Edwin Montagu’s memo on the anti-Semitism of the current (British) government

Edwin Montagu’s memoir on anti-Semitism of the current (British) government – Submitted to the British Cabinet, August 1917

I have chosen the above title for this memorandum, not in a hostile sense, not at all to quarrel with an anti-Semitic point of view that could be defended by my colleagues, not with the desire to deny that anti-Semitism can be defended by rational men, not even with the aim of suggesting that the government is deliberately anti-Semitic; but I wish to state my opinion that the policy of the government is anti-Semitic.all the countries of the world.

This view is motivated by yesterday’s reception of a correspondence between Lord Rothschild and Mr. Balfour.

The letter from Lord Rothschild is dated 18 July and Mr. Balfour is to be dated August 1917. I am afraid that my protest will come too late, and it may be that the government was practically engaged when Lord Rothschild wrote and before I became a member of the government, because there was obviously a correspondence or conversation before this letter. But I believe that, as the only Jewish minister in the government, my colleagues could give me the opportunity to express opinions that may be of their own, but which I hold a lot to and that I must ask for permission to express when the opportunity arises.

I firmly believe that this war has dealt a fatal blow to internationalism and that it has been the occasion for a renewal of the sense of nationality, which was relaxing, for not only were most of the statesmen of most countries tacitly agreed that the redistribution of the territories resulting from the war should be more or less on national bases, but we have learned to realize that our country is defending principles, objectives,To be the case in the past, whether in peacetime or in times of war, we must live and fight for those goals and aspirations, organize our industrial lives and capacities in such a way as to be ready at any time to meet the challenge. To take an example, the science of political economy, which in its purity does not know nationalism, will henceforth be tempered and considered in the light of this national need for defence and security.

It is in this atmosphere that the government proposes to approve the formation of a new nation with a new home in Palestine. This nation is likely to be made up of Jewish Russians, Jewish Englishmen, Jewish Romanians, Jewish Bulgarians, and Jewish citizens of all nations – survivors or relatives of those who fought or gave their lives to the various countries I mentioned, at a time when the three years they lived united their vision and thoughts more closely than ever with the countries of which they are citizens.

It has always seemed to me to be a miscisive political credo, unbearable for every patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish Englishman casts his eyes on the Mount of Olives and aspires to the day when he shook the British land with his shoes and return to his agricultural activities in Palestine, he has always seemed to me to recognize objectives incompatible with British citizenship and admit that he is not fit to participate in public life in Britain, nor to be treated like an Englishman. I have always understood that those who have allowed themselves to go to this credo are largely driven by the restrictions and denial of freedom imposed on Jews in Russia. But at the very moment when these Jews were recognized as Jewish Russians and enjoyed all freedoms, it seems inconceivable that zionism is officially recognized by the British Government and that Mr. Balfour is allowed to say that Palestine should be reconstituted as the “national home of the Jewish people”. I do not know what that means, but I suppose that this means that Mohammedans and Christians must give way to the Jews, that the Jews must be placed in all positions of preference and must be associated in a particular way with Palestine, in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that the Turks and other Mohammedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, in the same way as the Jews will be treated as foreigners. Perhaps citizenship will only be granted after a religious test.

I insist on four principles:

1. I say that there is no Jewish nation. My family members, for example, who have lived in this country for generations, have no kind of community of sight or desire with a Jewish family from another country, except that they have more or less the same religion. It is no more true to say that a Jewish Englishman and a Jewish Moor are of the same nation as saying that a Christian Englishman and a Christian French are of the same nation: of the same race, perhaps, through the centuries of the history of a particularly adaptable race. The Prime Minister and Mr. Briand are, I suppose, related through the ages, one as Welsh and the other as Breton, but they certainly do not belong to the same nation.
2. When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately want to rid itself of its Jewish citizens, and you will find in Palestine a population that will drive its current inhabitants, that will take all the best in the country, that will come from all corners of the globe, that will speak all the languages of the earth, and that will be unable to communicate with it other than through an interpreter. I have always understood that this was the consequence of the construction of the Tower of Babel, if ever been built, and I certainly do not disagree with the commonly accepted opinion, as I have always understood, by the Jews before the zionism was invented, according to which the return of the Jews to form a nation in the country from which they were dispersed would require a divine direction. I say that the life that the British Jews have waged, the objectives they set for themselves, the role they played in our public life and public institutions, give them the right to be seen, not as British Jews, but as Jewish British. I would be prepared to deprive all zionists of their right to vote. I would almost be tempted to outlaw the zionist organisation as illegal and contrary to the national interest. But I would ask a British government enough to refuse a conclusion that makes all their Jewish fellow citizens committed foreigners by implication, if not immediately by law.
3. 3. I deny that Palestine is now associated with Jews or that it can be considered a place where they could live. The ten commandments were handed over to the Jews on the Sinai. It is quite true that Palestine plays an important role in Jewish history, but the same is true in modern Mohammedan history, and after the Jewish era it certainly plays a more important role than any other country in Christian history. The Temple may have been in Palestine, but the Sermon on the Mount and the Crucifixion were as well. I would not deny the Jews of Palestine the equal rights to colonization with those who profess other religions, but a religious test of citizenship seems to me to be the only one admitted by those who adopt a big and narrow vision of a particular era in the history of Palestine, and claim for the Jews a position to which they are not entitled. If my memory is good, there are three times as many Jews in the world as they could be admitted to Palestine if the entire people left there today were driven out. If I remember correctly, there are three times as many Jews in the world as they would be possible to enter Palestine if the entire population in the world were to be hunted.
4. I can easily understand that the editors of the Morning Post and the New Witness are zionists, and I am not at all surprised that the non-Jews in England welcome this policy. I have always recognized the unpopularity, much greater than some people think, of my community. We have achieved a much larger share of the goods and opportunities of this country than we are digitally entitled to. Overall, we are reaching maturity earlier and, therefore, we are in unfair competition with people of our age. Many of us have been exclusive to our friendships and intolerant in their attitude, and I can easily understand that many non-Jews in England want to get rid of us. But just as there is no community of thought and way of life among Christian English, nor is there any of them among Jewish English. Increasingly, we are being educated in public schools and universities, and we are taking part in our country’s politics, the military and the civil service. And I’m happy to think that prejudices against mixed marriages are disappearing. But when the Jew has a national home, it follows that the momentum to deprive us of the rights of British citizenship must be greatly increased. Palestine will become the ghetto of the world. Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? Its national home is Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All the Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine … I do not know how the happy third party will be chosen, but the Jew will have the choice, whatever country he belongs to, whatever country he loves, whatever country he considers himself an integral part, to go and live with people who are foreigners, but to whom his fellow Christians told him that he should belong to, and to remain as an undesirable host.

I am not surprised that the government takes this step after the formation of a Jewish regiment, and I expect to know whether my brother, who was wounded in the naval division, or my nephew, who is part of the Grenadier Guards, will be forced by public opinion or by the regulations of the army to become an officer in a regiment that will be composed mainly of people who will not understand the only language he speaks. I understand very well that when it was decided, quite rightly, to oblige foreign Jews in that country to serve in the army, it was difficult to place them in British regiments because of the linguistic difficulties, but it was because they were foreigners, and not because they were Jews, and a foreign Legion seems to me to have been the right thing to do. A Jewish Legion makes it more difficult for Jews to position in other regiments and imposes a nationality on people who have nothing in common.

I feel that the government is being asked to be the instrument for fulfilling the wishes of a zionist organisation that is largely directed, according to my information, at least in the past, by men of enemy origin or birth, and who, by this means, have dealt a severe blow to the freedoms, position and service of their fellow Jewish compatriots.

I would say to Lord Rothschild that the government is ready to do everything in its power to obtain complete freedom of settlement and life for the Jews of Palestine on an equal footing with the inhabitants of this country who profess other religious beliefs. I ask the government not to go any further.

E.S.M.

23 August 1917

source: Great Britain, Public Record Office, Cab. 24 hours, 23 August 1917. Lord Edwin Samuel Montagu (1879–1924), Anglo-Jewish statesman, was British Minister of Ammunition in 1916 and Secretary of State for the Indies in 1917-1922.