Album of newspaper clippings, representing a broad survey of the British press concerning the British wresting of the Holy Land from the Turks, and its significance for the future of Zionism - evidently from the perspective of an ardent Christian Zionist

This unusual scrapbook takes us through the first year of British rule of then Palestine, from the momentous entry of General Allenby into Jerusalem on December 11, 1917 - which coincided that year with the Jewish festival of Chanukah and culminating in the dramatic laying of the foundation-stone of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on July 24, 1918. Rather than viewing the British conquest as a purely political event, the English press, whether secular, Christian or Jewish, immediately grasped the tremendous historical and religious implications of the termination of exactly four centuries of Ottoman domination of the Holy Land (1517-1917). Allenby's conquest had been preceded in November 1917 by London's publication of the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration stated boldly, "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish People." Though certainly open to interpretation, and eventually reneged upon by the British government, the Balfour Declaration for the first time gave solid grounding to Herzl's vision of a Jewish state. One of the interesting asides of history to emerge from this cross-section of the contemporary press is that no sooner had Allenby conquered Palestine, than the Turks, in a desperate attempt to regain their hold on the land, came forward with a pro-Zionist proposal of their own. Talaat Pasha, Turkish Grand Vizier, in an obvious bid to world Jewry (especially German Jewry), expressed his willingness to offer the Jews of Palestine limited autonomy and creation of a religious center - but the day of the Turk had passed. The Morning Post of January 3, 1918 referred to Talaat's promise as "belated Turkish benevolence." (See pp. 36, 45-46, 138, 146,151-152.) Not restricted to just the British press, the clippings extend as far as the English-language Shanghai Times (see p. 132)