Churchill's unpublished 1937 article: Jews 'partly responsible' for their troubles
LONDON -- The Second World War prime minister Winston Churchill argued that Jews were "partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer" in an article publicised for the first time Sunday.
Churchill made the claim in [a never-published] article entitled "How The Jews Can Combat Persecution" written in 1937, three years before he started leading the country.
He outlined a new wave of anti-Semitism sweeping across Europe and the United States, which was followed by the deaths of millions of Jews in the Holocaust under the German Nazi regime.
"It would be easy to ascribe it to the wickedness of the persecutors, but that does not fit all the facts," the article read...
"For it may be that, unwittingly, they are inviting persecution -- that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer."
The article adds: "The central fact which dominates the relations of Jew and non-Jew is that the Jew is 'different'."...
Elsewhere, Churchill praised Jews as "sober, industrious, law-abiding" and urged Britons to stand up for the race against persecution.
"There is no virtue in a tame acquiescence in evil. To protest against cruelty and wrong, and to strive to end them, is the mark of a man," he wrote.
The article was discovered by Cambridge University historian Richard Toye in the university's archive of Churchill's papers.
Read entire article at AFP
Churchill made the claim in [a never-published] article entitled "How The Jews Can Combat Persecution" written in 1937, three years before he started leading the country.
He outlined a new wave of anti-Semitism sweeping across Europe and the United States, which was followed by the deaths of millions of Jews in the Holocaust under the German Nazi regime.
"It would be easy to ascribe it to the wickedness of the persecutors, but that does not fit all the facts," the article read...
"For it may be that, unwittingly, they are inviting persecution -- that they have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer."
The article adds: "The central fact which dominates the relations of Jew and non-Jew is that the Jew is 'different'."...
Elsewhere, Churchill praised Jews as "sober, industrious, law-abiding" and urged Britons to stand up for the race against persecution.
"There is no virtue in a tame acquiescence in evil. To protest against cruelty and wrong, and to strive to end them, is the mark of a man," he wrote.
The article was discovered by Cambridge University historian Richard Toye in the university's archive of Churchill's papers.
Related Links
Uncovered: The 'lost' paper Churchill kept from publication (U.Cambridge press release, 3/9/07) Reaction: 142 comments (and counting) at Ha'aretz (Tel Aviv)