By

Sir Martin Gilbert

(Official Biographer for Winston Churchill)

 

Introduction:

 

Martin Gilbert wrote Churchill and the Jews for several reasons:

 

First of all, Gilbert wanted to highlight Churchill’s moral courage. His fondness for Jews was a political liability that alienated him from his friends, his mother, his political colleagues, and the British public. Sadly, while British anti-Semitism pales in comparison to most of Europe, it remains a vibrant undercurrent. 

 

Secondly, the author wanted to investigate how Churchill’s fondness for Jews played out on the larger issue. Did his pro Jewish feelings impact the course of history? 

 

His (Churchill’s) sensitivity to the plight of this maligned minority triggered an unrelenting abhorrence of fascism. Gilbert’s research confirmed Churchill was

a friend of Jews in their hour of need!d

 

Main Point:

 

Churchill deservedly ranks as one of the world’s greatest statesman.

On the eve of the millennium Time Magazine listed Winston Churchill as the second most outstanding individual of the twentieth century. (Einstein ranked first) He mobilized the English language against the greatest threat to civilization since the Dark Ages. The courage of the British people to fight alone against the Nazis from May 1940 to June 1941 supports his statement “if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour.” 

 

Churchill was a Devoted Zionist:

 

Churchill strove hard despite its political unpopularity to retain Britain’s adherence to the principles of the Balfour Declaration. When he was head of Colonial Affairs in 1921, Churchill praised Jewish enterprise.

 

 “We owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics which even if it were entire separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together. On that system and by that faith there has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilization.”

 

Harry Sacher, one of the drafters of Balfour Declaration paid this memorial tribute to Churchill.

 

“We Jews are under a special obligation to Churchill, the faithful friend of Zionism.” Sacher went on to explain: “For the (Ramsey) MacDonalds Zionism was a fantasy to be indulged when undemanding and to be betrayed when expedient. For (Neville) Chamberlain it was an exotic irrelevance to be cast away in a diplomatic deal. For (Ernest) Bevin it was an unofficial strike to be crushed by a trade union boss. For Churchill it was the magical revival of a nation which had seen so many empires crumple to dust, which had persisted through so many trials and humiliations, which had renewed its ancient creative vitality and from which mankind might hope no little. It was characteristic that he called upon his countrymen to conceive the establishment of the State of Israel in the perspective of thousands of years. No petty calculation of ephemeral diplomatic loss or gain drew him to Zionism, for him it belonged to the great tide of history.”

 

Other leading Jewish fighters for Zionism from Chaim Weitzman to David Ben-Gurion felt he was a kindred spirit and a devoted friend.

 

At a special meeting of the Knesset to pay tribute to Churchill after his death on January 24, 1965, David Ben-Gurion eulogized him “Churchill was the perfect combination of a great man at a great hour…Churchill belonged to the entire world. His memory will light the way for generations to come in every corner of the globe.”

 

Churchill’s Fondness for Judaism:

 

Churchill never wavered in his support for the Jewish people and Zionism irrespective of his changing political fortunes or his nation’s. At two critical times (1931-1939) and (June 1945-1951) Churchill was either in “political wilderness” or “in opposition.” That is, in the pre-World War II years, Churchill was unable to stop British impediments to Jewish immigration to Palestine. During the Jewish fight for Statehood (1946-1948), the Labour Party under Clement Atlee and Ernest Bevin steadfastly opposed Zionism. Their policy of non-recognition of the State of Israel for close to one year after Jewish Independence—May 1948—was properly chastised by Churchill.

 

Churchill understood and appreciated Jewish historical contributions to civilization and their resourcefulness. He steadfastly believed that Jewish presence in Palestine would contribute greatly to the area’s development. While Churchill abhorred and publicly admonished Jewish terrorist acts, he appreciated that such actions were a natural consequence of the pro-Arab policies of Britain when they ruled Palestine under a League of Nations Mandate. In 1946 Churchill told the House of Commons: “I am against preventing Jews from doing anything which other people are allowed to do. I am against that, and I have the strongest abhorrence of the idea of anti-Semitic lines of prejudice.”