An excerpt from, "Great Britain, Palestine and The Jews - Jewry's Celebration of its National Charter" 1918, published by George H. Doran Company, Pg. 37 - 48:
The greatest and most imposing public meeting ever held in the history of British Jewry was that which took place on Sunday, December 2, 1917, at the London Opera House, for the purpose of thanking the British Government for its declaration in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The building was crowded with an enthusiastic audience representative of all sections of the Anglo-Jewish community. Delegates were present from nearly all Jewish congregations, organisations, institutions, and societies in the United Kingdom. The chair was taken by Lord Rothschild.
Lord Rothschild said they were met on the most momentous occasion in the history of Judaism for the last 1800 years. They were there to return thanks to His Majesty’s Government for a Declaration which marked an epoch in Jewish history of outstanding importance. For the first time since the Dispersion the Jewish people had received its proper status by the Declaration of one of the Great Powers. The Declaration, while acknowledging and approving of the aspirations of the Jewish people for a national home, at the same time placed Jews on their honour to respect the rights and privileges not only of their prospective non-Jewish neighbours in Palestine, but also of those of their own people who did not see eye to eye with the Zionist cause. Feeling as he did that the aims of Zionism were in no way incompatible with the highest patriotism and loyal citizenship of the Jews in the various countries in which they were dwelling, he would like the meeting in passing the resolution which would be submitted to them to assure the Government that they would, one and all, faithfully observe both the spirit and the letter of their gracious Declaration. (Cheers.) He felt sure that the principal aim of the Zionists was to provide a national home for those portions of the Jewish people who wished to escape the possibilities in the future of such oppression and ill-treatment as they had endured in the past and he therefore held that all and every section of opinion in the Jewish people could work together for the establishment in Palestine of such a home, so as to make it a triumphant success.
Lord Rothschild then moved the following resolution :
“That this mass meeting, representing all sections of the Jewish community in the United Kingdom, conveys to His Majesty’s Government an expression of heartfelt gratitude for their Declaration in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. It assures His Majesty’s Government that their historic action in support of the national aspirations of the Jewish people has evoked among Jews the most profound sentiments of joy. This meeting further pledges its utmost endeavours to give its whole-hearted support to the Zionist cause.”
Lord Robert Cecil, K.C., M.P., who was received with loud cheering, said:
I have come here with the greatest possible pleasure at the request of those who represent, or who have led the representation of the Zionist movement of this country, to offer to you and to all Zionists my hearty congratulations on the event which you are celebrating to-day. (Cheers.) And perhaps you will allow me to mention in connection with these congratulations, not only your Chairman, but also M. Nahum Sokolow and Dr. C. Weizmann, who have done so much for the cause that we all have at heart this afternoon. Surely all of us must feel what a very striking gathering the present one is. The keynote of our meeting this afternoon is liberation. (Cheers.) We welcome among us not only the many thousands of Jews that I see, but also representatives of the Arabian and Armenian races who are also in this great struggle struggling to be free. (Hear, hear.) Our wish is that Arabian countries shall be for the Arabs, Armenia for the Armenians, and Judaea for the Jews. (Applause.) Yes, and let us add, if it can be so, let Turkey, real Turkey, be for the Turks.
I should like to be allowed to say that the part that this country is taking in this movement is not a new thing. (Hear, hear.) I venture to claim for this country that in supporting Zionism it has been merely carrying out its traditional policy. To me, at any rate, it seems that there are two great foundations upon which the policy of this country has always been based. I believe they are often described by the two words “Liberty” and “Justice.” Perhaps more accurately they may be called the supremacy of the Law and Liberty, for, be well assured, if we are ever to obtain that security which we have been recently told is so important to us, if we are ever to lift European civilisation and national relations in Europe out of the anarchy in which they at present are, it must be by the same means by which we have secured liberty and happiness in each country, namely, by the supremacy of Law.
As for the second foundation of which I have spoken, and which has more practical bearing on our proceedings this afternoon, may I say this: We hear a great deal of a new word, “Self-determination.” Well, I don’t know that it is a new thing. It certainly is not new in the British Empire. The Empire has always striven to give to all the peoples that make it up the fullest measure of self-government of which they are capable. (Hear, hear.) We have always striven to give to all peoples within our bounds complete liberty and equality before the Law.
(Hear, hear.) We are adjured to respect the principle of self-determination; but I say that the British Empire was the first organisation to teach that principle to the world, and one of the great causes for which we are in this war is to secure to all peoples the right to govern themselves and to work out their own destiny, irrespective of the threats and menaces of their greater neighbour. (Hear, hear.)
One of the great steps—in my judgment, in some ways the greatest step—we have taken in carrying out this principle is the recognition of Zionism. This is the first constructive effort that we have made in what I hope will be the new settlement of the world after the war. (Cheers.) I do not say that that is the only thing involved. It is not only the recognition of a nationality—it is much more than that. It has great underlying ideals of which you will hear this afternoon and of which it would be impertinent of me to speak. It is, indeed, not the birth of a nation, for the Jewish nation through centuries of oppression and captivity have preserved their sentiment of nationality as few people could; but if it is not the birth of a nation, I believe we may say it is the re-birth of a nation. (Applause.) I don’t like to prophesy what ultimate results that great event may have, but for myself I believe it will have a far-reaching influence on the history of the world and consequences which none can foresee on the future history of the human race. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. Herbert Samuel, M.P., who received an enthusiastic welcome, said:
I rejoice wholeheartedly in the pronouncement that has been made by the British Government with respect to Palestine. It is a policy which for nearly three years I have urged in the Cabinet and out of the Cabinet at every opportunity that arose. (Cheers.) The fears and the doubts which this policy has evoked are, I firmly believe, unfounded. Three conditions must indeed be observed in any new developments that may take place in Palestine. In the first place, there must be full, just recognition of the rights of the Arabs, who now constitute the majority of the population of that country. Secondly, there must be a reverent respect for the Christian and Mohammedan holy places, which in all eventualities should always remain in the control and charge of representatives of those faiths. (Cheers.) In the third place, there must be no attempt now or in the future to establish anything in the nature of political authority from Palestine over the Jews scattered in other countries of the world, who must probably always remain the great majority of the Jewish race. There should be no disturbance, large or small, direct or indirect, in their national status or in their national rights and duties in the countries of which they are, or should be, full and equal citizens. On all these matters there is no divergence of opinion in any quarter, and the controversies that have taken place, I venture to think, are disputes over differences that do not exist.
The reason why, for my own part, I support the policy which we are here to-day to approve and celebrate are chiefly these. First, it may be that the genius of the Jewish race will again be able to give to the world a brilliant and distinctive civilisation. (Cheers.) The richness of mankind lies in its diversity. We do not want the world to be like some great library, consisting of nothing but innumerable copies of one and the same book. The Jewish mind is a distinctive thing. It combines in remarkable degree the imaginative and the practical, the ideal and the positive. This combination of qualities enabled it for 1500 years in Palestine to produce an almost unbroken series of statesmen and soldiers, judges and poets, prophets and seers—thinkers and leaders who have left for all time their impress upon the world. The Jewish mind is tenacious and persists, and now, when all the powerful Empires that overran that land have been overthrown and almost forgotten, the Jewish people exists and is more numerous to-day than it ever has been at any period of its history. Who knows, I say, but that if again it finds a spiritual centre of its own, soundly based on an industrious population, untrammelled, self-contained, inspired by the memories of a splendid past, it may again produce golden fruits in the fields of intellect for the enrichment of the whole world. (Cheers.)
And my other reason is this: If this comes to be, what a helpful effect it would have upon the Jewish proletariat that will still remain scattered in other countries of the world! I see in my mind’s eye those millions in Eastern Europe all through the centuries, crowded, cramped, proscribed, bent with oppression, suffering all the miseries of active minds denied scope, of talent not allowed to speak, of genius that cannot act. I see them enduring, suffering everything, sacrificing everything in order to keep alight the flame of which they knew themselves to be the lamp, to keep alive the idea of which they knew themselves to be the vessel, to preserve the soul of which they knew themselves to be the body; their eyes always set upon one distant point, always believing that somehow, some day, the ancient greatness would be restored; always saying when they met in their families on Passover Night, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Year after year, generation following generation, century succeeding century, till the time that has elapsed is counted in thousands of years, still they said, “Next year in Jerusalem.” If that cherished vision is at last to be realised, if on the Hills of Zion a Jewish civilisation is restored with something of its old intellectual and moral force, then among those left in the other countries of the world I can see growing a new confidence and a new greatness. There will be a fresh light in those eyes, those bent backs will at last stand erect, there will be a greater dignity in the Jew throughout the world. (Cheers.)
That is why we meet to-day to thank the British Government, our own Government—(cheers)—that has made all this possible, that we shall be able to say, not as a pious and distant wish, but as a near and confident hope, “Next year in Jerusalem”---(Loud and prolonged cheers).
Colonel Sir Mark Sykes said:
When one thinks of the years that have passed, of the immense spaces of history which stand between what was and now is promised to-day, truly one is dazzled—one is dazzled by the possibility of the prospects which open before us. I say I am speaking to you as a watcher, but you in a sense perhaps also are watchers; perhaps you see as I see an Asia stricken with plagues and cumbered with ruins and a Europe a welter of blood. Perhaps you too see those two things, and I pray that you realise that it may be your destiny to be the bridge between Asia and Europe; to bring the spirituality of Asia to Europe and the vitality of Europe to Asia. I firmly believe that is the mission of Zionism. I see here something which is greater than the dream even of a League of Nations, which is a dream of a League of Races and finally a League of Ideals. There is the great vision; that is what may, that is what does, I believe, lie before you.
But no person realises more than I do—I know the ground, some of it, and boldly I dare to say that there lie before you dangers, difficulties, and possible obstructions; but, ladies and gentlemen, your time of probation has been long. You are schooled in adversity; you can look on difficulties with calm, and you will overcome them. I do not look for a sudden magic transformation. No; but I believe that you are beginning a great and beneficial and irresistible transition. That is what you are beginning.
Now, I believe, you are going to set up a power which is not a domination of blood or a domination of gold, but a domination of intellectual force. I believe you will see in Palestine a great centre of ideals radiating out to every country in the world where your people are. And if there is one thing that gives me great pleasure here to-day it is to feel that you—at this turning-point in your history, when the Government made its Declaration—you thought not only of yourselves, but you thought also—and afterwards you will look back with joy on the fact—when the hope of redemption was held out to you, you thought not only of yourselves but also of your fellows in adversity, the Armenians and the Arabs. (Loud cheers.)
The Chief Rabbi said it was indeed a rare privilege to take part in that wonderful meeting called together to express the heartfelt thanks of British Jewry for the striking sympathy of His Majesty’s Government with Jewish aspirations. The epoch-making Declaration on Palestine was an assurance given by the mightiest of empires that the new order which the Allies are now creating at such sacrifice of life and treasure shall be rooted in righteousness, and broad-based on the liberty of and reverence for every oppressed nationality. It was a solemn pledge that the oldest of national tragedies shall be ended in the coming re-adjustment of the nations which shall console mankind for the slaughter and waste and torment of this terrible world-war. In the face of an event of such infinite importance to the Jewish people, ordinary words of appreciation or the usual phrases of gratitude were hopelessly weak and inadequate. For the interpretation of their true feelings to-day they must turn to Scripture. Twenty-five hundred years ago Cyrus issued his edict of liberation to the Jewish exiles in Babylon; and an eye-witness of that glorious day had left them in the 126th Psalm a record of how their fathers received the announcement of their deliverance. "When the Lord brought back those that returned! to Zion”—we were like unto them that dream. Then said they among the nations: ‘The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.” Theirs was a similar feeling of joy and wonder. With them likewise it was the astonishment of the nations, the reassuring approbation of statesmen and rulers that caused them to exclaim: “We will see it done, and done consummately, the thing so many have thought could never be done!” (Cheers.) The spirit of the Declaration was that of absolute justice, whether to Jews out of Palestine or to non-Jews in Palestine. They especially welcomed in it the reference to the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine. That was but a translation of the basic principle of the Mosaic legislation. (Cheers.) But it was the substance of the Declaration—the promise of a national home for the Jewish people—that filled their souls with gladness. For only on its own soil could the Jewish people live itsown life and make, as in the past it had made, its characteristic and specific contributions to the spiritual treasure of humanity. After the proclamation issued by Cyrus, the mass of the Jewish people still remained in Babylon. All told, only 42,000 men, women, and children took advantage of the King’s proclamation and followed Ezra back to Zion, the land of their fathers. But that handful of Zionists and their descendants, because living on their own soil, changed the entire future of mankind. They edited and collected the Prophets, wrote some of the fairest portions of the Scriptures, formed the canon of the Bible, and fave the world its monotheistic religions. (Cheers.) Now, as then, only “a remnant shall return” But now, as then, it was the national rejuvenation of that remnant that is to open a new chapter in the annals of the human spirit. Difficulties? Of course there were difficulties. The task of laying the foundations of a new Israel must be one of long toil and severe trial. But a people that for twenty-five centuries had stood victoriously against the storm of time possessed vitality enough, patience enough, idealism enough, with the help of God, to rise to the level of this unique, world-historic opportunity. (Loud cheers.)
