BetweenMyths

Theodor Herzl (1860 – 1904) formed the Zionist Organization in 1897 and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state. Though he died before its establishment, he is known as the father of the State of Israel. And while Herzl is specifically mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and is officially referred to as "the spiritual father of the Jewish State", i.e. the visionary who gave a concrete, practicable platform and framework to political Zionism, he was not the first Zionist theoretician or activist. Rabbis such as Yehuda Bibas, Moses (Moshe) Sachs, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Judah Alkalai, promoted a range of proto-Zionist ideas before Herzl.

In 1836 Rabbi Moshe Sachs asked Emperor Ferdinand of Austria to support the establishment of a large Jewish agricultural settlement in the Land of Israel. Sachs enlisted the support of Baron Solomon Mayer Rothschild of Vienna for financial support. And Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalisher asked Amschel Rothschild (p.60) to purchase the Land of Israel, or at the very least the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Sir Moses Montefiore, brother-in-law of Nathan Mayer Rothschild, established a girls' school in Jerusalem in 1864, which subsequently came to be known as the Evelina de Rothschild School. The Rothschild family supported this school as well as the Rothschild Technical School for Boys which was run by the Alliance Israelite Universelle.

Baron Edmond de Rothschild developed a deep interest in Zionism in the 1880s, following a series of pogroms in Russia. The Jews who migrated to Palestine in this period are known as the First Aliyah. Baron Edmond de Rothschild, became known as the 'godfather' of Palestine colonisation, helping to found approximately thirty Jewish colonies in Palestine between 1882 -1895. The first colony was called Rosh Pina.

The website of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) informs us that, "The house where the Rothschild employees worked has been turned into offices and a museum featuring an audiovisual presentation about the history of Rosh Pina. The nearby Baron’s Gardens, modeled on the grand gardens at Versailles, are also open to the public." The MFA also tells us that, "in the ancient Jewish mystical tradition, Rosh Pina is the site where the Messiah will appear."

In 1896 the Jewish Colonization Association (ICA), upon the instruction of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, began loaning money to Jewish colonists in Palestine. We are told here that on the 1st December 1911 "Jewish colonists in Rishon-le-Zion and Zichron-Jacob, Palestine, make a substantial repayment (400,000 francs) to Baron Edmond de Rothschild on loans of over 2,000,000 francs made several years ago." In a 1911 book by the Zionist Organisation we read that, "The conception of credit is not much better among the newer colonists [in Palestine]. The erroneous ideas underlying it are due in a large measure to the administrative system of Baron Edmond de Rothschild. The millions of francs poured out from Paris for this wholesale philanthropy were not received here under the proper name of "charity," but were always regarded as "credit." There thus developed a credit system which is almost without parallel. So-called "loans" of 40,000 to 50,000 francs were granted to people who had neither land nor any other means, and who were not worth a single penny of credit in the European sense of the term. I know colonists who owe the Baron 100,000 francs, and many even 150-300,000 francs...Thus have credit and charity become identified, introducing demoralization among the new settlers."

According to Simon Schama in his book Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel, the Rothschild settlements by 1911 had already covered 67 per cent of Jewish land in Palestine.

Dorothy Pinto married James de Rothschild in 1913 and they were both active in pressing the British Government for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. In 1914 the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was established to channel funds raised to aid Jews in Europe and Palestine. The chairman of the JDC was Felix Warburg. The current Chair of JDC International Council is Baron David de Rothschild.

In November 1917 a letter from the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James Balfour, addressed to Lord Rothschild, set out the Balfour Declaration which promised a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, whilst also promising to protect the rights of the existing indigenous Arab population. Lord Rothschild had been closely involved in the formulation of the draft declaration, The Balfour Declaration was included in the British mandate for Palestine which was formally approved on 24 July 1922 by the newly created League of Nations.

Baron Edmond de Rothschild established the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association (PICA) in 1923/24, which acquired more than 125,000 acres (50,586 ha) of land and set up business ventures. PICA was the largest Jewish landowner in Palestine. Baron Edmond de Rothschild died in 1934 and his son James de Rothschild presided over the affairs of PICA, which was later replaced by Yad Hanadiv that acts in Israel on behalf of a number of Rothschild family trusts.

It was at 16 Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, on the 14 May 1948, that the Israeli Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion. According to the Rothschild's, David Ben-Gurion praised Baron Edmond de Rothschild as follows: 'I doubt that, in the entire history of the Jewish people in the Diaspora, a period of 2,000 years, one could ever find a man comparable in stature to the incredible character that was the Baron Edmond de Rothschild – the builder of the Jewish Yishuv in our renewed homeland.’

James de-Rothschild and his wife Dorothy (Pinto) de Rothschild contributed millions of Israeli Pounds for the construction of the Knesset (Israeli parliament building). The corner stone for the Knesset building was laid on October 14, 1959, in the presence of James de Rothschild's widow, Dorothy, who also provided the money for the Supreme court building in Jerusalem.