The following
article was published in The Jerusalem Post Tuesday, January
12, 1999:
Balfour Declaration's
author was a secret Jew
By DOUGLAS DAVIS
LONDON (January 12) - Leopold Amery, the author of the Balfour
Declaration - the 1917 document from British foreign secretary Arthur
Balfour to Lord Rothschild which laid the groundwork for the
establishment
of the State of Israel - was a secret Jew.
This has been disclosed in just-published research by William
Rubinstein, professor of modern history at the University of Wales,
who says Amery hid his Jewish background.
Ironically, one of Amery's sons, John, achieved infamy when he
defected to Nazi Germany and was hanged for treason in London after
World War II. The other son, Julian, succeeded his father as a member
of Parliament and was a staunch supporter of Israel. He died two
years ago.
In his 1955 autobiography, Amery, who was assistant secretary to
the British war cabinet in 1917, said his own father, Charles
Frederick Amery, came from an old English family.
His mother, Elisabeth Leitner Amery, he wrote, was part of a
stream of Hungarian exiles who fled first to Constantinople and then
to England.
According to Rubinstein's research, Amery's mother was born to
Jewish parents in 1841 and was named Elisabeth Joanna Saphir. The
family lived in Pest, which later became part of Budapest and
contained the city's first Jewish quarter.
Both of her parents were Jewish, says Rubinstein, who adds that
Amery himself changed his middle name from Moritz to Maurice in an
attempt to disguise its origins.
As assistant secretary to the war cabinet, Amery not only drafted
the Balfour Declaration, but also was responsible for establishing
the Jewish Legion, the first organized Jewish fighting force since
Roman times, which proved to be the forerunner of the modern Israel
Defense Forces.
Later, as secretary of state for dominion affairs from 1925 to
1929, he spearheaded what many regard as the most impressive period
of peaceful growth in pre-state Palestine.
But his most significant contribution to British politics was a
powerful speech in parliament which is thought to have played a key
role in precipitating the departure of prime minister Joseph
Chamberlain in 1940 and the accession to power of Winston Churchill,
who was to lead Britain through World War II.
Rubinstein, whose disclosures are contained in the February
edition of History Today, describes Amery's deception as "possibly
the most remarkable example of concealment of identity in 20th
century British political history."
Rubinstein, who suspects that both of Amery's sons knew of their
Jewish origins, believes Leopold Amery decided to conceal his own
Jewishness for fear of persecution, because he was confused about his
status following his relatives' conversion to Protestantism, and
because of the obstacles it might have posed at the time to his
political ambitions.
Finally, Rubinstein believes Amery might have hidden his origins
to avoid pressure for favors from the Jewish
community.
