Balfour Declaration (1917)

Perhaps one of the most controversial documents of the 20th Century, the Balfour Declaration declared the support of Great Britain for Zionist aspirations and the establishment of a Jewish national home in the territory that Great Britain was in the middle of capturing from the Ottoman Empire during WWI. Due to conflicts within the government, the term ‘national home’ was purposely used instead of ‘state’. For a comprehensive look at the creation of the Balfour declaration, see Leonard Stein’s book The Balfour Declaration, published in 1961.

Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.

Dear Lord Rothschild,




Yours sincerely
Arthur James Balfour

Balfour Declaration (1917)

Text transcribed from an image of the original letter (above) which is held in the British National Archives. The image was retrieved from Wikipedia on April 1, 2012.