Pre-Zionist Palestine in the Media: England, Jews, and Cyprus

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This week’s post is a short article from an Al-Bashir issue published on November 13, 1884 (remember Al-Bashir is a Lebanese Catholic newspaper):

England and the Israelites

The newspaper Citizen said, “It’s no secret the heaps of money England has previously spent on the Moldovan and Russian Jewish residents and the purposeful ardor it expressed towards them. Now, its political cabinet made a reversal if what was cited in La Turquie from Cyprus newspapers was true, which was then cited to an English newspaper, that the English governor issued on August 12th an official order prohibiting all Jews migrating from England, Turkey, and other kingdoms from residing in Cyprus with the intention of settling in the aforementioned island.

How strange is this reversal! Has what the English previously considered beneficial to the Moldovans and Russians now harmful to Cyprus…?”

Jewish Media

On November 16, 1877, The Jewish World castigated a one Sir Tollemache Sinclair for accusing Jews of massacring 460,000 inhabitants of Cyprene and Cyprus and stating that “the rest of the human race have the most supreme contempt for the Jews.” Apparently, his rhetoric was prompted by the Jews’ sympathies with Turkey and because The Jewish World had called him “the prince of political buffoons,” “a ranting fanatic,” and “a fiend”…“among other choice names” in a previous article. Perhaps this was part of the sentiment that laid the foundation for England’s reversal on Jewish settlements in Cyprus, regardless of the fact that the only massacre perpetrated by Jews in Cyprus was recorded in 117 CE, when Jewish rebels killed 240,000 Greeks.

The Jewish Times reported on some Romanian Jewish families had been ‘relieved’ after being “induced by a convert to settle in Cyprus” on February 4, 1887, which may have indicated that settling in Cyprus had not been as desirous as one would believe. The Jewish Times appealed to the Jewish community on behalf of the Romanian Jews in Cyprus and described their plight on March 4, 1887. This could indicate a deterioration in circumstances for European Jews living in Cyprus after England’s order to prohibit more Jewish settlements in Cyprus.

In its August 25, 1899 issue, The Jewish Voice reported the following:

The project for emigrating Jews from Russia, Romania and Germany to Cyprus begins to find much favor here [in Germany]. It is believed that under British rule they will have fair play shown them as agriculturists. A wealthy American Jew named Trietsch , who is making this cause his own, has held a meeting here at which a number of leading professors, bankers, lawyers and other prominent members of the community have promised support to the project. The Conference was on the invitation of Herr Trietsch, to consider the question of an extensive colonisation of Cyprus by Russian Jews. Herr Trietsch has worked for several years in propagating this idea, but as the information he laid before the Conference was incomplete it was decided, while not rejecting his scheme, to enter into communication with the Jewish Colonisation Association, which already has a colony in Cyprus. Should the data to be furnished by that Association be of a satisfactory character, practical measures will be taken to further Herr Trietsch's proposal.

Trietsch’s proposal was mentioned again in The Jewish Voice’s November 10, 1899 issue, along with an “alleged failure” of a Jewish colony founded in Cyprus in September 1898, but the failure seemed to be due to environmental factors, not political ones. Despite these incidents, in 1902, Theodore Herzl introduced the idea of establishing Cyprus as the ‘Jewish homeland’ in a pamphlet entitled “The Problem of Jewish Immigration to England and the United States Solved by Furthering the Jewish Colonization of Cyprus.”

US Press

US newspapers, like The Columbian and The Citizen, briefly mention the Jewish colonies in Cyprus and Trietsch’s proposal to expand the colonization. The November 6, 1897 issue of The Evening Star reported that Jewish artisans in Jerusalem petitioned the Queen of England to “permit the establishment of a Jewish agricultural settlement on the Island of Cyprus.” The Evening Star noted this indicated that there’s a longing to return to farming and culture among Jews and that the petition “gives point to the doubt whether Palestine is in truth the best field for further colonising effort. Cyprus, under British government, evidently has more charm for some Jews already settled in Palestine than Palestine under the sultan.”

The Savannah Morning News published on May 23, 1903 examined the Zionist movement from an American Jewish perspective and focused on Cyprus:

“The Zionist movement,” says Israel Zangwill, “is not necessary for the Jews that are comfortably established in America, but it is for the great mass of our people. Half of the Jews in the world live in Russia. It is the only permanent solution of the tragic Jewish question.” It we understand it, it has never been proposed that American Jews—and among the best Americans are those of Jewish blood—should give up their citizenship in this country and join the Zionists in their colonizing scheme. The very holding of such an idea would foredoom the whole plan to defeat. But the idea is to establish a Jewish state, in Palestine, Cyprus or elsewhere, into which the oppressed people of the blood in Europe could be gathered and to which any Jew might emigrate if he felt so disposed. Several small colonies, Indeed, have already been established in Palestine, the people have taken up agriculture and their success in tilling the soil gives excellent promise of the permanent success of the colonies.

Summary

The point of this week’s post is that Zionists were not particularly picky about where they would establish their ‘Jewish homeland,’ and that the British’s plans frequently shifted based on their whims. What the Zionists truly valued was a colonial backer more than a specific geographical location. I knew about Zionists’ notions to establish a ‘Jewish homeland’ in Uganda, but I didn’t know about Cyprus. These articles also reinforce the idea that Jewish colonization in Palestine (and Cyprus) was driven more by persecution than religious necessity (to establish a homeland) and that Jewish people who were comfortable where they were didn’t subscribe to the Zionist movement and weren’t expected to.