Italy’s Unheralded Role in Securing International Support for the Balfour Declaration, and Beyond

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the Paris peace conference that formally terminated World War I and led, among other things, to international recognition by the victorious allies of the national rights of the Jewish people.

Much has been written about these events and, where Zionist activity is concerned, about the prior runup to them that in Great Britain culminated in the November 1917 issuance of the Balfour Declaration. Significant credit for that triumph, as Martin Kramer has demonstrated in Mosaic, is due not only to the seminal figure of Chaim Weizmann but also, in particular, to the diplomatic genius of Nahum Sokolow, who played a key role in securing both French and Italian support for the British initiative.

But there is much more to be said about the Italian role, which too often has been relegated to a peripheral status in historical accounts of the period. In fact, Italy took an important part both before the issuance of the Balfour Declaration and afterward—especially at the Paris peace conference, where it crucially assisted Zionist efforts to secure from the victorious allies an actual, agreed-upon policy. Both earlier and later, several prominently placed Italian Jews were conspicuously involved, but the crucial role was filled by the Italian foreign minister Sidney Sonnino, the son of a converted Jewish father.