Churchill, Colonel Charles Henry

(1808–69)

   British gentile Zionist. Charles Churchill was descended from a brother of Winston Churchill’s ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough. He grew up in India, fought in the Egyptian campaign of 1840, and was appointed resident officer in Damascus. Churchill wrote to Sir Moses MONTEFIORE in 1841 and urged that the Jews agitate for a sovereign state in Palestine, and unite their efforts to that end. The letter was ignored. A second letter to Sir Moses the following year proposed that the Jews get the British to establish a special office in Damascus to protect Jewish interests in Syria and Palestine. He received a polite but negative reply from the British Board of Deputies.