The League was founded in November 1917 by a group of prominent British Jews that included Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, Sir Philip Magnus and Louis Montagu, 2nd Baron Swaythling.
[1] The League had a small membership, only 18 in 1917, who were "recruited from the highly acculturated upper strata of British Jewry."
[2][3] The League favored settlement in Palestine by British Jews who chose to live there, but opposed the belief that Jews constituted a separate nationality, the position then held by Reform Judaism.
[2][3] At the time it was founded, the objectives of the League were listed as upholding "the status of British Jews holding the Jewish religion," to "resist the allegation that Jews constitute a separate nationality," and "to facilitate the settlement in Palestine of such Jews as may desire to make Palestine their home."
[1] The views of the League were reflected in a newspaper founded in October 1919, the Jewish Guardian, edited by Laurie Magnus, which continued to 1931.