L. J. Greenberg
| L. J. Greenberg | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1861 Birmingham, U.K. |
| Died | 1931 |
| Resting place | Kibbutz Degania, Israel |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Children | Ivan Greenberg |
L. J. Greenberg, born Leopold Jacob Greenberg (1861–1931), was an accomplished British Jewish journalist. He had become an energetic propagandist of the new Zionism in England by the Third Zionist Congress in 1899, at which he and Jacob de Haas were elected as members of the ZO's Propaganda Committee. Greenberg was considered by many to be a leading Assimilationist, vigorously opposing Chaim Weizmann's plan for a home land in Zionist Palestine. His frequent dialectical debates were conducted as editor of Jewish Chronicle, the leading paper in Britain representing the Jewish community to Government. Greenberg called for decency and humanity towards World Jewry whilst remaining a civilizing influence on Britain's 300,000 Jews.
He was born in Birmingham in 1861, the son of Simeon Greenberg, a successful jewellery manufacturer. He was educated in London, at a private Jewish school in Maida Vale, then at University College School. Greenberg made friends with many prominent political figures in Great Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. This enabled him to partly fulfill the wishes and dreams of Theodor Herzl, whom he invited to his home in London. His primary aim was to get Zionism accepted by British Jews. In 1900, 99% of them were indifferent to the idea – middle class Jews were busy trying to get accepted as English gentlemen and lower class Jews were too involved in the day-to-day struggles for better wages and conditions. But Greenberg, who had edited a monthly magazine in the 1890s called Young Israel, disseminated the philosophy
Greenberg stressed the need for a platform. So, when he heard that The Jewish Chronicle was for up for sale, he proposed to Herzl that the Zionist Organisation acquire the weekly. However, when the proposal was put before the 1903 congress, it was rejected, so the idea lapsed. Then, in 1904, Greenberg decided to float a company to finance the purchase. He found four wealthy Jewish backers, including Leopold Kessler, a mining engineer who had just returned from South Africa with considerable substance. Greenberg became the Chronicle's editor in 1907, a position he held the rest of his life. Greenberg became the new proprietor and editor. He remained a friend and powerful ally of Dr Moses Gaster, known as the haham, or Chief Rabbi of Sephardic Jews in Britain. But in 1914, his closest associate was Joseph Cowen, a shirt manufacturer, and president of English Zionist Federation (EZF). But Greenberg was an essentially conservative English figure, who rejected the wider radicalism latterly associated during the war with Zionism. Their group was known as the 'London Politicals'. Greenberg remained instrumental in manipulating and 'fixing' contacts. They expressed a desire to preserve the cultural and spiritual heritage of the religion, the synagogues and the Torah. To radicals it was an impassive agenda; but their resistance to the spread of nationalistic ideals would lead to the war against Fascism. On 14 August 1914 the Jewish Chronicle published Greenberg's faute de mieux "England has been all she could be to the Jews; the Jews will be all they can be to England." Israel Zangwill, Head of ITO (International Territorialist Organization), also feared Russian Pogroms and the treatment meted out to the 'vile Jew'. Greenberg concurred that the British government had a duty to pressurize the Tsarist regime to desist from the murder of civilians. But the government's immediate concerns prevented intervention on behalf of Austro-Jews or Russian Jews: intellectual opposition continued.
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