RITA KRAMER: CHANGING TIMES
http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/changing-times-rita-kramer.html
History abounds in ironies. Glimpses into the past, into what was thought and said by those who were present as events were unfolding, sometimes explain, sometimes exasperate, and sometimes mystify. For those of us dismayed by how the government and people of Israel are depicted in much of the world today, there are illuminating and often poignant accounts to be found in the reporting of earlier times–even in the columns of The New York Times. One example is the coverage of the role of Jewish participants in World War One.
As the Great War began to make its deadly way through Europe and parts of the Middle East, it seemed the better part of valor for the international Zionist establishment to maintain a position of strict neutrality. There were Jews living in the countries of the Triple Entente Allies, originally composed of Great Britain, France and Russia, as well as in those of the Central Powers, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Uncertain as to the outcome of the devastation being visited on all sides, the representatives of Jewish interests worldwide–including the Middle East–were reluctant to take sides in a conflict that could result in reprisals against Jews who had favored whichever turned out to be the losing side.
There were, however, Zionists who disagreed with the official position. One of them was Chaim Weizmann, whose career as a chemist had led to the invention of artificial acetone, a process which enabled the British to mass produce smokeless gunpowder. This contribution to Britain’s war effort led to a friendship between the charismatic Weizmann and the Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, as well as other members of the British government, and would result in 1917 in the historic Balfour Declaration offering British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. It was not only the persuasive diplomacy of Weizmann that led to the Balfour Declaration but the belief among members of the British establishment that American Jewish leaders exerted significant influence on U.S. policy-making and might well bring that influence to bear on encouraging America’s entrance into the war on the Allied side.
Another major player in the Zionist effort was Vladimir Jabotinsky, the journalist and soldier who convinced Weizmann, despite their very different personalities and approaches to political activity, that the time was ripe for the formation of a military arm of Zionism under the British to fight against the Turks in Palestine and thus pave the way for a return of the Jewish people to the land of their ancestors as well as providing the basis of a self-defense organization when that return was realized.
The idea of a specifically Jewish army group was anathema to members of the Anglo- Jewish establishment–such as the Rothschilds and Montagus–who had achieved a degree of assimilation socially, culturally, and in the higher reaches of politics and who were reluctant to see attention called to the Jews from Eastern Europe who had found refuge in England, particularly in the East End of London. These Yiddish-speaking garment workers and shopkeepers would comprise the greater part of the membership of such a force.
The diplomacy of Weizmann and the efforts of Jabotinsky and those who joined with them succeeded in convincing the Home Office and the War Office, despite strategic misgivings and anti-Semitism among a number of members of both departments, to approve the formation of a Jewish battalion to be attached to the Royal Fusiliers.
In August of 1917, the 38th Regiment of the Royal Fusiliers, consisting of British Jews primarily originally from Russia, was formed. It was followed in April 1918 by the 39th Battalion, primarily from the U.S. and Canada and later by additional battalions made up of volunteers from Palestine. Informally known as the Jewish Legion, the Jewish battalions fought under Field Marshall Edmund Allenby’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and acquitted themselves well in battles in the Jordan Valley that resulted in defeating the Ottomans and liberating Palestine from Turkish rule.
What was to come is a long and complicated story which is still being played out, but readers of today’s New York Times might find it interesting to see how some of these events almost a century ago were covered by reporters of the time and speculate on how differently they would be reported and described in that newspaper today.
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ZIONISTS PLAN BIG ARMY.
ASSERT JEWISH LEGION IN PALESTINE
IS ONLY NUCLEUS OF GREAT FORCE.
Special to The New York Times.
Pittsburgh, June 25 [1918].–The Jewish Legion of 8,000 men now fighting with the British in Palestine is only the nucleus of a Jewish legion ten times as great, that is to become the national standing army of the coming Jewish Republic. This became known today at the meeting of the legion committee of the Zionist convention.
Dr. A. A. Newman, Chairman of the Central Zionist Committee of Philadelphia, declared also that every Jew who had enlisted in the legion from the United States pledged himself to remain in Palestine for the rest of his life.
Major Brooman-White, chief British recruiting officer in this country, told the committee that he had learned unofficially that more than 50,000 American Jews are now in Egypt on their way to join General Allenby’s forces. Plans were devised whereby the enlistment of American Jews will be increased three-fold if this country should declare war against Turkey. The Chairman of the committee said that at the end of the year there will be 50,000 Jewish boys in training in this country to beat the Germans first and then proceed to Palestine to form the standing army of the country when it becomes a nation.
Included in the $3,000,000 appropriation which the present convention will be asked to make, for this year’s development in Palestine are the building of three great harbors, the restoration of half a dozen cities, the erection of a university on the Mount of Olives, and the purchase of thousands of acres of land. Jews in other parts of the world will be asked to make up the remainder of the $8,000,000 necessary for the work.
CALL TO JEWISH LEGION
ZIONISTS HAVE ONLY A SHORT TIME TO
ENLIST FOR WAR IN PALESTINE
Special to The New York Times
Pittsburgh, Penn., June 26 [1918].–”At the end of the ninety-day period established by the agreement between the United States and England, American Jews cannot enlist in the Jewish Legion of Honor for service with the British forces in Palestine,” said Major Brooman White, British recruiting agent, in an address to the American Zionists today.
“The Jews do not want Palestine as a gift from England; they want to fight for Palestine, their ancient home,” said Major White as he asked the delegates to pledge themselves to assist the British Recruiting Mission….
At the executive conference held here in connection with the convention Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court, Judge Julian W. Mack of Chicago, Professor David Amram of the University of Pennsylvania, and other noted Jewish scholars, statesmen, and jurist are planning the laws and political policy of the future Jewish republic….
The dreams of the Palestine Jews of the establishment of a United States of the Near East, based largely upon the principles of the United States of America, were explained by Ittamar Ben Avis, delegate to the convention from Palestine….
Dr. H. Ami of the British Embassy in Washington said: “Great Britain, in taking Palestine from the Turk, did not take it for herself, but for the Jewish people. It is the policy of England to do everything reasonably within her power to put the Jews back in the home of their ancestors in the Holy Land, and Great Britain looks to the Jews to set up a civilization there….’’
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“Scholars, statesmen and jurists” a century ago indulged their naive and romantic visions of a future which in reality would see years of struggle and bloodshed before the creation of the Jewish state. “The policy of England” would turn out to be far more devious and far less friendly to the aspirations of the Zionists than these news stories from an earlier time and an earlier Times anticipated. As always, history has confounded predictions. And cautions us against thinking we can foresee where today’s policies will find us tomorrow.
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