A year ago at the Center for Jewish History, after a lecture by Niall Ferguson about "Jews & Money," a woman in the audience asked whether Jewish money had not played a part in the British Balfour Declaration of 1917, the commitment by Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild to grant the Jews a "national home" in Palestine. Ferguson had no good answer for her.
But the question got me thinking, and I began reading about the role of Jewish financiers in affairs of state. The best books to be found were Benjamin Ginsberg’s The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State and Gary Dean Best’s To Free a People. Ginsberg says that the rise of the modern nation-state only happened because of the Jewish genius for international finance. We helped build the European states up, then they expelled us… Best’s book is more specific: it documents the early days of the Jewish lobby in the late 1800s, when German-American financiers who were outraged by the Russian pogroms, privately went to the White House on the issue, and then stanched the flow of capital to the Russians during the Russo-Japanese war in 1903-1905– which was won by the Japanese in part because the Russians couldn’t float war bonds in London.
I never did get a definitive answer to that woman’s question. Accounts of the Balfour Declaration generally go into the political intrigue surrounding the British commitment, not the financial angle. Though Louis Brandeis’s letters suggest a lot of machinations before the declaration was made. I suspect–as that questioner at the Center for Jewish History did– that financial clout played a role. It would be foolish to think that it didn’t. Why, even Herzl, in the Jewish State, said that Jewish financiers would pay off European countries to compensate them for the loss of Jewish emigrants to a Zionist homeland.
This Thursday, November 15th, the Center for Jewish History will again be visiting the subject, holding extensive panels on "The History of the Jewish Involvement in Business and Finance." You and I can’t go, though. There is a "couvert" to attend the sessions, of $2000 a head. Here is the invitation to the event. You will see that the Center is treating a bunch of important subjects: "Jewish Commerce and Political Philosophy," "Jews and Money: Myths, Stereotypes, and Reality."
Who’s invited? This is a "Special Evening for Hedge Fund Managers, Investors, and Service Providers."
Called the "hedgeevent" in the web address, CJH says of the night: "Now in its third year, this annual event explores the unique relationship between business and philanthropy and its role within the Jewish community, not only in the 21st Century, but throughout modern history."
The event is not listed on the CJH calendar. (I learned about it from the CJH home page, which includes a live stream of events that mentions the evening). Of course, institutions need to have private galas to raise money, that’s how the world works. Yet I wonder whether the CJH will publish the proceedings of the evening. Somehow I doubt it. I couldn’t find any reference on CJH’s site to the two previous hedgefunders ball.
The whole thing feels faintly like a miasma. Traditionally, Jews valued wealth and learning–and learning more than wealth (just read Isaac Bashevis Singer). Now learning is taking a back seat to wealth. The subject of CJH’s hedge-fund ball is an important one (and was flubbed by Ferguson a year ago). It’s a subject that is mystified and whispered about, especially in these days of the Israel lobby. For instance, the cravenness of the Democratic Party on the Israel question obviously has to do with the preponderance of Democratic money raised from Jewish givers–about half, the Washington Post once estimated. Lately Seymour Hersh said that plans to attack Iran only had political traction because of "Jewish money."
Such an important subject–but you have to be in the hedge fund club to find out about it. The CJH owes it to the public to publish these proceedings.
Related posts:
- Arendt and the ‘Expulsion’ of the Arabs–at the Center for Jewish History
- Is the Jewish-identity event a ’side show’ or in the center ring?
- Walt and Mearsheimer as Scholars of Jewish History
- At the Center for Jewish History, the Kumbaya Mood Is Broken With an Attack on Hiphop
- ‘Commentary’ Says Wealth Is a Jewish Value
{ 18 comments }
Can you imagine the response if a gentile institution, say a university, were to schedule such a symposium?
I'm afraid it will be a long time before the next historians' conference on the effect of Jewish finance on the Balfour Declaration.
I'm reading a book on hedge funds at the moment that is quite good. "Demons of Our Own Design." There is no significant Jewish angle but its still interesting and informative.
There is a Jewish studies event coming up at GWU that might also be of interest:
http://events.georgetown.edu/events/index.cfm?Action=View&CalendarID=349&EventID=53836
Are you unfamiliar with John Cornelius' work?
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/November_2005/0511044.html
There's a story that the head of the financial firm Kuhn & Loeb was at a dinner in London with the Japanese Ambassador, and was told that the Japanese couldn't afford to continue the Russo-Japanese War, which would end on Russia's terms. Since Czarist Russia was so anti-semitic the financier agreed to lend Japan the money–resulting in a negotiated settlement which satisfied Japan.
During WWII the Japanese remembered this aid, and allowed some 5,000 Jewish refugees to enter Japan under the fiction that they were "in transit" to the Dutch island of Curacao (no visa was needed there, but a landing permit instead, so it was a scam, since they would never be allowed to land in Curacao.) The Japanese sent the Jews to Shanghai, where they survived the war.
The rescue effort might or might not have anything to do with the financing of the Russo-Japanese War. Some other nations were doing the same. "Collectively, he said, these diplomats issued more than 200,000 visas throughout World War II to help Jews escape to friendlier territory, despite clear government prohibitions."
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/13468/edition_id/260/format/html/displaystory.html
Attending the ceremony were Jews who escaped to Japan thanks to visas issued by wartime Japanese Consul Chiune Sugihara. Stationed in Kovno, Lithuania, Sugihara issued thousands of visas during the summer of 1940.
"There's a story" that Sugihara's wife "rubbed his hands at night because they hurt from signing all of the visas," said Meryl Fischoff, daughter of Ben Fischoff, who received a Sugihara visa.
Fischoff's father was a student of the Mir Yeshiva in Poland and sailed to Japan on the "Boat of 72," named for the 72 passengers who were denied permission to disembark in Japan. They were sent back to Russia but eventually sailed back to Japan and successfully disembarked. Fischoff was the only one of six children in his family to survive the war.
Sugihara "is a real Righteous Gentile," Meryl Fischoff said. "He could have been killed as a traitor."
Other diplomats honored are less known than Sugihara, though their contributions are no less significant.
"People ask, 'Why would a man from China save Jews in Austria?' If you knew my father, you wouldn't have to ask," said Manli Ho, daughter of Feng Shan Ho, Chinese consul general in Vienna from 1938 to 1939.
Ho issued innumerable visas to Jews escaping Austria after the 1938 Nazi takeover there. With his help, Jews were able to escape to Manchuria, Shanghai, China — and from there to Palestine and America.
After his diplomatic career ended, he moved to San Francisco. He died there in 1997 at the age of 96.
Harry Fiedler was born in China after his father and almost 20 members of his extended family received visas from Ho.
"You didn't need a document to get into China, but you needed one to get out of Austria," Fiedler said. His father and cousin were arrested during the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom after obtaining the necessary documents, but were released on the strength of Ho's visas and sailed to China.
"My father was a man who believed it was natural to feel compassion and want to help," said Manli Ho, who added that her father hardly ever spoke of his actions.
"You know how many words there are mentioning the rescue activities" in his memoirs, his daughter asked. "Seventy. That's three lines out of 700 pages."
Are we looking at a perfect storm here?
Phil is gushing on about, "the Jewish genius for international finance" just when the economy may very well tank due to "credit crunch" financial engineering. This, in the midst of a failed war that many mainstream observers credit to the influence of AIPAC.
All together it reads like some computer modeling of antisemitism.
Where do you suggest we go with this
And Japan saved many more Jews by bombing Pearl Harbor, thus pulling American into WWII.
In my monologue Bitter Fruit of Palestine to be performed in Oxford March 2008
I quote from Joseph Weitz head of the Jewish National Fund when touring the Galilee in 1948
"The Arab must be persuaded to trek…. there is no room for compromise on this point….For that purpose we'll find money and a lot of money".
For more info see my web site
http://www.richardmorrisplaywright.co.uk
"Since Czarist Russia was so anti-semitic the financier agreed to lend Japan the money–resulting in a negotiated settlement which satisfied Japan."
"During WWII the Japanese remembered this aid, and allowed some 5,000 Jewish refugees to enter Japan…"
"And Japan saved many more Jews by bombing Pearl Harbor, thus pulling American into WWII."
Of funds, Japan, the fruits of Pearl Harbour and the reward for those who borrow money from jews to win wars:
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"…A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory…"
"…In view of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact maintained between the administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust with this task a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an inofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:
"a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of scouring a supply of uranium ore for the United States;
"b) to speed up the experimental work, which is at present being carried on within the limits of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining the co-operation of industrial laboratories which have the necessary equipment.
(From Einstein's letter to Roosvelt)
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"the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America." Codename for the Szilard jews.
"…his contacts with private persons who are are willing to make contributions for this cause…" The cause being destroying the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory or more precisely destroying the whole surrounding territory together with some german port.
The real deal: Japan borrowed jewish money, then some japanese saved lots of jews and then some jews pressed the development of the atomic weapons which were used to burn into ashes lots of japanese people. Thats the reward of making deals with a people whose intelectual vanity always end up producing some form of genocide.
PS on Paul W. Tibbets Jr. http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2064
We have read much about how some Japanese diplomats helped save Jews from Nazi genocide. These people indeed were heroic.
But how many have heard about Nazi diplomat Rabbe who helped save tens of thousands of Chinese form being massacred by rampaging Japanese troops at Naking in 1937. To this day he is honored in China.
So heroes can turn up in the most unexpected places.
Anonymous – where in the third world are you from?
Rajon, evil places where the stars are strange and the people dark.
I notice you didn't acknowledge my apologies. Pity.
yes Rajon, you must acknowledge Anonymous's 'apologies' despite the fact that he continues to blame jews for every unfortunate event from the last century. talk about chutzpah.
Sounds like he is an Afrikaner from Stellenbosch.
When jews throw accusations involving afrikaner apartheid, gestapos, tatoos, holocausts, antisemitism and all the "they want to throw us in to the sea" package they are doing nothing but blaming people who have no connection to this events. That's our daily life: to hear accusations from guys who seem to be pathologically unable to take responsibility for their errors and are mentally imbalanced to the point of being a walking talking embodiment of logical falacy.
An apartheid bent jew accusing others of being "Afrikaners from Stellenbosch"? An impersonator who accuse other people of blaming you personally for every unfortunate event in the last century?
What's your point, Dogvid, do you want to cover David's trail of crimes against humanity and let him escape carrying your smart dog?
Get a grip on yourself man, otherwise you will end up running all over the world blaming germans for all the evils in the world while adopting yourself a german-sounding name. Talk about imbecility.
Re Finance:
The Jewish Encyclopedia for 1906 states that "Schiff's firm subscribed for and floated the large Japanese war loan in 1904-05" (for the Russo-Japanese war), "in recognition of which the Mikado conferred on Schiff the second order of the Sacred Treasure of Japan." Partners with Schiff were Felix M. Warburg and his brother Paul who had come to New York in 1902 from Hamburg, and organized the Federal Reserve System, the private cartel with no reserves.
Moving on in modern history:
By 1916 there was a stalemate on all fronts. In Britain, France and Germany, hardly a family numbered all its sons among the living. In these circumstances, a European tradition of negotiated peace in scores of wars might have led to peace at the end of 1916 or early 1917. Further, as for paying for the war, the Allies had used up the huge American debts in Europe to pay for war supplies, but by 1916 the resources of J.P. Morgan and Company, the Allies' financial and purchasing agents in the United States, were said to be nearly exhausted by increased Allied demands for American credit. In these circumstances, the European tradition of negotiated peace in scores of wars might have led to peace at the end of 1916 or early 1917, but in walked a new figure. He was James Malcolm. Malcolm suggested to Mark Sykes that the reason why previous overtures to American Jewry to support the Allies had received no attention was because the approach had been made to the wrong people. It was to the Zionist Jews that the British and French Governments should address their parleys.
"You are going the wrong way about it," said Mr. Malcolm. "You can win the sympathy of certain politically-minded Jews everywhere, and especially in the United States, in one way only, and that is, by offering to try and secure Palestine for them."
Be careful. Quite apart from the Zionist question, World War I may have been justified. See Fritz Fischer's Germany's Aims In World War I.
Just for completeness, I'll add this link to Lloyd George's "Memoirs of the Peace Conference" (1939)–
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/l-george.html
In it he explains that the Balfour declaration was signed in order to secure world Jewry's support for the Allied war effort. This support took different forms in different countries, and one of the forms it took was to "secure for the Entente the aid of Jewish financial interests. In America, their aid in this respect would have a special value when the Allies had almost exhausted the gold and marketable securities available for American purchases."
I love Jews. They wasted the pompous white europeans and gave the rest of the opressed people of this planet a chance. Columbus and Amerigo were marano Jews too.
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