Chapter I: Abrahams, 1905

THE BRITISH DECLARATION ON PALESTINE[37]
NOVEMBER 2, 1917――APRIL 24, 1920

ENGLAND, great England, whose gaze sweeps over all the seas――free England――will understand and sympathize with the aims and aspirations of Zionism.

THEODOR HERZL, 1900.

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FOR the first time since the days of Cyrus, a great Government has hailed the Jews as one among the family of nations. This is much more than a Jewish triumph. It is a triumph for civilization and for humanity. It will mean releasing for mankind, as a great spiritual force, the soul of our people.

JEWISH CHRONICLE, NOVEMBER 9, 1917.

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A LAND focuses a people, and calls forth, as nothing else can, its spiritual potentialities. The resurrection of the Jewish nation on its own soil will reopen its sacred fountains of creative energy. Remember the days of old. After the proclamation issued by Cyrus, the mass of the Jewish people still remained in Babylon. All told only 42,000 men, women, and children took advantage of the king’s proclamation and followed Ezra back to Zion, the land of their fathers. But compare the contribution to civilization made by these men with that of their brethren who remained in the Dispersion. The handful of ‘Zionists’ and their descendants, because living on their own soil, changed the entire future of mankind. They edited and collected the Prophets, wrote some of the fairest portions of the Scriptures, formed the canon of the Bible, and gave the world its monotheistic religions. As in the days of Cyrus, the overwhelming majority of Jews of to-day will continue to live where they now are, praying and working in absolute loyalty for the land of their birth or adoption, and ever beholding their peace in its welfare. Only a remnant shall return. But it is the national rejuvenation of that remnant that will open a new chapter in the annals of the human spirit.

J. H. HERTZ, 1917.

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FOR millions of poor and hundreds of thousands of prosperous Jews Mr. Balfour’s announcement had the serene sound of a long-expected Messianic message. The day that witnessed Great Britain’s decision to stake the whole of the Empire’s power in the Jewish cause is one which can never be blotted out from the world’s history.

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN, 1917.

JUDAISM AND THE NEW JUDEA

I

THE return to Zion must be preceded by our return to Judaism.

THEODOR HERZL, 1897.

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ISRAEL is a nation by reason only of his religion, by his possession of the Torah.

SAADYAH GAON, 933.

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ISRAEL, to the Rabbis at least, is not a nation by virtue of race or of certain peculiar political combinations. The brutal Torah-less nationalism promulgated in certain quarters would have been to them just as hateful as the suicidal Torah-less universalism preached in other quarters. And if we could imagine for a moment Israel giving up its allegiance to God, its Torah, and its divine institution, the Rabbis would be the first to sign its death warrant as a nation.

S. SCHECHTER, 1909.

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WE will return to Zion as we went forth, bringing back the faith we carried away with us.

MORDECAI M. NOAH, 1824.

II

ISRAEL’S contribution to the common treasure of humanity will ever be primarily religious. Wide sympathy, ready help, and absolute self-determination must therefore be accorded in the New Judea to Jewish religious learning, Jewish religious institutions, and Jewish religious life. They alone contain the secret of Israel’s immortality. The story of Israel’s ancient kinsmen――Moab, Ammon, Edom――though these remained on their own soil, loses itself in the sands of the desert, while the story of Israel issues in eternity. Why? Israel alone had the Torah, and it is that which endowed him with deathlessness. And Israel will remain deathless――as long as Israel continues to cling to the Torah. Without the Torah, Israel’s story will also lose itself in the sands of the desert, _even on its own soil_.

The New Judea must be the spiritual descendant of old Judea, and the mission of Judea, new or old, is first of all to be Judea.

J. H. HERTZ, 1918.

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