Connolly - The founding of Israel: the journey to a Jewish homeland from Abraham to the holocaust /cMartin Connolly

The Founding of Israel

The Journey to a Jewish Homeland

from Abraham to the Holocaust

Martin Connolly

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

Pen & Sword History

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright Martin Connolly, 2018

ISBN 978 1 52673 715 1

eISBN 978 1 52673 716 8

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52673 717 5

The right of Martin Connolly to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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With respect to

Dr Edward Kessler MBE

Founder Director, Woolf Institute

Fellow, St Edmunds College

Affiliated Lecturer, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge

A Jew who shone new light on Christianity

Persecutions of the Jews, which had taken place at the beginning of the reign of Edward, had little power to check the increase or destroy the prosperity of that extraordinary people. Having no country; living among strangers and enemies; deprived of all political standing of all the legitimate objects of ambition, even of reasonable security for his life the Jew devoted those intellectual qualities, in which he was seldom deficient, to the one agent of power within his reach. Wealth alone could not raise him from a condition of utter misery and contempt gave him a certain standing and importance among his fellow men, and offer employment for his energies. If the favour of the law was to be bought, the wealthy Jew might have hoped to buy it, while for the poor there was no mercy. If he was derided and persecuted by the haughty sons of a happier race, he returned scorn for scorn and revenged himself where he could by trading upon their necessities. If he became grovelling and avaricious, absorbed in a mean and unworthy passion, perhaps the fault should be ascribed less to him than to those unconquerable prejudices isolated him in the midst of his kind and condemned him to the fate of Ishmael. Cassells Illustrated History of England, Vol 1, p.314

I t is truly said that no man (or woman) is an island and even though writers lock themselves away as they create their work, they still rely on the willingness and kindness of others to assist their endeavours. Over many years I have been grateful to those Jewish people who have shared their thoughts and insights and have shown a generosity of spirit. I still remember the words of Mr Marks, a Jew, who visited my home when I was a child, and brought many gifts for our poor family. He told me, We enter this world to embrace life and to help make the world a better place, to fail to do so implies we have not really lived. I later understood that he had survived the Holocaust and he had never spoken of it but showed a remarkable capacity to love and care, despite what he must have suffered and for one poor Irish family at least, he made the world a better place.

I have also had the privilege in adult life to have had Jews teach me about hope, forgiveness and understanding the other. One such man is Doctor Edward Kessler, who founded the Woolf Institute, which is devoted to the study of relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims and who shone new light for me to understand better the truth that Judaism and Christianity cannot be fully understood without reference of one to the other. It is through his and others work at the Centre for Jewish Christian Relations (now the Woolf Institute) in Cambridge, that my knowledge of Jewish matters was broadened and deepened. For that I am very grateful and it was there the seeds of this present book were sown.

For the Jewish people, family is very important and as I have studied the history of genocide that has seen the destruction of so many families I am ever grateful and appreciative of my wife Kitty and Mark, Jonathan, Angelina, Angela, Richard, Janice and Esther and their respective husbands and wives and my grandchildren, a great family who are never slow to support and encourage my efforts.

The people at Pen & Sword, as always, prove a great resource for aid and succour and my editors never cease to improve my work. There are also the people at the National Archives, ever willing to help, as are those at archives in America and Israel. There are also those who have shared with me at synagogues and offered their wisdom and insights into the topic and commented on my own thoughts.

Whilst I have acknowledged in my notes, as far as possible, all sources I am sure there are many individual voices I have heard which are not included and to them I am also thankful. As ever, whilst I mention these things, the work, its opinions, ideas and conclusions remain my responsibility alone.

Martin Connolly, 2018

Here [in the State if Israel] their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance, and gave the world the Eternal Book of Books.

David Ben-Gurion, 14 May 1948

Let there be no more war or bloodshed between Arabs and Israelis. Let there be no more suffering or denial of rights. Let there be no more despair or loss of faith.

Anwar Sadat, 26 March 1979

B en-Gurion and Sadat were entrenched enemies who had been determined to see the others ambitions thwarted to the point where Sadat expressed the determination to see that a State of Israel would never come into existence. However, the eventual recognition by him that Israel had a right to exist because of her history and of the tribulations she had been through won the day and seventy years ago, the State of Israel became a reality. This work sets out a chronological history of the journey of the Jewish people to that day in 1948 and recounts the many trials and tribulations that they experienced. It is a story of great tragedy but also of great resilience and joy and one that demonstrates that the spirit of hope within a people can never be extinguished by hate and suffering, when that hope is based on a belief that what is hoped for is right and just. It is also very true of those who hold a religious persuasion that remains fixed on their Messiah and the conviction that one day He will stand on the Mount of Zion and the deliverance of the Jewish people will be total and complete.

In setting out to write this account there is one thing I have had reinforced, that in coming to understand any issue, context is hugely important. Whether it is in Theology, Psychology, counselling clients or writing history, knowing what went before and what is happening currently allows a better and more accurate picture to be seen. So often, opinions or attitudes on many subjects are based on ill-informed views or are formed through the prism of prejudice and irrational hatred. Unfortunately, this is particularly true when the subject is Israel and the Jewish people. This book sets out to look at their journey a terrible journey that takes them through almost every country on earth. They are a rejected people, an exploited people and a people who have to take whatever steps are necessary simply to survive and keep their Jewish identity alive. Indeed, in researching for the book I discovered so many cases of massacres, killings, property confiscation and other anti-Semitic attacks that it became impossible for one book to contain them. It may be asked why highlight the Jewish experience, when there are many other cases of ethnic cleansing and massacres and the simple answer is that there has been no other group who have been systematically attacked with a view to remove them from the face of the earth, in almost every century of human history, since they first entered the scene.