Great Britain, British Jews, and the international protection of Romanian Jews, 1900-1914: a study of Jewish diplomacy and minority rights

 
27
 
The Conjoint Committee archives are stored in the London Metropolitan 
Archives, along with other documents of the Board of Deputies of British 
Jews.
51
 The Conjoint minutes are often brief and unfortunately they do not 
always unveil the processes behind public action. Nevertheless, some insight 
into the opinions of individual members of the Conjoint Committee can be 
found. Conjoint correspondence is available for certain years and certain topics 
only, but what is available is exceptionally fascinating. For example, the files 
dating from 1913-1914 are astonishingly detailed on private intrigues behind 
the scenes, especially those relating to the activities of Lucien Wolf. Minute 
books of the Board of Deputies shed light on how much — or little — of the 
confidential Conjoint manoeuvres were told to the parent body.    
 
Additional information has been drawn from the Gaster Papers, deposited 
in the University College Library in London. Moses Gaster (1856-1939), the 
Romanian-born Haham (Chief Rabbi) of the Sephardi community in London, 
produced and collected a large number of documents, approximately 170,000 
items in all. The collection includes a vast array of material: letters, diaries, 
documents of Anglo-Jewish organisations in which Gaster was a member, 
pamphlets, newspaper cuttings, and photographs. The Alliance Israélite 
Universelle (AIU) archives in Paris, France, contain a colossal assortment of 
material on Jewish affairs, including an excellent collection on Romanian 
matters. These collections have been consulted when they have been relevant to 
the actions and opinions of the British Jewry and, also, when they provide 
information on the situation in Romania that is not available elsewhere. It 
should be kept in mind that the present study will not address the role of the 
Alliance Israélite Universelle or the French Jewry as such — the activities of the 
French Jews are discussed only when they bear significance on the British 
Jewry. 
 
Anglo-Jewish organisations have published some extremely valuable and 
detailed document collections and annual reports. The Anglo-Jewish Association 
Annual Reports and the Board of Deputies Annual Reports contain a section on the 
Romanian situation in every issue. These reports shed some light into the 
Conjoint Committee’s activities. Based on the annual reports, it is also 
interesting to note how much information the Conjoint and the leaders of its 
parent bodies were willing to release to the Jewish public. The Jewish Board of 
Guardians Annual Reports include some information on the numbers of 
Romanian immigrants in Britain and on the Board of Guardians’ opinion on 
Romanian migrants during the migration crisis of 1900. The Conjoint 
Committee printed an extensive volume of correspondence in 1919, called 
Correspondence with His Majesty’s Government Relative to the Treaty Rights of the 
Jews of Roumania and Civil and Religious Liberty in the Near East, although the 
majority of the documents in the collection can also be found in the FO series. 
 
A major source, with excellent material on Romanian Jews and the 
attitudes of British Jews towards them, is the Anglo-Jewish weekly newspaper, 
                                                           
51
   Some items that obviously relate to Romanian Jews were unavailable for 
consultation due to their poor condition. Some files were still closed.  

---

 
28 
the  Jewish Chronicle. Naturally, the paper is uncritically pro-Jewish, often 
exaggerating the misery in Romania or writing in a shamelessly sentimental 
tone. The Jewish Chronicle offered a vehicle for the British Jews for making their 
views known and for discussing the matters of Jewish interest. Besides the 
actual editorial opinion of the paper, dissenting views within the community 
were shown in the letters and opinion pieces. Particularly helpful are its 
features on meetings of Jewish organisations, which were reported on in full 
detail. Coverage on foreign affairs, including Romania, was often exhaustive. 
 
The editor of the Jewish Chronicle in 1878-1902 was Asher Myers, who was 
a professional journalist working for the owners Israel Davis and Montagu 
Samuel. During Myers’s term, the Jewish Chronicle tended to agree with the 
leaders of the community over political issues such as the immigration question 
and the Romanian problem. A more or less similar approach continued after 
Myers’s death in 1902, after which the real power lay more firmly in the hands 
of the owner, Israel Davis, although there was also an editor in charge, Morris 
Duparc.
52
 It has to be noted that the identity of the correspondents and 
reporters of the Jewish Chronicle is almost never mentioned in the articles.
53
 
 
In December 1906, the Jewish Chronicle was bought by Leopold Greenberg, 
who then controlled the paper until 1931. Greenberg was a Zionist, and this of 
course showed in the editorial policy of the paper, marking a departure from 
the previous anti-Zionist stance. The paper was revamped and modernised. At 
the same time, the Jewish Chronicle began to express more critical views on the 
activities of the Jewish establishment, for example on the policies of the Board 
of Deputies of the British Jews.
54
  
 
In this study, the views of the British press will also be inspected, when 
appropriate, in order to acquire a deeper understanding of how the attitudes of 
the Anglo-Jewry and the British government were reflected in the press. This 
will not been done systematically, but by concentrating on certain key points 
such 1900 (the emigration wave), 1902 (Hay’s note), 1907 (the Romanian 
Peasant Revolt), and 1913 (the Balkan Wars). The Times has perhaps the most 
comprehensive coverage.  
 
Paul Kennedy argues that the importance of the press and public opinion 
should not be overestimated. He also points out that the press was able to 
influence the atmosphere with xenophobic or alarmist stories.
55
 The latter 
argument can be applied to the Romanian Jewish question in two different 
ways. On the one hand, articles that were damaging to the Jewish interests 
appeared, especially when mass migration in the early years of the century 
raised fear of Jewish masses settling in Britain. Conversely, the British press 
sometimes carried stories in which the miserable conditions of Romanian Jews 
were strongly underlined and the Romanian government was blamed for the 
                                                           
52
  
Cesarani 1994, 67, 75, 95. 
53
  
Cesarani 1994, xi. 
54
  
Cesarani 1994, 103, 111-112. Greenberg wrote the editorials himself. 
55
 
Kennedy 1981, 56-57. 

---