Imperial longings and promised lands

This thesis concentrates on two discrete contexts in which Jewish and imperial concerns converged: the Boer War and the British Mandate for Palestine. For Britain's Jews, the Boer War represented a rare and uncomfortable moment in which the Jewish Question achieved relative prominence. However the war also generated a different set of 'Jewish questions', leading the Anglo-Jewish establishment to refine its own understanding of patriotic and imperial duty. The case of Palestine, by contrast produced less straightforward and predictable outcomes. Ottoman entry into World War I, which prompted both British and Zionist considerations into the merits of a Jewish homeland as part of the imperial system, created an acute conflict for British Jewry's communal leadership. Although not negating the advantages of a British-Jewish Palestine either to the Empire or to Jews in need of refuge, its decision to oppose the Balfour Declaration privileged at some cost a distinctive reading of Jewish interests over a more obvious synthesis of national and sectarian goals. Despite continued objections to Zionism's ideological outlook and its pursuit of statehood, the Anglo-Jewish establishment located in the interwar development of a British-Jewish Palestine a means to advance both Jewish communal and imperial agendas. As the alliance between the Zionists and Britain unravelled in the final decade of the Mandate, British Jews eager to safeguard their position as well as their vision of Palestine's future would persist in defending this relationship. In its exploration of the evolution of Anglo-Jewish attitudes towards Britain, the Empire and Mandatory Palestine, this thesis aims to address both thematic and chronological gaps in the historiography of Anglo-Jewry. By drawing attention to the uniqueness of Anglo-Jewry's imperial connection to Palestine and to the domestic impact of British involvement, my work also contributes to scholarship on Zionism and the Mandate Finally, it offers a framework for considering the impact of, and relationship to, Empire of minority groups residing in Britain.