Balfour Letter to Rothschild Sowed Dragon’s Teeth: Lewis Lapham
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About 300,000 Jews lived in Great Britain just before the outbreak of World War I. Most were recent refugees from the pogroms of Eastern Europe and Russia and worked in sweatshops and mills. Only 8,000 belonged to Zionist organizations.
Rich established Jews, or the “Cousinhood” consisting of a few interlinked families, among them the Rothschilds, Montefiores, Mocattas, Cohens, Goldsmids, Samuels and Montagus, were even less likely to yearn for a Middle Eastern homeland.