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

 
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League’s minority protection system, lobbying the League bodies and 
maintaining close contacts with League officials.
112
  
 
The conclusion to the Romanian Jewish question that was reached after 
the First World War was really only a partial solution to the main legal problem 
of the pre-war era — the status of Jews as aliens. The minority rights regime 
that was imposed from above did not indicate any fundamental change in the 
attitudes of Romanian political leaders or the Romanian people. On the 
contrary, minority treaties were deeply resented in Romania. Even after the 
acquisition of citizenship, Romanian Jews still had to fight for their place and 
their rights in Romanian society. The character of the Romanian Jewish question 
was soon to change with the rise of fascism and the coming of the Second 
World War.  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
                                                           
 
112
   For the activities of Jews relating to the League of Nations minority system, see Fink 
 2004, 
267-335. 

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10   CONCLUSION 
 
 
Romanian Jews and the international protection of minorities 
 
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, emancipated Jewish political 
and economic elites acted on behalf of their persecuted coreligionists in a 
manner that can be defined as ‘Jewish diplomacy’. Jewish organisations in 
Western Europe and the United States were thus the principal proponents of 
international minority protection in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The 
Anglo-Jewish community was one of the main protagonists in Jewish 
diplomacy. The main target countries of Jewish foreign policy were Russia and 
Romania. Jews in those countries lacked political rights and their lives were 
restricted by a complex system of anti-Jewish legislation.  
 
The problem of Romanian Jews was related to a number of larger themes 
that were fundamental issues during the late nineteenth and early twentieth 
century, such as anti-Semitism, the emancipation of Jews, the disintegration of 
the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, the establishment of independent nation 
states, and Great Power rivalry. In this study, the situation of Romanian Jews 
has been linked to the emerging system of international minority protection. In 
the area of minority protection, the issue involved the clash of an emerging 
nation state, Romania, and the international community, the Great Powers. 
Romania was intent on guarding its sovereignty against any outside 
intervention in what it saw as its internal affairs. The Great Powers were in turn 
keen to control new states by, for instance, regulating the rights of minorities. 
Moreover, there were disagreements between the Romanian government and 
West European (and American) Jewish organisations and community leaders. 
Their points of view were polar opposites. The Romanian government argued 
against any improvement in the legal position of Romanian Jews, whereas 
Jewish activists wished to end Jewish disabilities.  
 
The Anglo-Jewish policy – as well as the official British foreign policy – 
towards the Romanian Jewish question was connected to the possibility of 
diplomatic intervention in Romanian internal affairs. The Treaty of Berlin (1878) 
was the international legal document that determined the minority rights of 

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Romanian Jews. It was actually the most important episode in which minority 
rights were promoted before the First World War.  
 
In the Treaty of Berlin, the Great Powers promised to recognise Romanian 
independence on the condition that Romania guaranteed equal rights to 
persons of all religious confessions. Consequently, Romania passed a new 
naturalisation law in which the treaty provisions were very narrowly 
interpreted. The law could not be considered to be a fulfilment of the articles of 
the Berlin Treaty. From the perspective of minority rights protection, the 
question of citizenship – on an individual basis – was the primary issue in the 
Romanian Jewish question: it was a basis for the general legal status of 
Romanian Jews. In the early twentieth century, practically every individual 
episode relating to the Romanian Jewish question was linked to the Treaty of 
Berlin.  
 
Anglo-Jewish diplomacy 
 
The British Jews conducted their diplomatic activities through a specialist body, 
the Conjoint Foreign Committee. The problem of Romanian Jews occupied a 
central place in Anglo-Jewish diplomacy during the years preceding the First 
World War. Using their connections and access to the press and public forums, 
the British Jewry tried to pressurise the British Foreign Office to become 
involved in Romanian Jewish affairs. Anglo-Jewish policy was mainly shaped 
by perceptions of the struggle for Jewish emancipation and the role of 
privileged Jewries as defenders of their less fortunate coreligionists. Political 
and social considerations relating to the dynamics of the domestic Jewish 
community, such as immigration, played a role as well.  
 
The role of certain Anglo-Jewish individuals was of crucial importance in 
conducting Jewish diplomacy. The formal leaders were the presidents of the 
Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association, David L. 
Alexander (until 1903 Joseph Sebag-Montefiore) and Claude G. Montefiore. 
However, journalist Lucien Wolf was, from approximately 1908 forward, the 
leading force behind the formulation of Anglo-Jewish foreign policy. The 
decisive role of Lucien Wolf in the aftermath of the First World War has been 
shown previously by Mark Levene and Carole Fink, but it is clear that Anglo-
Jewish diplomacy in relation to Romania was very much Wolf’s creation during 
the years preceding the war as well. The Conjoint Committee’s policy became 
more consistent and more persistent with Wolf. Opportunities were exploited to 
the full and arguments were relentlessly pursued. 
 
Wolf’s experience and contacts with the British Foreign Office benefited 
Anglo-Jewish foreign policy in the case  of  Romania.  It  may  have  been  a 
different matter in the Russian case: Wolf pushed for an improvement of Jewish 
rights in Russia, which was not very much appreciated at the Foreign Office. 
The limits of Jewish diplomacy were much more strictly defined as regards 
Russia, not only because of Russia’s status as a Great Power and an ally of 
Britain, but also from an international legal perspective.  No international treaty 
protected Russian Jewry in the manner that the Treaty of Berlin protected 

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