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

 
19
 
The Anglo-Jewry had a specialist organisation for the conduct of foreign 
policy, i.e. Jewish diplomacy. The Conjoint Committee was established in 1878 
to co-ordinate the foreign policy activities of the Anglo-Jewish Association and 
the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BDBJ), and to ‘present a unified Jewish 
representation to the government’.
33
 The Board of Deputies — not to be 
confused with the Jewish Board of Guardians, the welfare organisation — was a 
representative body of British Jews, elected by synagogues, whose roots dated 
back to the mid-eighteenth century. It functioned as a representative of the 
Jewish community in relations with the state. The Anglo-Jewish Association 
(AJA) had been established in 1870 as a branch of the French organisation 
Alliance Israélite Universelle and was, from the beginning, heavily involved in 
the battle for Jewish emancipation abroad.
34
 
 
The presidents of the AJA and the BDBJ chaired the Conjoint meetings 
alternately, and the Conjoint had seven members from each parent body.
35
 The 
Jewish aristocracy, or ‘the Cousinhood’ — so called because it was closely knit 
and dominated by such families as the Montefiores, the Goldsmids, and the 
Rothschilds — administered the Conjoint. Joseph Sebag-Montefiore was the 
president of the Board of Deputies between 1895 and 1903, and David L. 
Alexander from 1903 to 1917. There was no change in the leadership of the 
Anglo-Jewish Association during the time period discussed in this work: 
Claude G. Montefiore was the president of the AJA between 1896 and 1921. In 
addition to formal BDBJ and AJA leaders, Lucien Wolf should also be 
mentioned. Wolf began to play a significant role within the Conjoint Committee 
from 1908 onwards, although he had no formal standing in the organisation.
36
  
 
The leaders of the British Jewry assumed that Jews in the rest of the world, 
including their less fortunate coreligionists in Eastern Europe, would eventually 
be emancipated. In their worldview, Jewish emancipation was a sign and even a 
prerequisite of a liberal world order. In this struggle, the British Jews saw the 
British government as their ally; there were common interests in promoting 
tolerance, as this was in harmony with British political and cultural models. The 
British government was inclined to be more prepared than the other European 
Powers to consider humanitarian aspects of Jewish minority problems. 
Therefore, the Anglo-Jewish leaders believed that the British government could 
be trusted to champion Jewish emancipation. This assumption formed the 
                                                           
33
  
Bayme 1977, 263; Levene 1992, 2. Gutwein, however, seems to disregard the role of 
the Conjoint Committee in Jewish diplomacy. The Conjoint is only mentioned in 
passing.  Gutwein focuses on the role of the Rothschild and Montagu families in 
Jewish community policy, including Anglo-Jewish foreign policy. See Gutwein 1992, 
16, 362, 365.  
34
  
Black 1988, 38-39, 44; Endelman 2002, 121-122; Levene 1992, 2.  
35
  
Black 1988, 45. 
 
36
  
Joseph Sebag-Montefiore (1822-January 1903) was one of the leading members of the 
 
London Stock Exchange. David Lindo Alexander (1842-1922) was a barrister. 
 
Glaude Goldsmid Montefiore (1858-1938) was a religious scholar and a founder of 
 
Liberal Judaism in Britain. Lucien Wolf (1857-1930) was a journalist, a founder of the 
 
Jewish Historical Society of England and a general advocate of Jewish rights. 
 

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20 
central element of Anglo-Jewish foreign policy. Whether this congruence truly 
existed is open to question, but the key factor was that the British Jewry 
believed it did exist. In turn, the leaders of the Anglo-Jewry wanted to 
demonstrate their loyalty to the state.
37
  
 
An important feature of Anglo-Jewish foreign policy was co-operation 
with other European and American Jewish bodies which in turn were to act in 
consort with their own respective governments to achieve the goal of Jewish 
emancipation in Eastern Europe.
38
 The Romanian problem was a central 
concern for Jewish foreign policy — if not an ‘obsession’, as Eugene C. Black has 
argued. According to Black, Russia was too strong to be coerced to behave 
better towards its Jews, while Romania was seen as a suitable target to be 
pressured into compliance.
39
 
 
The importance of the Conjoint Committee lay in the fact that most Jewish 
grievances concerning foreign policy went to the British Foreign Office through 
the Conjoint and that the Foreign Office recognised the role of the Conjoint as 
the official vehicle of Anglo-Jewish foreign policy. The Conjoint depended on 
its ability to turn to the Foreign Office to make representations, after which it 
expected the government to forward the message to the foreign governments in 
question. This can also be seen as the weakness of the Conjoint since there were 
no other valid options for the Conjoint to consider if the Foreign Office refused 
to co-operate with the Jewish leaders. It was mainly the co-presidents of the 
Conjoint Committee, Alexander and Montefiore, who signed the Conjoint 
memoranda and appeals addressed to the British Foreign Office, although 
many individuals, such as Lord Rothschild
40
, transmitted letters of their own. 
Although petitions were frequently sent to the Foreign Office, informal social 
contacts through London clubs and court circles played a role at least equal to 
the formal representations. The exclusive character of the Conjoint meant that 
its leaders were upper-class men with contacts in high places, who were able to 
mix socially with government officials.
41
  
 
Jewish organisations, such as the Conjoint Committee, can be understood 
as part of pressure groups that tried to influence British foreign policy in the 
early twentieth century. In his book The Realities behind Diplomacy, Paul 
Kennedy discusses the background influences on British foreign policy and also 
briefly analyses the pressure groups in the early twentieth century. In this 
context, he mentions conservative and patriotic pressure groups, such as the 
Tariff Reform League and the National Service League.
42
 Kennedy, however, 
ignores other early twentieth century pressure groups and does not call 
attention, for example, to Jewish organisations. True, Jewish bodies were not 
                                                           
37
  
Levene 1992, 4-5; Vital 2001, 479, 482-484.  
38
  
Levene 1992, 5-6. 
39
  
Black 1988, 47. 
40
  
Nathan Mayer, the 1st Baron Rothschild (1840-1915).  
41
  
Levene 1992, 11.  
42
  
Kennedy 1981, 57-58. 

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