Lucien Wolf


Lucien Wolf was an English Jewish journalist, diplomat, historian, and advocate of rights for Jews and other minorities. While Wolf was devoted to minority rights, he opposed Jewish nationalism as expressed in Zionism, which he regarded an incentive to anti-Semitism. In 1917 he co-founded the anti-Zionist League of British Jews.

Early life

He was the son of Edward Wolf, a London pipe manufacturer, and his wife Céline. Wolf's father was a Bohemian Jew who came to England as a political refugee after the 1848 revolution, and his mother was Viennese.

Career in journalism

Wolf began his career in journalism as early as 1874, at the age of seventeen, becoming a writer for the Jewish World and remaining at this position until 1894; from 1905 to 1908 he would serve as its editor. He specialized in foreign affairs and diplomacy and became a highly respected expert on the subject.
In 1877 he became assistant director of the Public Leader. From 1890 to 1909 he was foreign editor of The Daily Graphic, writing under the pseudonym Diplomaticus. From 1895 to 1905 he wrote under the same pseudonym for the Fortnightly Review. As indicated by his pseudonym, Wolf's writings dealt primarily foreign affairs and diplomacy and he became a respected expert in these fields.
The outbreak of the anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia in 1881 sparked his interest in Jewish affairs. He became a sharp critic of the Czarist regime and attempted to draw attention to the plight of Russian Jews. In 1912 Wolf founded and wrote a supplement named Darkest Russia to the Jewish Chronicle. With the outbreak of the First World War, Wolf's preference for the more liberal German government to the Russian practically ended his career in journalism, as the British were allied with Russia against Germany.

Anglo-Jewry

Wolf was an enthusiast for Jewish history, and promoting Jewishness. In London he organised the 1887 Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition charting the immigration of Jews to Britain from across Europe over the centuries. In 1893, Wolf was one of the founders and the first president of the Jewish Historical Society of England. His historical writings rarely extended beyond the aristocracy, exhibiting his own upper-middle class pretensions. Against racial anti-Semitism, he championed Judaism, even offering eugenic justifications for its superiority.

Anti-Zionism

Lucien Wolf was opposed to political Zionism. As an assimilationist, he believed Jewry was a spiritual and religious identity and not a nation. He vigorously opposed the new Zionist movement, that had been formed in Manchester. As a powerful editor, Wolf had access to ministers, whom he lobbied frantically to prevent the issuing of the Balfour Declaration. When the Declaration was made public on 2 November 1917, he soon co-founded the anti-Zionist League of British Jews.
Wolf understood Nahum Sokolow and Chaim Weizmann's position as threatening the nationality status of British Jews, and wrote "No wonder that all anti-semites are enthusiastic Zionists". The yearning for a home land was historical and fundamental to the essence or quintessence of Jewishness. But to Wolf this "yearning" was primarily only religious.

Conjoint Committee

In 1888, Lucien Wolf became a member of the Conjoint Foreign Committee, a coordinating organ of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association. Around the start of the First World War, he was appointed secretary, which led to his contacts at the British Foreign Office. He served effectively as "Foreign Secretary" representing Anglo-Jewry, having frequent meetings with members of the Cabinet.
After the CFC had published an anti-Zionist manifest in May 1917 without first consulting the Board of Deputies and AJA, the Committee was criticized and the mainly pro-Zionist Board of Deputies withdrew its delegates from the CFC. By the end of 1917 the Committee was re-established under the new name Conjoint Foreign Committee. This time, the AJA was allotted a minority of members in the Committee. Lucien Wolf became again its secretary and held this function until his death in 1930.

1919 and after

Wolf was part of the Anglo-Jewish delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He helped draft the Minority Treaties, which guaranteed rights for ethnic, religious, and linguistic minority populations. The Jewish delegations to the conference were split along different ideological lines. Western Europeans were cautious of both Zionism and diaspora nationalism, wanting Jews to be integrated with society.
During the 1920s anti-Semitism became more intensive and organised, particularly in Poland, which had one of Europe's largest Jewish minority populations. The following year in 1926, he went to Portugal to aid the Marranos. Wolf continued to write extensively and in an outspoken manner against Zionist proponents, which he believed was leading to conflict and crises. In 1927 Romanian Jews continued to be victims of pogroms: his work and expertise was recognised by appointment as an Advisor to the Committee for Refugees for the League of Nations at Geneva, which he founded in 1929.

Some works by Lucien Wolf

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