Henry Wentworth Monk

Henry Wentworth Monk (April 6, 1827 – August 24, 1896) was a Canadian Christian Zionist, mystic, Messianist, and millenarian. Some have credited him with predicting the formation of the United Nations and both World Wars, although these claims are of questionable scholarly merit.

Monk was born on April 6, 1827, in March Township, Ontario a tiny and remote agricultural community along the Ottawa River. He showed an inclination towards reading and writing at a young age, and when he was seven years old, his father scraped together enough funds to send him to Christ's Hospital in England to be formally educated. Monk found life there unbearable, and would often take refuge in escapist fantasies as a means of coping with reality. After leaving Christ's Hospital, he studied divinity for a while in London, but returned to Canada in the 1840s.

It was in London that Monk was first exposed to Zionist thought. An early incident that had tremendous impact on his young mind was when he heard a speech by Lord Shaftesbury in 1839 or 1840. Shaftesbury, at the time, showed great interest in establishing a British protectorate in Palestine, and restoring the Jews to their "rightful home." Monk was apparently very moved by the speech and began reading whatever he could find on the subject of proto-Zionism and the Jewish diaspora. He would later come into contact with Edward Cazalet, a British Jew, who wanted to establish a Jewish state in Palestine as a safe haven for the oppressed Jews of the world. He was also profoundly affected by the Damascus affair of 1840, and wrote that the anti-Jewish violence perpetrated there deeply disturbed and saddened him.

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