David Albala: Serbian warrior, Zionist hero

Started by milos, March 21, 2016, 11:34:39 PM

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milos

David Albala: Serbian warrior, Zionist hero

By MICHAEL FREUND \ 11/04/2013 23:32



David Albala was an observant Sephardi Jew born in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1886. His father was a successful merchant and a committed Jew, and already as a high school student, young David was chosen as president of the local student Zionist society.

In 1905 he went to study medicine in Vienna, where he became even more involved with Zionist activities.

After he became a doctor in 1910, Albala returned to Serbia, joined the Serbian Royal Army, and proceeded to fight in the First and Second Balkan Wars as well as World War One, all in the space of five years.

He rose to the rank of captain, distinguishing himself on the battlefield and surviving a bout of typhus.

While recuperating from the disease at a British hospital in Cairo for four months, he learned fluent English by conversing with the nurses and fellow patients.

As a result, the young Serbian Jewish patriot was dispatched by the Serbian government to the United States, where he toured Jewish communities across the country to drum up their support. He met with luminaries such as Justice Louis Brandeis and gave interviews to the Jewish press.

Then, on November 2, 1917, the Balfour Declaration was issued, in which British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour stated clearly and unequivocally that Britain's leaders "view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object."

While Jews everywhere rejoiced, and the Arabs were furious, governments around the world remained silent. If the Balfour Declaration were to have a lasting impact, it was imperative that it garner widespread international backing.

And that is where Albala came to play a crucial part.

Utilizing his close relations with the Serbian leadership, he suggested that they declare their formal support for the Declaration and its goals.

Shortly thereafter, on December 27, 1917, Serbia did just that, becoming the first country in the world to openly endorse the Declaration.

The letter, addressed to Captain Albala and signed by the Serbian representative in Washington Milenko Vesnic, is a highly emotive document and is worth quoting at length.

"I wish you to express to your Jewish brothers," Vesnic wrote, "the sympathy of our Government and of our people for the just endeavor of resuscitating their beloved country in Palestine which will enable them to take their place in the future Society of Nations according to their numerous capacities and to their unquestioned right," it said.

"We are sure," the letter continued, "that this will not only be to their own interest, but at the same time to that of the whole of humanity."

"You know, dear Captain Albala," he added, "that there is no other nation in the world sympathizing with this plan more than Serbia."

After noting that Serbians had also shed "bitter tears on the rivers of Babylon" when their country had been invaded and occupied, Vesnic went on to state, "How should we not participate in your clamors and sorrows lasting ages and generations, especially when our countrymen of your origin and religion have fought for their Serbian fatherland as well as the best of our soldiers?" In closing, Vesnic wrote that, "It will be a sad thing for us to see any of our Jewish fellow-citizens leaving us to return to their promised land, but we shall console ourselves in the hope that they will stand as brothers and leave with us a good part of their hearts and that they will be the strongest tie between free Israel and Serbia."

The Serbian letter marked the first time any government had referred to the yet-to-be-born Jewish state as "Israel," presaging the name that would be adopted by the nascent republic three decades later.

More significantly, it broke the international ice, paving the way two months later for France and Italy to back the Balfour Declaration, followed shortly thereafter by Greece, Holland and others.

This would prove to be immensely important, because when the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, approved the Mandate for Palestine in July 1922, it formally incorporated the Balfour Declaration, which essentially laid the conceptual groundwork for the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/David-Albala-Serbian-warrior-Zionist-hero-330619
One Christ. One Body of Christ. One Eucharist. One Church.

Mountainshield

#1
On the note of Jews, why are so many of the best conservative thinkers and media pundits out there Jewish? And why are so many anti-Semitic on the right wing when the national socialists were just that.. socialist. Conservatism and Right-Wing doesn't have a problem with Jews. Europe has had a problem with Jews yes but that was both left and right.

Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Hayek (possibly not sure though), Ludwig von Mises. And today the greatest conservative speakers are Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro and Michael Medved.

I have many problems with Zionism, but not because it is Jewish but because it is socialist at least from the perspective of my limited knowledge.

To draw it into David Albala, was he a socialist Zionist?

milos

Quote from: Mountainshield on March 23, 2016, 12:52:57 AM
To draw it into David Albala, was he a socialist Zionist?

I couldn't find any information about his political commitments, except that he was shortly a member of the Radical Party, which was the main political party in Serbia during the period of the monarchy, and was considered to be a moderate left at that time, because they have opposed the autocracy of the kings and wanted to bring more political power to the people, but they were not even close to the modern socialists, they were capitalists, and were actually later persecuted by the imposed communist regime after 1944 as being part of the old monarchist regime. Having in mind that dr David Albala has served as a military officer, and was close to the monarchy, and has been sent twice as a military diplomat to the United States, 1917-18, and 1939-42, I don't believe he could have been a socialist.

Here in this photograph below we can see Serbian captain dr David Albala (on the right) with American major Weiss (on the left, hope my spelling of his name is correct) leading the parade on the Fifth Avenue in New York in the support for the liberation of the Palestine from the Turkish occupation in 1918. (Source: http://elmundosefarad.wikidot.com/pogled-dr-david-albala-otrgnut-iz-zaborava-istorije.)



Quote from: Mountainshield on March 23, 2016, 12:52:57 AM
On the note of Jews, why are so many of the best conservative thinkers and media pundits out there Jewish? And why are so many anti-Semitic on the right wing when the national socialists were just that.. socialist. Conservatism and Right-Wing doesn't have a problem with Jews. Europe has had a problem with Jews yes but that was both left and right.

Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Hayek (possibly not sure though), Ludwig von Mises. And today the greatest conservative speakers are Mark Levin, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro and Michael Medved.

I have many problems with Zionism, but not because it is Jewish but because it is socialist at least from the perspective of my limited knowledge.

Well, there are right wing and left wing Jews, as there is political right and left wing in any other nation, so there is nothing special about it. There are many controversies about the Zionist movement, some people even claiming that the Zionists are behind the so-called new world order, which I doubt for the reason Israel is also being threatened as all other nations, but I think I couldn't call Zionist movement socialist.
One Christ. One Body of Christ. One Eucharist. One Church.

Mountainshield

Quote from: milos on March 23, 2016, 05:28:02 AM
Well, there are right wing and left wing Jews, as there is political right and left wing in any other nation, so there is nothing special about it. There are many controversies about the Zionist movement, some people even claiming that the Zionists are behind the so-called new world order, which I doubt for the reason Israel is also being threatened as all other nations, but I think I couldn't call Zionist movement socialist.

If there is nothing special about it then why are 90% or more of the post 19th century most influential right wing/conservative economists and philosophers been of Jewish origin? When they are clearly a minority and even hated by many anti-communists.

milos

Quote from: Mountainshield on March 28, 2016, 07:33:45 AM
If there is nothing special about it then why are 90% or more of the post 19th century most influential right wing/conservative economists and philosophers been of Jewish origin? When they are clearly a minority and even hated by many anti-communists.

I am not sure if I understand what are you trying to say. First you say Zionism is socialist, and then you say 90% of the post 19th century most influential right wing/conservative economists and philosophers were of Jewish origin. Most communist philosophers and leaders of 19th and beginning of 20th century were Jewish, too. Jews were influential, although a minority, because they have lived only in cities, they had good education, had easy access to public life, and so they were present in the politics and science and economy that much. But one doesn't need to be a philosopher or influential to be a right wing/conservative thinker, I mean ordinary people can have their opinion, too, although they are not famous.
One Christ. One Body of Christ. One Eucharist. One Church.

Mountainshield

Quote from: milos on March 28, 2016, 02:17:27 PM
I am not sure if I understand what are you trying to say. First you say Zionism is socialist, and then you say 90% of the post 19th century most influential right wing/conservative economists and philosophers were of Jewish origin. Most communist philosophers and leaders of 19th and beginning of 20th century were Jewish, too. Jews were influential, although a minority, because they have lived only in cities, they had good education, had easy access to public life, and so they were present in the politics and science and economy that much. But one doesn't need to be a philosopher or influential to be a right wing/conservative thinker, I mean ordinary people can have their opinion, too, although they are not famous.

I don't think Zionism is synonymous with Judaism, what I'm trying to say is your latter point that Jews are really influential in philosophy on both sides of liberty and tyranny and that is why I find it sad really that so many on the right-wing is anti-Semitic like for example Jobbic who otherwise is an excellent political party. It is a problem we on the right wing need to deal with or at least acknowledge.

milos

Quote from: Mountainshield on March 29, 2016, 03:20:38 AM
I don't think Zionism is synonymous with Judaism, what I'm trying to say is your latter point that Jews are really influential in philosophy on both sides of liberty and tyranny and that is why I find it sad really that so many on the right-wing is anti-Semitic like for example Jobbic who otherwise is an excellent political party. It is a problem we on the right wing need to deal with or at least acknowledge.

Yes, Europe seems kind of screwed, Europeans are usually either socialist or fascist nowadays. And if I say I am pro-liberty and support capitalism, both socialists and fascists will easily unite against me. Because they are the two sides of the same corporatist coin, the only difference being whether pro-international or pro-national. And this is largely due to the modern inverted meanings of the words, where liberal now means oppressive, where democracy now means the rule of minority over majority. I am trying to keep the spirit of the national romanticism of the 19th century alive, when people knew that liberty meant to fight for and protect what was yours, and democracy meant the rule of the founding people over their own state.

Speaking of Jews, I can't really see any reason why should they be some special topic whatsoever. The Zionist movement was just the Jewish reaction to the national romanticism of the European peoples of the 19th century, Jews saw European peoples liberating themselves and founding their national states, so they wanted the same for their Jewish state of Israel.
One Christ. One Body of Christ. One Eucharist. One Church.