' " tr y i JESSIE E, SAMPT1 * t "> * THEODOR HERZL From an etching by Hermann Struck Reprinted by courtesy of the Menorah Journal A Guide to Zionism Edited by JESSIE E. SAMPTER ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA 55 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK CITY Copyright 1920 Zionist Organization of America New York City Table of Contents Publisher's Note vii. Preface 1 Chapter Page I. Introductory Survey 4 II. The Jewish Situation 14 III. The Jewish Ideal of Nationalism 19 IV. The National Ideal in Jewish History 23 V. Emancipation, Haskalah, Reform 30 VI. Anti-Semitism and Jewish Nationalism 35 VII. Forerunners of Zionism 40 VIII. Hoveve Zion 47 IX. Theodor Herzl 50 X. The International Zionist Organization 57 XI. The Jewish National Fund and the Jewish Colonial Trust 64 XII. Zionism in America Before the World War 71 XIII. The War and Zionist Political Action 79 XIV. The War and Zionist Political Action (Continued) ... 90 XV. Factions and Tendencies in Zionism. . s/. 101 XVI. The Hebrew Revival in the Dispersion 108 XVII. Ahad Ha-am .y 116 XVIII. Zionism and Judaism. VT. 121 XIX. The Jewish Law and the Jewish Land 126 XX. Social Justice in the Jewish State 132 XXI. The Geography of Palestine 139 XXII. The Geography of Palestine (Economic Aspects) 148 XXIII. The Jews in Palestine Throughout History 152 XXIV. Early Modern Jewish Immigration and Colonization. 159 XXV. The Development of the Jewish Villages 165 XXVI. The Relation of Palestinian Jews with other Peoples. 172 XXVII. Life in the Cities of Palestine 177 XXVIII. The Problems of Sanitation in Palestine 186 XXIX. The Resources of Palestine 191 XXX. Commerce (including Transportation and Finance) . . 197 XXXI. Jewish Education in Palestine 202 XXXII. The Hebrew Revival in Palestine 212 XXXIII. The Effect of the War upon the Jewish Settlement in Palestine 217 Appendices 226 Index 254 a o *-> q n n tt & & /<* o U List of Illustrations THEODOR HERZL . Frontispiece PANORAMA OF JERUSALEM 6 THEODOR HERZL 55 THE ANGLO-PALESTINE BANK 70 CHAIM WEIZMANN 87 GENERAL ALLENBY'S ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM 102 MAP OF PALESTINE 151 BARON EDMOND de ROTHSCHILD 166 THE CITY OF HAIFA 183 THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY 198 PUBLISHER'S NOTE "A Guide to Zionism" appears at the instant when it has been announced that the Supreme Council at San Remo has decided that Great Britain is to be the mandatory power for Palestine to develop it as the Jewish homeland. At any mo- ment, the Treaty of Peace with Turkey may be signed, to signalize for the scattered millions of Jews the end of exile, the beginning of a new era of constructive effort. For a while, our feelings will be too intense for easy expression and the necessary perspective lacking for a complete account of the epochal happenings of the past year. It has therefore been deemed inadvisable to make a complete revision of the text, although Miss Sampter's departure for Palestine has delayed the publication of the volume, and she would now perhaps desire to make certain changes. In its essentials, the editor's work is still the most recent and the most complete essay on Zionism ever published in America, and as such, will do valu- able service. A large number of devoted Zionists have helped see the volume through the press, and a hearty but entirely inadequate expression of appreciation is here made to every one of them. PREFACE It is almost four years since the publication of A Course in Zionism, the first attempt at a Zionist textbook, and that book is now out of date as well as out of print. With all its imperfections, its purpose has been achieved. In its Introduction, we read that "the book necessarily suffers from many defects that should be corrected in a later edition." That is its achievement. It has deserved a second edition. The present book with its new title and its new form is never- theless a successor to the Course. Experience has proved what were the defects to be remedied, and the changes wrought by three years of tumultuous history have also changed our needs. If the book in its transformation has grown to more than twice its former size, so, too, have the problems, the facts and the Zionist movement itself. No doubt this book with its greater size suffers from even more imper- fections than did its predecessor. Our hope, then, must lie in a third edition. We are still in the midst of upheaval, the book goes to press while the Peace Conference in Paris is deciding the course of action on which depends the life of nations great and small. Every word now spoken is provisional. The purposes of the book are manifold. In contrast to the Course, it is written in chapter form and in a readable style to encourage indi- vidual perusal. However, the arrangement is such as to serve es- pecially the needs of groups of students. The thirty-three short chap- ters could be read aloud at as many weekly sessions of a study circle, during one season. For those meeting less frequently, the book can easily be divided into two or three seasons of study, since the first ten chapters deal with Zionist theory, history and organization, the next ten deal with more specialized phases of the movement, and the last thirteen deal with Palestine. In more intensive classes, such as those organized for our future leaders, the book may be used as a text- book to be read between meetings and supplemented by lectures in class. Each chapter is followed by a short bibliography, whose brevity should add to its usefulness, and there are suggested topics for papers on related subjects that might be prepared for and read at the same meeting. Not the least important part of the book is its appendices. The review questions, one for each chapter, may be used ; ..Q U.I DE TO ZIONISM either as leading questions at each successive meeting, or as test ques- tions at the end of the whole course or of any section thereof. The suggestions for reading circles are to meet needs which could not be supplied in the body of the book. The success of a reading circle de- pends not only on the matter chosen, but on its arrangement and on the careful limiting of its length. Time should always be allowed for dis- cussion. The bibliography was chosen with regard to the needs of students. Hence its subdivisions. So too with the tables. And it is hoped that the index may make the book of use for general reference. The effort has been to concentrate in a small space, and in a not uninter- esting form, a large number of facts. Except in a limited bibliography, the book does not deal with Jewish history save by implication and reference, any more than it deals with Jewish literature, the Hebrew language, Bible study or any other of the vast fields of Jewish lore. Each of these ought to be introduced to Zionists by another publication of at least the same size. It is hoped that such may follow especially with regard to Jewish history, for which there is no good short text-book in English since the Department of Education, created by the Zionist Organiza- tion of America in June, 1918, has undertaken this task. This is only its first publication of considerable size and scope. Acknowledgment is due from the editor to many capable and faithful assistants. A number of the chapters were written by persons whose names appear in their proper places. This gives us not only the benefit of expert knowledge, but also diversity of viewpoint. Mr. M. Sheinkin of Palestine, who wrote the last chapter, saw many of the events he describes, and was himself one of the Zionists exiled by the Turks. A few of the chapters are only a revision of material in the old Course, notably that on Zionist Organization and, in large part, that on Jewish Education in Palestine, which was originally prepared by Dr. David de Sola Pool. Some of the chapters, especially those on Palestinian colonization, were in large measure compiled from the best existing articles, and direct acknowledgment could not always be made. For example, certain passages from Recent Jezvish Progress in Palestine, by Henrietta Szold, from the Palestine Report prepared for the American Jewish Congress, and from the essay on Jewish Edu- cation in Palestine, by Moshe Mnuchin, are used almost verbatim. The Department of Education, in the persons of its Secretary, Henri- etta Szold, and its Educational Director, Emanuel Neumann, as well as of Emily Solis-Cohen, and Dr. Eugene Kohn, "have given assistance both with suggestion and revision. Dr. David S. Blondheim, Lotta 2 PREFACE Levensohn, Emanuel Neumann, and Nellie Straus (Director of the Palestine Survey) gave many hours of careful revision to the manu- script. Others who were helpful in the preparation of individual chapters are Abraham Goldberg, Dr. Richard Gottheil, Jacob deHaas, Executive Secretary of the Zionist Organization of America, Louis Lipsky, its Secretary for Organization, Dr. Ben Zion Mossinsohn, Director of the Hebrew Gymnasium in Jaffa, Palestine, and Israel Wolf. The book is forward-looking. We are poised for action, and the printed word is too static for our purpose. Everything written of Palestine today may even today no longer be wholly true. Rapidly as spring changes the aspect of the world, so swiftly are events likely to color with more vivid hues the soft and still too often barren beauty of Palestine. It seems artificial to speak of Jewish "colonies". Our Jewish settlers themselves object to the word with its false connota- tions of conquest and impermanence. It is the forward straining of vision that has prompted the use of the more apt and normal term of "Jewish villages." The best arguments are facts. This book contains few other arguments, since its purpose is not to defend the truth, but to tell it. Many delusions still give support to the defeated forces of Jewish anti- Zionism, among them the fear-psychology which can even drive our haunted assimilationists to accuse Zionists of lack of whole-hearted Americanism. They fear an unjust accusation which has been brought against Jews often enough throughout history they fear the accusa- tion, not the crime but here and now the only danger of it springs from their expression of fear. Present-day history must startle them out of that nightmare. A full statement of facts should cure that, as well as other hazy misconceptions, with their unhealthy and possibly harmful effects. The nobility of our ideal is its guarantee of American soundness. Facts, facts, and more facts alone will prepare us for our pioneering here or in Palestine. JESSIE E. SAMPTER. NEW YORK A GUIDE FOR THE STUDENT OF ZIONISM CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY SURVEY^ The Jews are a people with a continuous and recorded history of more than three thousand years. This people numbers today nearly fourteen million souls. The greater part of this dispersed people is living in national concentration within a number of countries, in distinct and self-contained communities that are kept separate by the inner pressure of a peculiar way of life or a peculiar emotional char- acter, both preserved to a greater or less extent by religious sanction, and frequently by the outer pressure of prejudice or special legislation. The millions of Jews in the world are descendants of the nation in Palestine that was conquered and that was dispersed two thousand years ago. They are as distinct a national element as the Belgian or Polish people, since they have preserved their national individuality. No one can point to a moment of time at which the Jewish people lost their national character. Besides a purity of race as great as that of any nation living on its own soil, the Jewish people has also preserved at least four of the chief factors of national life; namely, laws, customs, history, and language. A fifth national factor, religion, has been the means of pre- serving the other four. Religion has therefore been the chief national asset of the Jew. The Jews Recognized Everywhere as Distinct People Certain portions of the Jewish people have lost national will and energy, and it is this fact that has led to the use of the word "race" instead of "nation" or "people" to designate the Jews. It is a degrading term, for it implies that the Jews have kept the body but lost the soul of nationalism. The modern anti-Semitism of Western Europe is a direct outcome of this weakening of national will, for anti-Semitism is not national or religious hatred, but race hatred. It arises as a protest against Jewish efforts to assimilate. The older Jew-hatred and persecutions were directed against the Jew's efforts to retain his individuality. Whether the Jews attempt to preserve their national individuality or to destroy it, they meet the opposition accorded to aliens. The INTRODUCTORY SURVEY name "Jews" is the designation of a certain people conquered and driven from their homeland. The name of their national religion, Judaism, is derived from their national designation. An unreligious Jew is still a Jew, and he can with difficulty escape his allegiance only by repudiating the name of Jew. In some countries the Jews are despised as a subject people without civic rights. But even in many of the countries where they are emancipated and legally accepted as citizens, they are still looked upon as aliens with special privileges. They are always a special economic problem, envied when too suc- cessful, because they are not actually the people of the land. Any unusual situation reveals their detachment, such as war, for instance, which causes them to be specially praised for a loyalty that is taken for granted within a nation. Though in certain places and ages the Jews may be highly valued as individuals and in small communities, a very large immigration always meets with a partly justifiable resistance. Each nation has a right to its land and its individuality. And too large an immigration may be considered almost an invasion. The Jew is like the beggar "on the town" who has no house. When he is driven from one house, he must perforce seek another. He does not come because he desires it, but because he cannot help himself. His visit is no honor and his welcome must always be precarious. Neither the high standing of the Jew nor his approach to assimi- lation, nor yet the enlightenment of the country in which he seeks refuge, nor even liberal laws and emancipation are any adequate defence. One cannot legislate away prejudice and hatred. The Drey- fus case occurred in enlightened France. In the United States, where the unformed national character and the foreign background of the majority of the people, make the position of the Jew peculiarly favor- able at present, we have the agitation against the Negro in the South and the Asiatic in the West to remind us that we cannot depend on American enlightenment as an unfailing safeguard against race- prejudice. The "haven of refuge" idea must be abandoned. No nation ought to concentrate wholly within another nation. National justice demands that each nation should have its own land. The Three Possible Ways Out The conclusion is obvious. The Jews must either reconcile them- selves to a present and future of calamity and disaster, or they must assimilate and disappear as a separate people, or they must once again become a nation with a land of their own. GUIDE TO ZIONISM The first is inhuman. Even those Jews who believe that all nationalism in itself is evil, the cosmopolitans, must grant that were such a loss of national individuality possible or desirable, it could not come to pass for many generations. No thinking and feeling Jew can say, "Until that consummation, let the Jewish tragedy continue." Furthermore, why should the Jew accept and profess every nationality but his own? The second is impossible. The whole Jewish population cannot be absorbed. It assimilates by absorption of its outer fringes, like all other peoples, but it cannot and it will not disappear in bulk. It reproduces itself more rapidly than it loses in numbers by assimilation, as figures could easily show. Such a process, too, being slow moral suicide, would be degrading beyond words. In the process the Jews would indeed become merely a race, a people different but not distinctive, an anti-climax, a caricature of their former selves, and a blot on their own heroic history. But the Jews are saved from such a fate by their strong will to live and their sense of personal dignity. By a negative process, a process of elimination, we have reached the conclusion that the only hope for the Jew lies in a land of his own. But Zionism is not merely a balm for wounds or even merely a cure. It is an enhancement of life, a promise of achievement. To the world, the Jewish race is a race worth preserving, and the Jewish national ideal is a noble and valuable ideal. The strength and quality of the Jewish race are proved by three facts : its endurance and increase through centuries of oppression and persecution ; its large number of individuals of high achievement in all departments of life in spite of numberless obstacles and handicaps; and lastly, the high standard of social morality in its communities. No signs of permanent physical race deterioration have appeared. The Ideals of Jewish Nationalism It is hard to evaluate the national ideal of a people without a land and without a state. The prophetic or missionary character of the Jewish people, implied by the word "chosen," recognized in all ages, has been variously interpreted. To the Christians, this quality culminated in Jesus, their Christ, who, according to them, gave to the Christian world the divine inheritance cut off from a sinful Israel. To a certain minority among the Jews the word "chosen" means a literal and individual superiority of the Jews, whose mission it is, scattered among the nations, to enhance the morality of their Gentile neighbors. Such a view is not only rightfully resented by their quite normal and INTRODUCTORY SURVEY quite moral Gentile neighbors, but it is disgusting to the modest and sensible Jew himself. The Jews claim no individual superiority. Nor do the exhortations of Moses and the later Prophets point to the fact that as a mass of individuals they could ever all claim such surpassing virtue. It is true that Jesus transmitted to the Gentile world the Jewish code of personal morals. This has now been thoroughly assimilated by the Christian world. Nor have the Jews anything to gain or give by a claim to priority and a dowager's testy demand for gratitude. To the traditional Jew the meaning of "chosen" is quite different. It was the nation that was chosen for a national task; not the indi- vidual Jew. To justify this choice, the nation must suffer and labor and be severely punished and be lashed into obedience. God manifests his justice through human history, the history of nations. National, international morality is the peculiar and still untried and unfulfilled ideal of Jewish teaching. "All the nations shall walk in the way of the Lord." The Jewish people is a chosen people not a chosen mass of individuals. Palestine is a Holy Land : that means the land where the Jewish people is to work out its destiny. Imperialism is precluded. One land for one people. If the Jewish people, chosen for this task of national regeneration, proves itself unworthy, it is to forfeit the land. Unless you are a righteous people, says the Lord, you cannot keep the land I lend to you on this condition. How different from the principle that necessity knows no law, and that the welfare of the nation is the supreme and only moral criterion of individual action! The Jews today believe and repeat in their prayers that they were banished from their land because they were unworthy. They also believe and repeat that their exile is a punishment and a discipline, and that they are at last to return to Jerusalem with singing, and to Zion with everlasting joy. Then will all the nations accept the yoke of the Lord, and walk in His ways. Such is the poetry, the romance of Jewish ideals. Practically, it expresses itself in laws of social righteousness and in the ideal of law itself. The Jewish people have from the first stood for the ideal of democracy, both international and intra-national. Democracy is a religious ideal, based on the fatherhood of God and upon faith in the equality of man an equality of what may be called primal soul- dignity the relation of each to God and therefore to ultimate justice. For in what other way are men equal? The acceptance of the ideal of democracy is a matter of faith, for it cannot be based on expediency, since undemocratic states are often more efficient than democratic G U I D TO ZIONISM ones. And so far democracy has never been fully tried. In Jewish life it expresses itself in the ideal of impersonal law, which precludes the necessity for an arbitrary human ruler. One of these laws demands general education "And thou shalt teach them diligently to thy chil- dren" others, also essential to democracy, dictate the conditions of land ownership or lease ; restrict by protective laws the ancient and formerly accepted institution of slavery; safeguard the equal rights of all before the law; make equal provision for the support of all members of the community. But it is not so much the individual laws that express this demo- cratic spirit, as the two facts that the law was given to the whole people, and that at all times, while there was a commonwealth of social unity, the law could be interpreted and developed to meet the changing needs of the people. As a theory of individual morality, democracy was passed on to Christianity, which is a personal religion. As a theory of national and international morality it is still untried ; it is the ideal to be worked out by the Jewish people in the Jewish nation. Scattered individuals cannot fulfill a national ideal. And it is an ideal so noble that its advocates ought at least to be given a chance to fulfill it. Democratic Ideal of Zionism That this ideal will be attained may be inferred from the facts of Jewish history and the persistence of the Jewish people. The move- ment is based on the Prophetic and democratic character of Jewish thought. In the Zionist movement democracy is complete. Equal suffrage and equal representation for man and woman, poor and rich, are basic principles in the Organization. And the continual self- criticism and ferment that as in Prophetic days still express them- selves in opposition parties seem to insure at least the preservation and possibly the complete fulfillment of the Prophetic ideals in a regenerated Land of Israel. Palestine in Jewish Thought By the mass of the Jews these Biblical ideals have never been intellectualized. They are transmuted into habit and emotion, the character of the people, the habits of democratic organization and lawfulness, and the religious love of Palestine. This passion for the Holy Land, an inarticulate, unreasoning passion, has expressed itself so far in pilgrimages and in individualistic migrations. Many causes have combined until recently to prevent a national movement. In INTRODUCTORY SURVEY such a movement the love of the Jewish people for Palestine, and the place of Palestine in their religion and history, make it the only spot on earth that could draw to itself the masses of the Jewish people. Zionism Expressive of Jewish People The Zionist movement, which was officially and politically organ- ized in 1897, might be called the articulate and self-conscious agent of the Jewish people. This gives it its representative character, although its organized membership may form a minority among the Jews. The Zionist Congress, with its many delegates from every civilized coun- try, has been the Jewish Congress. For inertia cannot be represented, and constitutes no opposition by its failure to be represented. Could the Zionist sympathizers be counted, they would surely be found to constitute the bulk of the Jewish people. Hundreds of years of oppression have left the stamp of timidity upon the national will. But the will is there. The Zionist movement is a folk movement, a repre- sentative movement, as is proved by the fact of its rapid growth among all classes and in all lands, and by the other fact that most of the money which actually supported the practical work in Palestine until recently came from Jews who were not directly affiliated with the Zionist movement. The Zionists are the agents of the Jewish people in the regeneration of Palestine. The Zionists and their Jewish co-workers have proved themselves fit to be the agents of the Jewish people. Against enormous odds, "without the help of anything on earth" except their own resolution and courage, with opposition from some governments and with concrete help or encouragement from almost none, at the cost of many lives, and the consecration of many more lives at any cost, they have built in Palestine the normal, whole- some and flourishing life of Jewish agricultural villages, where the Hebrew language and Jewish institutions blossom with the soil. They have trebled Palestinian trade in less than twenty years; they have reclaimed death-dealing swamps and arid deserts for the purposes of agriculture. They were returning to its normal uses and fertility a land devastated by war and neglect, but whose topography and cli- mate are comparable only with those of California. All this had come to pass unnoticed by the busy world until the crisis of war, when the special tragedy created in an always tragic land drew the attention of practical philanthropists to a social organization that went far to meet the need for philanthropy. The Zionist Bank met the money crisis in Palestine and eased the situation for Jew and Gentile alike. It issued paper notes that for a while were the only accepted media of exchange. GUIDE TO ZIONISM The well-organized villagers had their grain supply ready to avert or at least postpone famine. With all things against them, including the government officials, they managed to be the saving element in an otherwise hopeless situation. And where they failed, the organized Zionists of the rest of the world stepped in. Value of Zionism to Jews Zionism, both in its practical Palestinian work and in the organ- izing of the Jewish people everywhere, is of immeasurable value to the Jewish people itself, even before the attainment of its avowed aim. From the Jewish point of view this cannot be doubted. A Jew who appreciates the organizing and educational power of Zionism in all lands, who values the noble ideals of devotion and discipline that it demands everywhere of Jewish men and women, one who understands and rejoices that the revival of Jewish education in the last years is due to the development of Hebrew language and thought in Palestine such a one must, to be consistent, support the Zionist Organization. International Value of a Jewish Center These are the facts : Such is the people, and such is the ideal of the self-conscious, articulate, organized part of that people. What is the attitude of the world of nations towards this dispossessed orphan of a princely race? Every nation has its fraction of this broken nation. Every land has its Jewish problem, whatever varying forms it may take. Zionism will not appreciably lessen the number of Jews in any land, but it will diminish the flux, the congestion, the disorganiza- tion caused by the international mal-adjustment of a people without a polity. It would probably solve the problem of Jewish mass migra- tions from one country to another, because if Jews were to be con- strained by social or economic causes to leave one land, they would naturally turn to their own land rather than to another strange coun- try. And the loyalty of those Jews who remain in all lands as citizens will be assured, because they will no longer be there from necessity, but from choice. The Great War and the Jewish Restoration All these ideas were matters of mere Jewish speculation until very recent times one may say until November 2, 1917. Zionism, until then, was a struggling, an unfashionable, a minority movement. Although the fruit of our redemption did not fall suddenly into our laps, but was a long time ripening, and although the Zionists them- selves, and especially the leaders of the Zionists whose labors and 10 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY devotion helped bring the fulfillment, saw long in advance what the happy end must be, yet to the bulk of the Jews the British Declaration in favor of Zionism came as a surprise and in some cases as a shock. The Zionists, who had claimed to represent the Jewish people, were now recognized as its representatives to whom the nations addressed themselves. Upon the British Declaration there followed in rapid succession within less than a year the providential steps in the Jewish regeneration : the entry of British troops into Jerusalem on the first day of Hanukkah; the sending of a Zionist Commission to Palestine to co-operate with the British military government; the declarations in favor of Zionism by international socialist and labor conferences and by one after another of the Allied Governments, notably by France, whose interest in Palestine is great, and by our own government, which, although not at war with Turkey, expressed its approval through a letter written by President Woodrow Wilson to the former Chairman of the Provisional Zionist Committee; and, following quickly thereon, the complete conquest and the rout of the Turks by General Allenby during the week of the following Sukkot festival. The closeness of life and death, of horror and rejoicing, in the crises of war, was exemplified also in Palestine. The new Jewish life there was on the verge of destruction, had already its thousands of victims of persecution and hunger, when the final deliverance came. Meanwhile from the Jewish spirit there sprang forth also the force and dignity to meet the new situation. In spite of the stupid Jewish opposition which had blindly striven to block the path of light and justice, and which in some measure still persisted and persists in increasingly stupid forms, the general unanimity of the Jewish people in acclaiming the British and subsequent declarations was truly remarkable. Rarely has any national movement advanced in such serried ranks. So closely was the Jewish ideal of nationality bound up with the Allied ideal of the rights of small nations, that whereas some anti-Zionists had mistakenly questioned whether one could be both a Zionist and a good American, that question, with its implied insult both to America and to the Jews, now threatened to become a boomerang. Another element which was instrumental in solidifying the Jews was the presence in all the Allied Governments, among the national leaders and workers, of Zionists who were also Zionist leaders. Especially marked was this in the Government of the United States. High in the Government service were such men as Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Judge Julian W. Mack, Dr. Felix Frankfurter. From all sides came the Jewish response, in money, in service, 11 GUIDE TO ZIONISM and in grappling with problems. This was not strange when we remember that Zionist statesmanship had been continually active to bring about the result. A legion of Jewish soldiers from all the Allied countries was organized, through Jewish initiative, to serve in the British army in Palestine. Immediately the problem 1 of Jewish rela- tions to the Arab and Armenian nations was considered with a view to justice and peaceful co-operation. Medical and engineering help was dispatched to the war-harassed land, and, last but not least, the Zionist Commission, in the person of its leader, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, laid the foundation stone of the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, near the Mount of Olives. Zionism and the Nations This act, appropriate to a spiritual, a developed people, expressing itself first of all in a deed of the spirit, has greatly impressed all the nations that have fostered the Jewish restoration. For they now understand, after two thousand years of misunderstanding, the mean- ing and the value of Jewish nationality. They have not only done belated justice, but they are planting security for themselves. For the new Zion is to be a pledge of peace to the world. "Peace, peace to those that are far and to those that are near." The Jews have a distinct national task at the gateway between three continents, Asia, Africa, Europe. They may come to be the guarantee of the world's peace, and the nations will expect of them no less than what our Prophets foretold. The nations have understood also the claim of justice, that the Jewish people is a nation whose vital interests were at stake in the war, whose chief centers of settlement have suffered horrible disruption, millions of whose members have, through no fault of their own, been harassed and decimated from within and without, and, above all, a nation whose loyal service in all the armies, whose sacrifice and devotion in every land, have entitled them to justice from the nations they have served. At last the nations understand. The Jewish Obligation to Learn and Understand Now, shall the Jews do less? Shall the Zionists do less? It is a fact that many Gentiles have more quickly grasped the full import of Zionism, its political as well as its spiritual implications, than have some of the Jews themselves. Through their long dispersion some Jews seem to have lost the capacity for political thinking. But the day for action has come. The Gentiles now understand us, and it is our first duty to understand ourselves, in order that we may be fit to 12 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY serve. A lifetime is not enough in which to gather the vast store of Jewish knowledge. But a few hours of intensive study may give us enough knowledge to understand ourselves at least as well as our neighbors know us, and to fit us for the task, which, though it may in fact keep us through toil and sacrifice even from the fruits of study, will make possible a full, free, rich Jewish life for those Jews that will inherit the promised land of our fathers. For our task is not yet ended. In truth, it has only begun. References: What Is Zionism? by Weizmann and Gottheil. Zionism, its Theory, Origins, and Achievements, by Israel Goldberg. 13 CHAPTER II THE JEWISH SITUATION To understand the solution of the Jewish problem, one must first of all understand the Jewish problem. Many persons are out of sympathy with the purposes of Zionism because they do not know the conditions which make it inevitable. In some communities in America, where there are half a dozen Jewish families, assimilated to the general population and Jewish only in name, it is practically impossible to conceive of the existence of the Jewish people except through definite historic and political knowledge. The Jewish Population in Various Lands In the world today there are nearly fourteen millions of Jews. About half of these are living in Eastern Europe, that is, Russia, Poland, Rumania, and in those new-born nations, formerly the border provinces of Russia and Austria, where the fires of war have raged the hottest. Jewish statistics, which were never accurate, are still less so since the smashing and devastating blows of war have struck into the heart of the world's most densely populated Jewish centers. In the British Isles there are, approximately, 263,600 Jews, in France 100,000, in Italy 34,300, in the Netherlands, 106,300, in Germany 615,000, in Austria-Hungary 2,258,000. In the Balkans there are scat- tered a considerable number of Jews, including those in Salonica, which has been called a Jewish city, and which has changed its na- tional status several times in recent history, but not its Jewish population. Scattered throughout Turkey there were before the war about 357,500 Jews. Of these, over one hundred thousand were settled in Palestine, and almost half of them in the new national Jewish settlements of Palestine. Practically every country in the world has its settlement of Jews, including Morocco and China. All the coun- tries of North and South America have some Jews in certain South American communities a single family is sometimes found in a city. The United States has, however, stood out predominantly as the new Jewish center of gravity, so far as numbers are concerned, to which have fled the millions who sought to escape Russian, Rumanian, and Polish persecution. There are more than three millions of Jews in 14 THE JEWISH SITUATION the United States, of whom about one and a half million are concen- trated in the one city of New York. New York City today contains more than five times as many Jews as any other city in the world. But numbers do not tell the whole story. One of the smallest centers of Jewish life has always had, and continues to have, and promises to have for the future more importance than all the vast Jewish centers of the dispersion. Palestine Palestine, which has contained some Jews at all times since the dispersion, has recently allowed the Jews freedom of development along all lines but the economic. Not so much direct or discriminating oppression on the part of the Turkish Government, but the neglected condition of the country and the confiscatory taxes, have made eco- nomic progress impossible. However, cultural freedom, and a status of equality in civil rights with the Arab and other populations, was granted to the old settlements of those Orthodox Jews who went to the homeland to die, and to the new settlements of nationalist Jews who were building up a regenerated Jewish life. The agricultural village communities were autonomous, as is the case with all villages under Turkish rule. The culture of the neighboring Arabs was too low to tempt the Jews to assimilation. Hence, with the impetus of national idealism, of the anxious watching gaze of the whole Diaspora upon them, and of the hope of cultural and political independence, these Jews surpassed all others in freedom of intellect and spirit. They de- veloped a distinctive Jewish life, with beauty and grace of expression. Hebrew became the tongue of their daily speech, the Jewish Sabbaths and festivals their national holidays. A new regime began December 10, 1917. (See Ch. XIII, XIV, XXXIII.) Poland The center of Jewish life and culture since the thirteenth century had been in Poland, when it offered to the Jews autonomy and a large measure of freedom and security, and when the Jews who were perse- cuted in Germany found there a haven of refuge and made of it a center of Jewish learning. The Yiddish tongue was brought with them by these German refugees and gradually adopted by their East- ern brethren. Yiddish is about 70 per cent medieval German, with an infusion of about 20 per cent, of Hebrew words and forms, as well as of some Slavic elements, written in the Hebrew characters and modified by usage in each locality. It has not a well-defined grammar 15 GUIDE TO ZIONISM and hence no standard of purity. Until within the last century, Hebrew was considered the literary language of the Jews. Never- theless, Yiddish is the spoken language of about one-half of the Jews of the world and has developed a considerable literature in recent times. Poland, through the three partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795, was split up, with its Jews, among Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Anti-Semi- tism seems to have flourished especially well in oppressed Poland, taking the form of intensive trade boycotts and, since the Great War, of pillage and massacre. Russia Conquering Eastern Poland and the Baltic provinces, Russia thus became a huge empire, and absorbed the Polish Jews. Since then, until the Russian revolution of 1917, their fate has been one of increasing bitterness. From Russia proper they were almost wholly excluded. In so brief a sketch as this, it is preferable to draw one picture of Eastern European Jewry, including Rumania and Galicia. In these countries, as contrasted to Western Europe, we find a certain condition : The Jews were considered a distinct and alien people, and under the racial and autocratic conception of nationality, they were therefore persecuted, segregated, treated almost as out- casts. All this was done in the name of religion. Political, civil, economic, and educational rights were denied them. Everything was denied them except the right to breathe, and even that occasionally was taken from them by the direct means of pogroms or the indirect means of expulsions. At present the disorganization and the passions incident to the close of war are causing the Jews unspeakable suffer- ing. But it is impossible to foretell the future. The Jews are every- where claiming national and individual rights, on an equality with other peoples. The measure of democracy attained will no doubt determine the measure of their release from a bitter bondage. But these Jews had settled in a simpler age, when they found here com- parative freedom and self-determination. They had had autonomous communities, they had developed especially in Lithuania a high degree of Jewish culture, learning and social organization. They had become compact, national, self-conscious communities. And so in spite of persecution, of pitiful poverty, and of the degrading influ- ences that accompany these, partly because of their strong foundation of learning and traditionalism they still remain to this day the treasure-house of Jewish culture and learning and of Jewish national idealism. The forced segregation, the exclusion from the economic 16 THE JEWISH SITUATION melting-pot, the low state of culture of the surrounding peoples, pro- tected them from dissolution. Western Europe Before the eighteenth century Western Europe was the scene of the most brutal torture and persecution of the Jews, but it has within the last hundred and fifty years given them complete civil emancipation. This was granted only after fierce struggle and upheaval and at a great price. The Jews of France, Germany, Italy sacrificed their Jewish national spirit to the cosmopolitan nationalism of the Europe which emancipated them. (See Ch. V.) But this emancipa- tion did not preclude anti-Semitism; so that the Jews of Western Europe have had only a limited and nervous security which seemed constantly to demand more sacrifices of Jewishness. The Jews have left their Ghettos; they have general education, culture, modernity. In England, France, and Italy individual Jews have risen to high government positions. But each generation is less Jewish than the last. Anti-Semitism, which, combined with civic and educational opportunities, tends to destroy Jewish cultural and national values, on the other hand is perhaps the chief force in preserving the Jewish race through forcing the Jews to recognize their own racial solidarity. America From the first, almost every State in America has given full civil liberty to the Jews as to all other individuals, and has also through its government given official recognition to the social equality of the Jews. All positions of trust have been open to them. In theory, the United States grants the fullest possible freedom, not only to the individual, but to the Jewish community for all cultural purposes. Notwithstanding this official attitude, social prejudice is widespread in peculiarly irritating forms, and even at times results in economic exclusion, especially in the case of the poorer paid workers. The Jews, too, fail to take full advantage of American opportunities for Jewish development. The earliest and smallest immigration, the Portuguese or Sephardic, has almost disappeared through intermarriage. The German Jews, com- ing in the middle of the nineteenth century, brought with them German ideas of Reform and anti-nationalism, and withal little Jewish learning. They became the well-to-do Jewish middle class. The East- ern European immigration of the last thirty years has in large measure staved off complete assimilation. It is responsible for the vitality of American Jewish life. Yet, being looked down upon socially by the 17 GUIDE TO ZIONISM earlier German immigration, which set the pace, it has often followed the path made easy by the Jews themselves. A constant decay of Jewish values is to be seen, which is counteracted only by the stream of new immigration and by Zionism. The Causes of Assimilation The conditions that everywhere lead to assimilation are: (1) A wide scattering of small groups, so that they lose the national con- sciousness produced by physical contact (as in the Western United States and South America). (2) Business and industrial intercourse with Gentiles, which breaks down Sabbath and dietary observance, and tends, like all selfish rivalry, to weaken moral resistance. (3) The consequent breaking away from religious life, which is national, destroys the Jew's chief national expression in dispersion. (4) The attraction of all kinds of learning and knowledge tempts him to forget or neglect specific Jewish culture. In Russia many Jews underwent baptism to gain the privilege of studying and the possibility of a suc- cessful professional career. (5) The bait of social, political, or edu- cational dignities in Germany, for instance, army and university appointments. (6) The infectious weakening of organized religion in the Christian churches, and the tendency of Jews to judge Judaism by Gentile religious standards. (7) All the demoralizing forces of wealth, comfort, ease, which after long suffering tend toward ma- terialism. Is the break-up of the Ghetto with its persecutions and depriva- tions to be the break-up of Judaism and Jewish national life? Must we choose between abnormality or extinction, between disease or death? Or is the normal, healthy Zionist position to be the savior of Judaism and of the Jewish people? For they are dependent on each other as the wine is on the cup. References: The Jews of To-day, by Arthur Euppin. Jewish Life in Modern Times, by Israel Cohen. Subjects for Papers: The Jews and the Russian Revolution. The effects of Jewish immigration into America. 18 CHAPTER III THE JEWISH IDEAL OF NATIONALISM Why should not the Jewish people disappear? Simplest of an- swers is that it would not. The right to life and the pursuit of happi- ness belongs as truly to nations as to individuals. But why should not all nations disappear? Is not nationalism the cause of human hatred, war, and oppression? Nationalism and Imperialism The same thing can be said of individuality. Before the organiza- tion of a lawful society, individuals practised hatred, violence, and oppression against their neighbors. The strongest robbed and en- slaved the others. We cured that by establishing law, not by killing off humanity. War is not caused by the cultural differences between nations, such as language, religion, customs, arts. An oppressed na- tion may fight to preserve these things, but the cause of the oppression is always covetousness. Even religious wars of aggression, when studied carefully, are seen to have had economic and political causes based on greed or love of power. Many of the worst wars have been civil wars or revolutions involving a single people with uniform cul- ture and language. And the Great War did not divide peoples along national or racial lines. The English and Germans are far nearer to each other racially and culturally than the English and Japanese, the Germans and Turks. The real cause of practically all wars is not nationalism, but that diseased form of nationalism which is called imperialism. Nations have robbed each other without remorse, and have gloried in their conquests. This sin has been so common to nations that it has come to be considered normal. Hence the desire to destroy all nationalism. But the nations are not deserving of death. They will presently learn the lawful co-operation which has long since been learned, more or less, by the individuals that compose them and by the communities in their interrelations within the state. Imperialism is in fact the foe of all that makes nationalism possible and noble. It wipes out dis- tinctions between nations; it attempts to remake its conquered terri- tory in its own mold. Where it neglects to do that, it at least ad- ministers the conquered territory for its own interests, not for the national interests of the inhabitants. And when a conquered territory adopts the customs or culture of its conquerors, it usually picks out 19 GUIDE TO ZIONISM the worst features for imitation. Civilization spreads most rapidly, not its art, poetry, music, but its intoxicating drugs and liquors, its implements of war and its contagious diseases. On the contrary, it often happens that the conquering nation loses its own distinctive culture through the long neglect due to war, and adopts the culture of its new dependencies. Note how Greek and Jewish culture domi- nated Rome, how Roman culture dominated the conquering northern hordes. In either case, imperialism is a levelling force that destroys national individuality. Internationalism Is a Development of Nationalism Internationalism does not mean the destruction of nations and one vast undifferentiated humanity, but the co-operation of nations in a society of nations. The very word international implies nations. Nations are the units in internationalism as individuals are the units in society. Higher organization does not mean disorganization lower down the scale. Human society began with the family. Before we had nations, each city was independent. But we still have families, cities, provinces, and states. And so we can have internationalism, a league or society of nations only on the basis of existing nations. Oppression always results from long-distance government. The ideal of democracy is to keep government as local as possible. Hence nations would always remain natural centers of administration. Variety Is Essential to Harmony It is a curious perversion of ideas to think we should have peace if we were all alike. Monotony does not insure peace. Harmony and sameness are not only not identical, but in fact they are opposites. One can have harmony only where there is variety. Music needs more than one note for its production. Think of humanity not as an arti- ficial organization but as a living organism. Each nation is one organ, each different, doing its own part in relation to the whole. As individuals scatter and travel, but each has his own national center, so do the blood vessels center in the heart, and the nerves in the brain. In the economic as well as the cultural life of nations this holds true. Internationalism, in giving security from war, would tend to allow each nation to develop the specific industry for which its land and population best fitted it, without fear of being left unprovided. There would be a tendency to greater division of labor between peoples, to the break-down of commercial barriers and discriminations, and hence to less rivalry and waste. The fullest development of nationalism is possible only under internationalism. THE JEWISH IDEAL OF NATIONALISM Nationalism Is a Spiritual Fact Nationality is character. It is a state of mind. Nationalism is the sense of cultural identity among the individuals of a political or historic group. It is much more a spiritual than a physical fact. Even identity of race is not absolutely essential to it, and where race is the strongest bond it becomes so through common family tradi- tions more than through the physical fact of birth. National character consists of mental developments such as language, manners, customs, tastes, and expresses itself in art and religion. Religions are always national in their origins and purpose even though their outlook may be universal, like that of the Jewish religion. And of art this is also true. Each school of art expresses a certain nation at a certain point of its history. The great man is he who is supremely normal and sensitive, who expresses the soul of his people. Hence art becomes the bond between nations, for it is national in its expression and universal in its appeal. Although internationalism may need a diplo- matic and commercial language of its own, yet national spiritual values, and even international sympathy and understanding, require that languages shall flourish as the speech of the national soul. To decrease what must be understood is not to increase understanding. We should all learn several languages. We should exchange cultures but then we must have cultures to exchange. Each Nation Needs Its Own Land A land and its people are like a body and its soul. Geography and climate affect character, and for this reason alone nations would have to continue their individuality. Except for war, the number of people in a nation does not matter. What matters is its solidarity, its loyalty, its quality. Those who migrate cannot and should not be held. They should be free to form national cultural groups or to assimilate to other peoples. They can have that freedom only if their national center is free and secure. Such freedom and security can come only from international organization, from a League of Nations. The League of Nations Is an Old Jewish Ideal This ideal of nationalism and internationalism is now coming to be understood by the world. But the Jews have held it for three thousand years. It is the foundation of Judaism, implied in the most fundamental teachings of our Law and Prophets. (Note the citations 21 GUIDE TO ZIONISM from the Prophets in the list of references. These are incomplete; they are simply the most compact and striking statements.) "All the nations shall walk in the way of the Lord" means inter- national morality. Our most universalist Prophets were nationalists and internationalists, not cosmopolitans. Their ideal of brotherhood included the brotherhood of nations. The Jewish God-ideal implies democracy and internationalism. Men are brothers because God is their Father. All ancient nations except the Jews had their own particular god or gods, who created and fought for their own people alone. But Israel conceived of the universal God of all nations who created mankind and fought for righteousness, not for Israel. We were chosen in that he gave us the law of righteousness. But when we transgressed it we were punished even more severely than those nations who had not accepted it. Rome tried to force us into its empire by forcing emperor-worship upon us as upon the other nations that it had conquered. We stubbornly refused. Medieval Europe tried in vain to force us into its Christian Empire either through persuasion or persecution. We have always remained true to the ideal of the freedom of small nations. Our re- ligion, which taught us that we were a people chosen for an interna- tional task, made it possible for us to keep our nationhood, our spiritual freedom, through two thousand years of physical subjection. Hence Zionism has a peculiar religious and international signifi- cance, above its national Jewish claims. Not only does it aim to fulfill one of the oldest of God's commands to his people "You shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" not only is it the logical climax of Jewish history and of Jewish faith, but it comes into the world providentially when the world at last is ripe and ready to see, to understand, and to follow the law of God's family of nations. Already the Zionist demand for justice and freedom for a small nation has profoundly influenced the Allied Governments in their pronounce- ment of the rights of all small nations. And we stand awed before the call to a new Jewish leadership. References: The Book of the Nations, by J. E. Sampter. Lecture, Department of Education : Nationalism, Internationalism, and the Jewish Nation. Bible: Isaiah, Ch. 2, 10, 11, 19, 42, 49. Jeremiah, Ch. 25, 51. Ezekiel, Ch. 28, 29. Book of Amos. Micah, Ch. 4. Habakkuk, Ch. 1, 2. Zechariah, Ch. 2, 3, 8. Subjects for Papers: The national movement in Italy, Greece, Serbia. (Choose one of these or any other recent national movement to write upon.) The national ideals of the Prophets as exemplified by quotations. CHAPTER IV THE NATIONAL IDEAL IN JEWISH HISTORY* Zionism Is as Old as Judaism When one considers the facts of Jewish history, it becomes clear that Jewish nationalism is at least as old as the Jewish nation. Nor- mally one ought to expect that. We were a people in our own land. We lost our land through war and conquest, and just because of the unusual spiritual and religious depth of our patriotism we remained a people intact for 2,000 years without a land or a polity. Zionism is as old as the Jewish people itself. Certainly it is as old as Jewish history. The account of the Patriarchs in the Bible is full of references to the future Jewish nation and full of national fervor ; and the ideal of faith concerns itself not with individual souls, but with the welfare and the role of the whole Jewish nation in human history. In the days of the Egyptian bondage, we already find the factors of the Chosen People, the Promised Land, the national leader, and the concept of a national-spiritual role among the nations. Before the land had even been won, the people had already pledged itself at the foot of Mount Sinai to put into action a complete program of national arid private morality. These laws included purely civil and state laws which could have no application outside of the land. The Prophets, the scribes, the rabbi-sages, the poets, and the statesmen in whom the Jewish people has been so rich, were the bearers of the historic message of Zionism, through all the national vicissitudes. Only the term, the name, of Zionism, remained to be coined. Mathias Acher (Nathan Birnbaum) was the first to use that name for the modern Zionist activity in 1886. The idea and the ideals embedded within it have had other manifestations and other names; essentially, the prime motives in Jewish thought are to be looked for in national idealism. Zionism Is an Outgrowth of Messianism Zionism is the lineal descendant of the Messianic idea. The Messianic idea assumed various forms at different periods, and it * Adapted from papers by Lotta Levensohn and Dr. Aaron Schaffer. 23 GUIDE TO ZIONISM varied, too, with the leaders of the times: that is to say, it was not necessarily expressed in a more advanced form at later periods. For instance, Isaiah's conception of the millenium, of the golden age when Zion was to become the spiritual center of mankind, is hardly com- parable with the Kabbalistic speculations during the middle ages as to the date of the Messiah's miraculous appearance to lead the children of Israel back to their own land. The Messiah was at times conceived as an individual, a descendant of David "Mashiah ben David Avdeha," who would appear to save the people at a critical time. In another conception, he was to be the model king who would re-ascend the throne of David at the "end of days" as the biblical phrase has it to rule in righteousness and justice. However, in the popular sense, he was (and still is) to be the Heaven-sent redeemer to lead Israel out of the Exile to a glorious future in the Land of the Fathers. Then again, we have the inspiring prophecies of a Messianic era, "When they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain," "When the nations shall not learn war any more," "When the knowl- edge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea." The Prophets of Israel were all Zionists More specifically, we find the idea of a chastened remnant re- stored to the Land of Israel enunciated by Amos and Isaiah, in times when the kingdoms of Israel and of Judah, respectively, were at the zenith of their power and prestige. Amos was accused of sedition for prophesying both the destruction and the ultimate restoration of Israel, when he chose the royal sanctuary at Bethel whence to sound his warning of woes to come. Such words as "Israel shall surely be led captive out of his land" could hardly have been welcomed, or for the matter of that believed, by the powers that be. Amos concluded his message with the excellent Zionist doctrine that "God will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked out of their land which He has given them." Isaiah, more than a hundred years before the destruction of the First Temple, iterated and reiterated the doctrine of Sh'ar Yashub: "A remnant shall return." In the same breath that he foretold national ruin, he promised the resumption of a purified national life by a frac- tion of the people in later times, who would take up the national- spiritual role for which God had destined the Jewish people from the beginning. And the great unknown Prophet, whom for lack of better knowl- edge we call the Second Isaiah, arose in the Babylonian captivity to 24 THE NATIONAL IDEAL IN JEWISH HISTORY preach, in terse, vivid phrases, that Palestine would become the center of the world ; that all the peoples would be drawn there by the spiritual and moral power generated by the People Israel. Ezra and Nehemiah The return to the Holy Land under Ezra and Nehemiah was curiously like the present return under modern Zionism. It was made possible by the declaration and good will of the government of an Empire; and it, too, was undertaken by a very small part of the Jewish people, strengthened and supported in their effort by those who stayed behind. But, at the time, it must have seemed to have far less international significance than the present movement, and also, since it took place after only seventy instead of two thousand years of exile, it was less extraordinary and marvelous. The Jewish Golden Age in the Future The Jews have ever seen a divine purpose in their history. It is this which gave us strength to endure. The ideal of the millenium is bound up with the life of the Jewish people. Always the Jewish idea of the golden age differed from the beliefs of the other peoples of the ancient world (with whom the Jews were coeval). For the Greeks, for instance, the golden age had coincided with the childhood of the human race, with its "age of innocence," as it were. The Jew, on the contrary, always set the millenium ahead of his own day which proves what an incorrigible optimist he is. His faith in progress, in the divine, upward trend of human nature, has never wavered, however seemingly conclusive his experience to the contrary. Persistence of the National Ideal in Many Forms The national significance of the Maccabaean revolt must not be overlooked. Begun as a defensive war against the religious oppres- sion of Antiochus who would have destroyed Judaism by enforcing idol worship and the desecration of Jewish Law, it ended as the mightiest effort to preserve political and national independence ever displayed by so small a nation. So closely are Jewish religion and Jewish nationality interwoven. In the early days after the destruction of the Second Common- wealth by the Romans, the regaining of national independence was still thought of in political terms, as witness the rebellion of Bar Kochba. Though Rabbi Akiba hailed Bar Kochba as the Messiah, his 25 GUIDE TO ZIONISM rabbinical colleagues and the bulk of the Jewish people regarded him as a political rebel. His failure, tragic as it was, did not militate against the Messianic hope, because that was a thing apart in the minds of the people. We must not forget how closely the study of the Law at this period was bound up with national life and hope. Akiba himself died a martyr because he persisted in studying Jewish Law, in defiance of the Roman prohibition. That prohibition was of course on national grounds. When, half a century earlier, after the destruction of Jeru- salem by the Romans, Johanan ben Zakkai had asked and obtained permission to found the Academy at Jabneh, he did so to preserve the Jewish national spirit even though the national body was stricken. The Law was to be preserved for the certain future national restora- tion. This same hope and faith underlie all the legalism of the Diaspora. Christianity arose at the time when the whole ancient world was on edge with expectation for the Messiah, the savior, who would set up a new order of things, and provide the corrupt pagan civilization with ideals worth living for. Though Christianity grew out of Jewish soil, both literally and figuratively, the Messiahship of Jesus was at first ignored and then emphatically rejected by the consensus of Jewish opinion. Christianity has had not the slightest influence except by negation upon the trend of the Messianic idea or of Jewish thought generally. As the darkness of the middle ages settled down upon Europe, the Jews were subjected to breath-taking cruelties. The simplest, most elementary human rights were withheld from them; and they had to exist as best they could on the tolerance of the devotees of the religion of love. The Jews kept alive because they came of a race endowed with such superb physical and spiritual vitality that it would not die. But neither could it live. And so, while Europe lay in the torpor of the middle ages, the Jews lived in a state of suspended animation, and dreamed their way through those dark days. And the Jewish nation continued to live in the hearts and minds of the Jews. Even after the center of Jewry had been definitely re- moved from Palestine to Babylon, the Holy Land always remained uppermost with the great leaders of the people the sages of the Talmud. We need to read only such an injunction as the one calling upon Jews to prefer to live in a Palestinian city, whose inhabitants are mostly non-Jews, rather than in a city outside of Palestine, whose inhabitants are mostly Jews, to understand their feelings on the sub- 26 THE NATIONAL IDEAL IN JEWISH HISTORY ject. And these feelings are constantly exhibited, and in a hundred different ways in the law that a man could compel his wife to ac- company him to Palestine under penalty of forfeiting her dower right but could not compel her to emigrate from Palestine with him, or in the popular belief that the resurrection of the Jewish dead would take place in Palestine. As the centuries rolled by, this hope of a return to Palestine never died in the breast of the Jew. As a return in force, however, grew more and more unlikely, the hope took on a spiritual, deeply religious form. The order of daily and holiday prayers, which became fixed during these centuries, is full of references to the return of the divine Presence to the Holy Land. Nor did days of ease and plenty weaken that yearning, that national passion. The medieval Jewish poets of Spain, in the golden days of Judaism there, sang of Zion, their beloved. And Judah Ha-Levi even translated his poems into action, by leaving home and ease and friends in Spain, to make a pilgrimage to his beloved Zion, at whose gates, legend tells us, he was slain. The masses of Jews throughout the middle ages were always ready to exchange their state of dispersion for a permanent national home in Palestine. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for ex- ample, large settlements of Jews flourished in the principal cities of the Holy Land. These settlements included men of international Jewish renown men like Nahmanides and Joseph Kara, among many others. Cut f & Messianic Predictions and False Messiahs The possibilities of freedom by political rebellion or by rational measures were excluded. Almost inevitably the Jews fell back for solace upon mystic fancies. They lived in a world of the imagination where the pressure of their outlawed state did not reach their con- sciousness. The study of Kabbalah absorbed Jewish energies for a large part of the middle ages. The Kabbalah concerned itself with fanciful investigations of the nature of God, prescribed the degrees (Sefirot) through which the human spirit must pass on its path to perfection, and speculated much on the date of the coming of the Messiah, by means of the numeric value of the letters of various biblical texts. When a date so fixed passed without fulfillment, it was simple by another set of ingenious calculations to advance another date. Things came to such a pass that a rabbinic prohibition was passed against such computations, but it did not prove to be 27 GUIDE TO ZIONISM much of a deterrent. The fancies and legends that cluster about the Messiah and the Messianic era are as pathetically naive as the popular acceptance of self-appointed, often self-deluded, saviors, the famous pseudo-Messiahs who appeared on the scene all the way from Moses of Crete, in the fifth century, to Sabbatai Zebi, in the seventeenth. It would take us too far afield to discuss all these men, their personalities, their motives and their influence on the fate of large communities of Jews. Among those who stand out in undesirable pre-eminence is Moses of Crete, whose Messiahship resulted in the drowning of a* large number of people whom he promised to lead dryshod across the seas to Palestine. Then there was David Alroy of Bagdad who proclaimed himself Messiah in the twelfth century and organized an armed rebellion. Only a few facts are known about him, and those are swathed in a mass of legends. However, it seems certain that he paid his life for his rashness. He will be recalled as the hero of one of Disraeli's novels. David Reubeni was a mysterious figure who emerged from West- ern Asia about 1520. He represented himself as the brother of a Jewish king in Arabia, who was ready to drive the Turks out of Palestine if the Christian governments would furnish him with fire- arms. He managed to be received by the Pope and to have himself invited to the court of the Portuguese king. Though he was very non- committal with the Jews of Spain and Portugal, he was widely ac- claimed as the Messiah or the forerunner of the Messiah. Reubeni's mission so worked upon the imagination of a young neo-Christian, Diego Pires, who held a high office in the state, that he voluntarily became a Jew and assumed the name of Solomon Molko. He had delved deeply into the Kabbalah, and preached the approach of the Messianic era, the return to Palestine, and his own Messiahship. He attached himself to Reubeni. Finally, they both lost their lives through their diplomatic activities. A most unfortunate and unprecedented effect was left upon Jewish history by another disciple of the Kabbalah, Sabbatai Zebi, of Smyrna, who not only proclaimed himself Messiah, but blasphe- mously claimed to be God incarnate. The whole Jewish world was in a ferment, from Western Europe to Asia Minor. The soberest of men went wild with frenzy, and wound up their business affairs in expectation of the return to Palestine and the end of the world. Even Christian circles were affected. Though the impostor turned Moham- medan to save his life, all sorts of delusions were cherished about him. THE NATIONAL IDEAL IN JEWISH HISTORY The pseudo-Messianism of Sabbatai Zebi did immeasurable harm, and an aftermath of self-appointed successors sprouted up in Turkey, in Egypt, in Poland, and in Germany. The lamentable careers of the pseudo-Messiahs by this time con- clusively demonstrated that while the Kabbalah contained many pure and noble elements and stimulated a sort of saintliness, it was danger- ously susceptible to misuse. The rabbis henceforth discouraged its general study, and this time effectively. New historic forces, too, began to leaven Europe in the eighteenth century, and the new intel- lectual tendencies would in any event have relegated mysticism to ob- scure byways. Zionism Expresses Modern Needs With the emancipation of the Jews modern Zionism became in- evitable. For one thing, the legalism and the national safeguards of Ghetto segregation were destroyed and left Jewish nationalism in greater danger than at any other time during the dispersion. For another thing, the freedom, power, and material resources of the Jews once again opened up the possibility of a rational, political restora- tion to their land. References: The Messiah Idea in Jewish History, by J. Greenstone. Lecture, Department of Education: The Zionist Ideal in Jewish History. Subjects for Papers: Sabbatai Zebi and his followers. The Zionist poetry of the Spanish period. The legal distinctions in the Talmud between Palestine and the Diaspora. CHAPTER V EMANCIPATION, HASKALAH, BEFOEM Jewish Emancipation Part of Eighteenth Century Liberalism The beginnings of the civil emancipation of Jewry in Western Europe late in the eighteenth century were part of the general move- ment of national and social forces. Until then the Jews had lived everywhere segregated in their Ghettos, either actively persecuted or passively shunned, considered as aliens with no civil rights and also as religious outcasts with no human rights. The Renaissance of the sixteenth century, which brought to birth the nationalism of Europe in conflict with the imperialism of Catholic Rome, did so on a racial basis, and therefore only embittered the feeling against the Jews. The Jews were not permitted to leave Medievalism and their Ghettos until after the French Revolution. The eighteenth century's ideas of freedom and of "the rights of man", were a revolt against personal privilege within the state, including race privilege. The ruling class in most nations belonged to a ruling race ; the race which at one time had conquered and subjected the population. Hence eighteenth century liberalism first raised the ideal which all civilized nations have since accepted : That citizenship and not race is the basis of national unity. In the effort to obliterate race distinctions within the democracy, in the only form in which they were then known, that of race privilege, national cultures and values were not respected. The ideal of the rights of small nations had not yet emerged. Civil and individual rights were granted on the basis of the "equality of man" within the nation. The universalism or cosmopolitanism then preached was a form of self-deception, and was in fact a means of solidifying the new conglomerate democratic nations. To be consistent, eighteenth-century liberal Europe had to eman- cipate the Jews. The Jews had been deprived of both their national and their personal rights, and when it seemed possible to them to obtain their personal rights under conditions which appealed to their democratic nature, they either failed to see or were willing to accept the danger to their national existence. The opportunity of western enlightenment, of decent living and of political freedom could not be refused. 30 EMANCIPATION, HASKALAH, REFORM Moses Mendelssohn and German Jewish Assimilation The Jewish people, emerging from the twilight of Ghetto medi- evalism into the glare of European nationalism, was dazzled and bewildered. But, as usual, the Jews who are said to be the most adaptable people in the world made a brave attempt at adjustment. Forerunner of the Reform movement in Germany and also indirectly of the Haskalah movement in Russia, was Moses Mendelssohn. A great personality in German as well as in Jewish life, scholar, philosopher, and educator, he stands at the head of Jewish liberalism. But as with many another teacher, the course of events that resulted from his influence was the opposite of what he would have desired. Born in Dessau, in northern Germany, in 1729, he came to Berlin as a young Talmudic scholar, and soon attracted the atten- tion of both Jews and Christians by his gifts of mind and character. He became a leader with a definite goal : To win the political emanci- pation of the German Jews through their intellectual emancipation. If the Jew would be free to leave his Ghetto, he must learn to live like his German neighbor. For the sake of teaching not the Bible but German to the Yiddish-speaking Jews, Mendelssohn translated the Bible into classic German. He advocated the secular German school for Jewish children. But he also fathered a new Hebrew development and advocated, and always practised, the life and ritual of traditional Judaism. The effect of his teaching, however, was to make German- ization and de-Judaization the chief object of the German Jew. His own children were converted to Christianity and married Christians. Mendelssohn died in Berlin, in 1786. With Mendelssohn as their leader, there had grown up a school of propagandists of European culture through the medium of the Hebrew language for this purpose they published a Hebrew journal called ha-Meassef but neither the development of German nor of Hebrew as a means of adjusting the Jew to emancipation had the expected result. Germanization led to apostasy; Hebraization led in the end through its development in Russia, to Jewish nationalism and Zionism. In Germany itself Hebrew was discarded as a literary medium as soon as possible, and the later "Jewish Science" of the German Jewish scholars was written not in Hebrew, but in German. Elijah of Vilna In Russia, where the Hebrew revival as a means to modern cul- ture was to have marvelous and unforeseen effects, the forerunner of "enlightenment" was Elijah of Vilna, the Gaon, (1720-1779), a true 31 GUIDE TO ZIONISM Jewish sage whose gentleness and sanity and learning went far to- wards saving Russian Jewry from the perversions of a false concep- tion of assimilation. He reintroduced not only the study of modern science, philosophy and mathematics, but he purified the study of the Talmud, insisting on accurate knowledge of Hebrew grammar and the Bible, and a vital, rational way of approaching Jewish learning. Through his inspiration was founded the greatest of modern Talmud- ical colleges, the Tree of Life Academy at Wolosin. And his in- fluence, founded on no assumed authority but solely on the power of his wisdom and character, no doubt shaped the course of events, if only by keeping intact for a later time the spirit of Hebraism. The Haskalah Movement in Russia The Haskalah movement means literally "enlightenment". In Russia was concentrated the best educated and most vital part of the Jewish people. The reign of Alexander II seemed to offer the Jews an outlet from the Ghetto into Russian and European life and culture. If the Russian Jew were to take his place among Russians, he must acquire that secular education which is the common heritage of man- kind. Hitherto his whole education had been traditionally Jewish, based on the Bible and more especially on the Talmud. The Gaon had done much to keep that secularization thoroughly Jewish. The Russian Jews used their own classic Hebrew as the vehicle, by means of translations, for all modern knowledge. Stimu- lated at first by the MeasseUm imported from Germany, there grew up a virile secular literature in Hebrew. (See Chapter XVI.) However some of the Maskilim preachers of Haskalah may have repudiated Jewish religious and national segregation, they nevertheless strength- ened one of the firmest of all national bonds, the national language. The movement was a break from traditional Judaism rather than from Jewish nationalism. The obscurantist religion of the Hassidim, (a mystic ecstatic sect founded by Baal Shem Tov as a protest against formalism and emotional decay, but that degenerated into supersti- tion), hastened that break by fermenting the religious atmosphere and discrediting both Talmudism and itself. Many were the brilliant Jewish personalities of this period in Russia, among them Leon Gordon, Perez Smolenskin, and M. L. Lilienblum, which would well repay detailed study. (See Ch. XVI.) Reaction to Jewish Nationalism The reaction after the death of Alexander II and the Russian persecutions of the eighties, forced the Jews to realize that the EMANCIPATION, HASKALAH, REFORM attempt at assimilation would never bring them true freedom. Then the Maskilitn, with their strong Hebraic background, quickly reacted to national emotion, and in many cases became Zionist leaders. Leo Pinsker was one of these. His father, a Maskil, was master of a secular Hebrew school. Jewish nationalism, stripped of its ancient protection, traditional Judaism, cried out for a new means of preserva- tion, and so made itself felt with new force. The French Revolution In France the Revolution, with its slogan of "liberty, equality, fraternity," automatically brought civil emancipation to the Jews, an emancipation in political life which had to be struggled for bit by bit in every other country except only the United States of America, which had now also emerged into full political freedom. But even France fell short of American ideals of racial freedom. The Jewish question as a national question was not solved by individual civil emancipa- tion. Both in France, under the imperial reaction of Napoleon and in Germany, the Jews felt themselves faced with this choice: Jewish nationality or a European nationality. Napoleon called a Sanhedrin of Rabbis in Paris, in 1807, to clarify the Jewish position. The Rabbis practically bartered Jewish national existence for French citizenship. They defined Judaism as merely a religious persuasion. The Reform Movement in Germany The Reform movement in Germany, which took rise in the genera- tion following Mendelssohn, stood midway between those whose en- lightenment ended in conversion and those who adhered rigidly to traditional Judaism. The impulse behind it was a praiseworthy and thoroughly Jewish one, the desire to adjust Jewish life to changed conditions. It claimed, in fact, to be the savior of Judaism, a compro- mise that alone could save Judaism from utter destruction. It accen- tuated Jewish religion purely as a belief religion in the western, Christian sense. The avowed purpose was to make Germans of the emancipated Jews by denying Jewish nationality. The German Jews were called "Germans of the Mosaic persuasion." Relief was to be the only bond between Jews, and Judaism was to be saved without the Jewish people. This sacrifice of a patriotism preserved through 2,000 years of heroic struggle was made ostensibly out of gratitude for bare justice received, really out of fear of renewed injustice. Therefore Jewish worship was gradually stripped of all national ele- ments, of the Hebrew language, of the prayers for the restoration of 33 GUIDE TO ZIONISM Zion, and of those ritual laws which may be called sublimated national customs. Reform Judaism arose in an individualistic age; it too was individualistic. The Jew accepted his personal civic liberty at the price of the spiritual freedom of the Jewish people. Reform Judaism offered him a philosophy, a system of truth and ethics, quite harmless, which he could accept without injuring his social and civic life. It evolved the ideal of a Jewish mission in dispersion, of teaching the unity of God to the nations. But unfortunately the missionaries were out of date. That part of Judaism which they were to teach, ethical monotheism, is already common human property, no longer distinc- tively Jewish. Hence, it could not hold even Jews together, much less influence progressive humanity. What is more, Reform Judaism imitated in its method Protestant Christianity, a religion which is also losing its vitality. In an age of religious upheaval, it could only imitate, not create and lead, as Judaism has always done. It became a respectable and pleasant path toward assimilation. But other forces, among them the negative force of anti-Semitism and the positive force of Zionism, blocked the way of Reform Judaism toward its goal of painless death. In our day many Reform Jews, among them Reform Rabbis, have come into the Zionist movement, because they realize that reforming the ritual of Judaism in no way affects its national significance, and that Jewish religion in any form today depends for its vitality on the renationalization of the Jewish people. Zionism alone can solve not only the national but also the religious problem of the Jews, and perhaps of the whole world. Every- where we see a new national life springing up beside religions that belong to a dead past, and everywhere the nations are groping for faith. May not the Jewish nation, which alone sees in religion the ex- pression of social, of community living and of national and political justice, hold once more the religious salvation of mankind in its hands? References: The Reform Movement in Judaism, by D. Philipson. The Easkalah Movement, by J. S. Eaisin. Studies in Judaism, by S. Schechter; First Series, Ch. Ill, "Rabbi Elijah Wilna, Gaon." Leon Gordon, by A. B. Rhine. Jewish Emancipation: The Contract Myth, by H. Sacher. Subjects for Papers: A brief history of Reform Judaism. A brief history of the Maskalah Movement. 34 CHAPTER VI ANTI-SEMITISM AND JEWISH NATIONALISM "And Haman said unto King Ahasuerus: There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from those of every people, neither keep they the king's laws; therefore it profiteth not the king to suffer them." National Persistence after Defeat Is Cause of Anti-Semitism These lines from the Book of Esther give the underlying cause and motive of all anti-Semitism. Primarily, anti-Semitism is the fault of the Jews, for remaining Jewish. Had the Jews disappeared, naturally Jew- hatred would have disappeared with them. Our crime is to have re- mained alive as a distinct people, to have defied the loss and destruction of our land, and to have maintained our spirit and will. Nor can we escape that hatred by clipping off this or that element of our Jewishness our religion, our patriotism, our legalism for the name Jew desig- nates that ancient people which was conquered and dispersed from its land 2,000 years ago, and whose crime is to refuse to die. Only complete disappearance can satisfy our foes. Or a change of front on the part of humanity, a new conception of the rights of nationality, may eliminate our foe. That new conception of national rights, in also granting us our land, would justify and satisfy the national aspiration of 2,000 years. Jew Hatred in Old Times We must distinguish between anti-Semitism in modern Western Europe and the Jew-hatred of earlier times. Anti-Semitism is an intellectualized form of the older instinctive antagonism. In old times the primitive feeling against the stranger or alien, who had no land of his own and yet held aloof from assimilation, took various forms of prejudice and superstition. From the first dispersion of the Jews in Greece and Rome, even before the Christian Era, we find this antago- nism, sometimes taking literary forms. The Jews are accused of wor- shipping a pig or an ass's head, of being descended from a race of lepers who were driven out of Egypt, etc., etc. In Christian times 35 GUIDE TO ZIONISM the hatred took a religious form, though not without political implica- tions. The sharpest break between Jews and Christians in early times probably came from the Jews, through their bitter resentment against the early Christianizing Jews who refused to take part in the Jewish national struggle against Rome, and who even acted as informers to the Romans. Throughout the middle ages, and even to our own time, religious Jew-hatred was based on the assumption that the Jews had killed Christ, that they were originally the chosen people, but by their denial of the divinity of Christ had forfeited that heritage, whicn became the spiritual heritage of all Christians. The Jews are rejected of God; the Christians become his chosen people. Thus the nations deprived Israel not only of his land, but tried to rob him also of his spiritual patrimony. So long as Christianity lasts in its traditional forms this hatred must have to the Christian mind a logical justifica- tion. However, this religious aversion was often used merely as a cloak for economic antagonism. The Jew, looked upon as a foreigner, could not accumulate wealth without arousing envy. His peculiar situation as a countryless sojourner who could not own land, drove him naturally into commercial occupations ; and gradually restrictions in most countries forced him exclusively into brokerage and^ into usury. He became practically the property of the nobility and king's, and so was used by them in many cases as an instrument to fleece the common people. Then the nobility, to protect themselves, often found it expedient to turn popular hatred against their vassal Jews. The forms of persecution practised were generally forced segregation in Ghettos, forced conversion at the point of the sword, expulsion from cities or whole countries, riot and murder sometimes wholesale murder and all of these offered opportunities for plunder. During the middle ages, the forms of persecution were especially violent and horrible, as in the time of the Crusades, but the periods between allowed of much freedom and development. The bitterest degrada- tion of the Jew -came after the Reformation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the general hatred and oppression of the Jews was most systematic and constant. It may be called the darkest period in the history of the Jewish dispersion. Gleams of light there were, also, and the first dawning of a new day, especially in England and Holland. But altogether the effect on the Jews was terrible. An intensification and narrowing of national life took place that shut the Jew into Medievalism when all the world was striding forward. Jewish obscurantism in the Ghettos turned against all modern culture, and fed the suffering national spirit only on Talmudic 36 ANTI-SEMITISM AND JEWISH NATIONALISM lore and on the hard nuts of a legalism which could not function in life. Also, the long and bitter oppression, the social ostracism and the terrible economic suffering which forced upon them low standards of living, often gave the Jews those repelling social habits, obsequious- ness and lack of decorum, which became an excuse for social prejudice. Modern Anti-Semitism Social and Political That social prejudice came into full swing after legal emancipa- tion in the nineteenth century. When the Jew came forth from his Ghetto with his sharpened wits, he rose at once to the top level in every profession and walk of life, and yet of course retained his personality. Quickly enough, in less than a generation, does he throw off the Ghetto habits; but he still pours forth from the Ghetto; and not only Gentiles, but even Jews, foolishly describe as the effect of his superficial man- ners a prejudice that is rooted in quite other ground. In speaking of modern anti-Semitism, Russia and Rumania are left out of account, as there the conditions are still those of an earlier period, and Jew-hatred runs the old cruel course with certain quite modern aggravations; for example, the exclusion in Russia, until the Revolution, of Jews from schools and colleges, and the laws of segregation in the Pale which outdid perhaps all previous Ghetto restrictions. In Rumania, Jews are considered and treated as aliens with no civic rights but that of compulsory military service. In Poland, the popular economic persecution has had a distinctly na- tionalist coloring. To say nothing of the savage cruelty against the Jews practised in all these lands during the war. Modern political anti-Semitism was born in Germany after the Franco-Prussian War, that is, after 1870. It was a natural result of the new German national spirit. Its occasion was the breaking of the bubble of over-speculation that resulted from the huge French indemnity. In that burst bubble a number of Jews as well as non- Jews were implicated. However, the Jews were the scapegoats. Two Jews, Edward Lasker and Ludwig Bamberger, had played a leading part in creating, in 1866, the National Liberal Party, which included the great majority of German Jews, and which had helped Bismarck to weld the German States into an empire. Naturally, the anti-Semitic agitation took political form, especially when Bismarck no longer needed the Liberal Party, but was glad to use anti-Semitism as an instrument for its overthrow. An anti-Semitic political party arose, which later had its counterpart in Austria, but Bismarck gave the party no further support after it had served his purposes, and to- 37 GUIDE TO ZIONISM day it is practically out of existence. However, anti-Semitism as an intellectual force, with dire physical and social consequences, con- tinued to develop. It has been the stronghold of conservatism, in France and in Germany ; in the former its hotbed was the army, which brought forth the Dreyfus case, and raised a storm of popular anti- Jewishness which was a staggering blow to those who had put their faith in French liberalism. However, the French Government vindi- cated itself by its just verdict. In Germany and German Austria, anti- Semitism has been chiefly official and literary. Government positions and commissions in the army, as well as university honors, have been withheld from Jews. All professional advancement has at times been barred. The highest point of repression was reached in 1882; then the pogroms in Russia shocked the Germans into their senses. Literary anti-Semitism is based on various philosophic theses that merge into each other. First, the Christian or Christian Socialist : This sees in Judaism a disintegrating force that must naturally undermine Christianity and Christian national life, and that is re- sponsible, since Jewish emancipation, for the decay of Christianity and the consequent upheavals in European Christian nationalism. Curiously enough, this conservative view was linked with a form of Socialism, which saw in the Jews the typical bourgeoisie and capital- ists. Second, the economic: This is very complicated, since its incep- tion was with the landlord class, the Junkers, who fought, in the Jew, the bourgeoisie. Later the Christian bourgeoisie turned against the Jew as the Socialist. Always it was the Jew who was held responsible really too great a compliment. It is true that the Jew is often a revolutionist. Since he believes justice can and must be attained on this earth, he must fight for it ; since he holds all men equally children of God, he insists on democracy; and his sense of personal dignity gives him a love of freedom. Also, he belongs to an oppressed minority. But, with all his share in the leadership of social revolution, he is not responsible for the spiritual awakening of Europe. Third, the ethnological: Scientific claims which have been since discredited by science try to prove the inferiority of the Semitic race to the rul- ing Aryan race, the danger to Europe of an infusion of Jewish blood and Jewish ideals, and go so far as to try to prove that Jesus was an Aryan. As a matter of fact, neither of these "races" can be proved to exist. Fourth, the anti-Christian, typified by Nietzsche. This attacks not only Judaism as the religion of the weak and cowardly, but also Christianity as a product of Judaism, and sees the superman in him who lives by his power to overcome and rule others. 38 ANTI-SEMITISM AND JEWISH NATIONALISM Racial Basis of Anti-Semitism Anti-Semitism, arising in Western Europe, after emancipation had actually succeeded in denationalizing a large section of the Jews, stood on a racial foundation, as was indicated by its name, and so made it clear that only the complete elimination of the Jews as a people could eliminate Jew-hatred. The answer to such a challenge could be only either surrender or defiance assimilation or Zionism. Ac- cordingly it was said by the foes of Zionism by the capitulators that Zionism was merely a negative movement, a council of despair, springing from anti-Semitism. The falsity of this view need hardly be pointed out. Zionism arose in its might because Jewish nationality was threatened. ^Xt was the active militant heir of the passive nation- alism of the Ghetto. It is true that to men like Leo Pinsker and Theodor Herzl an anti-Semitic outbreak was the direct occasion of their Zionist activity. However, that merely means that they sud- denly realized wherein lies the only Jewish salvation. Men of another temperament would perhaps have been converted instead. Zionist Attitude Toward Anti-Semitism To the Zionist anti-Semitism loses its paramount importance. ^.Social anti-Semitism he can ignore, because his realization of positive Jewish values makes him less the dupe of social whims. And even in the more violent forms of anti-Semitism he sees a passing phase that must disappear when the Jew is renationalized and again becomes normal, when segregation and separatism and alienism lose their purpose in the dispersion, because the Jew is secure in his own home- land. The Zionist demands justice to the Jew everywhere, which in- cludes the national justice due to the claim on his land. The burning question is no longer anti-Semitism. The burning question is Jewish rehabilitation. So the Zionist feels himself free to ignore prejudices and false deductions; as a citizen from choice in every country, he feels himself justified in working for the repatriation of the nucleus of the Jewish people which desires to return to its homeland. By dropping apologetics and assuming this positive position, he has won the respect of the non-Jewish world, which now sees in the Jewish question, and partly through the Jewish question, the claim for justice to all the small and disinherited peoples. References: Anti-Semitism, by B. Lazare. Zionism and the Jewish Future, edited by K Sacher; Chapter on "Anti-Semitism." Anti-Semitism- in Germany, by Israel Cohen. Subjects for Papers: The status of the Jew in America. German political anti-Semitism. 39 CHAPTER VII FORERUNNERS OF ZIONISM* Two ideas are implied in the term "Forerunners of Zionism". For one thing, the word "forerunners" gives notice that we are speaking of Zionism in the political sense, and that we refer to the movement founded by Herzl in 1897. That this modern Zionist movement is no abrupt inno- vation, but is part and parcel of an ancient and dominant Jewish motive, is our second implication. Our primary purpose is to describe the men and the activities that preceded Herzl and political Zionism during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The names of Moses Hess, Hirsch Kalischer, Perez Smolenskin, Leo Pinsker, and Ahad Ha-Am loom large in the annals of Jewish nationalism of modern times. Each of these men was a distinct type, varying as widely as only Jews can vary, and yet they were closely akin, identical almost, in their conclusion that for the Jew all roads lead to Zion. These protagonists of Jewish nationalism had contemporary in- centives not only in Jewish misery, but also in the nationalist strivings of their times. When Greece and Italy to mention notable examples secured their national independence, the sympathies of all of cul- tured Europe were with them. Byron and the Brownings at once come to mind when the Greek and Italian struggles for independence are recalled. And it is frustrated, but rightful, national aspirations, that kept Europe in turmoil throughout the nineteenth century. In German Jewry, the denationalizing motive of the Reform move- ment was very strongly opposed by the Orthodox party. But even though Orthodoxy whole-heartedly held to the principle of Jewish nationality (which had never before been questioned), it stood, after all, for a status quo policy. It prayed for and 'devoutly believed in the restoration, but by way of a Heaven-sent Messiah who would appear miraculously. Practical measures were thought to be an impious forcing of the hand of Providence. Moses Hess We nevertheless find in the 60's of the nineteenth century men strongly opposed to the Reformers, and yet willing to do practical * By Lotta Levensohn. 40 FORERUNNERS OF ZIONISM work to redeem their people. Foremost among the "Forerunners of Zionism", Herzl's predecessors in Germany stand Moses Hess (1812-1875), and Rabbi Hirsch Kalischer (1795-1874). Their intel- lectual outlook and their method of approaching the problem of the Eternal Jew were poles apart, but their conclusions were the same. The Communist-Socialist Hess's admiration for the Orthodox Rabbi is shown by his quoting entire Kalischer's draft of a plan for colonizing Palestine, in his own work on Jewish nationalism, Rom und Jerusalem. Early in his career, Hess was a Communist. He was a contemporary of Karl Marx, the converted Jew, and became a tower of strength to Social- ism. But, unlike Marx, Hess realized that the cosmopolitanism of his day, which ignored the historic evolution of races and nationalities, could not be the last word. Hess, a humanitarian of the warmest and widest sympathies, outlined, half a century ago, in Rom und Jerusalem, ideas that are only now becoming common property, as they have been forged on the anvil of the terrible World War; the self-determination of the small peoples without let or hindrance by the great powers master- nations, he called them; the indisputable and equal rights of small na- tions; the fact that every cultural-historical group has something of its own to contribute to civilization; and that relations between nation and nation ought to be based not on armaments but on justice the League of Nations, as our new phrase has it. Only through a family of nations, based on social and economic justice within the respective states, could the millenium come. That humanity and human institutions must, in the nature of things, be on the road to perfection, he never dreamed of doubting. It logically followed, from his premises, that the Jewish people must again be constituted to take its place among the nations, not only because of the justice of its claim to freedom, but also because its genius was represented in one of the two great cultures that had influenced civilization for 2,000 years Hebraism and Hellenism. The Jewish people still had much to contribute, but could do so only on the basis of a normal national life; that is, political independence in a land of its own. This was so important, he said, that if emancipation necessary as it was could be had only on the surrender of Jewish nationalism, he would forego emancipation. He was a political Zionist, too, because he strongly urged that colonization in Palestine be placed under some form of international guarantee, preferably with a French protectorate. Rabbi Hirsch Kalischer Rabbi Hirsch Kalischer, of Thorn, Prussia, a learned Talmudist, through word and deed fostered agricultural settlement in Palestine by 41 GUIDE TO ZIONISM East European Jews. His premise was religious, as Hess's was eco- nomic and nationalistic. In his D'rishat Zion, published in the same year as Rom und Jerusalem (1862), he laid down the principle that the ancestral land must be reclaimed by natural, practical measures. The Messiah would surely appear, but after, and not before, the Jewish people had done all that was humanly possible. As he saw it, God helps him who helps himself. Kalischer's agitation inspired the found- ing of the Mikveh Israel Agricultural School near Jaffa by Charles Netter of the Alliance Israelite Universelle in 1871, and also gave rise to two or three unsuccessful attempts at founding Jewish settlements. Nevertheless, he achieved something of two-fold value. He gained sympathy for Palestinian colonization in rigidly Orthodox circles, and he inspired the first organized attempt in 2,000 years to reclaim Palestinian soil by Jewish labor. Perez Smolenskin, Maskil In Russia, the occasional gleams of freedom in the nineteenth century gave way in the early 80's to pogroms and further restrictions of the Pale of Settlement. When the humanitarian phrases of the time turned to Dead Sea fruit in the mouths of cosmopolitan Jews, it was natural that they should seek comfort in the warmth of their own fold. However, it is not just to ascribe the rising wave of Jewish nationalist sentiment in Russia, at that time, merely to the reflex action of anti-Semitism. We must remember the intense Jewish self-con- sciousness of the masses fostered by centuries of seclusion in Ghettos, their absorption in the study of the Torah, their persistent, unalterable belief that in God's good time when Israel should have atoned for its early sins they would be restored to Erez Israel. The Messianic idea had gathered only strength with the passing ages, and in a time of technical and political progress, the old hope clothed itself in new garments. As the culture of the nineteenth century penetrated to the dark Russian Ghettos, it was avidly welcomed by the younger generation through the medium of biblical Hebrew ! Hebrew was the medium of transmission for poetry, literature, philosophy, science, modern language, for everything, in fact! (See Ch. V and XVI.) The movement for enlightenment, the Haskalah, was spread with characteristic Jewish zeal and energy. However, for nearly a generation the tendency was to set up new idols in place of the old Jewish God. The older genera- tion, most of whom had bitterly opposed admitting the knowledge of the Gentiles, now pointed out that the results more than justified 42 FORERUNNERS OF ZIONISM their attitude. It has been well said that the "Haskalah was a right step, but in the wrong direction." The introduction to general culture became a signal to cast off Judaism and Jewish ties. In the end, the poison produced its own antidote. The fullest Russification did not serve, it appeared, to avert pogroms, or the May Laws which con- gested the Pale to the stifling point. It remained for one of the most gifted of the Maskilim to point out that the true path of the Haskalah lay through Jewish nationalism. Perez Smolenskin (1842-1885), writer and poet, was an inspiring exponent of the nationalism of the Prophets. The Am Olam, the Eternal People, he said, has an eternal spiritual-cultural task. In Palestinian colonization he saw the first stepping-stone towards his aim. The Hebrew language he loved for its own sake, and as the vehicle of the Prophetic message. He founded a little monthly journal, Hashahar (The Dawn), and kept it going at the most painful sacrifices. A group of young Maskilim gathered about Smolenskin, and the Hashahar served both as a medium for nationalist propaganda and for the evolution of modern literary Hebrew. He strove for a synthesis of modern culture with the Hebraic spirit, and saw in that synthesis, that assimilation to itself of western progress and civilization, the only possibility of a full development for Jewish national life. It was to be a reversed assimilation, not the Jew lost in the world, but adding the world to his own spiritual possessions. Leo Pinsker More closely akin to Herzl than any other of his forerunners was Leo Pinsker (1821-1891), a Russian physician and Maskil, who re- sembled Herzl both in his method of approach to the Jewish problem, and in his proposal to deal with it by political measures. Though Pinsker had never been remote from the Jewish people, it was the pogroms and the May Laws which stung him to take thought for the position of the Jews, just as the Dreyfus case was later to bring Herzl to self-realization. In his brochure Auto -Emancipation (since become one of the classics of Zionism), written in 1882, Pinsker analyzes the Jewish situation. Both his logic and his sense of dignity bring him to the conclusion that there is no remedy but by way of self-help, and that self-help must be achieved through political means. The Jewish people is an anomaly among the nations, he contends: it is neither alive, as a properly constituted nation ought to be, with a com- mon land, language, and institutions ; nor is it dead, as might reason- ably be expected of a people so long deprived of the attributes of na- tionhood. Instead, the Jews are the living-dead, a ghost-nation that 43 GUIDE TO ZIONISM inspires fear (and therefore hatred) in the living nations. They lack group-consciousness, national dignity, national self-respect; conse- quently, they can inspire no respect in others. They are everywhere aliens, and do not receive the toleration accorded to other foreigners, who can reciprocate both good and ill in their own homelands. The cry of economic exploitation is raised against the Jews, despite their dire mass-poverty. Nor is there a Jewish nation with which the other nations can treat; they know only Jews, to be used as interest or prejudice may dictate. There can be but two alternative courses of action open to the Jews : Assimilation, national suicide consciously planned ; or, reconstitution as a nation among the nations. The pres- ent state is intolerable. Assimilation is the way of death. Even if self-destruction were not abhorrent, the other nations could not and would not absorb so many millions of a strongly characterized race. If the path of life be chosen, the national self-consciousness must be stimulated, until by organized effort, self-help becomes possible. "We are no more justified," he says, "in leaving our national fortunes in the hands of other peoples, than we are in making them responsible for our national misfortunes." He refers to the rise of small nationalities in Europe in the early nineteenth century. "Would not similar action on the part of the Jews be justified?" Political action is the only ade- quate method of self-help. First and foremost comes the question of a homeland. When writing Auto-Emancipation, he held no brief for Palestine. The God-idea and the Bible would make holy any land whither the Jewish people took them. He was to learn, as Herzl learned, how inbred is the attachment of the Jewish masses to Pales- tine. The land was to be honorably acquired by purchase, the Great Powers concurring. The means he proposed were actualized (though he did not live to see it) in the Zionist Congress, the Jewish Colonial Trust, the National Fund, the Palestine Bureau and the Ahoozahs. But in 1882 the times were not yet ripe for a great political movement. The then existing Palestine colonization societies (the Hoveve Zion) rallied about Pinsker, and his call for an international conference eventuated in November, 1884, at Kattowitz (Silesia). (See Ch. VIII and XXIV.) A federation was formed, of which Pinsker became president. The Hoveve Zion embarked on no political activity, and confined themselves strictly to practical colonizing work in Palestine, which in itself strained their resources. Wisely, Pinsker took half a loaf when no more was to be had. His political ideas were not forgot- ten, and, indeed, prepared the ground for the Zionist movement in very definite ways. 44 FORERUNNERS OF ZIONISM The Kadimah Pinsker's Auto-Emancipation became a "Bible" for all the na- tionally-minded Jewish university students of the time. At the Uni- versity of Vienna, which seethed with anti-Semitism, the Russian and Rumanian Jewish students were organized by Smolenskin, Birnbaum, and other leading nationalists, into a society which was destined for an important part in the genesis of the Zionist movement. They called it Kadimah, the Hebrew for both "Eastward" and "Forward". The Kadimah gave the impetus to the formation of Jewish students' societies and federations all over Central and Eastern Europe, which did much at the universities to invest the Jewish name with a dignity before unthought of. When Herzl published his Judenstaat, the Kadimah petitioned him to take the lead in executing his own ideas. They were his devoted lieutenants in the enormous preparations for the first Zionist Congress at Basle and, at the Congress itself, joyous- ly served as pages and ushers. The Kadimah has ever since been a training ground for Zionist workers and leaders. Lilienblum and Mohilewer Among those who did yeoman's work for Palestinian colonization were Moshe Loeb Lilienblum (1843-1911) and Rabbi Samuel Mohilewer (1824-1898). Lilienblum was of the type of the earlier Maskilim, who believed that the Russification of the Jews would solve all their problems. The pogroms brought him a rude awakening, as they did so many others of his mind. Lilienblum was converted to Jewish nationalism by Pinsker. He became secretary of the Hoveve Zion fed- eration, and did much to further Palestinian colonization through his literary propaganda. Rabbi Samuel Mohilewer consistently advocated European cul- ture for the Russian Jews. With his balanced outlook, however, he could not imagine that university education alone would save the sore- ly oppressed people. He enlisted the invaluable aid of Baron Edmond de Rothschild for Palestinian colonization, and tried, though unsuc- cessfully, to induce Baron de Hirsch, also, to concentrate his efforts on Palestine. Rabbi Mohilewer himself was one of the leading spirits in the founding of the Jewish village of Rehobot by a group of well-to-do Russian Jews. When the political Zionist movement arose, he sup- ported it with might and main. He even left a Zionist testament to the Jewish people, written on the day before his death. 45 GUIDE TO ZIONISM Ahad Ha-Am and Eliezer ben Yehudah The factors that went to the making of Zionism are in their nature practical, political, and, supremely important from the Jewish stand- point, spiritual. We have seen that once the Haskalah movement found its true course in Jewish nationalism, the Prophetic teachings found able and fervent presentation by the Maskilim. Concomitantly, the revival of Hebrew proceeded apace. Head and front of the propa- ganda for the national-spiritual idea is Asher Ginsberg (better known by his pen name of Ahad Ha-Am, "One of the People)", distinguished philosopher and master Hebrew stylist. He was a deeply interested member of the old Hoveve Zion. Ahad Ha-Am has been popularly thought to be an opponent of political Zionism. Yet his cardinal idea of a "spiritual center" involves some sort of political status for the Palestinian Jews. It was not that he disapproved of Political Zionism in theory; but he feared, rather, that all the glorious old hopes and teachings would be ignored by a movement frankly organized out of political and economic considerations. As the years went by, Ahad Ha-Am's philosophy took an ever greater hold on many adherents of the Herzlian movement. There is, in truth, no contradiction between Zionism and Ahad Ha-Amism, but rather a synthesis of political and cultural motives blending for a common purpose. (See Ch. XVII.) One of the surest signs that a spiritual as well as a physical reju- venation of the Jewish people is in process through contact with the soil of Palestine, is the re-instatement of Hebrew as a living tongue. It was a task that might have daunted the boldest of spirits. Literary and liturgical usage is not precisely the means by which a language is kept flexible and responsive to everyday requirements. It re- mained for another Russian Jew, and one of the earliest protagonists of Zionism, Eliezer ben Yehudah, to establish Hebrew as the national language in Palestine. He went there a generation ago, and had to work for a while almost single-handed. We know him now as the compiler of a great all-inclusive Hebrew dictionary. To-day the He- brew speech is alive and virile, and it is the most precious treasure of the New Palestine. (See Ch. XXXII.) References: Borne and Jerusalem, by Moses Hess. Auto-Emancipation, by Leo Pinsker. Pinslcer and His Brochure, by Ahad Ha-Am. Subjects for Papers: A digest of Borne and Jerusalem. A digest of Auto-Emancipation. CHAPTER VIII HOVEVE ZION* From the 1860's on, Palestine colonization societies began to spring up. By 1882 there were quite a number of societies all over Europe known as Hoveve Zion (Lovers of Zion) which constituted, in an informal way, the Hibbat Zion movement. Societies were formed also in America. In his Auto-Emancipation, Pinsker appealed for a general Jewish assembly to consider the idea of Jewish self-liberation. The Odessa Committee As a result, representatives of Hoveve Zion societies in various countries gathered at Kattowitz (Silesia) in November, 1884, and formed a federation. It was not until 1890, however, that the federa- tion, which had headquarters in Odessa, was able to obtain official sanction from the Russian Government. It is popularly known as the "Odessa Committee", and has done much to uphold the settlers and to further Jewish education in Palestine. (See Ch. XXIV.) Pinsker be- came president of the new federation. True, it fell far short of his ad- vanced political thinking, since it could manage only colonizing activi- ties on a very small scale ; and of diplomatic negotiation there was no thought. Pinsker did not even live to see the rise of the great politi- cal movement that he would so warmly have welcomed. Early Attempts at Colonization When the Kattowitz conference was held, Palestinian colonization was already several years old. And a curious and unprecedented picture it presented; a land neglected and sterile for twenty cen- turies ; a few little groups of Jews, from Russia and Rumania, for the most part, rich in idealism and the courageous pioneering spirit, but pitifully poor in information about the inhabitants, the climate, the possibilities of the land, its laws and customs. They had some backing, it is true, in Europe. There were the Hoveve Zion, who were at one with them in idealism and love of Palestine; some Orthodox * By Lotta Levenaohn. 47 GUIDE TO ZIONISM West European Jews who deemed support of Yishub Erez Israel a re- ligious duty; the great Jewish philanthropic organizations like the ICA (The Jewish Colonization Association) and the Alliance Israelite Universelle; and, in a class by himself, that ever present friend-in-need of the colonists, Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris, "our Baron", as he is affectionately called in Palestine. But the fact remains that Hibbat Zion, for all its fervor and idealism, was a philanthropic move- ment, and that fact had undesirable implications and effects for the colonists. The Bilu To appreciate the struggles, the costly errors costly in terms of human life as well as in money and in time the grit and courage and "stick-to-itiveness" of the one-time Ghetto dwellers, one must take up the story of the Jewish villages one by one. Even in the most general reference to the new Yishub, one must mention the Russian students' organization, the Bilu (formed from the Hebrew initials of "O House of Jacob, come, let us go up"). The Bilu abandoned their university careers so that they might help to reclaim the land. They were con- tent to do the roughest work for the smallest wage as long as they could give service to the Land, and many gave life itself. The Measure of Achievement But those early pioneers learned how to do things, somehow. There are now about fifty Jewish settlements in Judaea, Samaria, Upper and Lower Galilee, and even trans-Jordania. Great vine- yards and orange groves form the bases of thriving export indus- tries. The once sterile soil produces grain and olives and vegetables and fruits abundantly. The swamps that cost so many precious lives through malarial infection, have been dried out near the Jewish settle- ments by the beautiful groves of eucalyptus trees, imported by the Jews from Australia. Police protection in the rural districts was con- spicuously absent, though taxes were heavy. A Jewish constabulary was therefore formed (the Shomerim). These graduates of Russian and Rumanian Ghettos can ride and shoot well enough to win the re- spect of the Bedouin, themselves not inexpert in such arts. The Jewish villages suffered much during the philanthropic phase, which lasted, of course, until they could become self-sustaining. When the Zionist Organization began to operate in Palestine, through the National Fund and the Anglo-Palestine Bank, it served a most useful 48 HOVEVE ZION economic purpose by creating sound conditions of credit for the Jew- ish settlers. It is almost redundant to remark that in the Jewish Settlement the needs of the spirit were at no stage neglected, however untoward ma- terial conditions. The Jewish educational system of Palestine ranges all the way from the kindergartens to the projected Hebrew Univers- ity, for which the cornerstone was laid in July, 1918. (For a fuller account of early colonization, see Ch. XXIV to XXXII.) Reference: Recent Jewish Progress in Palestine, by Henrietta Szold; Rural Development; First Period, p. 37. Subjects for Papers: Baron Edmond de Rothschild. The danger of philanthropy to democracy. 49 CHAPTER IX THEODOR HERZL* Boyhood and Youth Theodor Herzl was born May 21, I860, in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. His parents, people of fine grain, were in a comfortable financial position. Although he received but a very meager Jewish education, his Jewish pride asserted itself in his earliest years. When he was eighteen years old, his family removed to Vienna. Here he took up the study of law. In the university he belonged to a student fraternity which decided one day to admit no more Jews to membership while "graciously" allowing those Jews already members to stay. Herzl immediately sent in his resignation to those "elegant young men". After securing his juridical degree in 1884, he retired to the Tyrol- ean city of Salzburg, attracted by its beautiful scenery, there to prac- tise his profession. But he gave himself up almost entirely to litera- ture. His enormous capacity for work revealed itself at this time, and resulted in the production of a large number of plays, essays, sketches, critical studies, etc. Many of his plays were successfully produced. He became famous as a journalist and writer of feuilletons, or short sketches. His interests were far removed from things Jewish. His literary successes and his travels made him lose touch with the miser- ies and problems of Jewish life. "A Jewish State" In 1891 he went to Paris as correspondent of the Vienna news- paper, Die Neue Freie Presse, an event which brought a new turn to his thought and action. He learned the intricacies of French politics, he learned the ways of courts and salons an unconscious preparation for a national task. In Paris the Dreyfus affair was at that time ab- sorbing attention, and there he witnessed such a violent and unreason- ing exhibition of hatred and spite against the Jews that he was forced to look into his own soul and define his attitude to his own people. He saw the vast majority of the French nation eager "to convict one Jew, * By Israel Goldberg. 50 THEODOR HERZL and, in him, all Jews." He underwent a painful and tremendous inner struggle, from which he emerged with a clear conception of the Jewish problem and with a simple but fundamental plan for its solution. Herzl came back to his own people, not alone to suffer with them, but to lead them to a new and dignified life. He embodied his ideas in a pamphlet, which he called The Jewish State. During the last two months of his stay in Paris he worked on this pamphlet every day, until he was exhausted. While writing, as he tells us in his little Autobiography, he seemed to hear the rushing of eagles above his head. In this pamphlet, Herzl emphasized the following two proposi- tions : First: The Jews are a distinct nation, whose problem can be solved only by restoring them to a normal national life in a land of their own. He mentions Palestine and Argentina as possible Jewish lands. Second : The Jewish problem can be solved only through the self- activity of the Jewish people that is to say, the Jewish problem can be solved only by the Jews themselves. With the precision of an architect and the inspired vision of a prophet, Herzl proceeds to outline in detail the process of creation of the Jewish State. The "Society of Jews" is to be the recognized po- litical agency for the Jewish people, the "Jewish Company" its finan- cial and executive arm. The territorial rights are to be secured by a charter with the sanction and good-will of all the European govern- ments. Colonization is to proceed by organized groups. The seven- hour working day is to be instituted. The Jewish masses, and even some from the upper classes, will flock to the new land to gain eco- nomic and spiritual freedom. "A generation of wonderful Jews will spring from the earth. The Maccabees will rise again." Let the open- ing words once more be repeated: "The Jews who will it, shall have a State of their own." Herzl Hailed as Leader It was neither the intention nor the desire of Herzl to take the lead in a movement for the creation of a Jewish State. Even before publishing his pamphlet he had conferred and corresponded with the great Jewish philanthropist, Baron Maurice de Hirsch, who, he hoped, would start the movement. But the timidity and lack of imagination which has characterized so much of Jewish philanthropy made even the great Hirsch unresponsive to Herzl's plea. 51 GUIDE TO ZIONISM In fact, of the notable Jewish personalities of that day, only one, the famous writer, Max Nordau, came at once to his support. The others remained either hostile or indifferent. But as for the great masses of the Jewish people, Herzl in his Judenstaat had spoken the word for which they were waiting. The first public expression of adherence came from Jewish students in Aus- tria and Germany, from whom he received an address covered with thousands of signatures. From Russia, Galicia, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary he received enthusiastic expressions of adherence and pleas for action. Herzl was thus forced by circumstances to take the lead. At the same time, he reached the conclusion that the only land which could fire the imagination and energize the will of the Jewish people was Palestine. From this belief he never swerved. When Herzl wrote the Judenstaat, he did not even know that he lived in the same world with others who had seen the same vision. He had never heard of Hess, Kalischer, Pinsker. He did not know of the Hoveve Zion; and yet it was he who now gathered under his leadership the various struggling groups of unorganized Zionist enthusiasts. In- spired with his great mission, Herzl now began his career of wonder- ful activity. In order to acquaint himself with the political and diplo- matic ground he made a special journey to Constantinople (April, 1896). He returned buoyantly optimistic, and on his way through Sofia received a stirring ovation from the Bulgarian Jews. In Eng- land, although he found opposition or indifference among the rich and distinguished Jews, he was hailed as leader by the Zionists of the East End of London. The First Zionist Congress He came to the conclusion that it was most important to win the Jewish masses, and in order to give them the opportunity to declare themselves, as well as to provide a general forum for the discussion of the Jewish problem, he conceived the idea of convening a Jewish Con- gress. In the name of a commission organized for the purpose, he issued a call for such a Congress, which was to convene in Munich in August, 1897. "The direction of Jewish affairs," said he in this call, "must not be left to the will of individuals, no matter how well-inten- tioned they may be. A forum must be created, before which each one may be made to account for what he does or fails to do in Jewry." A storm of opposition arose from most of the prominent Jews of Western Europe, who were unaccustomed and afraid to discuss Jewish affairs openly and before a democratic Jewish body. The representa- 52 THEODOR HERZL tives of the Munich Jewish community objected to the holding of the Congress in their city. As a result, the Swiss city of Basle was chosen. Finally, a number of German Rabbis, fearful lest their German patriot- ism be questioned, issued a formal protest against the holding of the Congress. They have been known henceforth as the Protestrabbincr. But the enthusiasm and support which Herzl found among the Jews of Eastern Europe more than made up for the opposition of the "emancipated". In the meantime, in order to have a weapon of defence against his numerous opponents and a means of advancing the Jewish cause, Herzl had with his own funds founded the weekly newspaper, Die Welt. The first representative Jewish assembly since the dispersion, the first Zionist Congress brought together 197 delegates from almost every land of the earth. The movement for the redemption of the Jews through the national organization and self-activity of the Jewish people was inaugurated, and its program defined to be the creation of "a publicly recognized, legally secured home for the Jewish people in Palestine." Over the entire event hovered the magnetic personality and creative spirit of Theodor Herzl. Through the first Congress Herzl came to know the Russian Jews. He found among them his staunchest friends and his staunchest oppo- nents. From the begining there was opposition on the part of some of the Hoveve Zion to Herzl's political program. Statesman and Diplomat As leader of an organized movement, Herzl now took up with feverish energy the numerous tasks which crowded in upon him, chief of which, at this moment, was the creation of the financial instrument of the movement, the Jewish Colonial Bank. (See Ch. XI.) Here again it was the masses of the Jewish people who subscribed the greater portion of the Bank's capital. The second Congress, held in 1898, was another triumph for the ideas and personality of Herzl. The enthusiasm with which he was greeted was indescribable. The principles he advocated for the con- trol of Palestinian colonization were practically adopted. Herzl al- ways discouraged haphazard colonization, and insisted on protection by political guarantees. That is what was meant by political Zionism. He opposed infiltration, seeking instead an organized mass migration, an entrance, as he put it, through the front door, not the back door. A commission was elected to institute the Colonial Bank. During the year the movement had grown enormously. 53 GUIDE TO ZIONISM To secure the consent of the governments, Herzl sought to win the good-will of the European monarchs. He was received in au- dience by some of the most powerful rulers or their chief ministers. Upon all of them his wonderful personality made a profound impres- sion. He appeared before them not as a suppliant for favors, but as the emissary of a people, the guardian of their political interests and their dignity, in presence and bearing a king among kings. In the fall of 1898, Herzl, at the head of a Jewish deputation, was received by the German Emperor, William II, in the city of Jerusalem. In May, 1901, he had his first audience with the Sultan of Turkey. In the summer of 1903, upon the invitation of the Russian minister, Von Plehve, he visited the Russian capital and had interviews with the principal Russian ministers. Later, he was also received by the King of Italy, Victor Emanuel II, and by the Pope. For the first time the problem of the Jewish people, through Herzl, was being treated as a political question. In the meantime, as the movement continued to grow, its needs' and problems multiplied. The Colonial Bank, after numerous difficul- ties had been overcome, was at length founded. At the third Congress, Herzl reported : "It was a good year ; we have moved a step for- ward." But the strain and struggle were intense and the heart of the great champion was beginning to be affected. It seemed doubtful if Herzl would find the strength to attend the fourth Zionist Congress in London. But the mighty will compelled the weak heart. He left his sick bed and in the midst of a group of the foremost men in Jewry, Nordau, Mandelstamm, Gaster, Zangwill, his majestic personality stood forth and thrilled the vast throng that gathered in the great assembly hall, as well as the delegates at the sessions of the Congress. The English press and English statesmen hailed the movement and promised their support. If only the rich and powerful among the Jews had come to sup- port him ! Then his audiences with the Turkish ruler, upon whom he produced so deep and favorable an impression, would have resulted in the obtaining of that charter for the Jewish occupation of Palestine which Herzl sought. But the rich and complacent Jews held aloof, and Herzl, although he suffered keen disappointment, resolved to put his trust in the poor. At the fifth Congress, held at Basle (1901), the Jewish National Fund was created, the fund through which the vast masses of the people, by uniting their strength, might gather the means which the short-sighted and timid rich withheld. (See Ch. XI.) 54 THEODOR HERZL THEODOR HERZL In the midst of these labors, Herzl found time to write his novel of Zionist vision, Altneuland. On July 16, 1902, Herzl testified as an expert on Jewish affairs before the Alien Commission which was investigating immigration into England. His personality and his testimony produced a pro- found effect, and from that moment the British Government began to interest itself in his plans with far-reaching consequences. Trip to Russia Early in August, by invitation of the Russian minister, Von Plehve, he journeyed to Petrograd in order to try to convince the Russian Government that Zionism did not conflict with Russian inter- ests. He succeeded in obtaining from the Russian ministers important promises in the interests of Zionism. The most formidable obstacles seemed to melt away from his triumphal path. At that time the Gov- ernment approved of Zionism because it supposed it would remove the Jews. Later the Zionist movement, showing its democratic and re- generative character, was bitterly opposed and persecuted by the Im- perial Russian Government. During Herzl's stay in Russia he was the witness of the misery and oppression of the Jewish population. On his return, the streets of Vilna were dense with the throngs who came out to greet him. In the crowded synagogue, when the old Rabbi in his tremulous voice gave him the blessing, the people burst into loud weeping. It was the prayer of gratitude and love addressed by a helpless people to its champion. In Vilna, too, Herzl saw the Cossacks use their whips upon the crowds who gathered at the sta- tion to hail him. His great heart was wrung with pity. But the speedy redemption of his people seemed to be in sight. In order, however, to obtain from the Sultan the charter for the colonization of Palestine, very large sums were required, sums much larger than could be obtained soon enough from the impoverished masses of the Jewish people. The Kishineff massacre had occurred, and, while it horrified the civilized world, the threat and danger of further massacres, like a dreadful shadow, hovered over the life of the Jews of Russia. Immediate relief was imperative. Uganda : A Shelter for the Night And now, as if in answer to this need, came the British Govern- ment and offered territory in one of its East African colonies, known as Uganda, for colonization by the Jews. Even before this, El- Arish, south of Palestine, had been offered by Great Britain, but for important reasons could not be accepted. Herzl laid the Uganda offer 55 GUIDE TO ZIONISM before the sixth Zionist Congress held in Basle on August 23, 1903. But even in his opening speech Herzl declared the ultimate aim of the Jewish people to be no land other than Palestine. And his closing speech he ended with the words : "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning." Uganda he looked upon merely as a "shelter for the night," and as a political weapon in the struggle for Zion. (SeeCh. X.) Nevertheless, there were many men who declared that by his will- ingness to accept Uganda, Herzl had surrendered Palestine. No amount of assurance could convince them or pacify them. They at- tacked Herzl. Feeling ran high. A number of the foremost Russian Jews met in the famous Conference at Charkow and chose a deputa- tion to lay certain ultimatums before Herzl. The Charkow deputation came, but, having come as accusers, they went away as the accused. With infinite patience, Herzl answered his opponents and reiterated his assurance. At the sessions of the Greater Actions Committee of April 11-15, 1904, peace was finally re-established and a vote of con- fidence was given to the leader. The Last Struggle Throughout this conflict Herzl suffered acutely. The heart attacks increased, but in spite of the entreaties of his friends he refused to spare himself. In the little mountain town of Edlach, whither he had gone for rest and cure, Herzl, early in July, 1904, was at last forced to bed. He knew that the end was near. "Greet Palestine for me," are his words to a friend, "I have given my lifeblood to my people!" In spite of great suffering he remained uncomplaining, cheerful, and self-possessed. Finally, on the afternoon of July 3rd, 1904, after having kept Death at bay by sheer power of will until he could again see his mother and children, Herzl, aged only forty-four years, breathed his last. The Jewish people lost the strongest, the most glorious personality it has produced in modern times. References: The Jewish State, by Theodor Herzl. Congress Addresses, by Theodor Herzl. Das Leben Theodor Herzls (German), by A. Friedemann. Subjects for Papers: A digest of Altneuland. A digest of The Jewish State. 5(5 CHAPTER X THE INTERNATIONAL ZIONIST ORGANIZATION The Zionist Congress Since the calling of the first Zionist Congress by Herzl in 1897, the Congress has been the supreme authority and organ of the Zionist Organization. The Zionist Congress is the Jewish Congress. For 2,000 years there had been no political expression of Jewish national- ity. Representatives came to the Congresses from every country, to speak not for a party in Jewry, but for the Jewish people. After the hedg- ing of many West European Jews, who attempted to hide everything Jewish lest it be the cause of prejudice, this public demonstration of Jewishness came as a shock, and frightened those Jews who believed that emancipation must be bought with assimilation. Hence the bit- ter opposition to the first Congress on the part of certain Rabbis and their communities in Austria and Germany, which made it impossible to hold the Congress in Munich as originally planned. Perhaps the democratic nature of Jewish aspirations appealed to the Swiss de- mocracy, which welcomed the first Congress at Basle, and recognized the Jewish flag. It is Democratic Democratic representation is the keynote of the Congress. Its delegates are elected upon the basis of one for every 400 shekel payers. All Zionists that means all shekel payers without distinction of sex, above the age of 18, are eligible to vote in the elections, and those above the age of 24 are eligible for election as delegates. It is Representative In order that the Congress may be representative, Zionists in all countries must be properly organized, at least for purposes of election. The Congress is the highest expression of the ideal of Zionism in the Diaspora, an organized Jewish people. Since the Congress is the only representative organ of world Jewry, it must be accounted as such even if a majority of Jewish individuals should not take advantage of this opportunity to be represented. It is the only democratic body in Jewry open to every Jew on a common national basis, without regard to party, religious affiliation, or citizenship.