Chapter XLIX: The Motive Forces of Zionism

Modern _Hebrew_ literature――The _Chovevé Zion_――The pioneers
in Palestine.

THUS the Zionist Movement was launched. Before we follow its progress during the intervening twenty years, it will be as well to give some account of the forces at work in Jewish life which made the movement and its success possible. For Zionism cannot be properly understood if it is regarded merely as a result of certain political combinations or as a reaction against anti-Semitism. It must be traced to its roots, which lie deep in the national consciousness of the Jewish people; and that national consciousness is not simply a vague sentiment, but has long had its concrete expressions in connection with the revival of Palestine and of the _Hebrew_ language. The inner history of Zionism, then, is to be traced along the lines of Palestinian colonization and the _Hebrew_ renascence. For convenience we may divide our brief survey into three main headings:

1. Modern _Hebrew_ Literature.

2. The _Chovevé Zion_ and University Zionist Groups in various
countries.

3. The pioneers of the _Hebrew_ Revival in Palestine.

It must be remembered, however, that these are not watertight divisions, and we naturally meet with the same men in different fields of work.

The aim of the present chapter is to trace the development of each of these three forces (so far as that has not been done in earlier chapters), giving some account of the outstanding figures in each department. There is in each field a host of less distinguished but not less devoted workers. Of some of these mention is made in Appendix lxxv.

1. _Modern Hebrew Literature_

From a linguistic and literary point of view, no less than from a moral and religious standpoint, the Bible is a great and wonderful book:

¹בן בג בג אומר הפך בה והפך בה דכלא בה
פּרקי אבות. ה׳ כה.

¹ Ben Bag Bag said, ponder in it, and ponder in it, for all is
in it. _Ethics of the Fathers_, v., 25.

Not that modern _Hebrew_ writers use the Bible merely as a storehouse of words and phrases, depending on reminiscence for their effect. The practice of cramming _Hebrew_ writings with scriptural quotations so as to give them an artificial brilliance and a second-hand wealth of idiom and grandeur of diction was characteristic of the so-called _M’lizah_.¹ In our time there is no more of this patchwork writing. The _Hebrew_ language has become independent of quotations, but none the less the traditional spirit continues to live, and the Bible is the corner-stone of modern _Hebrew_ literature. It could not be otherwise, for in the Jewish view the Bible must enter into every phase of man’s life, must exert an influence upon the words of his mouth, the thoughts of his mind, and the feelings of his heart. This is the result not of any dogma, but of the tradition of Jewish learning, which is a sort of intellectual devotion, a reverent feeling, a particular worship of the _Torah_ as knowledge, teaching, thought.

¹ _M’lizah_ = “flower of speech.”

The revival of the _Hebrew_ language was thus able to become the foremost factor in the Jewish national revival. Yet little attention has been paid to this part of the history of Zionism. Perhaps the most important reason is the general ignorance of the _Hebrew_ language or of its modern literature and Press. Some writers on Zionism are quite ignorant of the whole of this literature, others are misinformed as to its past, and often imperfectly and insufficiently conversant with its present, and are only capable of repeating mechanically a few names and titles which have gained currency. Few have an adequate conception of the real activity of hundreds of writers, of the amount of work which has been done, or of the succession of the different stages of development. This lack of knowledge is the main reason for the strange opinion so often expressed by anti-Zionists in Western Europe, particularly in England, that Zionism is a mere political or materialistic movement.

Our object here is not to write a history of _Hebrew_ literature as such, but only to illustrate a part of Zionist history which has hitherto been very imperfectly surveyed, and a certain knowledge of which is necessary for a real and adequate conception of the inner intellectual forces which have made Zionism what it is. The fact of importance from our point of view is that the best, the noblest, and the soundest ideas were brought into Zionism from _Hebrew_ literature, that certain _Hebrew_ writers are prominent nationalists, that from them have gone forth “the thoughts that inspire” and “the words that ignite,” and that the wide dissemination of the Zionist idea among hundreds of thousands of Jews (Russian Jews or those who came from Russia) could not have been produced merely by organization and business institutions, had they not been prepared for it by the knowledge and every-day use of the _Hebrew_ language with its innumerable national, historical and Palestinian reminiscences and associations. And not only that: in our view even the better elements of the _Hebrew_ literature of the period which preceded the Zionist movement, and which is commonly known as the “_Haskalah_” (enlightenment) period, as well as the writings of those modern authors who do not support Zionism, have contributed to that great regeneration which has enabled the national language and literature to reach such an advanced stage of development.

For the beginnings of modern _Hebrew_ literature we must go back at least as far as Abraham Dob Bär (1789‒1878) _ben_ Chayyim Lebensohn (surnamed Michailishker; _pseudonym_ Adam), the Hebrew Klopstock――a serious and somewhat dry poet and his son Micah Joseph (1818‒1852), a graceful singer cut off in his early bloom. Contemporary with them was F. Rothstein, an almost unknown Polish _Chassid_ and _Maskil_,¹ who translated _Hermann and Dorothea_ of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749‒1832) in stanzas of laconic beauty which in precision of outline and completeness of impression are as sublime as the original. These men founded a school of poets, the tradition of which was carried on by men like Solomon _ben_ Baruch Salkind (1805?‒1868); Bernhard Nathansohn (_b._ 1832); David Moses Mitzkun (1836‒1887); and Isaachar Berush Hurwitz (_b._ 1835). Contemporaneously, the beginnings of a modern prose literature were being created. To Mordecai Aaron _ben_ Judah Asher Günzburg (1795‒1846) we owe a _Hebrew_ style at once forceful and condensed, in great contrast to the limp and diffuse style prevalent before him. Abraham Mapu (1808‒1867), master of a pure biblical style and a wonderful imaginative sympathy with the life of Bible times, created in his romantic novel _The Love of Zion_ a gossamer web in evanescent hues of gold and silver. Kalman Schulman (1819‒1899), a versatile translator and popularizer, did much to break ground for the ideas of the _Haskalah_. Isaac Erter (1792‒1851), of Galicia, wrote satires which are masterpieces of art in their epigrammatic beauty. These and a host of lesser men laid the substantial foundations on which later a more specifically nationalist _Hebrew_ literature could be built up. For themselves they were too busy with their task of acclimatizing European culture on _Hebrew_ soil to trouble overmuch about nationalism. Their tendency was even towards assimilation, so strong was their reaction against the conservatism of their environment. This tendency is seen most strongly in the greatest of these _Maskilim_, Judah Löb (Leon) _ben_ Asher Gordon (1831‒1892), a poet, essayist and story-teller, who united lightness of touch, clearness and elegance of diction with a great gift of expression, and combined in one harmonious whole accurate reflection and vivid imagination――an exceedingly keen satirist, and the most profound among writers of the _Haskalah_ in the knowledge and use as well of the biblical as of the post-biblical _Hebrew_ idiom. The recently deceased veteran novelist Solomon (Shalom) Jacob Abramowitsch (1836‒1918) “_Mendele Mocher Sephorim_”² still continued to carry on the _Haskalah_ tradition; and although dubbed “Grandfather of _Yiddish_,” he also produced _Hebrew_ works of immortal value, the works of a giant artist in language and imagination. But broadly speaking the ideals of the _Haskalah_ have given place since about 1880 to a more distinctly nationalist tendency.

¹ _Chassid_――member of the sect of _Chassidim_ or
“Pious.” _Maskil_――upholder of the ideals of _Haskalah_
(“enlightenment”), as against strict traditionalism
with its restriction of intellectual interest to ancient
_Hebrew_ literature.

² The Jewish Cervantes.

The historical and philosophical bases of modern Jewish nationalism were laid in the earlier half of the nineteenth century by a number of Jewish scholars who wrote in _Hebrew_, and of whom the most noteworthy are Nachman Cohen Krochmal (1785‒1840), Samuel David _ben_ Hezekiah Luzzatto (1800‒1865) and Solomon Judah Löb Rapaport (1790‒1867). Krochmal in his _Modern Guide for the Perplexed_ (a title which alludes, of course, to the great work of Maimonides), strove to effect a synthesis ♦between traditional Judaism and Hegelianism. The national idea is a postulate of his method, and he presents it in a rational and constructive manner, entirely free from sentimentality. Luzzatto, who studied deeply and wrote much in the fields of history, religious ideas and exegesis, was more of a mystic in temperament, but not less fundamentally nationalist in outlook. Rapaport, an encyclopædic scholar and one of the pioneers of the so-called “Jewish Science” (scientific study of Judaism and Jewish history), was perhaps less directly and consciously concerned with the national idea, but his hostile attitude to the extravagances of the “Reform” movement sufficiently indicates his leaning. Another profound scholar who has received too scant attention is Jacob Reifmann (1818‒1895), whose _Hebrew_ pamphlet _The Mission of Israel_――one of a hundred treatises and articles――is an eloquent exposition of the national idea and a thoroughgoing condemnation of radical “Reform,” not from a theological, but from a purely nationalist and historical point of view. We may remark in passing that some of the later representatives of “Jewish Science,” though they wrote mostly in other languages than _Hebrew_ (principally German), were essentially nationalist in feeling: especially Heinrich Hirsch Graetz (1817‒1891), the historian, who was influenced by Moses (Moritz) Hess (1812‒1875), and really――though perhaps unconsciously――laid the foundations of Jewish nationalism in Western Europe, and David Kaufmann (1852‒1899), whose learning and instinct combined made him welcome Zionism and defend its leaders on occasion. Important, however, as was the work of these scholars in giving Jewish nationalism the necessary philosophical foundation, the spread of the national idea among the people is more directly due to the popular _Hebrew_ writers of Russia, who, growing up during the _Haskalah_ period, abandoned the vague, universalistic idea of “enlightenment” for the conception of a modernized and progressive Jewish people.

♦ “beween” replaced with “between”

Of these David _ben_ Dob Baer Gordon (1826‒1886) was one of the earliest. In 1856 he became assistant editor of the first _Hebrew_ weekly paper, _Ha’magid_. He also assisted in the formation and conduct of the Society _Mekize Nirdamim_ (1864), established for the purpose of publishing old and valuable _Hebrew_ works. In 1884 he went to London as the representative of the _Chovevé Zion_ to congratulate Sir Moses Montefiore on the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

Peter (Perez) _ben_ Moses Smolenskin (1842‒1885), the most popular _Hebrew_ writer of his time, was an ardent nationalist and Zionist during the second period of his literary activity. He rejected the theory associated with the name of Mendelssohn, which makes Judaism nothing more than a religious confession; and against this theory he wrote a series of articles and essays. About 1880 he began to be interested in the colonization of Palestine. He joined Laurence Oliphant, through whom he hoped to secure the intervention of European Powers in favour of the Jews. His realistic Hebrew novels, as well as his monthly _Ha’shachar_ (The Dawn), exercised a wide influence.

Moses Löb Lilienblum (1843‒1910) was a progressive “radical” during the first half of his literary career. But the anti-Jewish riots of 1880 and 1881 aroused him to a consciousness of the unsafe position of the Jews in exile, and he started writing articles in _Hebrew_ and in Russian, in which he pointed to the re-establishment of the Jews in Palestine as the only solution of the Jewish question. He wrote several pamphlets, and as Secretary of the _Chovevé Zion_ took a most earnest and energetic part in their activity.

Alexander Ossypovitch Zederbaum of St. Petersburg (1816‒1892) indefatigably advocated the colonization of Palestine by Jews in his _Hebrew_ paper _Ha’melitz_. He did not confine his labours in the cause of Jewish nationalism to such editorial efforts. He took an active part in obtaining the permission of the Russian Government for the formation of an Association of _Chovevé Zion_ in Russia, with its centre in Odessa, and afterwards in organizing the Association.

Samuel Joseph Fuenn (1819‒1891) of Wilna was an admirable scholar and a _Hebrew_ writer of wide outlook. For many years he was editor of the _Hebrew_ weekly _Ha’carmel_. His _Kiria Neemana_ (the History of the Jews in Wilna) is a standard work. He was also author of _Ha’otzar_ (_Hebrew_ dictionary), of a biographical lexicon, and of many other books of reference. During the last years of his life he was engaged in the _Chovevé Zion_ movement.

Jechiel Mendelssohn (1817‒1892) of Lublin, was a distinguished _Hebraist_. The diversity as well as the extent of his reading was remarkable. He knew the whole of _Hebrew_ literature as well as the classical writers of antiquity, and had a wide knowledge of Jewish history. His _Hebrew_ style was of great exactitude and beauty. He contributed to _Hàboker Or_, _Ha’melitz_ and _Ha’assif_, and preached with artistic skill and historical discrimination the national idea of the _Chovevé Zion_.

Asher Ginzberg――“_Achad Ha’am_”――deserves a special chapter in the history of Zionism. He was the most prominent literary figure in the _Chovevé Zion_ movement, and he is the most respected and influential representative of modern _Hebrew_ literature. Born in Russia, and educated in the traditional religious way, he went through a carefully arranged course of studies in “Jewish Science” and in philosophy and literature. He first attracted notice by his articles in _Ha’melitz_ about the condition of the colonies in Palestine. He had the clearness of mind to see things as they were, and the courage to publish what he believed to be the truth. The absence of exaggeration, the earnestness, and the steadfast truth-seeking which are the characteristic features of all his writings, and give them peculiar weight, were already clearly developed and evident in his first essays. He founded the _Hebrew_ monthly _Ha’shiloach_, which became a creative force in the modern _Hebrew_ revival. He grouped around himself young men of talent, and discovered, stimulated and guided many young writers and students, who looked upon him as their spiritual father. _Ha’shiloach_ soon became the leading literary _Hebrew_ review, principally owing to his philosophical and publicistic articles. A deep and clear thinker, he expounded with convincing logic, and in calm, noble and dignified language the ideology of Jewish nationalism. His principal ideal is Jewish national distinctiveness in the Diaspora, based upon _Hebrew_ culture, and making Palestine a spiritual centre or “nidus.” Some of his essays can be read in an English version by Leon Simon of London, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America. We should, however, form a very inadequate estimate of the services which this distinguished writer has rendered to Zionism, and of the influence which he has exerted on his readers, were we to confine our attention solely to his writings. It is the combination of a writer and a personality that gives him his unique position. He was successfully active in the _Chovevé Zion_ movement, he has visited Palestine several times, and he founded in 1889 the Order “_B’nai Moshé_,” a group of intellectual Jewish Nationalists. This Order, which existed for eight years, gave rise to the foundation of the _Hebrew_ Publication Society “_Achiasaf_” in Warsaw, of the first modern _Hebrew_ school in _Jaffa_, and of the Palestinian colony _Rechoboth_. Out of these grew many other institutions for colonization, _Hebrew_ literature and education.

Chaim Nachman Bialik is the greatest living _Hebrew_ poet, and with his name the national revival is inseparably connected. Born in Volhynia, Russia, he had a _Talmudical_ education. He started his literary career in the _Ha’shiloach_ and other _Hebrew_ reviews. He rose quickly to great fame, making a new era in _Hebrew_ poetry. He has an epic as well as a lyric gift. His marvellous artistic instinct, his harmonious _Hebrew_, his liveliness of imagination, the melody of his verse place him in the highest rank. He is a national poet in the noblest sense of the term. He voices the feelings and traditions of generations. He has measured the groans of our people, has counted their sighs and tears, has gathered and sung them and played them upon the celestial harp of his _Hebrew_ muse. Sometimes, like a rebel _cherub_, he sounds the trumpet of judgment against tyranny. He is familiar with every phase of Jewish thought and life, ancient as well as modern, in the _Ghetto_ as well as in nature, but his heart is in _Zion_, and here the freshness and vividness of his colouring, the truth and life-like reality of his pictures, the enthusiasm of his hopes are unsurpassed. He is also distinguished as a writer of prose, and is active in the _Hebrew_ Publication Society “_Moriah_,” at Odessa, which has enriched _Hebrew_ literature by many valuable works.

Saul Tschernichowsky, born in Michailovka, Russia, by profession a physician, is, next to Bialik, the greatest living _Hebrew_ poet. He is distinguished by depth and tenderness of feeling, fertile and ingenious fancy, profound knowledge of the classical world, the easy transition by which he passes from nature to man, exquisite sense of beauty and a highly developed taste for music, which makes his verse exceedingly melodious.

2. _The Chovevé Zion and University Zionist Groups_

We have more than once had occasion to mention the groups of _Chovevé Zion_ (“Lovers of _Zion_”) which sprang up in Russia in the early eighties for the support of the pioneers of immigration into Palestine. Some account of the most important of these groups and of the outstanding personalities connected with them will indicate both the rapidity with which the movement spread, and the continuity of development between the _Chovevé Zion_ and the new Zionist organization founded by Herzl. We shall find throughout that those who came into prominence in Herzl’s movement were almost without exception men who had been active for years before as “Lovers of _Zion_.” We shall find also that everywhere it was the Jewish University Student――and particularly the Russian Jewish Student, whether at a Russian or at a German or Swiss University――who, captured by the idea of the national revival, became the life and the driving force of the movement.

The first place among the _Chovevé Zion_ groups belongs to that of Odessa, which became and has remained the headquarters of the whole organization. We have already mentioned three prominent members of this group――Pinsker, _Achad Ha’am_ and Lilienblum (the last two in connection with their services to _Hebrew_ literature). Among a host of other Odessa Zionists who have earned distinction, _M._ M. Ussishkin stands out most prominently because of the influence which his energy and determination have won for him. He graduated in engineering at Moscow, where he was instrumental in founding the _B’nai Zion_ (“Sons of _Zion_”)――one of the earliest and strongest of the _Chovevé Zion_ groups. Afterwards he went to Ekaterinoslaw, and only later to Odessa, where he has been the centre of Jewish national work in all its branches for some years. To him perhaps more than to any single man is due the return of Zionist effort to practical colonizing work in Palestine after the temporary concentration on political negotiation under Herzl. He has worked strenuously for the financial institutions of Zionism as well as for Palestinian colonization and the _Hebrew_ revival.

Of the brilliant group of leaders which received its training in the _B’nai Zion_ of Moscow we mention here the recently deceased Dr. Ephim Wladimirovitch [Jechiel] Tschlenow (1865‒1918), Vice-President of the Inner Actions Committee of the Zionist Movement. After graduating in medicine at Moscow University, he settled in that city, and divided his life between the claims of his profession and those of Zionist work. He combined appreciation of the value of practical work in Palestine with a sound sense of political values. He had been twice to the Holy Land, and in a brochure, _Five Years’ Work in Palestine_ (written in Russian and translated into German), produced an admirably clear and comprehensive record of recent Jewish achievements in the country.

Scarcely less important than the Odessa and the Moscow Societies were those of St. Petersburg, of Bialystok, of Pinsk, of Minsk and of Wilna, every one of which was a training-ground for men who afterwards became prominent in the Zionist movement. It was at Pinsk, his birthplace, that Dr. Chaim Weizmann, now President of the English Zionist Federation, began his Zionist activity, which was continued afterwards with such fruitful results at German and Swiss Universities and in this country. Wilna is the home of two Zionists, the brothers Isaac and Boris Goldberg, who hold a specially distinguished place both in Russian Zionism and in the movement at large. So in every Jewish centre in Russia the “Lovers of _Zion_” movement attracted the best of Jewish energy and idealism, especially among the youth, and the idea of the return to _Zion_ took a firmer and firmer hold on the people and demanded more and more imperatively an outlet in practical work. In Poland and Galicia and Roumania, and to a lesser extent in Germany, the movement spread during the eighties and nineties of last century, so that when Herzl came on the scene the national consciousness to which he appealed was largely awakened (though not in those elements of Jewry to which he first addressed his call). In countries further west there was little progress until after the creation of Herzl’s organization. True there were _Chovevé Zion_ groups in England and France, but the idea of the return had not really struck root in the Jewish communities of those countries. One of the great services rendered by Herzl’s organization to the cause of Jewish nationalism is that it has provided a bridge over which the Jewish spirit and the idealism of the reawakened Jewries of Eastern Europe could make their way into the Western communities and give them new life and a new sense of the realities of Judaism. Thus in Anglo-Jewry during the last decade or so there has been a marked tendency away from the polite conventions of assimilation towards a realization of the deeper and more serious implications of Jewishness; and only a remnant of the “old guard” still repeats the _shibboleths_ of an earlier generation about Judaism as a “persuasion” and “emancipation” as a cure for all the ills of Jewry.

We have spoken of the part that the Jewish student has played in this evolution, and it is so important as to merit further examination.

The position of the Jewish students at the Universities of Western Europe at the beginning of the third quarter of the last century was a most deplorable one from a Jewish point of view. They had increased in numbers, belonging partly to the native Jewish populations and partly to Eastern Europe, nevertheless they were a negligible quantity. They were scattered all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland as units without cohesion or organization. Nationally they did not count: the chief principle of assimilation――which was at the time the general tendency of Western European Jewry――was to abandon Jewish national claims. Their attitude towards the religion of their fathers was one of indifference, want of faith, if not hostility. What marked them out as Jews was in fact only the treatment meted out to them by the anti-Semitic Students’ Societies, which hated and insulted them. And while the Jews born in the Western European countries were regarded as outcasts by the non-Jewish corporations and societies, the foreign Jewish students――mostly from Russia――were regarded as outcasts by the outcasts. The Western European and the Eastern European Jewish students were thus divided into two fractions.

Then the new spirit of Zionism made itself felt. A group of Jewish students at the Vienna University founded, in 1882, a National Jewish Students’ Association called “_Kadima_,”¹ which was later, as we have seen, the first organization to extend a welcome to Herzl. These Vienna students have a better claim than any other similar organization in Western Europe to be regarded as the pioneers of the Jewish national idea.

¹ “Eastward,” “Forward.”

One of the leaders of the _Kadima_ was Nathan Birnbaum, known also by his _nom de plume_ of “Mathias Acher,” who was born in Galicia and graduated at Vienna University. A powerful writer and a keen thinker, he became, in course of time, a considerable figure in German-Jewish literature. In recent years he has become a Jewish democrat, championing the cause of _Yiddish_. But in the early days of the _Kadima_ he was heart and soul devoted to this Association, of which he was the philosophical leader.

The members of the _Kadima_ soon attracted attention owing to their courageous attitude, and steadily increased in number. They had become conscious Jews, and derived from this fact a great access of moral strength. They were no longer weak, downtrodden, degraded young men, feeling helpless and demoralized; they began to be men, jealous of their honour, demanding their rights as Jews among the nationalities. The _Chovevé Zion_ movement appealed strongly to their emotions and energies. The idea, a mere spark at first, developed into a blazing fire that seized upon several Universities. Young Jews speaking different languages and of many different habits and customs became united by invisible ties all over the Continent of Europe. At the end of the eighties there existed an important Association in Berlin, which was at first somewhat theoretical in character, but very soon afterwards became a sister society of the Vienna Association, taking also the name of “_Kadima_” (Appendix lxxvii). The members of this group include a great number of workers whose names are inseparably bound up with the history of the Zionist Organization and with Jewish national literature. Most of them were of Russian birth, as might be expected; for it was the Russian Jewish student who, moving from one German University to another, carried with him the torch of the national revival. Besides Dr. Chaim Weizmann, already mentioned, we find in the Berlin Students’ group two of the present members of the Inner Actions Committee――Dr. Shemaryah Levin, a powerful speaker and one of the most energetic propagandists of the movement, and Victor Jacobsohn, who for some years represented Zionism at Constantinople. Martin Buber and Berthold Feiwel, two gifted littérateurs, were both members of the Vienna _Kadima_ who worked later in Berlin. Davis Trietsch, not himself a University student, worked in close co-operation with the Berlin group. An indefatigable advocate of colonization schemes, he has given a great impetus to the study of Palestine and has originated many fruitful ideas. Associated with him on the staff of the _Jüdischer Verlag_, the Zionist publishing house, was the artist Ephraim Moses _ben_ Jacob _Hacohen_ Lilien, who together with Hermann Struck, an artist of a very different type, best represents Jewish national development on the æsthetic side. It remains to mention two Berlin Zionists who became members of the Inner Actions Committee in 1911――Arthur Hantke, distinguished for his services to the organization of the movement, and Professor Otto Warburg, a well-known botanist and founder of the Palestine Land Development Company.

Similar associations to the _Kadima_ were founded at many German and Swiss Universities――Heidelberg, Munich, Leipzig, Königsberg, Breslau, Berne, Zürich, Geneva and Lausanne. To them is due the national awakening which has led to so great an improvement in the spiritual condition of Jewry in Western Europe. In Germany especially the progress of the national idea among the younger generation was phenomenal. The sons of the most assimilated and denationalized families became the most ardent champions of the new movement back to the Jewish land and Jewish ideals. But much the same thing has happened in all countries which have a considerable Jewish population. In Russia it goes without saying that Jewish Students’ groups were to the fore in the national work. Even in the Polish cities of Warsaw and Lodz, the homes of the most extreme and disintegrating assimilation, numbers of Jewish students at the Universities were kindled by the national idea and did it valuable service. In Anglo-Jewry, isolated by distance and by difference of language and environment from the main currents of Jewish life, the university Zionist movement developed later and has not gone so far. Its history belongs entirely to the last dozen years, and its adherents are still a small band. But it is one of the most remarkable and promising features of Zionist development in England in recent years. While the older generation of Zionists in this country worked mainly in the field of organization, a group of younger men, largely of University training, has paid more attention to the spread of the Zionist idea by means of literature and education. Most of these younger men have been influenced by the ideas of _Achad Ha’am_. They have produced monthly journals, pamphlets and books on Zionism and in the Zionist spirit, and have contributed in various ways to the spread of Jewish knowledge and the improvement of _Hebrew_ education. They have also taken their share in the work of organization, and one of them, Mr. H. Sacher, has recently become Grand Commander of the Order of Ancient _Maccabæans_, a Zionist association organised on Friendly Society lines.

3. _The Pioneers of the Hebrew Revival in Palestine_

While modern _Hebrew_ literature and the propaganda of the Return to Zion were quickening the Jews of the Diaspora to new life and new hope, there were not wanting men who were prepared to throw up their careers and prospects in Europe in order themselves to help in laying the foundations of the revival in Palestine. It is not our purpose here to tell the almost miraculous story of the foundation of the earliest Jewish settlements or “colonies” in the eighties, how by sheer endurance the pioneer settlers maintained their hold in the face of appalling difficulties, and how by the time when the great war broke out there had been created the nucleus of a thriving _Hebrew_ nation, firmly attached once more to its ancestral soil, and repossessed of its ancestral tongue.¹ We have merely to glance at a few of the outstanding facts and personalities of this revival (Appendix lxxviii).

¹ For an account of Jewish colonization in Palestine the
reader may be referred to _Palestine: the Rebirth of an
Ancient People_, by A. M. Hyamson (London: Sidgwick and
Jackson, 1917), _chs._ 11‒14.

The revival is not wholly, though it is largely, a result of the terrible events which drove large masses of Jews to emigrate from Russia in 1880‒1881. Even before that date there were a few Jews in Palestine who, if they were not strong enough of themselves to initiate a national revival, were able to help when new forces came from without. Of these were Jechiel Brill (1836‒1886), who, born in Russia and educated in Constantinople and _Jerusalem_, established a _Hebrew_ monthly, _Ha’lebanon_, in Palestine in 1863, and later was commissioned by Baron Edmond _de_ Rothschild to conduct a group of experienced farmers from Russia through Palestine; Jechiel Michael _ben_ Noah Pines (1842‒1912), also of Russian birth, who in 1878 was sent to _Jerusalem_ to establish charitable institutions associated with the name of Sir Moses Montefiore, and lived thenceforward in Palestine, interesting himself in the welfare of the Jewish community and the organization of the Jewish agricultural colonies; David Yellin, a native of Palestine and one of the most eminent of living _Hebraists_, who has devoted himself mainly to education, and has played a large part in the development of _Hebrew_ as a living language through his contributions to the perfection of the “natural method” of teaching _Hebrew_; and the late Abraham Moses Luncz (1854‒1918), who had lived in Palestine from early youth, and whose long-established _Hebrew_ Palestine Annual has done much for the historical and geographical study of the country. But it was not till the immigration which followed on the Russian massacres of 1880‒1881 that Jewish life in Palestine really began to take a new direction. Among the stalwarts of those early days a group of Russian students known as _Bilu_ (Appendix lxxix) (from the initials of the four _Hebrew_ words meaning “Come, let us go up to the house of Jacob,” which they chose as their motto) will always be held in affectionate remembrance. Their example of stubborn endurance and unfailing optimism did much to rescue the colonization movement from the ruin which threatened it in its early days, when the natural effects of insufficient knowledge and resources began to be felt. Most of the group died young, but a few still survive――among them Israel Belkind, who is still at work in Palestine as a teacher. Elieser Ben-Jehuda, who settled in _Jerusalem_ in 1881, is associated principally with the revival of _Hebrew_. It is thanks largely to him that out of the welter of languages spoken by Jews in Palestine _Hebrew_ has once and for all won its place as _the_ national language. His monumental _Hebrew_ dictionary, _Thesaurus Totius Hebraitatis_, in ten volumes, was in course of publication when the war broke out. Another side of the revival is represented by Boris Schatz, the founder and head of the _Bezalel_ School of Arts and Crafts at _Jerusalem_, whose idea of creating a distinctively Jewish art has already borne good fruit (Appendix lxxx). And in yet other spheres the young Jewish settlement owes much to David Levontin, Manager of the Anglo-Palestine Company, the Jewish banking concern in Palestine; to Aaron Aaronsohn, head of the valuable Agricultural Experiment Station at Atlit, near _Haifa_; to Dr. Benzion Mossinsohn and his colleagues at the _Jaffa_ Hebrew Secondary School, where an education similar to that of a Grammar School is given entirely in _Hebrew_. Each of these men has done pioneer work in one field or another. They have stood in the van of a movement which has transformed Jewish life in Palestine as Zionist propaganda has transformed Jewish life in the Diaspora, not only creating new types and values of its own, but surely if slowly breaking down the resistance of the anti-national Jewish agencies which were at work in Palestine before Zionism came on the scene. And if the propaganda and organization of Zionism have been essential to the existence and growth of the Palestinian settlement, it is no less true that if not for the work of those who built up the new Jewish life in Palestine, there would have been no inspiring force behind the propaganda of Zionism, and no solid basis for its organization.