London Weekly Urges Statesman to Interpret Document; Disappointment in Present British Policy Voiced (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
The dinner which the Anglo-Palestine Club arranged to mark the Tenth Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, with Lord Balfour as the guest of honor, has been postponed from tonight, the anniversary of the Declaration, to November 10th, so that Dr. Weizmann, who is in Palestine, may attend.
Among those expected to be present at the dinner are the Marquis of Reading, Sir Herbert Samuel, Major Ormsby Gore, Sir Alfred Mond, Sir Gilbert Clayton, Sir Wyndham Deedes, Philip Snowden, Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, Commander Kenworthy and J. L. Garvin editor of the “Observer.” James de Rothschild will preside.
Commenting on the dinner in honor of Lord Balfour, the London “Jewish Chronicle” writes:
“The Anglo-Palestinian Club proposes to celebrate the Tenth Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration by entertaining to dinner the author of that historic document. Nothing could be more appropriate, and nothing besides could be more in accord with Jewish sentiment than this mark of appreciation to a Statesman who, approaching the Jewish question from, naturally, the non-Jewish point of view, perceived the anomaly of the present Jewish position and the value to humanity of Jews becoming once again a nation in the political sense. That in the first ten years since Lord Balfour issued the famous letter to Lord Rothschild which stirred Jewry to the very depth of its soul–or at least so much of Jewry that really matters–little has been done in laying the foundations of the contemplated National Home for the Jewish people, and that little but doubtfully, cannot rightly be blamed upon the man chiefly responsible for the promise he conveyed to the Jews.
“What precisely he meant by that promise, or what the Government in whose name he wrote, wished to be understood by it is now of little more than academic consequence. Certainly the Churchill Memorandum which was as much a defeat of Lord Balfour’s expressed policy as it was a set back to Zionist aspirations, cannot be the answer. Yet the Memorandum is law to the Mandatory administration in Palestine. Not the constitution as a nation in the political (or for that matter any other) sense of Jews in Palestine, but their recognition there just as everywhere else as a religious community, seems to be the idea to which the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate have been whittled down. For that the British Government, though by no means entirely, is largely responsible; and it therefore would be of great advantage if Lord Balfour, who is a member of the Government, could be induced to take the opportunity of the forthcoming gathering to explain how he thinks things will be got back to the level of ten years ago in respect to the Jews in relation to Palestine. For as matters stand the prospects are not very brilliant, even to those who, like ourselves, nourish the belief that Jews are just as capable as are Englishmen of muddling through somehow.
“It may be that our suggestion would involve far too heavy a task to be imposed upon an honored guest at a complimentary dinner. But someone ought to endeavor to make the point clear, and there is, of course, no one who is likely to be so able to do so as is Lord Balfour. In any case the festive reunion of the Club should not induce anyone to ignore the real condition of the Jews in Palestine.
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.
