Michael J. Cohen - Churchill and the Jews, 1900-1948

CHURCHILL AND THE JEWS

By the same author

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CHURCHILL AND THE JEWS

MICHAEL J. COHEN

Professor of History
Bar-Ilan University

SECOND, REVISED EDITION

First published in 1985

First published in paperback in 2003 by

FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS

This edition published in 201 3 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1985, 2003 Michael J. Cohen

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Cohen, Michael J.

Churchill and the Jews.

1. Churchill, Winston S. (Winston Spencer) 18741965Views on Zionism 2. ZionismHistory

I. Title

956.94'001

DA566.9.C5

ISBN 0-7146-3254-6 (cloth)

ISBN 0-7146-8450-3 (paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

Typeset in 10/12pt Sabon by Vitaset, Paddock Wood, Kent

. With Joseph Dulberg, 1906

. Brendan Bracken, Minister of Information, July 1941

. In Jerusalem, April 1921. Above left: Nebi Samuel, James de Rothschild, Sir Ronald Storrs (profile), Nancy Samuel, Geoffrey Samuel. Front left: Hadassah Samuel, Abdullah, Sir Herbert Samuel, Winston Churchill, Mrs Churchill

. Budget Day, 1929. On the way to the House of Commons with his wife and daughter

. With the Israeli ambassador, Eliahu Elath, 1958

Nos. 1 and 5 appear by permission of the Jewish Chronicle; Nos. 2 and 4 by permission of the BBC Hulton Picture Library; No. 3 by permission of the Weizmann Archives, Jerusalem.

This has not been a simple book to write. It might appear to be presumptuous to add yet another tome to the myriad already published on Winston Churchill. However, only one single study of Churchills relations with the Jews has appeared so far and that was a generation ago, written without the benefit of the archives.

The writing of this book has been handicapped by the extended closure of Churchills private archives, for considerably longer than the usual term of thirty years. However, since the Trustees have determined on their closure to the general public until ten years after the publication of the last volume of the authorised biography, there is little point in the contemporary historians waiting any longer. On the other hand, there are some compensations for the student of Churchill. First and foremost, all historians will be indebted to Martin Gilbert for the monumental volumes, and companion volumes of documents, which comprise the emerging authorised biography. Their forte, as put so well in a recent study, is their emphasis on source materials, superbly detailed and commented, rather than the complementary role of selection and criticism. In addition, the public and private archives, as well as Churchills public utterances, in the Press and in the House of Commons, all provide a mine of information. Frequently, the problem has not been a dearth, but a surfeit of material with, inevitably, conflicting interpretations.

Let me make it clear from the outset that I did not set out to destroy or reverse the popular image of Churchill, as patron of the Jews and of Zionism. But I did try to put out of my mind all the popular preconceptions, and to get at what I believe is the more complex truth of the matter, reducing the myth to human proportions. Since the 1960s, many critical studies of Churchill have appeared, revising the tendency to panegyric of the previous generation. I would endorse the leitmotif of these revisionist works that if anything, the stature of the man is enlarged by an honest confrontation of his errors and weaknesses.

To understand Churchills life-long association with the Jews, and their National Home in Palestine, I have had to review his many, frequently ephemeral, contacts, beginning in 1904, when he became Liberal candidate for the predominantly Jewish constituency of North-West Manchester, and concluding in 1948, when he pressed the Labour Government to grant diplomatic recognition to the new State of Israel. I have tried to analyse Churchills views on the Jews, at the domestic level, as a minority in England; and at the international level, as a potential pawn of British imperialism. In covering a relatively long span of history, I have of necessity treated some periods more closely than others. It will be my contention that, beneath the thick layers of rhetoric, Winston Churchill was no more of a Gentile Zionist than were most of his more maligned colleagues. Indeed, there is no particular reason why he should have been, nor anything in his background which should have made him so.

In a project such as this, I have received the aid of many learned colleagues. I am obliged in particular to Dr Ron Zweig, who not only read part of the manuscript, but also allowed me generous access to private papers in his possession; I am grateful also to Professors Yehuda Bauer, Roger Louis, Norman Rose, Avrom Saltman, Peter Stansky and David Vital, to Mr Richard Ollard and to Diana Reich, who all read parts of the manuscript. However, academics are a stubborn breed, who do not always recognize, much less take, good advice when given. So I myself must assume sole responsibility for what follows.

All unpublished Crown copyright material from the Public Record Office appears by permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office. The papers of Leo Amery are quoted from by kind permission of the Rt Hon Julian Amery, M.P.

All societies create myths to disguise the true nature of political leadership within them.

G.D. Page
The Scientific Study of Political Leadership
London, 1977, p. 2.