Why Was the Balfour Declaration Addressed to Lord Rothschild

letter

in modern Jewish history, and it begins with three words:

"Dear Lord Rothschild"

"Dear Lord Rothschild, I have much pleasure in conveying to you,

on

behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of

sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been

submitted to and approved by the cabinet."

Why was it that this letter was sent by the foreign secretary to your

great uncle Walter?

It's an interesting question, because it was primarily

a movement from Eastern Europe,

but they didn't clarify who was in charge

of that movement.

And in addition, it was, after all, in Great Britain, so they

felt that the Rothschild family,

um, should be the one to whom it was addressed.

And Walter was Lord Rothschild, and he was, uh, a

Zionist, and, um, those rarely are the background reasons.

So Walter received the Balfour Declaration, and, and I have a copy here,

and I wonder if I could possibly ask you to read it for us.

Yes, indeed. Yeah.

I'm going to put on my spectacles to make sure I, um, read it

accurately.

"His Majesty's Government

view with favor the establishment of Palestine of a national

home for the Jewish people,

and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this

object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done

which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing

non-Jewish communities in Palestine,

or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other

country.

I shall be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the

knowledge of the

Zionist Federation. Yours, Arthur Balfour."

And here it is, the Balfour Declaration.

What do you feel when you, when you see it here?

I genuinely feel it's one of the most extraordinary moments in

the history of the Jewish people. Uh, if you think it took 3,000 years,

uh, to get to this, and then you say, "How did this

miracle happen?" It's the most incredible

piece of opportunism. I mean, if you think, you had an impoverished,

uh, would-be scientist, Chaim Weizmann, who somehow

gets to England, meets a few people, including members of my

family, seduces them. He had such great charm and

conviction.

He gets to Balfour,

and

he unbelievably persuades Balfour and

Lloyd George, the prime minister, and most of the ministers,

that this idea of, um, the national home

for, um, Jews, should be allowed to take place.

I mean, it's so, so unlikely.

It, it re-

And then he's, you know, starts to fight a difficult

battle with the British cabinet, and this, uh, letter goes

through five drafts, as you know,

and in the end, it comes out as a rather compromising

letter. I mean, the essential point is there for, um, the Jewish community

to fasten onto. You have the first bit, which

promises a national home rather than the national home,

and then you have the bit that nothing that's to be done should, um,

in

any way harm the Arab community.

But you come back to the big point, which is that this is perhaps the

greatest event in Jewish life for thousands of

years, and it's a mira-