Guedalla Voices English Zionists’ View on Attitude to Great Britain

(J. T. A. Mail Service)

Mr. Philip Guedalla, the President of the English Zionist Federation, in his speech to the Congress, began by saying that as spokesman of the British delegation he was addressing the Congress not in Congress-Deutsch, but in Congress English. He did not think that he need apologize for addressing the assembly in the language of the Balfour Declaration and very nearly–if Dr. Wise would allow him to say so–in the language of the United States.

We come before this Congress, Mr. Guedalla proceeded, with a very deep and a very serious realisation of the position of special difficulties and the reponsibilities which we, however unworthy, are called upon to occupy in the home of the Mandatory Power. That position is one with special responsibility and a responsibility which it is not quite possible to estimate in pounds, shillings and pence, or even in dollars and cents. From our situation, we British Zionists cannot help being the guardians of the Mandate. If other Zionists fail you it would be serious; if we fail you it will be fatal. If American Zionism fails you it will go hard with our finances; if the Zionism of Eastern Europe fails you, it will go hard with us for men and morale, but if we fail you in our duty, our work is at an end, and it is because we realize that responsibility and because we realize that so many of the keys of Eretz Israel are in London, that we have to bear the burden, and that is the burden we mean to do our best to carry. We have difficulties which I think are not always realized, because it is the hard and cruel countries that make the best Zionists and it is hard to be a good Zionist in a good country. The spiritual atmosphere that we have to work in is one of great difficulty, and we have material difficulties which I think are less often realized even than our spiritual difficulties. It is not easy in a country that is paying its debt to find great funds readily available. That is one part of the difficulty that we find within our own community. And so far as that part is concerned we can only pledge ourselves to do the best that we can with the means at our disposal.

But on the other part of our work, on the burden which we have to carry unlike the great mass of Zionists, it is our duty to watch and instruct the great body of non-Jewish British opinion which is so vital to our cause in Parliament and outside Parliament. Mr. Jabotinsky told us that he has faith in England. I am glad to hear it. But when he went on to talk about what he called the man in the street and the way we should approach him, I wondered whether he was quite so secure a guide. I happen to have been born in that street and live and work in it, and I would warn you not to worry the man in the street too much when it is not necessary to worry him. I would warn you that the ordinary (non-Jewish British electors) man in the street in England today has one peculiarity. He never hears you if you shout at him, and he never reads manifestos, and he is far too seriously worried with his own business to be worried by us, if we can avoid it, with our affairs. Don’t let us remind him too often of any other burdens, or we may find that we have reminded him just once too often. So far as the man in the street is concerned, let him take the Palestine Mandate for granted as part of the recognized scheme of things, not something that we worry him about this week and next week and the week after. After all, he has dominions and colonies of his own and Great Britain cannot always do for its own children all that those children want, and I think that an adopted child, as we are, should keep its voice a little quiet if it has any real hope of getting anything. The things that we want and the things that we are entitled to, we shall not get them by public agitation at the street corner. We have got them in the Conference room, we have got them by friendly intercoursend mutual confidential intercourse with he organs of Government. After all, the things that loom so large with us are very small matters to agitate one whole country’s politics over. You cannot expect England to burn with indignation because the proportion of Jews in the police is just or unjust. You wid never get great political parties to burn with indignation about the railway treights in Eretz Israel when they cannot get them right from London to Manchester. And it is because we Zionists of England are so near to the Conference Chamber, to the Colonial Office, that our attention is rather concentrated on that end of the work and it is because we think so much of that end of the work that perhaps our interest in the dornestic polities of our mvoement is a little weak.

We have listened to the eloquent crities of the present administration, and we are not impressed, because attacks on Dr. Weizmann leave us cold for one plain reason. And that reason is that we know him to have the confidence of the Mandatory Government and of the leaders of every British political party. Governments are very slow to place their confidence in this man or that man. And when speakers stand in this Tribune, alternative leaders of our movement, and tell us that they do not trust the British Government. I do not think that mistrust of the British Government is a good qualification for Zionist office, because mistrust is a faith that may spread itself to the other side. I listened to the eloquent attack of Mr. Gruenbaum, who told us, speaking in the name of the Jewish people,–all leaders of minorities always speak in the name of the whole Jewish people–that the Jewish people cannot wait, Palestine cannot wait. I would remind him that the Jewish people and Palestine waited for two thousand years and that when the end of its waiting came, that end was not brought by any minority group but was brought by the leader of the Zionist movement, who sits on this platform today. These gentlemen who cannot wait know well that Jewish history has moved faster in the last ten years than in the whole two thousand years before. Without the action of the men who sit on this platform. the crities would have nothing to criticize, the Revisionists would have nothing to revise. We are not in a moment of defeat. We cannot win battles every day, but we stand between two great victories, the victory of 1918 and the Mandate, and the victory that is to come with the full economic development of Eretz Israel.

About the Jewish Agency. I would say, speaking as a British Zionist, that I am not so frightened of the non-Zionists as the crities of the Agency seem to be. They seem to think that if we sit at a table with these terrible men, they will assimilate us. I should like to see the non-Zionist who will assimilate me–I think I would assimilate him first.

I listened with deep interest to what Dr. Wise said, and with much of what he said I found myself in very deep agreement. But I wonder if one thing he said about the action of the British Government was altogether helpful. I had always thought that it was the privilege of British subjects to of the British Government names and venture to think that if the British Government is going to be called name we had far rather leave it to their own tax-payers to call it names.

I do not stand here to defend any or every action of the British Government I hold no brief for the Colonial Office But I would like to utter a word of warning to those who are going to utter criticisms of the Government. Let me warn you that the Briton is i patient animal. He may help to curquer a National Home for use he may take a Mandate, he may do what be firmly believes is his best, but if we tell him he has broken his word time after time, there may come a moment when he may really break his word. It is not helpful to those who have to go into the Council Chamber, when their supporters feel as the crities say they feel. It is because of this that we who live in England are anxions perhaps too amxious.

Rabbi Magpice M. Mazute. formerly rabbi in Sioux City, Lowa, Fittsburg. Pa., Brookton, Mass and Worcester. Mass, has accepted a call from Temple Beth BII. Stamford, Conn.

The first moderm tern back for cureses, written in Hebrew, has first been issued in Palestine, according to an announcement from the national office here of Hadassat, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, publisher of the book. It is “The Eye.” by Dr. Ariah Feiganhaum, of Jerusalem, chief ophthalmologist of the Hadassah Medical Organization, and treats diseases of the eye, for hygiene and cars.

The third annua” ceavention of the Zionist Order of Habcarrim in Canada will be held in Montreant on Sunday September? at the Mount Royal Hotel.