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The British Uganda Programme was a plan to give a portion of British East Africa
British East Africa

British East Africa was an area of East Africa controlled by the United Kingdom in the late 19th century, which became a protectorate covering roughly the area of present-day Kenya....
 to the Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish people as a homeland.

The offer was first made by British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British businessman, politician, and statesman.In his early years Chamberlain was a radically minded Liberal Party member, a campaigner for educational reform, and President of the Board of Trade....
 to Theodore Herzl's Zionist group in 1903. He offered of the Mau Plateau in what is today Kenya
Kenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest, with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border....
. The offer was a response to pogrom
Pogrom

A pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by the killing and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers....
s against the Jews in Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, and it was hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people.

The idea was brought to the Zionist Congress
World Zionist Organization

The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland....
 at its sixth meeting in 1903 in Basel
Basel

Basel is Switzerland's third most populous city . With 731,000 inhabitants in the tri-national metropolitan area , Basel is Switzerland's third-largest urban area....
.






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The British Uganda Programme was a plan to give a portion of British East Africa
British East Africa

British East Africa was an area of East Africa controlled by the United Kingdom in the late 19th century, which became a protectorate covering roughly the area of present-day Kenya....
 to the Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
ish people as a homeland.

The offer was first made by British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain
Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British businessman, politician, and statesman.In his early years Chamberlain was a radically minded Liberal Party member, a campaigner for educational reform, and President of the Board of Trade....
 to Theodore Herzl's Zionist group in 1903. He offered of the Mau Plateau in what is today Kenya
Kenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest, with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border....
. The offer was a response to pogrom
Pogrom

A pogrom is a form of riot directed against a particular group, whether ethnic, religious, or other, and characterized by the killing and destruction of their homes, businesses, and religious centers....
s against the Jews in Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, and it was hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people.

The idea was brought to the Zionist Congress
World Zionist Organization

The World Zionist Organization , or WZO, was founded as the Zionist Organization , or ZO, in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress, held from August 29 to August 31 in Basel, Switzerland....
 at its sixth meeting in 1903 in Basel
Basel

Basel is Switzerland's third most populous city . With 731,000 inhabitants in the tri-national metropolitan area , Basel is Switzerland's third-largest urban area....
. There a fierce debate ensued. The African land was described as an "ante-chamber
Antechamber

An antechamber is a smaller room or Vestibule serving as an entryway into a larger one. The word is formed of the Latin language ante camera, meaning "room before."...
 to the Holy Land
Holy Land

The Holy Land , generally refers to the geographical region of the Levant called Land of Canaan or Land of Israel in the Bible, and constitutes the Promised land....
" and a "Nachtasyl" (temporary night shelter), but other groups felt that accepting the offer would make it more difficult to establish a Jewish state in the Land of Israel
Land of Israel

For other uses, see Israel The Land of Israel is the region which, according to the Hebrew Bible, was promised by God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson....
, and also that the Jewish nation would not be able to claim that land from its native population, since there were no historic or culture link between the Hebrews and east Africa. Before the vote on the matter the Russian delegation stormed out in opposition. In the end the motion passed by 295 to 177 votes.

The next year a three-man delegation was sent to inspect the plateau. Its high elevation gave it a temperate climate, making it suitable for European settlement. However, the observers found a dangerous land filled with lions and other creatures. Moreover, although it was sparsely populated by small bands of [Maasai]] (themselves having recently conquered and exterminated the Sirikwa tribe), they were hostile to other tribes and outsiders.

After receiving this report, the Congress decided in 1905 to politely decline the British offer. Some Jews viewed this as a mistake and the Jewish Territorialist Organization
Jewish Territorialist Organization

The Jewish Territorialist Organization, known as ITO, was a Jewish political movement formed in 1903. It was founded by Israel Zangwill after the official rejection of the sixth World Zionist Congress that year of the "British Uganda Program" an of land in East Africa for Jewish people put to Zionist leader Theodore Herzl by the British...
 split with the explicit aim of establishing a Jewish state anywhere, not just in the Holy Land. A few Jews did move to Kenya, but most settled in the urban centres. Some of these families remain to this day.

The Uganda proposal was revived during the Second World War by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, Order of the Garter, Order of Merit, Order of the Companions of Honour, Territorial Decoration, Fellow of the Royal Society, Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Queen's Privy Council for Canada was a Politics of the United Kingdom known chiefly for his leadership of the United King...
 in an attempt to create a refuge for Jews fleeing from the Nazis, but by this time Zionist organizations were firmly committed to settling in Palestine and feared that accepting such an idea would undermine their efforts to convince the British government to end their restrictions on the number of Jews allowed to emigrate to the Palestine Mandate.

See also

  • Abayudaya
    Abayudaya

    The Abayudaya are a Baganda community in eastern Uganda near the town of Mbale who practice Judaism. Although they are not genetically or historically related to other Jew, they are generally devout in their practice of the religion, keeping their version of kashruth, and observing a limited Shabbat....
    , a group of Ugandans who converted to Judaism in the 1920s
  • Madagascar Plan
    Madagascar Plan

    The Madagascar Plan was a suggested policy of the Nazi Germany government to relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar....
    , a Nazi plan to move the Jews of Europe to Madagascar.
  • The Soviet Union created a Jewish Autonomous Oblast
    Jewish Autonomous Oblast

    Jewish Autonomous Oblast is a federal subjects of Russia of Russia situated in the Far Eastern Federal District federal districts of Russia, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast of Russia and Heilongjiang province of People's Republic of China....
     in Soviet Manchuria.
  • Japan created the Fugu Plan
    Fugu Plan

    The was a scheme created in the 1930s in Empire of Japan with the idea of settling Jewish refugees escaping Nazi-occupied Europe in Japan's territories on the Asian mainland to Japan's benefit....
     to attract Jews to the puppet state of Manchukuo
    Manchukuo

    Manchukuo was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia. The region was the Qing Dynasty's historical homeland, created by former Qing Dynasty officials with help from Imperial Japan in 1932....
     taken from Chinese Manchuria.
  • Beta Israel
    Beta Israel

    The Beta Israel is the Jewish community originating in Ethiopia, but now most of which lives in Israel. They are also known as Falasha by non-Jewish Ethiopians, but this term is considered pejorative....
     and Lemba
    Lemba

    The Lemba or Lembaa are an ethnic group numbering 70,000 in southern Africa who claim a common descent and belonging to the Jew.Although they are speakers of Bantu languages related to those spoken by their geographic neighbours - in itself the practice of most Jews in the diaspora - they have specific religious practices and beliefs...
    , East African groups of Jewish ancestry
  • Territorialism
    Territorialism

    Territorialism was a Jewish political movement calling for creation of a sufficiently large and compact Jewish territory , not necessarily in the Land of Israel and not necessarily fully autonomous....


Footnotes



External links