This may interest some people and begin a discussion about this interesting piece of history. This watch is a Longines that was presented to Nahum Sokolow. He was a Zionist that was part of the development of the Declaration of Balfour. That declaration was made to Britain that at the time was in control of Palestine along with France more than 100 years ago. The declaration formally requested Britain to create a part of land around Jerusalem to give to the Jewish people inside of Palestine. Sokolow and others met with British and French heads of state to reach an agreement for what is now modern day Israel. Of course not everyone was happy. The Palestinians and neighboring Arab dominant countries quickly went to war with Israel. It seems that Zionism was at the level of declaring war with the Arab Palestinians, many lost there country and perhaps many Jewish people found this not a good solution either. There's a bit of confusing information that Palestinians use to support their cause. They quote Albert Einstein as not liking the Zionists approach to creating a homeland. With a strongly biased source it is difficult to say what is truth. There is a lot of information written about Nahum Sokolow. He is in many respects one of the founding fathers of the country of Israel. The name of the city of Tel Aviv was taken from him. This watch has been at several auctions and now has a new owner. The writing on the back is done in a handwriting script style that is different from Hebrew print style. Several Jewish acquaintances verified the translation is correct. Below is the print version of the script style. You can read more about the dedication in the original auction. The item was part of a small estate liquidation from the family. Several heirlooms were sold and this was one of the items. מציוני לודז' ועד נשיא הוועד הפועל הציוני מר נחום סוקולוב ז' באדר תשכ"ג [1923] https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2017/behind-balfour/index.html
http://www.balfour100.com/biography/nahum-sokolow/ Partnering with Weizmann Sokolow teamed up with Chaim Weizmann, who headed a cluster of uncommonly talented British Zionist campaigners. These included civil servant and intellectual Leon Simon, solicitor Harry Sacher, future secretary of the World Zionist Organization Samuel Landsman, businessmen Simon Marks and Israel Sieff, Moses Gaster, Hakham (or rabbi) of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation, and Liberal Party politician Joseph Cowe. Then there was Jewish Chronicle publisher L.J. Greenberg, journalist and engineer Leopold Kessler, lawyer Herbert Bentwich, historian Paul Goodman, the Rev. J.K. Goldbloom, principal of Redman’s Road Talmud Torah, and Israel Zangwill, the author and advocate of cultural Zionism Meeting with Pope Benedict XV. On May 10, 1917, with the war’s outcome uncertain, Sokolow travelled to the Vatican thereby becoming the first Jew to meet with Pope Benedict XV, who had been installed shortly after the outbreak of the conflict. The pope patently acknowledged that Sokolow had come as the representative of the Zionist movement. Benedict said he viewed it as providential that the Jews were now claiming back their land and described the Zionist plan laid out by Sokolow as a wonderful idea. The pope asked what he could do for the Zionists. Replied Sokolow: “We count on the sympathy and moral support of Your Holiness.” The pope then spoke about the importance of safeguarding the holy places. The meeting concluded with the pope again asking, “What else could I do for you?” and Sokolow once more requesting moral support. The pope responded: “Si, si io credo che noi saremo buoni vicini” – “Oh yes, I do hope we shall be good neighbours.” Crafting the Balfour Declaration It was British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour who recommended that the Zionists sketch out a statement to be brought before the War Cabinet that harmonized their aspirations with a British role in a post-Ottoman Palestine. As the highest Zionist official empowered by the World Zionist Organization who was in London, Sokolow played an essential role in drafting a version of what would eventually become the Balfour Declaration—and in so doing ignored his original instructions about remaining neutral in the war between Germany and Britain. It was Sokolow, apparently, who coined the politically ambiguous though emotionally expressive term “Jewish national home.” In fact, Sokolow’s diplomacy had already helped set the stage for the Balfour Declaration. On June 4, 1917 he was the recipient of correspondence from French diplomat Jules Cambon which expressed France’s sympathy towards Zionism. The letter hailed the “renaissance of Jewish nationhood in that land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago.” In London, Cambon’s dispatch, given French-British rivalry, was seen as having eased the way for British Cabinet approval of the Balfour Declaration. After the Balfour Declaration—addressed to Lord Walter Rothschild in his capacity as head of the British Jewish community and dated November 2, 1917—was made public, Sokolow first lobbied intensively to gain it wide international support and subsequently to ensure its implementation by Britain. The First World War ended on November 11, 1918. On February 27, 1919 Sokolow appeared before the Paris Peace Conference at Versailles to help make the Zionist case. Later he would become the Jewish representative to the League of Nations, founded on June 28, 1919. Sokolow continued to publish. In 1919 he brought out his History of Zionism, 1600-1918, which spotlighted non-Jewish support for Zionism. Implicitly he argued that the Balfour Declaration was but one more link in a venerable chain of Christian Zionism. Balfour himself wrote the introduction to the book. Realizing the Balfour Declaration Sokolow seemed to be in a perpetual state of motion. In 1920 he played a crucial role in launching Keren ha-Yesod, which was tasked with raising monies for Jewish settlement in Palestine. He was a founding member of the Hebrew writers’ union in Eretz Israel. As head of the British government- authorized Zionist Commission, which had been created to make recommendations on how Britain could best implement the Balfour Declaration, Sokolow was present for a March 29, 1921 speech by British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill. The occasion was a palm tree-planting ceremony on Mount Scopus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In January 1922 Sokolow met with President Warren Harding at the White House in connection with the dreadful state of affairs facing East European Jewry. Though he fell seriously ill in 1924, Sokolow was back in Palestine in spring 1925 and then again travelled continuously: to the United States, South Africa, Italy, Poland and— lastly—Lebanon for meetings with Arab leaders aimed at gaining their understanding for Zionism. By 1929 Arab violence, including the massacre of nearly 70 Jews in Hebron, and British backtracking on Jewish immigration were creating tensions within the Zionist camp. The dilemma was whether the Zionists should press harder or trust that Britain would ultimately fulfill its Balfour Declaration commitments. While it is unclear whether he differed substantively with Weizmann’s unpopular pro-London line, this was nonetheless the context in which Sokolow replaced Weizmann for a while at the top of the Zionist hierarchy. World Zionist Organization President At the 17th Zionist Congress in Basle, held during July 1931, Weizmann was thwarted in his presidential reelection bid because of a bitter, combined challenge from Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Revisionist Party, the Orthodox Mizrachi Party and some General Zionists. Sokolow, broadly respected by most factions, was elected in his place. It was not the outcome that either Weizmann or Jabotinsky wanted. In any event, Jabotinsky led a walk-out after losing a motion to have the Congress go on record as demanding a reversal of the 1922 Partition of Palestine. Churchill had given 76 percent of the original Palestine Mandate land to Emir Abdullah and renamed the area Transjordan (today’s Kingdom of Jordan). Ten years later the Zionists were fearful that Britain was now abandoning its Balfour Declaration commitments altogether. But on January 8, 1932 Colonial Secretary Philip Cunliffe-Lister wrote to Sokolow pledging that the British government would fulfill not only the letter but also the spirit of those solemn Balfour obligations “which it is their privilege to discharge.”
First World Zionist Congress at Basel Switzerland As the days progressed, debates inside the hall and side rooms were fierce, differences of opinions abundant. After all, this was the first time world Jews came together in such a format. Assimilated Jews from England alongside religious Yiddish-speaking Jews from small villages in Poland and intellectual Russians from Odessa. When argument heated up, one of the older delegates, Prof. Zvi Hermann Schapira, would remind delegates that they were all there for a common cause and should suppress their personal prejudice. Delegate Nahum Sokolow described the moment. “A dramatic scene followed. The professor called upon every delegate present to raise his right hand and they all did so and repeated after him: ‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill.’” Albert Einstein meeting with Chaim Weizmann
It took Sokolow to get the support of the newly developing League of Nations to enforced the creation of Israel.
https://israelforever.org/state/Mandate_for_Palestine_Jewish_State/ There are a total of 28 Articles to the Mandate for the creation of Israel. Use above link for all the pages of details.
Well, it finally arrived. Long trip. Needs a crystal and looks like a new staff. Not that it matters much, but all the numbers match too. Kind of nice that it is pink gold.
I got the extract back from Longines which shows the case and the movement do match. The watch was almost 17 years sitting on a shelf somewhere before being given to Dr. Sokolow (Sokolov) in Lodz, Poland. This is the house that Dr. Sokolow lived in while in England. It is now a historic landmark. I bought at a dealer of old newswire photographs this press archive photo. Apparently this photo is iconic for the individual since postcards and stamps use the same image. Some say a sign of importance of an individual is if there is money or a stamp printed of the person commemorating them. These will be joining the watch. Installed a NOS mineral glass I found in France for it. Hopefully I have all the parts now to overhaul the movement. There are several photos on the internet with this round object handing from Nahum Sokolow's neck. None of the images are clear enough to tell what the item is. But more recent photos I have been finding suggests it is a metal disk. Watch or reading glass? Here is another picture of it tangled over his handkerchief above the lapel pocket. The cane looks the one from the estate auction. Part of this Beach City Netanya is named after Sokolow. There is a long loop in Tel Aviv also named after him.
This is a really good video. Long, but worth the time. Of course there is a hint of Arab bias, but overall a good background into the beginning of Balfour Declaration and the impact to create the country of Israel. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/...-century-on-the-balfour-declaration-explained