On Thursday, October 30, 1947, this article was published in the Israeli weekly children’s magazine Mishmar LeYeladim. The article discusses the historical significance of the Balfour Declaration in the context of the thirty years that had since passed. The writer tells of a dialogue conducted with a young child about the value and significance of the Balfour Declaration.
The child raises two important points regarding the importance of the Declaration: the first, that Britain never fulfilled its promise to help the Jews build their national home in Israel; and the second, that the vote to be held at the United Nations a month later on the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel was far more significant.
The writer agrees with the child that the British government did not fulfil its promise as stated in the Declaration but stresses that the Balfour Declaration was the first time that a world power “recognised the enduring connection between the fate of the Jewish people and the Land of Israel.” The writer uses a stronger and more assertive tone for his concluding message that the Jewish people must make the most of the renewed opportunity that was initiated in the Balfour Declaration, to move en masse to Israel and establish a state. His statement that “we have all paid dearly for this mistake” is a clear reference to the Holocaust, which ended only two years previously.
This article demonstrates that the feelings of gratitude and appreciation of the British government, so manifest in the years immediately following the Balfour Declaration, had given way to disappointment and anger that Britain had not fulfilled its promise and was, in fact, obstructing the establishment of a Jewish national home. Also evident is the inner tension within the Zionist movement between the desire for broad international recognition and a deep sense that the fate of the nation was in the hands of the Yishuv alone.
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Mishmar leYeladim - Mishmar leYeladim was a children’s periodical that was founded in 1945 by the newspaper HaMishmar, whose readership was mainly members of the kibbutz movement. Mishmar leYeladim is evidence of the key role of the press in instilling Zionist values in the children of the Yishuv.
