Mr. David Lloyd George, the British war-time Premier, who was at the head of the Government which issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, is to be permanently associated with the Jewish work in Palestine by having a Jewish colony there named in his honour, as several years, back Balfouria, in the Vale of Esdraelon, where the Lloyd George colony, too, will be situated, was named in honour of the late Lord Balfour. Lord Balfour paid a visit to Balfouria when he was in Palestine in 1925, to open the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was escorted into the colony by Bedouin horsemen and received by a deputation of settlers bearing the Scrolls of the Law. After luncheon, which was attended by colonists from all the settlements in the Vale of Esdraelon, the members of the Jewish National Council, Mr. Norman Bentwich, the Palestine Attorney-General, and other prominent people, Lord Balfour dedicated the colony bearing his name, and accepted a raised model of it.
The plans for the Lloyd George colony were completed to-day, when Dr. Weizmann, the Zionist leader, visited the Vale of Esdraelon. It was arranged that the settlement which will be known in Hebrew as Ramat David, taking Mr. Lloyd George’s first name, and will be referred to in English as the “Lloyd George Colony”, will be made up of two Labour settlements (Kvutzoth), Sarona and Hasaron, which were organised in 1927 near Nahalal.
Dr. Weizmann ascended the top of a hill recently acquired by the Jewish National Fund, from which he could see many of the settlements in the Vale of Esdraelon, and there he gave his approval to the plan of the Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund) to consolidate the two settlements as one colony to be named in honour of Mr. Lloyd George.
The colony will be inaugurated, Dr. Weizmann told the J.T.A., at a dinner which will be held in London on April 11th., with Mr. Lloyd George as the guest of honour. Dr. Weizmann will be in the chair.
All the settlements in the Vale of Esdraelon sent their representatives to Nahalal, to greet Dr. Weizmann, the Labour delegates all insisting in their addresses that there could be no question of Dr. Weizmann’s retirement.
Dr. Weizmann, visibly moved by the tributes paid him, said in his reply, that he drew his main inspiration to continue his work from the Vale of Esdraelon and from Baron de Fothschild. At times, he went on, he had felt forsaken, especially during the brutal attack made on the Jews in Palestine in August 1929 and when the White Paper of 1930 was issued. It was then, he declared, that encouragement had come from Esdraelon, where political discussion is discounted and it is work that matters. Political speculation, Dr. Weizmann said, is easy and much harm is done by ill-chosen words, but the Vale of Esdraelon symbolises endeavour, patience and faith.
Dr. Weizmann and his party, which is escorted by a convoy of British police, visited six colonies to-day. Dr. Weizmann will tour the Jordan Valley to-morrow, and will arrive in Jerusalem on Thursday.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
