Balfour and Weizmann: The Zionist, the Zealot and the Emergence of Israel

The personal, biographical approach to the Balfour Declaration casts interesting and original light on the topic.

Featured, Jewish Chronicle. 1 May 2009.
'[A] thoughtful account ... Lewis explores with skill the diverse forces that produced the Balfour Declaration, including Britain's desire to obtain the support of both American and Russian Jews for the flagging war effort, and the fact of Jewish nationalism.' - Standpoint
'A perceptive, elegantly written and fair-minded book.' - Observer
'A first-class examination of the origins of the state of Israel' - The Tablet
"...an interesting book that carefully avoids political and ideological traps and suggests a diverse and fresh perspective on this delicate issue, which has changed the course of Middle Eastern history." The Middle East in London, October 2009
'If anyone wishes to understand the roots of the problems in the Middle East, and in particular Israel and Palestine, they should read Geoffrey Lewis's beautifully researched and scholarly Balfour & Weizmann: The Zionist, The Zealot and the Emergence of Israel.'
."..an interesting book that carefully avoids political and ideological traps and suggests a diverse and fresh perspective on this delicate issue, which has changed the course of Middle Eastern history." The Middle East in London, October 2009

On November 2, 1917, Arthur Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, wrote to Lord Rothschild to say that the British Government viewed with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. The consequences of this statement have reverberated throughout the world in a crescendo of bitterness and violence ever since. It interposed a European (mainly Russian) Jewish cultural idea in an Arab land and it led eventually to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Eleven years before his declaration, Balfour had met the passionate Zionist and émigré chemist Chaim Weizmann while electioneering in Manchester. At the centre of Geoffrey Lewis's compelling book is the story of this encounter and the developing relationship between these two men: the Zionist and the Zealot, so different from each other, yet drawn together by forces that neither quite understood, with consequences that were to have a profound effect on the modern world.