Page 1 (until 1874)

"By the royal declaration of our majesty, we order and command that: henceforth no one who is invested in our kingdom with any dignity or power, neither small nor great, neither free man nor serf, shall presume to attack or assail [the Jews] on any illicit grounds. (…) Nor shall anyone dare to take from them any of their property, which they possess by hereditary right, whether in land or in houses or in gardens or in vineyards or in fields or in slaves or in other property both movable and immovable. If indeed anyone shall perpetrate violence against them in disregard of this edict, he shall be forced to pay to the treasury of the bishop one pound of gold; also he shall repay doubly the item which he took from them. They may have the free right to exchange their goods in just trading with all men and to travel freely and peacefully within the bounds of our kingdom in order to carry on their business and trade, to buy, and to sell. No one may exact from them tolls or demand any public or private levy. (…) No one shall presume to baptize their sons or daughters against their will. If anyone baptize them against their will or when they have been carried off by stealth or seized forcibly, he shall pay twelve pounds to the royal or episcopal treasury. (…) It is permissible to have Christians do their work, except on festivals and Sundays. (…) If anyone shall wound a Jew, but not mortally, he shall pay one pound of gold. (…) Moreover, they may have the right to sell their wine and their dyes and their medicines to Christians. As we have stated, no one shall demand from them a money levy or transport services or any exaction public or private."

– Henry IV of the Salians, Frankish/German Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. 1050 – 1106 AD

HENRY IV, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR, "Settlement Charter in the German States" (February 19, 1090) [From Alexis Rubin, Scattered Among the Nations, pp. 31-33.]

"[The Jews] ought to suffer no prejudice. We, out of the meekness of Christian piety, and in keeping in the footprints of Our predecessors of happy memory (...) admit their petition, and We grant them the buckler of Our protection. For We make the law that no Christian compel them, unwilling or refusing, by violence to come to baptism. But, if any one of them should spontaneously, and for the sake of the faith, fly to the Christians, once his choice has become evident, let him be made a Christian without any calumny. (...) Too, no Christian ought to presume (...) to injure their persons, or with violence to take their property, or to change the good customs which they have had until now in whatever region they inhabit. Besides, in the celebration of their own festivities, no one ought disturb them in any way, with clubs or stones, nor ought any one try to require from them or to extort from them services they do not owe, except for those they have been accustomed from times past to perform. (...) We decree (...) that no one ought to dare mutilate or diminish a Jewish cemetery, nor, in order to get money, to exhume bodies once they have been buried. If anyone, however, shall attempt, the tenor of this decree once known, to go against it (...), let him be punished by the vengeance of excommunication, unless he correct his presumption by making equivalent satisfaction.”

– Pope Alexander III (Rolando Bandinelli?), Tuscan/Italian Pope of the Catholic Church. c. 1100 – 1181 AD

Synan, E.A. (1965): The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages. pp. 231–232.

"If a Christian should inflict any sort of a wound upon a Jew, the accused shall pay to the Duke twelve marks of gold which are to be turned in to the treasury. He must also pay, to the person who has been injured, twelve marks of silver and the expenses incurred for the medicine needed in his cure. Likewise, if a Christian should kill a Jew he shall be punished with the proper sentence, death, and all his movable and immovable property shall pass into the power of the Duke. (…) Likewise, wherever a Jew shall pass through our territory no one shall offer any hindrance to him or molest or trouble him. If, however, he should be carrying any goods or other things for which he must pay duty at all custom offices, he shall pay only the prescribed duty which a citizen of that town, in which the Jew is then dwelling, pays. (…) If a Christian, moved by insolence, shall break into or devastate the cemetery of the Jews, he shall die, as the court determines, and all his property, whatever it may be, shall be forfeited to the treasury of the Duke. Likewise, if any one wickedly throw something at the synagogues of the Jews we order that he pay two talents to the judge of the Jews. (…) If any man or woman should kidnap a Jewish child we wish that he be punished as a thief."

– Frederick II of Babenberg, Franconian/German Duke of Austria and Styria. 1211 – 1246 AD

FREDERICK, DUKE OF AUSTRIA, "Charter of the Jews in the Duchy of Austria" (July 1, 1244) [From Jacob Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World, pp. 28-32.]

“I humbly conceive it to be the duty of the civil magistrate to break down that superstitious wall of separation between us Gentiles and the Jews, and freely to make way for their free and peaceable habitation amongst us. And the rather, because that people yet, the Holy Scripture saith, that they are a beloved people, and beloved for their fathers' sake. They are a people above all the peoples and nations in the world, under most gracious and express promises.”

– Roger Williams, English Puritan theologian. c. 1603 – 1683 AD

Straus, O. S. (1894): Roger Williams. The Pioneer of Religious Liberty. 

"It is certain that in certain parts of the world we can see a peculiar people, separated from the other peoples of the world and this is called the Jewish people. (...) This people is not only of remarkable antiquity but has also lasted for a singular long time. For where as the people of Greece and Italy, of Sparta, Athens and Rome and others who came so much later have perished so long ago, these still exist, despite the efforts of so many powerful kings who have tried a hundred times to wipe them out, as their historians testify, and as can easily be judged by the natural order of things over such a long spell of years. They have always been preserved, however, and their preservation was foretold. (...) My encounter with this people amazes me and seems worthy of attention."
– Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist and philosopher. 1623 – 1662 AD
Pascal, B. (1669): Pensées. [Translated by Dr. Krailsheimer and W.F. Trotter].

“To keep his people from dissolving among foreign peoples, [Moses] gave it morals and practices incompatible with those of other nations; he overburdened it with distinctive rites, ceremonies (…) and all the bonds of fraternity that he placed among the members of his republic were so many barriers which kept it separate from its neighbors. (…) That is how this singular nation, so often subjugated, so often dispersed and apparently destroyed (…) has nevertheless preserved itself up to our times (…) and how its morals, its laws, its rites, continue to exist and will endure as long as the world does.”

– Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher and author. 1712 – 1778 AD

Rousseau J.-J. (1772): Considerations on the Government of Poland and on its Proposed Reformation.​ 

“I believe that the Jew is not able to assimilate, and that he will constantly constitute a ‘nation within the nation’, wherever he may be. The simplest thing to do, would in my opinion be returning to them their homeland, from which they were driven. (…) Jerusalem, nowadays a tiny appalling dump which saddens the hearts of the poor pilgrims going on pilgrimage there, would once again become a magnificent capital city. They would erect the Solomonic Temple from its ruins… They would regulate the waterways of Kidron and turn them into spillways for export trade… The wastelands would be revitalized and made inhabitable.” 

– Prince Charles-Joseph of Ligne, Austro-Belgian field marshal. 1735 – 1814 AD

​Gawler, G. (1860) in: Sokolow, N. (1919): History of Zionism. 1600-1918.

“[I have] ever felt regret at seeing a sect, the parent and basis of all those of Christendom, singled out by all of them for a persecution and oppression which proved they have profited nothing from the benevolent doctrines of him whom they profess to make the model of their principle and practice. I have thought it a cruel addition to the wrongs which that injured sect [the Jews] have suffered, that their youth should be excluded from the instructions in science afforded to all others in our public seminaries, by imposing upon them a course of Theological Reading which their consciences do not permit them to pursue.”

– Thomas Jefferson, Anglo-American President of the United States. 1743 – 1826 AD

The Jewish Veteran (1983). Volumes 7-9. Quotations from Thomas Jefferson.  

"The dispersion of the Jews, wandering, unhappy, forbidden across the entire universe for eighteen centuries, is a unique event in history. I always believed them to be humans; a trivial truth, which has however not yet been demonstrated by those who treat them like beasts of burden and speak only of them in a tone of contempt or hatred. I have always thought that we could recreate this people, bring them to virtue and therefore happiness. (…) The Assyrians, the Persians, the Medes, the Greeks and the Romans have disappeared, and the Jews, whose scepter they had broken, survive with their laws upon the ruins of their kingdom and the destruction of their conquerors."
– Abbé Henri Gregoire, French Catholic priest and revolutionary. 1750 – 1831 AD
Gregoire, H. (1789): La citoyenneté des Juifs. Assemblée constituante. Séance du 23 décembre 1789. [Translated by C. Nooij].

“These Jews, represented as a fierce and intolerant people, were none the less, in certain respects, the most tolerant of all, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to understand how the exclusive professors of the truth could appear so obliging to foreign religions. The wholly liberal manner in which Elisha settled the case of conscience proposed by a captain of the Syrian guard is well known. (…) Philo, if I am not mistaken, observes somewhere that the High Priest of the Jews, alone in the whole world, prayed for foreign nations and powers. Indeed, I believe that there is not another example of it in antiquity. The Temple of Jerusalem had a portico designed for strangers who came to pray there freely. (…) Nobody disturbed them or asked them for an account of their national beliefs.”

– Joseph de Maistre, French philosopher and author. 1753 – 1821 AD 

Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables.​ Page 55. 

​"[The inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem] are all in rags, seated in the dust of Zion, looking for the insects that were devouring them, their eyes fixed on the Temple. Penetrate into the dwelling of this people, you will discover them in a frightening poverty, making the children read a mysterious book, which, in turn, the children will make their own children read. What it did 5000 years ago, the Jewish people is still doing. Up to 17 times it has witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem but nothing can keep it from facing toward Zion. (…) These legitimate masters of Judea are being seen as slaves and strangers in their own country. (…) The Persians, Greeks and Romans disappeared off the surface of the earth and a tiny people that preceded these great civilizations still exists, without mixture, in the ruins of its fatherland."
– François-René de Chateaubriand, French writer and politician. 1768 – 1848 AD
Chateaubriand, F.-R. (1809): Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem and from Jerusalem to Paris.

“There, in the Mediterranean lands, life, liberty, morality, science and art begin their higher development. There we find first and foremost the children of Israel, a people still mocked by the nations and, in some countries, treated as outcasts. Yet they were the benefactors of us all… (...) Here we come to the scene of original beauty, where mortal man communicated directly with God and His angels and where yet those with the highest gifts, an Abraham, a Moses, a David, an Isaiah, remain firmly rooted in the ground of reality. (...) Here in the Old Testament, there flourished a Protestantism that preceded the Protestants, a Lutheranism that antedated Doctor Luther. And while I mention the subject, I may add for the comparison is certainly correct in many points that Judaism is the Protestantism of the ancient world, while Hellenism is its Catholicism.”

– Ernst Moritz Arndt, Pommeranian/German author and historian. 1769 – 1860 AD

Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables.​ Page 106. 

“The whole historical existence and destiny of the Hebrews is confined within one of those great epochs of providential dispensation—it marks but one stage in the wonderful march of humanity towards its divine goal. The whole existence of this people turned on the pivot of hope, and the key-stone of its moral life projected its far shadows into futurity. Herein consists the mighty difference between the sacred traditions of the Hebrews and those of the other ancient Asiatic nations. (…) The whole Hebrew people may, in a lofty sense, be called prophetic, and have been really so in their historical existence and wonderful destiny.”

– Friedrich von Schlegel, Hannoverian/German philosopher and historian. 1772 – 1829 AD

Schlegel, F. von (1772): The Philosophy of History. In a Course of Lectures. Delivered at Vienna. Volume I. [Translated by James Burton Robertson, Esq.]. 

​“Oh! Weep for those that wept by Babel’s stream, whose shrines are desolate; whose land a dream; weep for the harp of Judah’s broken shell. Mourn, where their God hath dwelt the Godless dwell. And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet? And when shall Zion’s song again seem sweet? And Judah’s melody once more rejoice the hearts that leap’d before its heavenly voice? Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast. How shall ye flee away and be at rest! The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, mankind their country – Israel but the grave!”

– George Gordon Byron, English poet. 1788 – 1824 AD

Byron, G.G.N. (1815): Hebrew Melodies. 

”The Jews have always been an industrious people. For as long as they formed their own state, agriculture, horticulture and handicraft were their dominant occupations. Under their hands, Palestine was one of the best cultivated and most fertile countries on earth. After all, the Mosaic Law focused on soil culture, on the stimulation of grain cultivation, viniculture and olivegrowing. Even in the first centuries after Christ and after the scattering of the nation, it remained true to its ancient ethics. At the start of the second century, Josephus still praises the diligence of his compatriotes in the fields of handicraft and agriculture.”

- Ignaz von Döllinger, Franconian/German Catholic theologian. 1799 - 1890 AD

Schirmer, W. (1891): Ahasver. Ein Mahnruf in der Judenfrage. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

“This long passive defence, amidst so many calamities, is perhaps what I admire most in the history of the last days of the Jewish national State. I see in it something more glorious and more difficult than dying in battle… Almost all peoples know how to die heroically in a crisis. But to resist step by step over a period of two hundred years, as the Jews did, without turning to the extreme of revolt, to resist now violence, now seduction, to let themselves neither be crushed by the threats of Caligula nor be tempted by the splendor of Herod, who sought to introduce into Judea the temples, circuses and arts of Greece, to have before their eyes the example of a whole world yielding, and yet themselves not yielding, that is the acme of national heroism!”

​– Ustazade Silvestre de Sacy, French journalist and politician. 1801 – 1879 AD

Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables.​ Page 81. 

“How perfectly the Hebrew type is preserved! Fresh from exhumations in the fatherland of Abraham, we add (…) part of a colossal head from Kouyunjik. (…) And still, after 2500 years, so indelible is the type, every resident of Mobile will recognize, in this Chaldean effigy, the facsimile portrait of one of their city’s most prominent citizens. (…) The number of Jews now existing in the world is estimated (…) from three to five millions. In all climates and countries, they are recognized as the same race. (…) In obedience to an organic law of animal life, they have preserved, unchanged, the same features which the Almighty stamped on the first Hebrew pairs created.”

– Josiah Clark Nott, American physician. 1804 – 1873 AD

Nott, J.C. (1860): Types of Mankind. Chapter IV. Page 116. 

“There is no people in the world that has sent out such an obvious example of dogged persistence and unshakable faithfulness, as the Jewish people has; there is no nation that has exerted such a powerful religious influence on humanity as Israel has. Their Bible with Genesis and Psalms is by far the greatest book among the holy books of the nations and it is what makes the Jewish people the ‘People of God’. (…) The Jews must simply, by maintaining their faith, which is more than three millennia old and within which even so long an era could not produce any significant change whatsoever, remain what they are now. They are an incomparable model, which the human spirit would miss; and this disappearance of the Jewish faith would today be all the more sad as the divine idea tends to disappear, at least temporarily, in so many spirits that consider themselves enlightened and sophisticated.” 

– Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, French philosopher and politician. 1805 – 1895 AD

​Rothschild, M. v. (1901): Briefe berühmter christlicher Zeitgenossen über die Judenfrage​. [Translated by C. Nooij.].​ 

“The Jews, instead of being stationary like other Asiatics, were, next to the Greeks, the most progressive people of

antiquity, and, jointly with them, have been the starting-point and main propelling agency of modern cultivation.”

​– John Stuart Mill, English philosopher and economist. 1806 – 1873 AD

Mill, J.S. (1861): Representative Government. 

“The hour of liberation of Israel is soon approaching, when the Jewish nation would once again take its place among the powers of the world. (...) Yes, friends, there has existed a Jewish people, renowned for learning and glorious in war. May the hour of Israel's liberation draw nigh! May the approach of western civilisation bring to this magnificent land the dawn of its reconstruction and its political revival. May the Jewish nation regain its rank and position among the nations of the world. The descendants of the Maccabeans will prove themselves worthy of their renowned forbears.”

– Charles Henry Churchill, English officer and diplomat. 1807 – 1869 AD

Kobler, F. (1856): The Vision Was There. 

“If in nature the principle that every people, every living being is entitled to his share of the land, to just a room on this globe, is sacred; certainly there will be no people, there will be no government, there will be no individual who can deny the Jews the right to possession or privilege in Palestine, which they have never morally or politically renounced; which they have never even personally and materially abandoned. So, each mighty generous philanthropist government should help to wash the humanity of this ancient stain, and return to the room of its fathers a people which collected many titles of justice and merit. (…) Get together from all corners of the earth because it is time to rehabilitate the room of your fathers.”

​– Benedetto Musolino, Neapolitan Senator of Italy. 1809 – 1885 AD

Musolino, B. (1851): Gerusalemme ed il popolo ebreo. Page 9-11. [Translated by C. Nooij.]. 

“The decline of supernaturalism in the West was very much accelerated by Jewish physicians… (…) In the eleventh century nearly all the physicians in Europe were Jews. (…) Though (…) driven into exile, these strangers had accomplished their destiny. They had silently deposited in France their ideas. They had sapped the credulity of the higher classes in Europe and taught them to turn away from the supernatural.”

– John William Draper, American historian, physician and philosopher. 1811 – 1882 AD

Draper, J.W. (1864): History of the Intellectual Development of Europe. 

(BEWARE: Wilhelm Marr was a notorious anti-Semite, in fact he coined the term)

"An entire Semitic tribe is repeatedly and forcibly taken away from its native country Palestine, led into captivity and finally ‘dispersed’. (…) So it is that the Jews did not come as conquerers with sword in hand. The Romans ‘interned’ them as political prisoners into the Occident. (…) Nothing is more natural than that they responded using their inborn gifts of craftiness and cleverness by forming as “captives” a state within a state, a society within a society. (…) There is no way to deny, that the abstract, money-oriented, haggling mind of the Jews has contributed much to the flourishing of commerce and industry in Germany. (…) Into this confused, clumsy Germanic element penetrated a smooth, crafty, pliable Jewry; with all of its gifts of realism, intellectually well qualified as far as the gift of astuteness is concerned.”

– Wilhelm Marr, Saxonia-Anhaltian/German agitator and publicist. 1819 – 1904 AD

Marr, W. (1879): The Victory of Judaism over Germanism. [Translated by Gerhard Rohringer in 2009]. 

“No nation has been able to establish itself, as a nation in Palestine up to this day, no national union and no national spirit have prevailed there. The motley, impoverished tribes which have occupied it have held it as mere tenants at will, temporary landowners, evidently waiting for those entitled to the permanent possession of the soil.”

– John William Dawson, Canadian geologist. 1820 – 1899 AD

Dawson, J.W. (1888): Modern science in Bible lands. 

"The history of the Jews includes, just like the history of every people, dark and bright pages, but the toughness of the Jewish character, their tireless diligence, their intelligence and endurance have protected the Jews from a destiny, which a hundred other tribes or peoples would definitely have succumbed to under such unheard-of persecutions. (…) Instead, when they were scattered across the world following the destruction of Jerusalem, they became, through their mobile commercial spirit and their economic genius, one of the most fertile cultural elements in the development of nations.”

– Ludwig Büchner, Hessian/German physicist and philosopher. 1824 – 1899 AD

Rothschild, M. v. (1901): Briefe berühmter christlicher Zeitgenossen über die Judenfrage​. [Translated by C. Nooij.]. 

“The resettlement of the Jews in Palestine would be in accordance with the promises made by the ancient prophets. (…) I am convinced of the earnestness of the longing which the poor oppressed Israelite feels for the re-establishment of his nation in the land of his fathers.”

– William Holman Hunt, English painter. 1827 – 1910 AD

The Jewish Chronicle (1896): Mr. Holman Hunt on the Resettlement of Jews in Palestine.​ 

​“In contemporary Judaism lies simultaniously: extreme resilience of the strongest possible tradition, the most loyal devotion to the faith of the fathers along with the boldest critical ingeniousness in the analysis of all modern things; at the same time also a cosmopolitan spirit, which enables a fraternisation between Jews in Rumania and the coreligionists in New-York, along with national coloration, through which the Jew in Galicia, Poland or Morocco is distinguished from the Jew in Amsterdam, Brussels and Cologne, i.e. a cosmopolitan racial moment on an Israelite historical basis and a modern mixture with contemporary national-governmental factors; at the same time also economical superpower status in the industrial calculation of production and consumption [and] in the domination of the international finance market at the stockmarket.”

– Franz von Holtzendorff, Brandenburgian/German jurist. 1829 – 1889 AD

Rothschild, M. v. (1901): Briefe berühmter christlicher Zeitgenossen über die Judenfrage​. [Translated by C. Nooij.]. 

“The most magnificent fruit of Judaism is their ever ready devotion to charity. Never, never did my Jewish friends close their hand or curtail their contribution when I solicited for humane purposes; never did they make us pay for what we had done to them. And I have become convinced that the command of the divine Master has been followed by them in the finest and purest sense, the command which ordains, ‘Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.’ (Matthew 5:44)"

​– Ludwig Noiré, Palatine/German philosopher, teacher and scholar. 1829 – 1889 AD

Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables.​ Page 61. 

“I am firmly convinced that the Jewish people will, if in possession of Palestine, considering its unusual talent and astounding energy of mind there, at a place which was once bustling with the commercial life of the Phoenicians, establish a powerful and rich state. And it will come to pass, I strongly believe so: that people shall not perish, which has managed to preserve its ideals under a terrible oppression for thousands of years.”

– Daniil Mordovtsev, Ukrainian historian. 1830 – 1905 AD

Russische Schriftsteller über den Zionismus. In: Die Welt. Nummer 35. Jahrgang 6. 29. August 1902. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

(BEWARE: Charles Eliot was also a notorious Jew-hater)

“The Jewish race has, despite living in exile and the persecutions suffered all over, constantly reached a high stage of spiritual and worldly culture. In many generations education was among the Jews at a higher level than among the ​Christians. The time shall come, when the university (in Jerusalem) will achieve great things in all sciences and arts.”

– Charles W. Eliot, American President of Harvard University. 1834 – 1926 AD

New York Times (1924): Dr. Eliot urges Jews to uphold Traditions. 

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one per cent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. (...) The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind.” 

– Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), American author from Florida. 1835 – 1910 AD

Twain, M. (1899): Concerning the Jews. In: Harper's. 

"We Gentiles owe our life to Israel. It is Israel who has brought us the message  that God is one, and that God is a just and righteous God, and demands  righteousness of his children. It is Israel that has brought us the message that  God is our Father. It is Israel who, in bringing us the divine law, has laid the  foundation of liberty. It is Israel who had the first free institutions the world ever saw. When our own unchristian prejudices flame out against the Jewish people, let us remember that all that we have and all that we are we owe, under God, to what Judaism has given us."

– Lyman Abbott, American theologian. 1835 – 1922 AD

Rhinehart, W.R. (1906): Religious Telescope. Volume 72. 

“The Jews were the very best people in the world when our Lord came to earth, possessing the purest morality, honoring the family as it was honored by no other nation. We ought to keep it before our children that Jesus himself was a Jew; that all the apostles were Jews; that Christianity was planted in Asia and in Europe by Jews.”

– Washington Gladden, American pastor. 1836 – 1918 AD

Cowen, P. (1928): Prejudice Against the Jew. 

"No foreign nation can truly possess Palestine, and therefore the Crusades failed. The country remains a mournful ruin and waste place. Century after century. The Jews, the Israelites alone, can possess Palestine, God has declared that. (…) But first of all, the banned Israel must return to the country. (…) The Jewish people is the miracle among the nations, into which it did not merge despite a two-thousand-year-old ordeal. (…) Palestine awaits the Jews. The Jewish colonies of Palestine distinguish themselves from the rest of the country, as do oases from the desert.”

– Father Ignatius, English monk. 1837 – 1908 AD

Hoppe, H. (1904): Hervorragende Nichtjuden über den Zionismus. Eine Sammlung von Urteilen hervorragender Persönlichkeiten aller Länder. [Translated by C. Nooij.]. 

“My personal sympathies have drawn and draw me towards Jewry, and not just because it represents a suffering social class, but also by act of the moral that inheres in them. (…) I can’t speak of Zionism without expressing my sympathy either though. Creating a social circle within which freedom of conscience will prevail, and consequently also freedom of speech, freedom to work and freedom of lifestyle, creating such a general human social circle which would be fulfilled by the idea of equality and tolerance, that´s such a beautiful goal, that one must be captivated by it, regardless of how difficult and far away its realization may be. (…) I believe that Zionism has a future, a good and secure future…”

– Nikolai Bunakov, Russian pedagogue. 1837 – 1904 AD

Hoppe, H. (1904): Hervorragende Nichtjuden über den Zionismus. [Translated by C. Nooij.]. 

“For years past, and especially since my visit to Palestine in 1914, I have been in cordial sympathy with the movement for re-establishing the Jewish population in its ancient home (...) which will, I hope, take practical shape in measures to be put through after the war is over. It will be a great benefit to the Jewish race everywhere to have this ancient home to look to as the centre of its national life. (...) We peoples of the West are mere mushroom creatures of yesterday compared with you [Jews]. (...) [They] are its natural inhabitants and who have never been shaken in their loyal devotion to the old memories.”

– James Bryce, Scottish/British Ambassador to the USA (Liberal). 1838 – 1922 AD

Sokolow, N. (1919): History of Zionism. 1600-1918.

Emden, P.H. (1944): Jews of Britain. A Series of Biographies. Page 277. 

“Who could deprive those among their coreligionists, whose hearts are drawn to the ancient home and dwelling of their fathers, of the right to have this natural feeling? The practical thought seems just as commendable to me. (…) I believe that both the Jews of the East as well as those of the West would benefit morally and religiously from it. However, the, to an extent public, life which is established there would also exercise an exemplary influence on the bulk of their countrymen, who stayed behind in their current places of residence, and would thus also have morally deepening effects on them in any case.“

– Martin Greif, Palatine/German poet. 1839 – 1911 AD

Hoppe, H. (1904): Hervorragende Nichtjuden über den Zionismus. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

"Let this be done with the avowed intention of gradually introducing the Jew, pure and simple, who is eventually to occupy and govern this country. Let the Jew find his way into its army, its law, its diplomatic service. Let him superintend the farming and work himself on the farms. I do not say let him find his way into the mercantile community, into the trade, for he is there already. Let this continue until the end of twenty years, the Jewish principality may stand by itself hither under the suzerainty of Stamboul, if Turkey still exists as a whole, or else as a separate kingdom, guaranteed by great powers."

– Sir Charles Warren, British general. 1840 – 1927 AD

Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1983): The High Walls of Jerusalem. A History of the Balfour Declaration and the Birth of the British Mandate for Palestine. 

“The Chinese and the Jews have always been friends and not enemies. Both have been persecuted and despised at any rate, a considerable degree of prejudice has existed against both. Prejudice grows out of ignorance of facts and is the result of narrow-mindedness. If this prejudice were shown on account of vices or weaknesses, it would be justified; but it is not for these reasons. The Jews and Chinese are despised not on account of their vices – though they may have some – but on account of their virtues, on account of their industry, economy, perseverance, thrift and business ability... Instead of being angry, let us be thankful for this prejudice, because it is evidence of our possession of superior qualities. It makes us more careful and stimulates us.”

​– Wu Tingfang, Chinese Foreign Minister. 1842 – 1922 AD

Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables.​ Page 369. 

“We are only too apt to forget that it is to this despised race that we owe one priceless treasure, the book of books, the Bible, in which scarce out of infancy we were taught to read and which remains our chief comfort throughout life. In it the highest wisdom stands revealed in so noble a form, truth and poetry are blended together to such perfect harmony, the result is a masterpiece whose like no other literature in the whole world can match. (…) As to the historic books of the Old Testament, their simplicity and directness are a strong testimony in favor of the veracity of the writers; and I was much struck once by the suggestive remark of a Jew of high culture.”

​– Elisabeth zu Wied, Queen of Romania. 1843 – 1916 AD

Sylva, C. (1911): From Memory's Shrine. [Translated by Edith Hopkirk]. 

“[Palestine] will develop day by day now, in industry, in commerce, in agriculture, under an enlightened government. Up to the present the people of this country were like lost sheep. Now they have found their shepherd. (…) For the present I think a neutral government like the British administration would be best. A Jewish government might come later. (…) The Zionists should make it clear that their principle is to elevate all the people here and to develop the country for all its inhabitants. This land must be developed, according to the promises of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zachariah. If they come in such a spirit they will not fail.”

– `Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá’í leader from Persia. 1844 – 1921 AD

Bahai News Service (1911): Star of the West. Volume 10. Issue 10. 

“Whether the Jewish State, which is looking forward to its reestablishment, is in spiritual and cultural regard desirable for the other nations, is irrelevant for the global historic process, for it enforces itself in the holy necessity of the Jewish independent existence. Like every people, the Jewish one, too, must have its place in the sun, its national center. (...) Zionism is a powerful spring of love following a centennial winter. This hibernation of the Jewish idea of people and state and their blossoming in Zionism is purely biologically one of the most astonishing phenomena of human history. Morally and culturally, Zionism brilliantly confirms which eternal values rest within the secret of the blood and within the abiding faith in its purity as racial phenomena."

– Michael Georg Conrad, Franconian/German philosopher. 1846 – 1927 AD

Conrad, M. G. (1919): Judentum und Judenstaat. In: Wiener Morgenzeitung. 1. Jahrgang. Nr. 255. 5. Oktober 1919. [Translated by C. Nooij.].

Hoppe, H. (1904): Hervorragende Nichtjuden über den Zionismus. Page 18. [Translated by C. Nooij.]. 

“I came from Russia as a convinced adherent of the Zionist movement, of the repatriation of those Jews in Russia and other countries who want to return to the homeland of their race. There is no hope that the Russian people or the government would ever grant the Jews political rights. (…) It can’t reasonably be expected from the other countries of Europe or from America that they would open their doors for the immigration of 1 – 2 million poor Jewish laborers. The homeland Palestine offers them a shelter and perhaps a limited autonomy under Turkish suzerainty.”

– Mícheál Mac Dáibhéid (Michael Davitt), Irish nationalist leader. 1846 – 1906 AD

Hoppe, H. (1904): Hervorragende Nichtjuden über den Zionismus. Page 63. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

(BEWARE: Von Hindenburg appointed Adolph Hitler as his Chancellor)

“The Jewish people have given to humanity some of its greatest men. Germany is proud to have among its citizens a scholar of the calibre of Prof. Einstein. I do not need to tell you that in Germany your race has a significant share in the development of the German culture. Informed as I am of the multiple activities of the Jewish race, familiar with their history and coming in contact with the outstanding representatives of your race, I fully appreciate the part Jews play in Germany and all over the world in the advancement of humanity toward a better world.”

​– Paul von Hindenburg, Prussian/German President of the German Reich. 1847 – 1934 AD

Gould, A. (1997): What did they think of the Jews?. Page 210. 

"It is very understandable to me that within the better Jews lives the dark longing for building up the great memories of the past and for building an empire on the site of their great history in Palestine. (…) It would be without precedent in history that a people, which is scattered entirely, regains a national state through moral elevation.”

– Otto von Leixner, Moravian/Austrian historian. 1847 – 1907 AD

Hoppe, H. (1904): Hervorragende Nichtjuden über den Zionismus. Page 26. [Translated by C. Nooij.]. 

“Zionists are those Jewish patriots, who see a nation in their people and who might place the Jewish national sentiments above the religious ones. The Zionists want to enhance their nation materially and morally. (…) The Zionists’ goal of enhancing their people is noble; the means, based on offertory, are clever, and the settlement of the Jewish masses from the countries supersaturated with Jews is praiseworthy. (…) In general, I find the proposals of the Zionists so reasonable and honest, albeit divergent and difficult to achieve, that I have the sincerest sympathy for their originator. Yeah, just work on the recovery of your ancient fatherland, on the delight and ennoblement of your people, on its salvation from the hatred of other peoples!”

– Bolesław Prus, Polish writer and journalist. 1847 – 1912 AD

Kaufmann, M.W. (1900): Zionisten und Christen. Page 87. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

“Since a long time, I am a convinced Zionist and in this quality of mine I appear before you here. But even in the most sanguine moments of my Zionist thinking, I have never anticipated or thought of the possibility that the great work of building up Palestine would become a reality so soon, or that I would even be able to witness it myself. (...) The Arabs (...) can't possibly be upset over the fact that the Jews are given a nest in Palestine, from whence they had been separated for centuries, for the Jewish people is certainly entitled to freely develop themselves on the soil of their ancestors. (...) If Zionism can be developed into a working scheme, the benefit it would bring to the Jewish people - especially perhaps to that section of it which most deserves our pity - would be great and lasting. It is not merely that large numbers of them would thus find a refuge from religious and social persecution; but they would bear corporate responsibilities, and enjoy corporate opportunities of a kind which, from the nature of the case, they can never possess as citizens of any non-Jewish state."

– Arthur James Balfour, Scottish Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. 1848 – 1930 AD

Wiener Morgenzeitung. Volume 2. Heft 537 des 21.7.1920. Page 3. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

Sokolow, N. (1919): History of Zionism. 1600-1918. 

"Even if the Jews aren’t a nation in the ordinary sense of the word, why should they not become a nation? (…) As for Zionism, I see it as a future opportunity for the Jewish nation, and such a thing may not be given up on. In any case I sympathize with Zionism as a cause full of character. It contains a potency of willpower and gives Jewish life a specific character. (…) Zionism has gained my full sympathy and I appreciate it much higher than what is called nationalism in modern France. It is a progressive movement, a reawakening, of which I expect a lot for the entire civilization."

– Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Moravian President of Czechoslovakia. 1850 – 1937 AD

Masaryk über Bolschewismus, Sozialismus und Zionismus. In: Wiener Morgenzeitung, Nr. 2005, 6. Jahrgang. 14. September 1924. [Translated by C. Nooij]

​Christliche Staatsmänner und Gelehrte über den Zionismus. In: Die Welt. Nummer 43. Jahrgang 6. 24. Oktober 1902. [Translated by C. Nooij] 

“The expulsion of Jews from a country has sometimes led to untoward consequences by depriving it of an energetic, enterprising, and adventurous element. Frederick the Great remarked that to oppress the Jews never brought prosperity to any Government. Indeed, the ‘debacle’ of the once mighty Empire of Spain has been traced to the enforced exodus in 1492… It has been surmised that the advent of the Jews to Holland stimulated that previously lethargic and contented nation into world-wide activity; and induced Cromwell to encourage their return to England after an exclusion for over 300 years… (…) The triumphant emergence of the Jews from their manifold tribulations is evidently due to the earnestness of their religious exercises, to their strict adherence to hygienic laws, to their extraordinary energy, undaunted perseverance, indomitable will and power of endurance qualities which may well serve as an object-lesson worthy of imitation by the world at large.”

​– John Cockburn, Scottish/British Premier of South Australia. 1850 – 1929 AD

​Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables. Page 86. 

“The Jews, despite centuries of oppression and hardship, never gave up on the restoration of their age-old homeland. Today, the hour of salvation draws near. The grey pilgrims with their long beards and torn clothes, climbing the heaps of ruins of the ancient Temple, spoke truth: Zion will rearise! (...) The persistence of this tough race, which remained unbroken by any stroke of fate, will finally be rewarded. Seventy generations long, they kept their eye directed to the old land from the Diaspora. For 20 centuries, their strong confidence remained unshaken, and now their fatherland Palestine is emerging on the horizon, no longer as a 'Fata Morgana', but rather as a fast-approaching reality! The Jews, scattered across the entire globe, will find a rallying point there. At the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, tears will no longer have to be shed. Shortly the sons and daughters of Zion will cheer and rejoice, the time of their sufferance will come to an end, finally justice will befall them."

– Henri van Kol, Dutch member of parliament (SDAP). 1852 – 1925 AD

Kol, H.H. van (1919): Die Zukunft des jüdischen Volkes. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

“Among the relics of antiquity that have come down to our day, there is no other object of so great interest as the Jewish people. (...) In them we have a monument of antiquity of inestimable value, upon which are recorded, in clearly legible characters, the origin, progress and final destiny of the whole human race—a living and intelligent witness of the gradual outworking of a wonderful purpose in human affairs, in exact conformity with the predictions of their divinely inspired prophets and seers. As a people, they are marked as distinct and peculiar by every circumstance of their history and by their common religious faith, as well as by every element of their national character, and even by their physiognomy and their manners and customs. The national characteristics of many centuries ago are still prominent, even to their fondness for the leeks and onions and garlic of Egypt, and their stiffnecked obstinacy. As a people, they truly had much advantage every way, in having committed unto them the oracles of God, developing among them poets, lawyers, statesmen and philosophers, and leading them up step by step from being a nation of slaves to be — as in the time of Solomon, the zenith of their glory — a people distinguished and honored among the nations, attracting the wonder and admiration of the world."

– Charles Taze Russell, Scotch-Irish American Adventist minister from Pennsylvania. 1852 – 1916 AD

Russell, C.T. (1891): Thy Kingdom Come. Study VIII. Page 149. 

“As a Christian, I perceive that I am deeply indebted to Judaism. Was not my Savior after the flesh a Jew? The prophets and apostles, too, were Jews. The foundation stone, the basis, of a universal church was taken from the house of Israel. And as a Slav, I feel that I bear a great and heavy guilt against Jewry, and that I should pay for it with whatever ransom I may. The Jewish question is essentially a question of righteousness and justice. Justice is trampled under foot in the person of the Jew, for the persecution to which he is subjected is without the slightest justification.”

– Vladimir Solovyov, Russian philosopher, theologian and poet. 1853 – 1900 AD

​Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables. Page 296. 

“The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him, though his ancestors had lived on it for 1000 years. At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons, for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually [to be] an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and in all things connected with toil and labor.”

– Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz. 1854 – 1931 AD

Katz, S. (1985): Battleground. Fact and Fantasy in Palestine. Page 75. 

“Little Judea gave Rome more trouble than Gaul. The empire had to keep its best legions in garrison there, legions that were sorely needed elsewhere: Batavi, Nervi, and Celts. The Jews were a restless crowd. They had never, you might say, never, you hear, disarmed morally. They had flown into the face of Assyria and Babylon and Egypt, pitched themselves insanely against those mighty empires. They had watched those colossi topple into the abyss of history... (...) We sometimes talk of the Jews as a people without a country, a people of nomadic wanderers, but we forget that the Jews defended their land with a heroism and desperation seldom witnessed anywhere else. They never resigned themselves as the Greeks did, for instance, to the loss of their national independence.”

​– Hubert Lyautey, French Resident-General in Morocco. 1854 – 1934 AD

​​Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables. Page 88. 

“The Jews embarrass the world as they have done things which are beyond the imaginable. They (...) violated the rules of history by staying alive, totally at odds with common sense and historical evidence. They outlived all their former enemies, including vast empires such as the Romans and the Greeks. (...) They built living monuments such as the duty to be holy and the privilege to serve one's fellow men. They had their hands in every human progressive endeavor, whether in science, medicine, psychology or any other discipline, while totally out of proportion to their actual numbers. They gave the world the Bible and even their 'savior'. (...) The study of history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson: That the nations which received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed them have written out their own curse." 

– Olive Schreiner, South African (English) intellectual. 1855 – 1920 AD

Steinberg, D. (2008): Reflexions. Page 26. 

”It would be a mistake to ascribe to Roman legal conceptions an undivided sway over the development of law and institutions during the Middle Ages. (...) The Laws of Moses as well as the laws of Rome contributed suggestions and impulse to the men and institutions which were to prepare the modern world; and if we could have but eyes to see (...) we should readily discover how very much besides religion we owe to the Jew.”

– Woodrow Wilson, Scottish-American President of the United States (Dem). 1856 – 1924 AD

Hunterberg, M. (1937): Tragedy of the Ages. Page 62. 

The Jew originally had no special tendency towards trade. In former times he was a stockbreeder, tiller of the soil and craftsman of the most simple kind; and whenever danger was looming, he was a warrior with exceptional courage, as the glorious deeds of Judah Maccabee and other Jewish heroes testify. (...) That the Jews had been a nation of tradesmen during the last centuries, was used as an accusation against their race, even though that is difficult to understand. Honest trade is just as much of a just profession as any other and has not contributed little to the elevation and convenience of humanity. (…) The God, whom both the Israelites as well as the confessors of Islam worship, will, in due time, create a place for Israel in its ancient continent, where the Jew shall sing under the protection of his more powerful elderly brother Ishmael the words of the splendid singer of Israel [i.e. King David].”

​– Abdullah Quilliam, English author and convert to Islam. 1856 – 1932 AD

Zionistische Demonstrations-Versammlung in Liverpool. In: Die Welt. Nummer 38. Jahrgang 6. 19. September 1902. [Translated by C. Nooij] 

“Since the Jews don’t form an industrial proletariate, the current propaganda of social democracy is insufficient and incomprehensible to them. (…) For Zionism I have warm feelings, even if I don’t believe in the feasibility  of the idea. At least Zionism brings into these weak masses life and selfconscousness. I consider the Zionist agitation as political propaganda to be justified, for even the highest conceptions can’t be brought to a nation but in a form suiting its individuality.”

​– Ivan Franko, Ruthenian politician in Austria-Hungary. 1856 – 1916 AD

Massenelend in Galizien. In: Die Welt. Nummer 3. Jahrgang 1. 18. Juni 1897. [Translated by C. Nooij] 

“The sympathy that I have for the Jewish people, is a deep one; it is some sort of enchantment. And my race – the Irish one – has many points of contact with the Jews. (…) Against the persecutions in the Balkan states, too, there is only one remedy: a Jewish state, which is respected and feared. The great powers may form some sort of platonic protective committee, but above all, the Jews will have to rely on themselves and tranform themselves into a great power. And are they not a great power in all arts, in the science and literature of all nations in the world? The Jew is the brainman, partaking significantly in the administration and leadership of all nations.”

– Seoirse Bearnard Ó Seách (George Bernard Shaw), Irish playwright. 1856 – 1950 AD

Hoppe, H. (1904): Hervorragende Nichtjuden über den Zionismus. Page 68. [Translated by C. Nooij]. 

“Is there anyone, not devoid of the most elementary sentiments of humanity and justice, who would deny to this exiled people the right to reclaim their place, by the same title as other indigenous elements hold, in a Palestine where the collective control of the European Powers would guarantee to every one the protection of his most sacred rights?”

​– Stéphen Pichon, French Minister of Foreign Affairs. 1857 – 1933 AD

Baron, J. L. (1943): Stars and Sand. Jewish Notes by Non-Jewish Notables. Page 438. 

​"I have long hoped that it would be possible to make such a [Balfour] Declaration; and it is now pronounced in terms that should be equally welcome to those Jews who have found happy homes on friendly shores, and to those who have longed for the re-establishment of their race in the ancient land."

– Robert Crewe-Milnes, British Secretary of State for War (Liberal) and Ambassador to France. 1858 – 1945 AD

​​Sokolow, N. (1919): History of Zionism. 1600-1918. 

“It is a great thought and a sign of good omen that the first decisive deed of Zionism will participate in the realization of a great idea, the idea of the upswing of all nations, regardless of class or faith or any other conditions. Regardless of class and religion we see the Holy Land in Palestine. From this land came those great moral inspirations, in the courses of which the lifestyle of half the world still moves as of today. From Palestine went forth those wonderful influences, which the human spirit can still hardly understand in their full meaning. (…) It will be the goal of Zionism to turn Palestine back into a source of knowledge and idealism and to dress the ancient truths in new garbs through the establishment of educational facilities that are open to all.”

– George Barnes, Scottish/British Minister of Pensions (Labour). 1859 – 1940 AD

Jüdische Rundschau (1918): Heft 35.  Seite 270. 

"Zionism doesn’t want to let the people die, it believes in its viability and hopes that it will reach a new unfolding of its powers, following the securing of its economic base. (…) The very wish to once more create a right to exist for a tribe that has been oppressed and persecuted for millennia on its own soil, deserves the attention of all the unprejudiced.”

– Friedrich Naumann, Saxon/German politician and pastor. 1860 – 1919 AD

Naumann, F. (1902): Der Zionismus. In: Die Welt. Nummer 38. Jahrgang 6. 19. September 1902. Seite 10. [Translated by C. Nooij.]. 

“The hedarim established by the Zionists are in no way inferior to any European school. They are located in spacious accommodations full of light and air, in compliance with all sanitary necessities. The excellent learning books were written by the Zionists, applying all means, to promote the spiritual development of the Jewish youth and to spread the knowledge of the Hebrew language. As long as the Jews want to raise their children in the spirit of the Jewish religion, the Jewish language must be granted a proper place in the Jewish elementary school. The opponents of Zionism claim that the Jewish language is dead. But a language, in which daily journals appear, the largest part of the Jews from the cities and towns of the settlement area engage in correspondence, scientific treatises and monographs are written, such a language cannot be considered dead. Now there is not a single city in the settlement area, where the Zionists have not built their good schools.”

– Prince Esper Ukhtomsky, Russian poet and Orientalist. 1861 – 1921 AD

Das Organ des Fürsten Uchtomsky gegen die Gegner des Zionismus. In: Die Welt. Nr. 42. Jahrgang 6. 17. Oktober 1902. [Translated by C. Nooij].