IN MARCH 1946, David Ben Gurion appeared before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, a panel convened to study conditions in British Mandatory Palestine. The committee is little-remembered today, but Ben Gurion's heartfelt testimony to the longevity of the Jews' love affair with Zion remains worth reading.
“More than 300 years ago a ship by the name of the Mayflower left Plymouth for the New World,” Ben Gurion said. “It was a great event in American and English history. I wonder how many Englishmen or how many Americans know exactly the date when that ship left Plymouth, how many people were on the ship, and what was the kind of bread that people ate when they left Plymouth.”
Few Americans, of course, know any of those minutiae. But countless Jews, Ben Gurion continued, know the details of a far older journey.
Read Full Article »