There was an idea that Albania would become the Jewish national house of what would happen

Write by journalist Nir Hasson for Israeli newspaper Haaretz

In 1935, Siionist journalist from Britain Leo Elton traveled to Albania, evidently with personal initiative, to see if a Jewish national entity was possible.

The only survival test of this journey has remained his reporting 10 years later to Judah Leib Magnes, the first president of the University of Hebrews.

The document resides in the Central Archive for Jewish People's History at the Jerusalem University campus.

Eleton's trip was prompted by increased Jewish-German persecution two years after leading the Nazi regime and by Britain's refusal to increase the number of Jews on land then known as the Mandated Palestine (from the League of Nations) and controlled by Great Britain.

Elton writes that he first read about the idea in a British newspaper that reported that the Albanian government welcomed the Jews at that time.

So he traveled to the small country of about one million people who were completely cut off from industrialized Europe.

A government minister had told him that “in Albania religious intolerance was something unknown... Albania's Muslims were not fanatic”.

The minister had also stressed that unlike the rest of Europe, Albania had no history of anti-Semitism.

There is no reason why the Jews who were settled here would not live in full harmony with Albanians”, Elton wrote.

The option to choose Albania also had economic advantages.

The earth was extremely cold, and if modern farming techniques were used, it could easily accommodate the needs of 5 million inhabitants.

Oranges and lemons, Elton wrote, were the best in the world, and the success of Jews in growing oranges could once easily be repeated in Albania.

Other suggestions included cultivating cigarette plants, silk worms, and building textile and oil industries.

One less positive side, according to Elton, was that Tirana's capital did not have any theatre or concertal halls.

I believe that if pioneers who would come and be the right, you would achieve not only material prosperity very quickly but also the respect and kindness of Albanians”, Elton wrote.

He said that the “in the bow of just a few years, not hundreds, but thousands of Jews from all fields, would be forwarded to the first to come”.

To begin with, Elton recommended the creation of a Jewish national entity in Albania, such as the one in Mandaised Palestine, with the cooperation of the Zionist movement.

Later Albania would return to the home of the Jewish nation.

It has never been known exactly what happened to this idea, whether it was discussed by official troops and ever answered Elton.

Jews, however, are known to not travel in large numbers towards Albania.

Hadasah Associateline, director of the archive, says Elton's letter probably went to Universities in 1945 at the time of the refugee problem in World War II.

During World War II, Elton's impression of Albanian kindness proved true, Albania was almost the only country that sheltered them, protected and kept alive all Jews who had temporarily been sheltered.