“It seems at first sight
paradoxical that in a land with so sparse a population,
in a land where everything still remains to be
done, in a land crying out for such simple things
as ploughs, roads and harbors, we should be creating
a center of spiritual and intellectual development.
But it is no paradox for those who know the soul
of the Jew. It is true that great social and political
problems still face us and will demand their solution.
We Jews know that when the mind is given fullest
play, when we have a center for the development
of Jewish consciousness, then coincidentally, we
shall attain the fulfillment of our material needs.” - April 1, 1925
A member of
the House of Lords asked Chaim
Weizmann, “Why
do you Jews insist on Palestine when there
are so many undeveloped countries you could
settle in more conveniently?” Weizmann
said: “That is like my asking you why
you drove twenty miles to visit your mother
last Sunday when there are so many old ladies
living on your street.”
“I said, ‘Mr.
Balfour, if you were offered Paris instead
of London, would you take it?’...He
looked surprised. He said: ‘But London
is our own!’ I said, ‘Jerusalem
was our own when London was a marsh.’ He
said, ‘That’s true.’”
- “Weizmann’s
Answer,” Commentary, (October
8, 2007); Balfour quote in Moment, (May/June
2009), p. 22.