Letter from Nahum Sokolov to Professor Joseph Klausner]

Nahum Sokolow (Nahum ben Joseph Samuel Sokolow, ¿ Nachum ben Yoseph Shmuel Sokolov, (10 January 1859 - London 17 May 1936) was a Zionist leader, author, translator, and a pioneer of Hebrew journalism. Born to a rabbinic family in Wyszogród, Poland (then Russian Empire), Sokolow began writing for the local Hebrew newspaper, HaTzefirah, when he was seventeen years old. He quickly won himself a huge following that crossed the boundaries of political and religious affiliation among Polish Jews, from secular intellectuals to anti-Zionist Haredim, and eventually had his own regular column. He eventually became the newspaper's senior editor and a co-owner. Sokolow was a prolific author and translator. His works include a three-volume history of Baruch Spinoza and his times, and various other biographies. He was the first to translate Theodor Herzl's utopian novel Altneuland into Hebrew, giving it the name Tel Aviv (literally, "An Ancient Mound of Spring"). In 1909, the name was adopted for the first modern Hebrew-speaking city, Tel Aviv. In 1906 Sokolow was asked to become the secretary general of the World Zionist Congress. In the ensuing years, he crisscrossed Europe and North America to promote the Zionist cause. During World War I, he lived in London, where he was a leading advocate for the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the British government declared its support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. On 6 February 1917 a meeting was held in Maida Vale with Dr Weizmann to discuss the results of the Picot convention in Paris. Sokolow and Weizmann pressed on after seizing leadership from Gaster; they were granted official recognition from the British government. At 6 Buckingham Gate on 10 February 1917 another was held, in a series of winter meetings in London. The generation of Anglo-Jewish Association assimilationists, Greenberg, Cowen and Gaster were stepping down or being passed over. ".those friends . in close cooperation all these years", Weizmann suggested should become the EZF Council (English Zionist Freedom) - Manchester's Sieff, Sacher and Marks, and London's Leon Simon and Samuel Tollowsky: the Zionists takeover of Jewish leadership in Britain. While the World War was raging, the Zionists prepared for the survival of their home land. They issued a statement on 11 February 1917, and on 12th, they received news of the Kerensky takeover in Petrograd. Tsarist Russia was very anti-Semitic. But incongruously this made the British government even more determined to help the Jews. Chaim Weizmann wrote to the Manchester Zionist, Harry Sacher, who became a focus for the view that Sokolow and Weizmann had capitulated; forfeiting the right to lead by "preferring British Imperialism . to Zionism". Sacher distinguished his Manchester base as different from the "London folk". He did not trust the Foreign Office, nor Weizmann's tactics. In a letter to Tollowsky, Weizmann branded Sacher as "Draufheher" - German extremist. Sokolow acted as Weizmann's eyes and ears in Paris on a diplomatic mission with Sir Mark Sykes to negotiate with the French. The idea that the Jews would form a new kind of Triple Entente under the Ottoman Empire was unsettling to them. Nonetheless the delegation left for Paris on 31 March 1917. One purpose of the Entente was to strengthen the hand of Zionism in USA. Sokolow did not know of the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement and hidden British/French understanding on Middle Eastern policy matters. He believed that he must report to Weizmann that what France really meant by a "Greater Syria", taking the whole of Palestine for themselves. In a series of letters in April and May 1917, Weizmann accused Sokolow of letting the Zionists down in negotiations with France; Sokolow countered by replying that he remained totally committed to a British Palestine. Lucien Wolf, journalist and assimilationist understood Sokolow and Weizmann's position as threatening the nationality status of British Jews.
Publication year: 1909
Vendor: Meir Turner