Page 156 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

The Track of the Jew through the Ages

general association, beat with joyful excitement when the Balfour
Declaration was made public. The Judische Rundschau wrote on
10 September 1917: "This declaration of the English government is
an event of extraordinary scope", and on 26 November 1917: "It
must arouse real satisfaction within all serious Jewish circles inside
and outside Germany that England has decided in such a clear way
for the recognition of Jewish claims in Palestine". The Lemberger
Tageblatt wrote on 1 6 November 1917 about the "diplomatic victory
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of Zionism" and about its sympathy for England, etc.
Now began an activity centred on Canaan but the offers of
Turkey did not come up to the price that England set; however, the
German Zionists, who could not demand everything openly,
manoeuvred back and forth, yet the German Empire was not so
powerless that one could hand over a letter ofthanks to Lord Balfour
as one could have allowed oneself to do with impunity with regard
to Buchanan in Russia.
At any rate, we see the tragicomic drama that the government
of a nation of 70 million is eagerly concerned to take into
consideration the wishes of a tiny nation that lives amongst it, and
not vice-versa; and then they dared to speak of "citizens of the
Mosaic faith"!
Now indeed, when the English conquered Jerusalem, there
was no end to the jubilation. The Jewish World, the organ of the
above-mentioned four Jewish world-associations wrote: "The fall
of Jersusalem and the government declaration (of Lord Balfour)
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have made England the greatest power on earth". Giant congresses
in America expressed the same joy and Nathan Strauss explained
309
that England had fulfilled all the wishes of the Jewish people".
Now one would think that, since the entire Jewish world
had declared itself for England, the German Jewish committee had
to be dissolved or had (as German citizens) to openly and finally
break with the English group; nothing of the sort happened.
But for the people from beyond the borders the temporary

Pinkus, op.cit., p.29.
Pinkus, op.cit.
Heise, op.cit., p.68.

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