first groups were established in Eastern European countries in the early 1880s with the aim to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine, and advance Jewish settlement there, particularly agricultural.
1882: Leon Pinsker was a physician, a Zionist pioneer and activist, and the founder and leader of the Hovevei Zion, also known as Hibbat Zion (Lovers of Zion) movement. His visit to Western Europe led to his famous pamphlet Auto-Emancipation, subtitled Mahnruf an seine Stammgenossen, von einem russischen Juden (Warning to His Fellow People, from a Russian Jew), which he published anonymously in German on 1 January 1882, and in which he urged the Jewish people to strive for independence and national consciousness. His analysis of the roots of this ancient hatred led him to call for the establishment of a Jewish National Homeland, either in Palestine or elsewhere. Eventually Pinsker came to agree with Moses Lilienblum that hatred of Jews was rooted in the fact that they were foreigners everywhere except their original homeland, the Land of Israel. He became one of the founders and a chairman of the Hovevei Zion movement, with the backing of Baron Edmond James de Rothschild.
1882: First Aliyah (also The Farmers’ Aliyah) was the first modern widespread wave of Zionist aliyah. Jews who migrated to Ottoman Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. “The First Aliyah began in 1882 and continued, intermittently, until 1903″. An estimated 25,000–35,000 Jews immigrated to Ottoman Palestine during the First Aliyah.
1882: Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild refrained from openly publicizing his support of the Jewish Yishuv, and he was called, Hanadiv (The Known Benefactor). The Baron first agreed to help in Rishon Lezion, and then began aiding the other colonies as well; he also started buying large plots of land and founding new colonies. In Rishon Lezion, when he took over, sending in his administrators, major progress was made in the spheres of agriculture, citrus and viticulture.
1882: a group of Hovevei Zion enthusiasts founded Rishon LeZion, the first Zionist settlement in the Palestine, outside of Jerusalem. Hovevei Zion (Those who are Lovers of Zion), refers to organizations that are now considered the forerunners and foundation-builders of modern Zionism. Many of these first groups were established in Eastern European countries in the early 1880s with the aim to promote Jewish immigration to Palestine, and advance Jewish settlement there, particularly agricultural. Most of them stayed away from politics.
1887: Edmond James de Rothschild conceived a plan to purchase and demolish the Moroccan Quarter as “a merit and honor to the Jewish People.” The proposed purchase was considered and approved by the Ottoman Governor of Jerusalem, Rauf Pasha, and by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Tahir Husseini. Even after permission was obtained from the highest secular and Muslim religious authority to proceed, the transaction was shelved after the authorities insisted that after demolishing the quarter no construction of any type could take place there, only trees could be planted to beautify the area. Additionally the Jews would not have full control over the area. This meant that they would have no power to stop people from using the plaza for various activities, including the driving of mules, which would cause a disturbance to worshippers. Other reports place the scheme’s failure on Jewish infighting as to whether the plan would foster a detrimental Arab reaction.
1896: Theodor Herzl, added to his diary a sixty-five page pamphlet—in effect the outline of Der Judenstaat—which he called: “Address to the Rothschilds,” to present to the Rothschild Family Council:
“I bring to the Rothschilds and the big Jews their historical mission. I shall welcome all men of goodwill — we must be united — and crush all those of bad.” The Jews should settle in Palestine because, in his words, “the Temple will be visible from long distance, for it is only our ancient faith that has kept us together”
NOTE: Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild clashed with Theodor Herzl on the interpretation of political Zionism; at their meeting, it is reported that Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild, twice, told Theodor Herzl: “Il ne faut pas avoir les yeux plus gros que le ventre” (It does not do to have eyes bigger than one’s stomach); the Baron had a similar disagreement with Ahad Ha’am and members of the Hovevei Zion.
February 14, 1896: Theodor Herzl’s, “Address to the Rothschilds” was thoroughly reworked and emerged as Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Problem) and was published by M. Breitenstein in Vienna. “Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland. . . Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die. The world will be liberated by our freedom, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind”
March 10, 1896: Theodor Herzl was visited by Reverend William Hechler, the Anglican minister to the British Embassy; Hechler had read Herzl’s Der Judenstaat, and the meeting became central to the eventual legitimization of Herzl and Zionism.
August 29-31, 1897: First Zionist Congress was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) (to become the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1960) held in Basel (Basle), Switzerland; it was convened and chaired by Theodor Herzl; he is elected the President of the Zionist Organization; a Zionist flag is displayed with a gold lion inside a gold Magen David and seven golden stars; “Zionism aims at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine”
October 1898: Theodor Herzl visited Jerusalem for the first time; he met with Kaiser Wilhelm II, this meeting was coordinated with the aid of Rev. William Hechler.
1899: Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland, also known as the British Zionist Federation or simply the Zionist Federation (ZF), was established to campaign for a permanent homeland for the Jewish people. The Zionist Federation is an umbrella organisation for the Zionist movement in the United Kingdom, representing more than 120 organisations, and over 50,000 affiliated members.
NOTE: Among its aims and objectives, ZF lists: Support, co-ordinate and facilitate the work of all its affiliates nationwide, and to continue its commitment to the Zionist youth movements; Encourage the participation of Jews in Zionist activities including education, culture, Hebrew language and Israel information, underpinned by the belief that the main goal of Zionism is Aliyah; The Zionist Federation is an umbrella organisation encompassing most of the Zionist organizations and individuals in the country and, as such, represents the Zionist movement in the United Kingdom.
1899: Baron Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild transferred title to his colonies, a group of 12 settlements, in Palestine plus fifteen million francs to The Jewish Colonization Association (ICA).
1899: Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild FRS becomes the first Jewish member of the British parliament. As an active Zionist and close friend of Chaim Weizmann, he worked to formulate the draft declaration for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. On November 2, 1917, he received a letter from the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, addressed to his London home at 148 Piccadilly. In this letter the British government declared its support for the establishment in Palestine of “a national home for the Jewish people”. This letter became known as the Balfour Declaration.
1901: Jews from the colonies set up in Palestine by Edmond James de Rothschild, send a delegation to him which tell him, “If you wish to save the Yishuv (The Jewish settlement) first take your hands from it, and…for once permit the colonists to have the possibility of correcting for themselves what needs correcting.” Edmond James de Rothschild is very angry about this and states, “I created the Yishuv, I alone. Therefore no men, neither colonists nor organizations have the right to interfere in my plans”
NOTE: Rothschild – who had, for years, sponsored the first agricultural settlements and even the experimental farm-school of Mikveh-Israel – used to say that “Capital was the first settler”.
1905: United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour had requested of Charles Dreyfus, his Jewish constituency representative, that he arrange a meeting with Chaim Weizmann, during which Weizmann asked for official British support for Zionism; they were to meet again on this issue in 1914.
1909: The soon to be British Prime Minister Lloyd George claimed, that Lord Nathan Rothschild was the most powerful man in Britain.
February 23, 1914: Baron Edmond James de Rothschild had a meeting with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Palestine. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (May 23, 1844 – November 28, 1921), was the eldest son of Bahá’u’lláh and head of the Bahá’í Faith from 1892 until his death in 1921.
November 9, 1914: Zionism was first discussed by the British Cabinet, four days after Britain’s declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire, David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, “referred to the ultimate destiny of Palestine”
January 1915: Zionist and British cabinet member Herbert Samuel presented a detailed memorandum entitled The Future of Palestine to the British Cabinet on the benefits of a British protectorate over Palestine to support Jewish immigration.
May 16, 1916: Sykes–Picot Agreement – a secret agreement which effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence. The agreement effectively divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian peninsula into areas of future British and French control or influence. The terms were negotiated by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and British Sir Mark Sykes. The Russian Tsarist government was a dishonored minor party to the Sykes–Picot agreement.
NOTE: Many sources report that this agreement conflicted with the Hussein–McMahon Correspondence of 1915–1916. It has also been reported that the publication of the Sykes–Picot Agreement caused the resignation of Sir Henry McMahon. However, the Sykes–Picot plan itself stated that France and Great Britain were prepared to recognize and protect an independent Arab State, or Confederation of Arab States, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. Nothing in the plan precluded rule through an Arab suzerainty in the remaining areas.
February 1917: Chaim Weizmann became president of the British Zionist Federation; he expressed his view of Zionism in the following words: “We have never based the Zionist movement on Jewish suffering in Russia or in any other land. These suffering have never been the mainspring of Zionism. The foundation of Zionism was, and continues to be to this day, the yearning of the Jewish people for its homeland, for a national center and a national life”
August 1917: British War Cabinet, desperate to persuade the Jews of Russia to urge their government to renew Russia’s flagging war effort, saw a future Jewish Palestine as an inducement and stimulus to the patriotic zeal of Russia’s Jews. To this end, Britain encouraged the possibility of an eventual Jewish majority in Palestine, even if – with the population then being some 600,000 Arabs and 60,000 Jews – such a majority might take many years to emerge.
August 1917: British cabinet worked to finalize the Balfour Declaration; Edwin Samuel Montagu, the only Jew in the British Cabinet and a staunch anti-Zionist was passionately opposed to the declaration on the grounds that (a) it was a capitulation to anti-Semitic bigotry, with its suggestion that Palestine was the natural destination of the Jews, and that (b) it would be a grave cause of alarm to the Muslim world”. Additional references to the future rights of non-Jews in Palestine and the status of Jews worldwide were thus inserted by the British cabinet, reflecting the opinion of the only Jew within it. Also, the term “state” was replaced with “home”, and comments were sought from Zionists abroad. Louis Brandeis, a member of the US Supreme Court, influenced the style of the text and changed the words “Jewish race” to “Jewish people”.
October 24, 1917: Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, told the War Cabinet: ‘The vast majority of Jews in Russia and America, as, indeed, all over the world, now appeared to be favorable to Zionism. If we could make a declaration favorable to such an ideal, we should be able to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America”. Balfour told the War Cabinet that while the words ‘national home … did not necessarily involve the early establishment of an independent Jewish State’, such a State ‘was a matter for gradual development in accordance with the ordinary laws of political evolution’.
NOTE: Publication of the Balfour Declaration had been delayed so that it could first be published in the weekly Jewish Chronicle on November 9. It was thus issued too late to affect the Bolshevik triumph. It did, however, encourage American Jews, especially those born in Russia, to volunteer to fight in Palestine against the Turks as part of the British Army. Yitzhak Rabin’s father was among those volunteers.
November 1, 1917: a senior Foreign Office official noted that the Zionist leaders then in Britain were prepared to send ‘agents’ to Russia and America ‘to work up a pro-ally and especially pro-British campaign of propaganda among the Jews.’
November 2, 1917: To secure the results hoped for by the Foreign Office, Vladimir Jabotinsky agreed to go at once to Russia, to stimulate Russian Jews to urge their government not to pull out of the war, and leave Britain and France in danger of defeat at the unfettered hands of Germany. Weizmann agreed to go first to the United States and then to Russia, to rouse pro-war sentiment among the Jewish masses in both countries.
November 2, 1917: Balfour Declaration, a letter issued by Arthur James Balfour, the British foreign secretary, on behalf of the Government of His Britannic Majesty King George the Fifth, addressed to Lord Rothschild (Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild), an international financier of the banking house of Rothschild; the letter was addressed to his London home at 148 Piccadilly. He was an active Zionist and close friend of Chaim Weizmann, and worked to formulate the draft declaration for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He also inherited the title “Baron de Rothschild” of the Austrian nobility, which was an authorized title in the United Kingdom by Warrant of April 27, 1932.
NOTE: “His Majesty’s Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation”
Michael Ruark 