Chapter XLIXD (1)

Turkey, 1910‒14――The New Turkish Cabinet of 1912――The Balkan
War――The Tenth and Eleventh Congresses――Death of Wolffsohn.

WE may as well now cast a glance at the aspect of the general political situation at the period this narrative has reached. Public opinion in England was greatly disappointed when the first enthusiasm for Turkish liberties had passed away. The ship of state in Turkey began to enter very troubled waters, and no one saw safety ahead. The defeat of the Committee of Union and Progress, the displacing of the Said Pasha Cabinet and the downfall of the other leaders of the Young Turkey party of 1908, followed by the amnesty of a number of officials of the Hamidian regime, had naturally led many in Europe to believe that reaction had set in, and that the Young Turks had once more been overthrown and were in danger of being stamped out by the Old Turks or reactionaries. On the other hand, some careful observers asserted that the new Cabinet of 1912 was the best Turkey had had during the past forty years, and that it was in no true sense reactionary, but really constructive and progressive. They maintained also that the Committee of Union and Progress had begun to use old methods and were now hated by a large proportion of their former supporters. But all these allegations were contradicted by rapidly developing events. Hardly at any time within this generation had the political situation in Turkey presented elements of greater uncertainty and danger than in the period 1910‒14.

The greatest misfortune was the impossibility of any improvement. Turkey undoubtedly had the desire for progress along those lines which Europe professedly was so anxious to see her follow; but she needed advice, guidance, credit and patience. She required men――advisers, counsellors――to give her practical help in carrying out the necessary reforms. But, unfortunately, such a development was made impossible by the disturbing political events.

The Balkan War broke out. The Balkan peoples took their fate in their own hands. They did not look for liberators from elsewhere, and asked no help in the settlement of their differences. Whenever the Balkans had flared up and gone into war before it had generally been due to the fact that other nations had drawn them into the struggle. The vital difference of this conflict was that, for the first time for centuries, all the peoples concerned thought themselves strong enough to decide their own future by the sword. A fierce struggle began. The outlook for the Turks was most gloomy from the very outset. The Turks were beaten. They were discarded by all those who in Europe had seemed to have supported them, abandoned by the Powers which once valued their friendship. Speculation as to what would happen was on everybody’s lips. One thing was certain: that the East was getting thoroughly aroused, and that the developments led inevitably to a crisis unparalleled in history. Meanwhile, the Zionist Organization continued its work with great energy.

The Tenth Zionist Congress at Basle, August, 1911, with Wolffsohn and Nordau again as Presidents, had an attendance of about four hundred delegates, including a considerable number of English: Dr. Gaster, Mr. H. Bentwich, Mr. Jacob Moser, Dr. Samuel Daiches, Dr. Weizmann, Mr. J. Cowen, Dr. Hochman, Mr. H. Sacher, Dr. Salis Daiches, Mr. S. B. Rubenstein and others. The question left over from the previous Congress was settled at this one. A new Small Actions’ Committee was elected, and David Wolffsohn retained his influential post as President of the Council, and from that time again devoted his energies mainly to Zionist finances.

The Eleventh Zionist Congress at Vienna, in September, 1913 (preceded by an International Congress of the Hebrew Language Revival Societies), with its attendance of five to six hundred delegates, its enormous mass meetings, exhibitions, lectures, entertainments and demonstrations, such as the visit to Herzl’s grave, the Gymnastic Display with 2500 national Jewish gymnasts and 25,000 Jewish spectators, was the greatest Jewish display of forces that had ever taken place. The importance of practical work in Palestine, the thorough, serious and systematic treatment of all colonization questions, the powerful influence of the Hebrew language, the great number of intellectuals present, the great power of the Students’ movement, were new elements which were apt to give the calmer and older Congress members the impression of something chaotic. In reality, however, that was only the way in which the growth of the movement, its development, and many-sidedness found expression.

Superficial observers, who have but vague ideas of Zionism, in its narrow political and financial aspect, might have been surprised at the sight of this Congress, but those who know how Zionism has grown up out of the _Chovevé Zion_ and literature and education, with the University movement, which we have described elsewhere, will understand why the first “idyll” was bound to give way to a movement as reflected by the Vienna Congress. Dr. Gaster, Mr. J. Moser, Mr. H. Bentwich, Dr. Ch. Weizmann, Mr. J. Cowen, Mr. L. Simon, Mr. H. Sacher, and many other active and well-known members of the English Zionist Federation and of the Order of Ancient Maccabeans attended the Congress as English Delegates.

There was also a large delegation (fourteen members) from Canada. For the first time in the history of the Canadian Zionist Federation no proxies had been given, as all the delegates to whom the Canadian Federation was entitled attended in person.

The general Organization has since then been active in propaganda work, in development work in Palestine through the “Zionist Office,” and also in educational work in that country.

The Organization sustained a great loss by the death of David Wolffsohn. He had been ailing for the past few years and died on the 15th of September, 1914. He served the Zionist Organization with unequalled fidelity, with intense devotion and a singleness of purpose that nothing could divert. His passionate affection for the Zionist idea never wavered. He was proud of the Zionist institutions and watched over them with never-ceasing vigilance. All Zionists fully realize the great devotion to the cause that actuated this remarkable man. Unbounded industry, a passionate love of the work he had to perform, these were the characteristics of Wolffsohn, and won for him wide and deep sympathy and admiration during his life and have secured for him a lasting and cherished memory in the hearts of Zionists throughout the world.

CHAPTER XLIXE.

Baron Edmond de Rothschild in Palestine――Sir John Gray Hill
――Professor S. Schechter――South African Statesmen――A Canadian
Statesman――Christian religious literature again.

THE events in Turkey did not change Zionist convictions in the least degree, nor lessen the faith in the ultimate triumph of the cause. The colonization of Palestine by Jews is useful and desirable from every point of view. It was as much a necessity when Europe upheld the principle that Turkey was to form an indissoluble and indivisible Empire as in different circumstances. Among Jews themselves it was impossible to fail to notice the complete change of tone and spirit with regard to Zionism. If there was still any feeling of rivalry between _Chovevé Zion_ and Zionists, it has vanished completely in recent years. In this respect Baron de Rothschild’s visit to Palestine in 1913 was significant. The Baron, or “Our Baron” as the great philanthropist is affectionately called by the Palestinian Jews, for whom he has done so much, was received with royal honours: there were triumphal arches, and crowds of people and school children lined the streets singing songs of welcome. He expressed his keen satisfaction with Zionist work, and particularly with the remarkable development of the Hebrew schools and the spread of the Hebrew language in Palestine.

The attitude of English opinion, that is of real opinion based upon knowledge of facts and circumstances, remained unchangeably sympathetic.

For instance, Sir John Gray Hill of Liverpool, who had an intimate and direct knowledge of Palestine, where he used to spend his holidays for many years, and whose reflections and observations were of great value, gave in his address, delivered to the Liverpool Jewish Literary Society, on the 30th of November, 1913, a detailed analysis of the work to be done in Palestine. While admitting that exaggerated hopes were liable to strong objections and indicating the existing limitations, he said: “What you can do is to afford a refuge in Palestine to large numbers of persecuted Jews, and you can teach them to cultivate the soil, and to practise various arts and crafts so as to maintain themselves in the home of their fathers. Now I think it is very important that the English Jews should take a lead in this endeavour, because the English Jews are the leaders in thought, in position and in common sense, and have a calm way of looking at things.” He opposed the most erroneous and absurd idea of a contradiction between Jewish racial self-consciousness and English patriotism. “I am told that there is some feeling amongst the English Jews of there being a want of patriotism in interesting themselves in the Holy Land. That I do not understand. A Scotchman is a Scotchman, full of love for his own land and his own customs, poetry and song, but he is a Briton; so of a Welshman; so of an Irishman; so of a Devonshire man; so of a Lancashire man; we cherish these special local feelings, these feelings of local pride, and yet we remain true to the Great Empire to which we belong.” He offered a suggestion about travelling to Palestine.

“Now the leading Jews in England cannot, of course, go to live in Palestine altogether, but they might visit the country; and those who can afford the time might pass a portion of the year there, and, I think, if they did so they would find an immense interest in the country, and would be able to help their poorer brethren far better than they can by remaining at a distance from it. Travel, open, open your mind, travel to the Holy Land and see the great vision of what the past did for us, that amazingly interesting country, without seeing which I think it is extremely difficult to understand in a full and proper way the meaning of the Bible; at any rate, the sights of that land throw an immense deal of light upon it. Then there is another reason. Englishmen are very much respected in Palestine; they are thought more highly of than people of any other nation. One reason is, that it is known that England is not seeking to exploit the country; England does not seek for greedy concessions, and Englishmen, so far as they have to do with the natives, always treat them considerately and kindly, and, I think, the natives believe that whether the Englishmen are going the right way about it or not, they are trying to help the native to help himself.”

Here he struck a note which might have seemed new to him as a spectator appealing to English Jews. In the Zionist literature and Press this idea has frequently been expressed. Indeed, Palestine is still the land of poetry and enthusiasm, but it has ceased to be that of mystery; and though only the fame of its natural beauty has hitherto reached Western Europe, travellers who have recently visited Palestine have learned to appreciate the progress of this country in colonization. If anybody has hailed with enthusiasm the rising of this new star in the East on account of its brilliancy, beauty and poetical supremacy, he could discover on a visit to the country those pioneers of vigorous frame, with eagle eyes and well-formed, combining the sternness of the present with the subtlety of the intellectual and the simplicity of the child. The best means of becoming a Zionist is――a visit to Palestine. Sir Moses Montefiore was the first European Jew who visited Palestine as a tourist and philanthropist, and he was an English Jew. That was a great traditional example for English Jewry.

Sir John Gray Hill emphasized the importance of the Zionist Jerusalem University scheme: “Now I have to speak of the proposal to have a University in Jerusalem. That is a proposal, I think, in which all Jews might join. Any objection or feeling of apathy that there is on the part of Jews for any reason against Zionism generally, cannot apply to a Jewish University. You want a centre of Jewish culture and instruction in Jerusalem. The Vienna Congress recently started the scheme thoroughly by a good subscription. You would, of course, teach Hebrew, thus preserving the purity of your language, and you would also, I hope, teach medicine, arts and crafts, agriculture and horticulture. Cannot you attract the attention of some very wealthy Jews to this great project? Whatever objections they have to Zionist projects generally cannot possibly apply to this. What a noble monument it would be to a millionaire, or group of millionaires――those mighty kings of finance who are so powerful in Europe――to erect and endow a splendid University for the Hebrew race. If they were appealed to they would, I think, listen. Surely they would not take for their motto the injunction addressed by the followers of Solomon to the Bride from Tyre: ‘Forget also thine own people and thy father’s house.’ No, that cannot be; I think if the matter is properly represented to them a response will come. I believe, also, that a true and wise view of Zionism is growing in force. The cause is moving at last. The long period of slack water has ended. The tide has turned, although we may not yet see that it has done so.

‘For while the tired waves vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain;
Far back through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent flooding in the main.’”

On the other hand, an appreciation of the moral and religious value of the Zionist movement may be quoted. Speaking at a Zionist meeting in 1914, in Cincinnati, the late Professor Solomon Schechter said: “Zionism is now a living fact. We must have Zionism, if we want Judaism, orthodox or reform, to continue to exist. Judaism is at the present time in a very weak condition, not only in America, but also in Europe. The Jew cannot live in his own atmosphere, he is compelled to breathe the spirit of other religions.... The question then arises: What is it that can preserve the Jewish people? ♦How can Judaism be saved from complete annihilation? Jewish history tells us that the Hellenist Jews who settled in Alexandria and other places remained loyal to Judaism, although they had been excellent Greek citizens.... But after the destruction of the Temple, these Hellenist Jews became completely submerged by the Greeks, and nothing remained of their Judaism. That,” said Professor Schechter in conclusion, “was why Jews must have at the present time the Zionist movement. Zionism could effect for the Jew a change in his material life, and it could also create for him a Jewish atmosphere, in which he could breathe freely his religion.” It is worthy of note that the late Professor Schechter did not join the Zionist movement during the first years of its existence, but was then opposed to it. Being, however, unlike the Bourbons, who are said to have learned nothing, and having realized the wonderful effects of this movement as far as the revival of Judaism was concerned, he became in the last years of his life a faithful Zionist. This was the logic of a progressive mind.

♦ “Now” replaced with “How”

The Right Hon. J. X. Merriman said in an address delivered on the 9th of July, 1914, in opening the Zionist Bazaar at Capetown, that “Zionism is a ramshackle movement, because it began in a very small way, and it had gradually spread. This had been achieved by the general effort of the people themselves, who had laudable desires. They had settled a good many people on the land and had brought to bear their remarkable faculty of energy, enterprize and skill in restoring Palestine to its former fertility.” On the following day the Bazaar was opened by Sir Thomas Smartt, M.L.A.: “There could be few,” said Sir Thomas in his eloquent address, “but what admired their great leader, Dr. Herzl, in his lofty ideal for re-establishment as in the days of old, after many years of wanderings, the ancient glories of their race――of establishing a nation which had done more than any other nation for the spread of religious thought throughout the world. Notwithstanding the long and dark ages of suffering and tribulation through which the race had passed, the love and devotion to its traditions were just as strong as ever. Their young men still continued to dream dreams and their old men to see visions of that sun of righteousness which was to rise with healing in its wings.” In seconding, Senator Powel said that it was a great satisfaction to know that the Palestine movement had got beyond the stage of dreams and visions, and was becoming an accomplished fact. He hoped that they would never slacken their efforts in what is one of the greatest movements in the world to-day.

At the General Conference of the Canadian Jews held in Montreal on the 14th of November, 1915, which was unique in the annals of the Jews of Canada (for this was the first time in their history that the representatives of every section and every element of the Canadian Jewish Community came together from all parts of Canada to take part in a conference), a representative of the Canadian Government, Mr. Maighen, brought the Assembly the good wishes of the Government for the success of the Conference and its high appreciation of that spirit of brotherhood which had caused them to come together. He spoke of the history and traditions of the Jewish race and of the debt that mankind owed to it. He referred to Jewish civilization as being the most ancient that influenced the world of to-day and of the wonderful way in which it had endured in spite of the ages of oppression its zealots had suffered. Speaking of the wish cherished so long by the Jews to regain possession of Palestine, Mr. Maighen gave utterance to the following: “I think I can speak for those of the Christian faith when I express the wish that God speed the day when the land of your forefathers shall be yours again. That task will, I hope, be performed by that champion of liberty the world over――the British Empire.” This speech shows how, in the minds of English statesmen, the question of rights for the Jews all over the world, and that of a Jewish homeland for the nation are bound up in one great principle of justice and freedom.

To conclude the way we began mention must be made of Christian religious literature, which continues to support Zionism in its own way. The Rev. Earle Langston published recently his ideas on the subject. The Christadelphians have published ample literature to which the learned Mr. Walker has contributed extensively. Mr. Frank Jannaway, an ardent Christadelphian whose interest in Jews and their homeland dates back some forty years, and who has paid several visits to Palestine at intervals of a few years, and has thus enjoyed some splendid opportunities of watching the gradual development of the Holy Land, has published a book, _Palestine and the Jews_ (1914), of which two new editions, one of them entitled _Palestine and the Powers_, have since appeared. His knowledge is wide and thorough. He sees Palestine as the land of the future, and every new development is to him the fulfilment of a prophecy. He offers biblical chapter and verse for the happenings that have been convulsing the world, and in a way which reminds one of the oldest English pro-Zionist literature of the seventeenth century, which links up the position of the present and future aspects with sacred prediction. His views favour the Jewish cause and show considerable and correct acquaintance with the Zionist movement. It must finally be observed that during the last two years a great number of excellent articles have appeared in English newspapers and magazines, and some also in the French Press, in which great sympathy is expressed with the Zionist cause from a political, as well as from a humanitarian point of view.

ZIONISM DURING THE WAR
1914‒1918

GENERAL SURVEY

THE year 1914 will stand out as the Great Divide in contemporary history. It was a year of endings and beginnings. Humanity left an age behind it, and entered upon an age in which old things have passed away and all things had to become new.

Long feared and long foretold, yet never seriously expected, the European War came at last. Nations, great and small, arose in their strength, and gathered, in an avalanche of excitement, all their manhood to battle, all their old age to guard, and all their womanhood, not only as in bygone days, to tend and heal the wounded and sick, but also to do preparatory work for the fighting armies. Generations, young and old, rushed eagerly to defend their countries, leaving home, property, calling; knowing no fear save that here and there one of their fellow-citizens might prove less patriotic than themselves. The world was thrown back to the moral level and the ethical conceptions of thousands of years ago: man became again a wolf to man, as in the Pleistocene Age. On the one hand, the vast and bloody epic produced a sort of ecclesiastical moratorium which, for the duration of the war, annulled all moral obligations and abrogated the Ten Commandments, while on the other hand, it developed, to the highest degree, all the great and noble feelings――sense of honour, unselfishness, magnanimity, courage. Nationality, patriotism, the sense of duty, the spirit of sacrifice, enthusiastic heroism and patriotic martyrdom filled the hearts and created a new atmosphere, in which every kind of human activity was intensified: industry, art, science, and literature. This great storm, the greatest storm that had ever stirred mankind, produced the greatest spiritual tragedy the world has ever known. The most terrible aspect of the war was not the fact that Europe was being bled white, that all the amenities of civilization were breaking down with the strain of the military operations, and that each day some new and more brutal engine of destruction was prepared and brought into use, but――the ethical conflict carried on with minds and nerves on the rack of tense emotion which not only upset mental balance and changed the outlook of peoples, hitherto industrious and peaceful, but developed moral and social fears and passions which will not pass away in a day. This universal catastrophe would indeed have degraded the world into “a sort of malign middle term between a lunatic asylum and a butcher’s stall,” if it had not finally become――as it has become――“a war against war.” The peoples turned their ploughshares into swords, they ceased to make useful, beneficial rails and plates and angles and girders of their iron ore and their coal, and they manufactured harmful, destructive shells and guns to project them to the slaughter of the enemy, hoping that when the time came they would again turn their swords into ploughshares. They realized that the enemy of society is militarist despotism, and that militarist despotism therefore must be ended, or it will end society. A great moral idea arose out of this war: the liberation of oppressed small nations. Another great moral idea arising from it is the de-militarization of humanity. The whole world is now involved in a life or death struggle for righteousness. This is the justification for all the sufferings and all the sacrifices. If this war were not a war of principles and for ideals it would be nothing, and could result in nothing except the further enthronement of the doctrine and worship of force, and the perpetuation of the untold misery and degradation which that form of religion carries with it. It should never be forgotten that this was a war for liberty of the peoples, and in particular of the small peoples.

This great war has aggravated and made terribly clear the position of Jewry and the tragic problem of its existence as a small and oppressed nationality. The war has turned numerous _Ghetti_ of Galicia, Bukovina, Russian Poland, Lithuania, Courland and Roumania into heaps of ashes, and hell would be pleasant compared with the situation of great masses of the Jewish people. In this war, particularly in Eastern Europe, hundreds of thousands of Jews were fighting against one another in the hostile camps of the belligerent countries; and the significant factor is that they were not fighting because they were forced to, but from a sense of supreme duty. Even among those that were fighting in the Russian Army before the Revolution, there were many who were not acting under compulsion: they were giving of their best and from their heart. They wanted to take their places in the virile, the over-virile world――which is also their world, they wanted to live and die taking their place in the great living society which called to them. The spirit of Europe――rather the spirit of present-day Europe, which was the spirit of obstinate conflicts and of extreme courage of devotion――has seized the Jews also: they also have entered into this tremendous catastrophe, into this pilgrimage through chaos towards a new world.

But for the Jews this war meant infinitely worse evil and greater danger; the nations were divided one from another, Jewry was divided against itself; each nation opposed its fixed shape and character, untouched even by defeat, to the overflooding chaos, but the Jewish nationality seemed to be its victim, in its own wavering and chaotic form of the Diaspora. It almost seemed as though there existed Jews, and divided Jews, but no Jewry.

And yet it was not really so. It was a dark time, and the storm was ghastly enough, but the lightning has revealed things that might otherwise have remained hidden. Rather should we believe that the time of the greatest trial for Jewry denoted a high self-recollection, and with it the commencement of a true gathering and union. In times of great stress men discover their own deeper selves. Great trouble somehow digs into the very foundation of a man’s existence, and he cannot explore there without finding what is most essential in him. When some tremendous trouble sends its plough through his heart of hearts, then he becomes aware of wonderful things he has never suspected before.

Now it is well worth our while to weigh all this and to make it part of our outlook and equipment as we face the great present events. Because, for one thing, it should go a long way towards delivering us from the worst of all fears――the fear of to-morrow and the next day, and all the days that the future hides. Nine out of ten of us are perpetually spoiling what _is_ happening by dread of what _may_ happen, so that we can all join Disraeli in saying that we have had many troubles, but the worst have been those that never happened. If only we could let the morrow be anxious for itself! But, to a large extent, we can, if we will, school ourselves to it;

“וכימיך דבאך׃...”
דברים לג׳ כה׳¹

is a promise perpetually justified by the best psychological findings and historic experience in the life of nations. It is really the fact, that our “day” stirs and heightens our strength. Only when challenged, do we know what we are capable of. Modern psychology tells us that “the human individual lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below the _maximum_, and he behaves below his _optimum_.” And to rise to our _maximum_ and _optimum_ we need some unusual stimulus or some unusual idea of necessity.

¹ “... And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.”――Deut.
xxxiii. 25.

Jewish history has revealed this truth several times. One individual or another, one small group or another――separated from the masses of the people――may fall away from Jewry; whoever can do that to-day has never belonged to it. The majority, however, remain loyal, and are never more loyal than in times of stress. The illusion is destroyed that a man can live a truly moral life in a time of trial while he is only a spectator of the life of society. In the Jews, convulsed by the events of the war, the new unity of Jewry showed itself. The situation was so serious, so full of menace for all that we hold dear, that every thinking Jew saw that he must in these days help to create and maintain the moral energies which alone can carry him through the crisis. At this time the Jew had a duty to his country and a duty to Judaism. To his country he owed, as a citizen, duties which could not be shirked. Every support was to be given to all patriotic efforts for the prosperity, the victory, and the glory of the country. To Judaism he owed the obligation of securing and defending not only the existence, but also the development and the realization of its traditional ideals, and of strengthening its unity. The first expression of this unity was an increase of self-consciousness. Jewry was affected by the war, but the essential problems of the Jews in the modern world were not altered by the war.

When we speak of Jewry, we speak of a living historic, ethnic and cultural――although not political――nationhood, existing potentially in its unity, independently of the Jewries of the countries in the various forms of their divided destinies, and their dissensions at the present moment. We strive to fix and to assure it――as far as external conditions allow it――in the Diaspora. And when we wish to prepare for it a sort of central Metropolis, an organic _chef-lieu_ in Palestine――we are not engaged in adding one more nationality to the existing nationalities which fight against and watch one another suspiciously. It is not the question of introducing Jewry into the divisions of the nations, to be absorbed by them, and thus to contribute to their conflicts, but it is rather a question of aiming at the union of all that is noble and just in the nations and in ourselves. We want our own centre of simple active life, because the spiritual and intellectual element without the simple active life degenerates into subtlety and trickiness. We want――at least, for a section of our nationality――normal life, with its variety and interpretation of different influences of Nature. This is a question in which every Jew should be interested, because not only does the nobility of a nation depend on the presence of the national consciousness, but also the nobility of each individual. Our dignity and our rectitude are proportioned to our sense of relationship to something great, admirable, pregnant with possibilities, worthy of sacrifice, a continual inspiration by the presentation of aims larger than everyday life and personal ease.

What was the attitude of the Zionist Organization with regard to these great events? Why was the Zionist Organization more interested in the war than any other section of Jewry? And why is Zionism at present more up to date than it ever was? In order to answer properly these questions we have to cast a retrospective glance on the history of the last twenty years, and to recall to the minds of the readers a few important facts which, although dealt with in this work in previous chapters, must be again reviewed in their connection with the present political situation.

Twenty years ago several hundred Jews from all parts of the world met in the Swiss town of Basle and held a congress――the first Jewish congress in history.

A strange community of Jews, a representative assembly of the great Jewish _Diaspora_――from the most modern European writers to teachers in Talmud colleges in small Lithuanian towns, quiet respectable citizens and fiery students, bankers and Hebrew writers――representing all kinds of civilization and all languages――and, nevertheless, some bond unified the whole.

At the head sat a man of the kind which appears like meteors but once in the course of generations――Theodor Herzl. A sage, a hero, a leader of men, an artist? Everything――even more than everything――the embodiment of an idea. In the body of this man there existed a soul, and that soul was Zionism.

At his side there stood (besides other worthies whose titles to honour we may not here linger to mention) a tribune of the people, in the person of Max Nordau――another famous man only just awakened suddenly and with great power to his Jewish nationality.

There the veil was torn away from the tragedy of the Jews. There it was stated that the Jewish problem was a disease, and that against a disease one should not protest and struggle wildly, but one ought to cure it. Moreover, it was said that at times one cannot heal a wound except by cauterizing it. And all were agreed that it was not a good plan to postpone difficulties, but on the contrary that they should be anticipated.

Speakers there indicated the “_Galuth_”――the serpent with a thousand coils. And they pointed to the Land of _Israel_, to freedom, to redemption.

In the Land of _Israel_, it was there affirmed, Zionism could become a living reality.

Nothing new indeed was there discovered. It was simply stated that two and two make four.

Out of the vocabulary of modern political nomenclature the word “national” was adopted. Is Zionism national? Certainly. It can also be called “human”; perhaps still more simply, “natural.” Let us learn, however, from Nature, in its simplicity and honesty, which knows of no sophistries nor manœuvring.

We Jews have become again children of Nature. There exist species in Nature. The eagle does not toil for the pike nor the lion for the cat; neither can the light of the stars replace that of the sun. Each fulfils its own purpose, and thence results the sum total. Behold the trees and the standing corn――would they be so splendidly developed, so rich and so fresh in their growth, if they were forcibly mixed and mingled together so that one drew its sap from the other? They are flourishing and rich and beautiful, because each keeps its own natural form and each draws its nourishment from the breast of mother earth. “Give us our country,” said the Zionists. “Give it to us for our exiled and wandering ones, who unwillingly find themselves mingled in the great seething pot of assimilation, who drag themselves from place to place. Give it to us for those who long and thirst for another kind of life; our garments, our bread, and our freedom we do not wish to have as alms. We wish to work and to obtain the fruits of our honest labour. We love that little country; waters cannot quench and streams cannot drown our love for it. Our love has the power to move mountains, it is stronger than all material obstacles. We demand a peaceful spot for our future and for our children who are becoming lost to us. Beholding this misery, we are willing to sacrifice ourselves. Even a she-wolf throws herself against danger to protect her young ones. Shall our love be weaker then than that of a wolf? And shall those whom we love be worse off than the offspring of animals? We want to rend asunder our chains, to blot out the mark of serfdom upon us, and win for ourselves true human rights, and the privilege of living equal to others, by honest toil.”

This was the Jewish claim――the demand put by Zionists to the world. And then the world turned against us, especially the little Jewish world.

We shall not talk about the levity, the insolence, the egotism, nor about those satiated folk who philosophize with their stomachs, nor about those others who do not know their own minds, whose shallow little heads float like foam in any current. We do not talk about those idle jesters who have found another opportunity of showing the sad wit of the _Ghetto_ which takes pleasure in ridiculing and despising one’s own self. Indeed even respectable, serious and honest, though unfortunately shortsighted and obstinate men, who imagined themselves enthusiastic concerning Judaism, kind-hearted but automatic leaders of Jewish communal life who, though philosophizing about mankind, are inwardly divided from their own people, came to us with “fatherly” advice, with moral lectures, with sonorous phrases about humanity. They wanted to destroy most quickly, annihilate and extinguish the “dangerous chimæra,” the “reaction,” the “chauvinism,” the “_Sabbatai-Zvi’ism_,” the “decay of religion,” “religious fanaticism,” “tribalism,” and all the other things they ascribed to Zionism in their political delusion and contradictory nomenclature.

“You must scatter yourselves all over the world,” they said, “just as a handful of seeds, scattered by the wind, germinate, grow and ripen, all in different spots, replenishing the earth with their fruits! What do you want with a country of your own? You are made for something better! To be priests, teachers of ethics, missionaries of God――that is a higher ambition! Your contribution to mankind is social justice and the brotherhood of men. Why be a nation and for what purpose? You will be great in the memory of peoples. You have earned a golden throne in history’s temple of fame. You _have been_, to-day you are no more!”

The Zionists replied: “We want to live. We know better than you do what we are able to do, and how we ought to influence mankind; but we do not wish to abdicate, we do not wish to be destroyed like a broken vessel, whose contents have run out and have drained into the soil without leaving a trace. We do not want to be lost like a falling star, which for a time had shone brightly in space, only to sink into nothingness. Our star is not yet dead. Our ambitions are not very high, but they are based on reality. We do not want to be an exception, and we want to be excused from such a ‘priesthood.’ We want to create a sound settlement, a strong centre where we can develop our own nature and our character to the highest and purest perfection. Should the world wish to learn from us and accept our influence, we shall place no obstacles; on the contrary, we shall be glad of it. But to drag ourselves from place to place, to be the scapegoat of every ‘_Azazel_,’ and the sacrificial lamb for every calamity, to mix everywhere with others, to lose more and more that which is our own personality, and to imagine that we are a sort of schoolmaster for everyone――for such imposture we are too honest, for such megalomania we are of too normal a mentality, and, morally, too modest. We do not want to be driven _ad majorem Dei gloriam_ (for God’s greater glory) or to be intermingled with others. We do not want to be like the goose that was offered the choice of being either roasted, stewed, or boiled. Neither do we wish to have lavished upon us the pity given to old people, because it is certain that they will not for long continue to disturb the peace of the living. We are old, it is true, but on that account we are experienced. From Pharaoh and Balaam to the foreign Antiochus [Epiphanes] (_ob._ 164 _b.c.e._) and our own Jason,¹ from the Hellenists to the modern Assimilationists, we have been constantly invited, as the spider invited the fly into her parlour, just to get it entangled in her web and afterwards to suck it dry. No! a thousand times no! And if you say the Land of _Israel_ is of no value to any one, then you are not speaking in our name! Speak for yourselves alone! For you the Land of _Israel_ means perchance only a cemetery, a legend, an amulet, an archæological relic; for us its every pebble and grain of sand is beloved, not only in a spirit of worship and of inactive enthusiasm, but also as a necessity to our life labour. And if you believe that the Jewish people are of a similar species to the Mammoth and the Megatherium, which have been devoted to extinction, then please speak only for yourselves! Perhaps the sense of Jewish nationality in you has gone to sleep or has even died entirely. That is your own affair, a personal question which you have to fight out with your own selves. In us it is alive, suffering, fighting, clamouring! Zionism is the movement of the Jewish people to reconstitute itself and to collect again its scattered members, to provide Judaism, the Jewish spirit, the Jewish soul, with a home once again after two thousand years of exile and of wandering. Zionism is the struggle of the Jewish people to preserve its existence. Zionism feels that the _raison d’être_ of Judaism is not ended, that the Jewish race can still contribute its share towards the raising of humanity, but to enable it to do so more efficiently, in an organized form, and in accordance with its own natural affinities and historic traditions, a Jewish _milieu_ is necessary. To create such a Jewish _milieu_ is the purpose of the Zionist movement. Such a Jewish _milieu_ can take root in one land and one land only, for there is one land only that has a real glorious Jewish history and Jewish past. That land is the Land of _Israel_!”

¹ יהושע or Jesus, High Priest from 174‒171 _b.c.e._, brother of
the High Priest. חוניא = נחוניא, Onias iii.

Both parties had exhausted the discussion――and, as is usual in such cases, did not succeed in convincing each other. Then they each went their own way.

The Zionists began to build straightway. No other colonial settlement in the world is of nobler birth than ours in Palestine. Tradition relates that young Rome was fed by a she-wolf. Some day it will be told in legends that our new settlement on old foundations was fed by a turtle-dove, by love, faithfulness, kindliness, and brotherliness. Not wild animals, but angels, stood round its cradle. Muses and Graces illuminated and crowned the morning star of its noble childhood. Jewish thinkers like Leo Pinsker, Perez Smolenskin, David Gordon; enthusiastic leaders and many others――a kind of Jewish Puritan pioneers, the “_Bilu_”――had started to build up the settlement even before our first and greatest, our immortal founder and leader of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, had drawn up our programme, created our organization, founded our institutions, and had given us the impetus, method and form of the Zionist movement.

The success of a wonderful, personal, magnetic power, the method of large-scale propaganda, the labour through relations with Governments had for a certain time given Zionism a political bias. More considered and everyday experience, on the contrary, pointed to a slow method of practical labour. Different parties amongst the Zionists opposed one another, and we need not be ashamed of that. Jews are inclined to freedom in all their spiritual tendencies, they do not easily submit to formulæ, they criticize, analyse, and search for the truth. Finally, the whole struggle was reduced to a question of tactics. Whether one attempts to reach the goal by means of the plough, plantations, schools, literature, or propaganda, it is a question of time and circumstances. And the essential truth was, that all means must be employed.

What was the result? The net balance was not great; forty settlements, some farms, co-operative societies, _Tel Aviv_, the new _Achuzoth_, the _Carmel_, the _Pardes_, the _Aggudath N’taim_, modern machines; new methods of work introduced not only among Jews, but also among Arabs; malaria centres disinfected; the best conditions for planting studied in experimental institutions; our banks, the _Bezalel_, public health centres, the music school, two well-filled secondary schools, the girls’ school in _Jaffa_, the _Tach’kmoni_ school in the same place, the _Petach-Tikwah_ school of agriculture, the settlement schools, the committee organization of the settlements, the workers’ associations, the teachers’ union, the _Hebrew_ newspapers and literature, the “Houses of the People”――these represent what _Chovevé Zion_, Baron Edmond _de_ Rothschild and the Zionists have created, and what we call the new colonization of Palestine. The earlier rivalries have vanished. The _Chovevé Zion_ and the Zionists are at one as to the policy of Zionism. The Zionist Palestine office in _Jaffa_ is the head-quarters of the work of colonisation. The struggle for _Hebrew_ has shown how Palestine is becoming more and more an intellectual centre. The visit of Baron Edmond _de_ Rothschild to Palestine in 1913 had set the seal upon this unanimity. Even the blind could perceive that a true Jewish Home was in process of establishment. No further arguments were needed. The Jewish population in the land, although a minority, is the only one that is growing and has grown during the past generation. It is the only progressive population in the land, the others are stationary in regard to numbers. Let any one go to Palestine, not on one of Cook’s lightning tours, but as a Jew to the land of _Israel_; let him remain in the settlements but a few weeks――that will be a certain cure for anti-Zionism. If it should happen that any one could not be cured even in this way, then he must unfortunately be regarded as incurable. We, however, know of a great many that have been cured.

Thus the organization grew. It is sufficient to compare the beautiful first Basle Congress of 1897 with the enormous Vienna Congress of 1913; it is sufficient to compare the phantom Jewish National Fund of 1899 with the existing Jewish National Fund, which can show an annual income of over two million francs; it is sufficient to compare the two or three Zionist pamphlets of eighteen years ago with the Zionist press and literature in existence to-day.

Thus Zionism has grown to what it is to-day for the Jewish people: a spring of life, a signpost, the foundation of a mighty edifice.

In a few words the author can give the essence of the personal impressions which he received during the course of his three months’ stay in Palestine, in 1913, before the war: a model factory of modern Jewish national life; a nursery for rearing the fruitful parent-stems for the blossoming tree of a living Hebraism; a laboratory for sociological experiments in self-help and self-government in Jewish economic life; a compendium of elements and corner-stones for the erection of the Home; a systematic, laborious, slow preparation of the preliminary conditions for a great, healthy, original Jewish province; the genesis of a new world, naturally with many defects, with many premature and unripe attempts, but that was just most beautiful and most natural in people who search and strive and venture. And all this was enlightened by a clear understanding, and glowed with a youthful national enthusiasm. That is what Jewish colonization in Palestine is.

Do not try and count it over! The wisdom of the multiplication table is too dull to be able to estimate it. Do not try and weigh it! On the great scales of history a single unit sometimes weighs down a hundred thousand! Enjoy it, as one enjoys art, or as the free soul becomes intoxicated with and rejoices in freedom. As musical natures become enraptured with music, so national natures become enraptured with national life.

And if you will have net results, then do not forget one thing, namely, that all this has been done, not by the entire Jewish people, but by a small handful of Jews. When this small handful has become the entire people, then this edifice will grow even grander. Palestine is a land that stretches forth its hands to the future. For two thousand years it has been ravaged by war and by misgovernment, until a country that was once famous throughout the world for its fertility, has become a desert land, degenerate from lack of cultivation. According to the statistics of the Ottoman Board of Trade less than 9 per cent of the area of European Turkey has been brought under cultivation, and still less of Turkey in Asia. There are in Palestine twenty-seven inhabitants to the square kilometre, and in the valley of the _Jordan_ four; while in the irrigated districts of neighbouring Egypt ten thousand are concentrated within the same area. Why should not Palestine be resettled like Egypt? Why should it not be made a happy home for an unfortunate people?

Now the Zionists, after twenty years of work, plead their case again. They have not succeeded in putting an end to the “_Galuth_.” Their opponents maintain that they had overestimated their strength. Perhaps so, but this does not prove that their labours have been to no purpose. They have laid a few foundation stones, they have shown the way.

They defend their cause in the midst of a hell-fire. Our ancient people that has lived so long, has now experienced the greatest of wars, such as has never been in the world before. We live to-day in the most critical period of the world’s history. It has been our lot to share in the greatest drama which humanity has as yet lived through, not only as spectators, but also as actors. The history of this world war is written in letters of blood on the ancient and holy parchment, on the brow of the Jew. No seismograph has indicated beforehand the coming of this earthquake, of this outburst of the volcano of the nations. But _one thing_ the Zionists have foreseen: the force of national consciousness; the flood of hate, our pitiful situation, which cause every storm to tear away the ground from under our feet.

Herzl had written his first pamphlet under the influence of the Dreyfus affair. That cry of twenty years ago thunders now in unison with the cries of mothers, wives, orphans, from underneath the pyres and ruins which in their brutal reality leave the worst imaginings of a _Jeremiah_ far behind. The dead arise from their graves, covered with blood, trampled in the dust, with the fiery name of God, the “_Shaddai_,” on their pale foreheads, and they demand to be heard. They lament, and say:

“Vainly we strove to secure a little life――we could not grasp it. Withered with sufferings, with pain and injury, shivering and frozen with cold, we used to hug the earth closely, but it would not give us warmth. We were teachers of the most ancient peoples, but death and insult were the recompense paid us by our pupils. We shone like the stars, but we were treated like silkworms, which have to die, so soon as they have spun the fine web of their threads, so soon as they have drawn forth and sacrificed their life-blood――they have fulfilled their duty, and farewell!

“On our shoulders we bore the burdens of our masters’ interests, just as the sea bears the little fishing-boats on its waves. We were more faithful in guarding their property than dogs are. For the labour which we performed, for our hard and humble services, for the sacrifice of all our strength on their altars, for the resigned and patient suffering of all the tortures of exile, we did not receive even the reward of protection extended to the beast of burden, to the cow, or to the sheep for its wool. Deprived of all human rights, even stripped of the scantiest rags of toleration, we wandered and fell under the iron yoke of serfdom, like a weary and impotent herd of cattle driven over rocks and brambles. They felled us as a forest is felled, and we went down without the slightest possibility of suitable self-protection, with the dull thud of an old oak prostrated by a storm, yet with the pain of bereaved, insulted and humbled human beings. We are the victims not of the war, but of the ‘_Galuth_.’ Let no one talk to us about Belgium, Serbia. Theirs is the well-known scourge of mankind taking the shape of tyranny, militarism, war. Had we suffered only from these things, then we should have suffered but in common with others. Our misery, however, is of a peculiar kind. It is a double misery: we suffer with the rest, and in addition we suffer specially as a people without a country. Belgium and Serbia and Montenegro are nations with countries of their own; they cannot be annihilated, they must be restored. We envy Belgium in her misfortune, and sorely assailed Serbia; we behold the strength and health of the Polish peasant. Truly, he has been ruined for the time being, but he has his country, and though he has been driven away ten times by the fury of war he will return, and once again plant himself on his native soil, where his golden corn will grow again. Not only could he not be uprooted, but he will regain more than he had lost: a new, free, independent Poland!