October 23, 1868
An early Zionist supporter in England, Alfred Mond, the first Lord Melchett, is born in England. Though his parents are Jewish, Mond is not raised Jewish, marries in the Anglican Church and raises his children as Christians.
Mond’s father, Ludwig, is chemist who developed a process for extracting nickel and became extremely wealthy after founding a chemical engineering firm. Alfred enters his father’s firm and expands it, becoming one of the wealthiest men in England.
In 1906, he is elected to the House of Commons. After the Balfour Declaration in 1917, he becomes a supporter of the Zionist cause. Despite his lack of a Jewish identity, Mond is frequently the victim of antisemitic attacks in Parliament, contributing to his sympathies toward Zionism.
In 1922, he accompanies Chaim Weizmann on a trip to Palestine. During the visit, Mond writes his wife, “I have learned much I didn’t know and which, possibly, no one who is not a Jew will ever be able to understand, for it can only be felt. … But the Hills of Judea are today as dramatic as in the days of the prophets and the Lake of Galilee smiles in its beauty as when Jesus of Nazareth walked its shores. … I have never lived so intensely as a Jew before.”
Mond goes on to become the president of the British Zionist Foundation, an ardent fundraiser for Zionist causes and settlement, and one of the founders and initial chairmen of the Jewish Agency.
The town of Tel Mond, located in the Sharon plain just east of Netanya, is established on land purchased by Mond, and his former home there is a museum.
