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w ealth in the service o f the Y o u n g T u rk s . It w as Parvus w h o , in com m on counsel w ith the K aisers governm ent, arranged Lenins transfer in a sealed railroad car from exile into Russia in order to bring dow n the detested czarist regime at any price, l.ater on, how ever, Lenin contem ptuously spurned his advice to install a socialist m arket econom y in Soviet R u ssia. O ne m ay say that Parvus foresaw the econom ic destruction o f the Soviet Union and the price that the Bolshevik venture w ould cla im .19 Trebitsch w as a different case: a lapsed H ungarian Je w from a rabbinical hom e w ho had converted, em igrated to C an ada as a m issionary, and m ade his w a y to England, w here he w as elected to Parliam ent as a m ember o f the Liberal faction under the nam e o f Lincoln. H e w as quickly exposed as a charlatan. A fterw ard s, he hired him self out to the K aiser and labored in Am erica to thw art the latters entry into W orld W ar I in support o f the British, thereby causing the British a great deal o f harm. In due course, Britain had him extradited and placed in prison for several years. In the 19 2 0 s , he acted on beh alf o f the W hite International (an organization o f unseated European nobility). H e died in Shanghai in the early 19 4 0 s while serving as a G erm an intelligence agent in the guise o f a Buddhist m onk. T h e archives o f the W estern security services are packed w ith m aterial about Trebitsch. Several leading officials in these services, at the tim e and in the future, w ere excessively suspicion about Je w s and developed the idea that they had had a lot to do w ith the ascendancy o f Bolshevism .20 A Sm aller T h an A verage B rain Even though the head o f Am erican m ilitary intelligence, C olonel Dunn, dis missed the Protocols o f the Elders o f Z io n as a forgery that pro b ab ly originated in G erm any, at the sam e time he said that a sim ilar Jew ish w orld conspiracy w as true in principle. T h u s, the allegations that the Protocols had inspired refused to die. Inquirers w ho turned to A m erican intelligence, as stated, com pared excerpts o f the Protocols with excerpts o f the w ritings o f T h eod or H erzl, the founding father o f Z ion ism , and concluded that Z io n ism exuded an antidem o cratic and an anti-Christian spirit. T h ey attributed enorm ous political pow er to Z ion ism , blam ing it for having brought on the surrender o f Lord Balfour, the British aristocrat w ho had sealed his ow n cou n trys borders to the Je w s but had given them the B alfou r D eclaration, that is, perm ission to steal the H oly Land from Christendom . Although the ostensible theft o f Palestine from the A rab s had not becom e the m ain problem - not yet, at any rate - the U.S. Departm ents o f State and W ar quickly began to speak in a conflated anti-Zion ist and antisem itic tone o f voice, view ing the A rab problem and the M uslim response to Zion ism as an issue that w as only grow in g w orse and w orse. On N ovem ber 1 7 , 19 2 0 , pursuant to the anti-Jew ish A rab violence in Palestine that year, the Am erican consul in Jerusalem w arned o f the menace o f Bolshevism in Palestine. The gods, he said, had blindsided the British Foreign O ffice (whose minister had given

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the Je w s the B alfou r D eclaration), which w as w illin g to bring on a w ar o f tw o million Je w s against a hundred million M uslim s. Am erican Je w s , the consul opined, were not about to go to Palestine; they w ere living well in Am erica. Palestine w ould be settled by R u ssian , Polish, and R om anian Je w s, the scum , as he put it, o f the Jew ish race. C onsequently, the Jew ish Bolsheviks were creating a Bolshevik state with E nglands unw itting com plicity. R ussian Jew s w ere accustom ed to revolution, and their willingness to endure an y hardship m ade them good soldiers, the consul averred. T h e only w a y to keep them from transform ing their Jew ish state into a Bolshevik one, he counseled, w as to destroy Bolshevism from the root. O therw ise, Je w ish Bolshevism w ould join forces with local national m ovements and spread to Egypt, India, and so fo rth .21 These rem arks contained quite a few points o f prophecy. Indeed, the left flank o f the radical Z ion ist faction know n as the Stern G an g, Lehi in H ebrew , which included Je w s o f Polish origin such as N athan Friedm an -Y ellin , would eventually dream o f linking Zion ism and radical liberation m ovem ents in the A rab w orld into an anti-W estern nationalist endeavor. T h e Departm ent o f W ar also turned its attention to a cable from Sw itzer land, dated D ecem ber 6 , 1 9 20 , which mentioned indications o f blatantly hostile Jew ish activity against non-Jew ish econom ic systems around the w orld and a Jew ish intention o f destroying Christian property everyw here. Three o rgan i zations were specifically accused o f this: ( 1) the Z io n ists, that is, the gen eral Zio n ists or the non-Socialist m ajority in the Z io n ist M ovem ent at the time, led by Dr. Chaim W eizm ann am ong others; (2) P o alei Z io n , the varie gated Socialist-Zionist organization to w hich B en-G urion belonged, a few o f w hose m embers had em braced M arxist ideology; and (3) the Bund, a Jew ish Socialist mass m ovement that urged the Jew ish proletariat to join the various local Socialist m ovem ents, take their interests into account, and integrate with them wherever they lived w hile m aintaining their separate, Jew ish identity. The Zion ists, the author o f the cable reported, had a pronouncedly national and anti-Bolshevik outlook. The British governm ent had recently forced W eiz m ann, the head o f the Je w ish governm ent (i.e., president o f the W orld Z io n ist O rganization) in London, to reveal publicly where the Z io n ists stood on the question o f Bolshevism . Poalei Z io n and the Bund confined most o f their activities to Eastern Europe. T heir political organizations, the cable contin ued, w ere much less im portant than their num erous econom ic organizations, which pursued financial interests in the main. The Je w s political interests and their econom ic interests were one and the sam e. T h e Jew ish idea, the cable advised, w as to establish w orld w id e Jew ish econom ic hegem ony; hence the Je w s econom ic institutions should be considered political, which w ould spell the destruction o f C hristian property. T h e result w as a confluence o f inter ests between the Bolsheviks and the Je w s, thereby explain in g w hy the Jew ish organizations threw their support behind the Bolshevik movem ent. Collectively speaking, the Je w s neither were nor ever had been Bolsheviks; they sim ply used this m ovement to attain their g o a ls.21

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A nother M ID docum ent, dated A pril 14 , 1 9 2 3 , described the intense antiZ io n ist feeling am ong the A rabs o f Palestine due to political, econom ic, and cultural reasons, including the Je w ish attitude to w om en , which w ould unify the A rabs o f the w hole area to create a United A rab State. T h e Z io n ists would be m assacred or expelled in due course, w ith all possible foreign support. Thus, Am ericans are frequently asked if it is true that H enry Ford will probably be the next President o f the United States. T h e U.S. intelligence files from the early 19 2 0 s reveal a substantive-looking research study on Je w ry from psychologic, environm ental, physical, and racial points o f v ie w . 25 W hoever it w as that com m issioned this report w as probably influenced, am ong other things, by the copious popular literature o f the time, as described by Leonard D innerstein, which concerned itself with the Je w s special capabilities and traits. M an y also seem to have been influenced by a thesis published in 1 9 1 9 (sometime before the study at issue) by Thorstein V eblen, one o f the founders o f modern Am erican social science, claim ing that the Je w s actually were intellectually superior to others. Som e in the Am erican defense establishm ent deemed this thesis w orthy o f system atic exam in atio n .14 We do not kn ow w ho instigated this stu dy, which spanned some eighty pages and w as based in part on Je w ish sources, and h ow it found its w a y into the files o f Am erican m ilitary intelligence. One m ay surm ise, how ever, that M ID itself took an interest in the m atter, since no other federal authority undertook to debate these issues at the time. M ID also appeared to be a convenient and safe place to probe so delicate a topic, given the slick and sensitive nature o f the object being investigated. It is very likely that the results o f the investigation served the aim s o f the Am erican nativists and politicians w ho had long wanted to shut the gates o f the United States to undesirable alien s, including Jew s. Indeed, in 1 9 2 1 , shortly after the study w as com pleted, C ongress initiated a legislative process that, once concluded in 19 2 4 , banned Je w ish , A sian , and Eastern European im m igration altogether. T h e seal became virtually hermetic in 19 2 9 , four years before H itlers rise to pow er, when a very rigid quota o f im m igration visas w as introduced. By then, how ever, the de facto injunction against Jew ish im m igration had been in place for nearly a decade. O nce this legislation w as enacted, the United States had seem ingly washed its hands o f the Jew ish problem . H ow ever, H itlers rise brought it back in full fury and m ade its victim s into a political issue o f the highest order. In due course, C ongress threatened to reduce the im m igration quotas that it itself had approved, which w ere stingy to begin w ith, if Roosevelt were to a llo w the entrance o f Je w s in such num bers as w ould exhaust the q u o tas.2S The aforem entioned study accounts for som e o f the background o f this behavior. First, its official nature made it a representative docum ent. Second, it reflected the ideological thinking o f the time and, by so doing, reveals the boundaries o f w hat official circles considered acceptable. Finally, it w as highly confidential and therefore w as written with unusual candor.

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T h e s tu d y b e g in s b y e x p r e s s in g tr u th s th a t a n y S o c ia lis t Z io n i s t fr o m th e S c c o n d A liy a h - r a is e d o n c r itic is m o f D ia s p o r a J e w r y a s v o ic c d b y th e w r it e r M e n d e le M o c h e r S e fo r im , B e r d y c z e w s k i, a n d B ia lik - c o u ld a g r e e w it h in so m e p a r t s a n d d is p u te a n g r ily in o th e r s . It ta k e s o n ly a s u p e rfic ia l o b s e r v a t io n , th e a u t h o r o f th e s tu d y s a id , t o s h o w th a t th e J e w se e m s to h a v e s u p e r io r a n d , in a n y e v e n t, a b o v e - a v e r a g e in te lle c tu a l c a p a b ilit ie s . H o w e v e r , h e c o n tin u e d , p a in s t a k in g s tu d y a n d e x a m in a t io n h a s e lic ite d th e in te re s tin g fa c t th a t , w h e n a ll is s a id a n d d o n e , th is e x c e p t io n a l c a p a c it y m ig h t n o t o r ig in a te in h e r e d ita r y in te lle c tu a l d e v e lo p m e n t, r a c ia l s in g u la r it y , o r u n c o m m o n t a le n t , b u t ra th e r in th e e x p e r ie n c e o f o p p r e s s io n a n d d is c r im in a t io n , w h ic h fo r c e d J e w s t o liv e b y th e ir w its fo r g e n e r a t io n s . 26 G h e t t o life in th e M id d le A g e s a n d th e s p e c ia l r e s tr ic tio n s th a t h a d b ee n im p o s e d o n J e w is h e d u c a t io n , c o u p le d w it h th e h o s tile e n v ir o n m e n t , h a d fo ste r e d a m o n g J e w s a n in e r a d ic a b le p r e d is p o s it io n to c o m m e r c e , fin a n c ia l le g e rd e m a in , s p e c u la tio n , a n d s o o n . S in c e th e J e w h a d b e e n fo r c e d t o c o n c e n tr a te o n th e se d o m a in s , h e w a s a s s u r e d o f d e v e lo p in g fo r h is ra c e th e in te lle c tu a l a b ilit y , c le v e r n e s s , a n d e n te r p r is e th a t th e y re q u ir e d . H o w e v e r , p h y s io lo g ic a l e x a m in a t io n o f h is b r a in re v e a le d n o e x c e p t io n a l p r o p e rtie s, in c o n tr a s t t o th e le g e n d o f h is e x c e p t io n a l b r a in s iz e . In fa c t , th e J e w is h b r a in w a s fo u n d to b e s lig h t ly lig h te r in w e ig h t th a n th e a v e r a g e E u r o p e a n b r a in .27 T h e a u t h o r s o f th e s t u d y w e r e lo a th t o e n d o r s e b io lo g ic a l a n tis e m itis m . H o w e v e r , th e ir c o n te n tio n a b o u t th e J e w s le d th e m in a v e r y g r a v e d ire c tio n . A s th e y p u t it, J e w s w e r e o b liv io u s t o th e lim its a n d d a n g e r s o f p o w e r ; th e y la c k e d th e b a s ic to o ls t o u n d e rs ta n d A n g lo - A m e r ic a n c iv iliz a tio n a n d its o v e r a r c h in g c o n c e p ts - th e ru le s o f fa ir p la y a n d th e n e e d t o a p p ly s e lf- r e s tr a in t a n d c a u tio n in th e u se o f s o c ia l a n d e c o n o m ic p o w e r . T h e J e w s , th e a u t h o r s s a id , a r e a s in g u la r g r o u p w it h v e r y h ig h p re te n s io n s th a t a lw a y s r e v o lv e a r o u n d th e ir o w n u tility - a ra d ic a l e le m e n t th a t stirs fe r m e n t, a r e v o lu t io n a r y c o lle c tiv e th a t d e m a n d s o f o th e rs w h a t it n e v e r h o n o r s itse lf.

N ot T ru ly a N a tio n and the Q uestion o f Chosenness

F r o m th e n a tio n a l s t a n d p o in t , a c c o r d in g t o th e a u t h o r s o f th e A m e r ic a n s tu d y , th e J e w s e ff o r t s t o m a in ta in r a c ia l u n ity h a v e m e t w ith im m e n s e d iffic u ltie s d u e t o th e la c k o f a n a t io n a l la n g u a g e . F o r th is r e a s o n , th e y d o n o t h a v e a n a tio n a l m in d . B y im p lic a t io n , th e J e w s a r e n o t a n a tio n in th e p o s it iv e m o d e rn se n s e o f th e w o r d . T h e y a r e n o t a s ta te th a t liv e s b y d in t o f its h a r d w o r k a n d a n a tu r a l d iv is io n o f la b o r a m o n g its m e m b e r s . T h e y a m o u n t to a r a c e , a r e lig io n , a h is to r ic a l c u ltu r e th a t h a s m u ltilin g u a l m a n ife s t a t io n s , a c u ltu r e w h o s e la n g u a g e is th e a n c ie n t d e a d la n g u a g e o f th e B ib le in w h ic h p r a y e r s a r e in te rp r e te d a n d u n d e r s to o d in Y id d is h a n d o th e r c u lt u r e s n a tio n a l v e r n a c u la rs . T h is , h o w e v e r , c a p tu r e d th e v e r y r e v o lu t io n th a t B e r d y c z e w s k i, A h a d H a a m , B ia lik , a n d th e o th e r s p ir it u a l p a t r ia r c h s o f Z io n is m h a d lo n g w is h e d to b r in g a b o u t , e a c h in h is o w n w a y . It a ls o p o in te d to th e p r o c e s s th a t th e ir

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disciples - Katznelson, Ben-G urion, and the other leaders o f the L ab o r M o ve ment - had begun to bring about in the decade preceding the Am erican study, w hich placed such strong em phasis on the bizarre, threatening, and m enacing situation o f the stateless Je w s for the very reason o f their statelessness. Indeed, Je w s kn ew nothing about the essence and m eaning o f a statehood o f their ow n. Even though its researchers w ere basing their evaluation on M endele M och er Seforim and Berdyczew ki, the Am erican M ID at the time knew nothing about B ialik, W eizm ann and his modus operandi, and Ja b o tin sk y , not to mention BenG urion and Katznelson. H ow ever, Socialist Zionism w as indeed an attempt to return the Jew s to their place in history as a sovereign people. Instead o f surrendering the singularity and pretensions o f Jew ishn ess, it sought to fill them w ith real content as reflected in the outlook o f its various factions - content that had a connection with universal values. T h e envisioned unity w as no longer a matter o f race, religion, or historical culture, but rather a product o f the latter tw o and o f contributions from the non-Jew ish surroundings that com bined with the crisis that had struck nineteenth-century traditional East European Jew ish society like a bolt o f lightning. Since Gentiles continued to view Je w s m onolithically, the authors o f the A m erican study described the Je w s characteristics in a specific w a y after con cluding their discussion o f the volum e o f the Jew ish brain. Physiologically, they said, Je w s display horrific concern and anxiety over trifling illnesses and indulge in hysterical sobbing and excessive grief when death occurs. These, how ever, are acquired traits that can be modified by adjusting the surroundings. In that case, Je w s will take on characteristics o f the local race. In other w ords, Je w s can be changed and fixed . O nce they learn the custom s o f fair p la y that A m erican culture ostensibly practices, as well as other Am erican values such as the ability to suffer and sacrifice a son for the hom eland and the m aturity to assum e the burdens that originate in m em bership in a real nation (and, within this generality, to endure w artim e losses in a m anner w orth y o f a society that had lost 2 percent o f its population in a civil w ar), they w ill be accepted. The problem o f the Je w s, how ever, w as not only a m atter o f behavioral psychology that could be am eliorated by enrolling them in the host cultures sch o o l. It w as a problem o f behavioral ph ilosoph y, anchored in the idea o f chosenness and a covenant with G od. The authors continued: Since the Je w s had created a theocratic state at the dawn o f history, and since they had been forcibly dislodged from their place o f origin and hurled into the w ide w orld , rejecting any other affiliation and seeking only a place to lay their heads, they continued to believe that they w ould proliferate like the proverbial sand on the shore and rise to w orld dom ination. T his argument against Jew ish chosenness w as w idely held am ong W estern liberal circles, o f all places, and had been a fundam ental tenet o f secular antisem itism since V oltaires time. V oltaire w as the first am ong liberals to have expressed this claim against chosenness and against the covenant between the chosen people and its exclusive G o d in secular liberal terms. A fter all, the deity prom ised his children special benefits and made them, in V o ltaires

Z IO N IS M VERSUS BOLSHEVISM

great country for help, advice and guidance - for help in men and money.7 0 Weizmann was able to turn the fact that Jewish Bolshevism had come to power in Russia to his short-term advantage. It might have been thought that this very circumstance proved the whole policy of Zionism versus Bolshevism bankrupt, both as far as the British and the Zionists were concerned. On the contrary the notion became even more entrenched. Churchills article on the subject appeared at the beginning of 1920, in the midst of the Civil War. Exactly a year earlier, Weizmann had made this statement to the Paris peace conference: The solution proposed by the Zionist Organisation [i.e. the crea tion of a Jewish National Home in Palestine] was the only one which would in the long-run ... transform Jewish energy into a constructive force instead of its being dissipated in destructive tendencies.7 1 Such remarks anticipated, to a remarkable degree, the words employed by Churchill. Later, before the Twelfth Zionist Congress in 1921, Weizmann invoked a similar metaphor: Britain with her political farsightedness, understood sooner and better than any other nation ... that the Jewish question, which hangs like a shadow over the world, may become a gigantic force of construction or a mighty instrument of destruction.7 2 In common with the British government, he still genuinely believed that he could influence events in Russia through the Zionist movement there. Not only in Russia, indeed, but in Poland too: Polish Jewry if driven to despair might form a bridge between Germanism and Bolshevism which were at present separated by it and this would be a danger to the whole world: M r Balfour seemed to see the force of this argument and expressed the opinion that the Zionist solution must be supported if only to avoid this grave danger which would otherwise threaten. Weizmann added an NB to this memo: Made a point of this.7 3
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Hard on the heels of the Declaration - and of the Bolshevik Revolution he wired to Rosov in Petrograd: Your sacred duty now to strengthen pro-British sympathies in Russian Jewry and counteract powerfully all adverse influences. Remember providential coincidence of British and Jewish interests. He intended to follow this up with the despatch of a delegation consisting of Sokolov, Tschlenov and Jabotinsky to Russia to promote the joint aims of the Zionist Organisation and the Allied Powers.7 5A similar mission, headed by Aaron Aaronsohn, was to go to the United States. This plan, with regard to Russia at least, proved impracticable, owing to the October coup d etat. By February 1918, Weizmann was beginning to realise the limitations of his policy - and that, perhaps, his expectations had been too great: The total effect of this [Zionist] propaganda in Russia has been considerable though perhaps hardly as much as had been hoped. The Revolution occupied most of the attention of the Russian Jews and the consolidation of their newly-won liberty was their main object. The general feeling among them was far from friendly to Great Britain. He nevertheless arrived at the same conclusion as some Foreign Office officials that had the Declaration come sooner the course of the Revolution might have been affected.7 * Weizmann certainly did not share the illusory belief entertained by less well-informed elements in the Foreign Office that somehow the Jewish Bolsheviks could be made more amenable to the Allied cause through the machinations of the Russian Zionists. Indeed, he had scant sympathy for Bolshevism to which 99 per cent of the Jewish people were deadly enemies.7 7 Nor did he subscribe to the opposite notion that Russian Zionists were capable of mobilising the whole of Russian Jewry against the Bolsheviks in conjunction with the antisemitic White Russian generals. He did, however, share the Foreign Offices faith in the efficacy of Zionism as an antidote to the spread of German in fluence in the Ukraine. The German advance in the east and the concomitant possibility of a separate peace there was the primary danger to British - and therefore to Jewish - interests in the winter of 1917 18. Weizmann therefore gave Whitehall his full cooperation in their attempts to avoid such an eventuality. He telegraphed Brandeis in Washington thus:
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Information received that Germans contemplate during Armis tice to establish purchasing companies South Russia ... and to obtain produce and petrol which would render our blockade ineffective ... we think that Jews of South Russia who control trade could effectively counteract German and Bolshevik manoeuvres in alliance with Ukraine. We have telegraphed to our friends Petrograd, Rostov, Kiev, Odessa, and beg you to do the same, appealing to them on behalf of Allied and Palestinian cause ... Jews have now splendid opportunity to show their gratitude England and America.7 * Weizmann counted not merely on the cooperation of the inter national Zionist network, but on Jewish financial power (Jews of South Russia who control trade). Somewhat prematurely in February 1918, he gave guarded testimony to what he considered to be the success of this policy: Even now in the question[s] of economic control the support of the Jews of South Russia is of fundamental importance and this undoubtedly appears to have been secured. The connections between Russian and German Jews makes the Jews the natural channel for the exploitation of Russian resources by the Central Powers. This channel has now been to some extent interrupted and this negative result may compensate for the small influence which has hitherto been obtained in the political sphere. It is certainly the case that Jews played a major role in Ukrainian commerce. Weizmann was none the less, like some Foreign Office officials, guilty of exaggerating the strength of Jewish financial power in Russia. The fact remains that the Jew is as susceptible to myths about the character of his own community as any Gentile. The Germans and the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, and this opened the way for German economic exploitation of the Ukraine.

EN GLISH ZIO N ISTS VERSUS BRITISH JEW S : TH E IM PACT OF TH E RUSSIAN REVO LUTIO N UPON TH E DEBATE W ITHIN A N G LO -JE W R Y

What was the future for Zionism in the new Russia? Would the cause of Jewish nationalism be strengthened in a free society which, for the
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time being at least, invited open political debate? Or would it, by contrast, succumb to the competing lure of assimilation? What about the other alternatives confronting Russian Jewry, such as the Bundist solution of National Cultural Autonomy within the borders of the transformed state, or renewed emigration to the west? Indeed, was Zionism still relevant now that Russian Jewry had gained their eman cipation? These were just some of the questions which proponents and opponents of Zionism within the Anglo-Jewish community had to address in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. During 1917, a pamphlet war was waged within - and without - that community, in which these issues were central to the arguments of both sides. This public war mirrored the parallel - almost symbolic - struggle taking place within the government - between the Zionist Herbert Samuel and his anti-Zionist cousin Edwin Montagu.

Anti-Zionists and the Revolution

I regard with perfect equanimity whatever treatment the Jews receive in Russia. Edwin Montagu to Sir Eric Drummond, Earl of Perth, 3 August 1916' If Russian Jews obtained freedom in November, there would be no more Zionists in December. attributed to Lucien Wolf, c. 1916 Zionism, Wolf maintained, was founded upon antisemitism. It enjoyed no independent existence of its own; it was rather a wholly negative reaction to antisemitism, and one which held out an entirely illusory hope of escape from persecution in eastern Europe. It was, in short, merely a formula arising out of the political exigencies of the times." Proof of this lay in the fact that Jewish nationalism drew its leadership and popular support principally from the Pale of Settlement and not from west European and American Jewry, who had already achieved civil and political emancipation. It followed, therefore, that the case for Zionism collapsed with the dawn of emancipation in the east - that is, with the coming of the Russian Revolution. Now Russian Jewry would tread the same path towards individual freedom and legal equality in a
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parliamentary democracy as its counterparts in the west. As Laurie Magnus, Philips son, put it: The star of freedom has risen in New Russia, and Prussian kultur, which reinvented antisemitism, is setting in baths of blood. The Jewish problem to Jewish eyes in 1902 was how to escape per secution. Theodore Herzl was a desperate man. Jewish con ditions under Francis Joseph were intolerable, and the situation was even worse in Roumania and Russia. Today this despair is lifted ... Imperial Russia is finding her own soul. The remedies devised by the new Zionists to cure the evils they could not bear, disappear with the evils that engendered them.*2 The Jewish anti-Zionists were irrepressibly confident that emancipa tion could ultimately be achieved everywhere. Basing themselves on the premiss, formulated by the German Reform School, that Jewish identity was a purely religious and not a national characteristic, they rejected the Zionist argument that the Jews formed a distinct political and national entity which required a territorial centre. The struggle for equal rights was thus a cardinal principle of the anti-Zionist creed. The Jewish liberal compromise was applicable to both west and east. The Jewish struggle was part of the general battle for liberty taking place in Europe and, as such, was bound up with universalist tendencies in the Jewish religion. To embrace Zionism was a denial of the Jewish Mis sion to Mankind in favour of a narrow nationalism. In relation to Russia it meant an abdication of political responsibility. Philip Magnus wrote: In the recent Revolution ... the Jews are known to have taken an active part: but they did so, not with a view to the restoration of Jewish nationality in Palestine, but in the endeavour to secure for the Russian people, as a whole... freedom... It has been said that the Revolution will prove to be the deathblow to the general acceptance by Russian Jews of the idea of National Zionism, and so it should be, for the Jews in Russia, as loyal subjects of the present Provisional Government, should devote their energies, their well-known organising abilities, and their intellectual ef forts to the building up of a new and free Russia, occupying a foremost place among the civilising nations of the world.1 3
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BOLSHEVIKS A N D BRITISH JEWS

Laurie Magnus concurred: We used to hear about Little Englanders. Surely Little Jews is the right term for the neo-Zionists, bred in persecution ... [who] urged the remedy of flight ... But the ... moral purpose [has] always lain in the direction of an improvement of Jewish con ditions from within. Russian Jews, by remaining in Russia will help Russia to become a modern state.*4 Such high-mindedness apart, the anti-Zionists had another, far more prosaic concern: the spread of Jewish nationalism could undermine the process of emancipation in Russia at just that moment when it was being achieved by conjuring up the spectre of dual loyalties. Lucien W olf summed up the dilemma: The Zionists say that the Jews are a nation. Most eagerly is this false and foolish assertion laid hold of by antisemites who are always eager and sympathetic Zionists. For, if the Jews are a nation, how can they be citizens of other nations? A man cannot belong to two nations. If he is a Jew by nationality, he cant be a true Russian or Englishman. Zionism could thus inspire antisemitism, rather than provide a solution to it. To Wolf the Zionist programme amounted to a uni lateral declaration, by a section of Jewry, that the Jewish masses were in a state of homelessness throughout the world. This was without doubt a deplorable declaration which may be calculated to wreck whatever chances of liberty and happiness there may be at the present moment for the seven millions of unhappy Jews in eastern Europe.*5 In his sermon for Shavuos (Pentecost) 1917, which was appro priately entitled The Mission o f the Jew , Rev. Ephraim Levene of the New West End synagogue said: A few weeks ago the world was ringing with the glad tidings of the Revolution in Russia. Jews were devoutly thankful that the era of liberation had dawned for our Russian brethren. The nationalist aspirants almost went beyond themselves in their enthusiasm. They were clamouring at the Board of Deputies be cause that body had not been impetuous enough to send tele grams to Russia and acclaim the happy event. The greatest event in Jewish history, they proclaimed. The emancipation of millions
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