Zionism: A Menorah Prize Essay
By Marvin M. Lowenthal
(Concluded)
This Essay was awarded the Menorah Prize at the University of Wisconsin last year. In the first part, printed in our April issue, the author reviews the status of the Jews in medieval Europe and describes the effects upon the Jews of the razing of the Ghetto walls and the play of the modern forces of Emancipation, Enlightenment, Nationalism, and Anti-Semitism. In the situation resulting, the author distinguishes between the "Jewish problem" ("an immediate concrete maladjustment where life and property are imperiled"), existing chiefly in Eastern Europe, and the "Jewish position" ("a social, cultural, or spiritual disharmony or repression"), prevailing in Western Europe and America. After rejecting Reform Judaism and the "palliative measures" of philanthropy as answers to the situation, the author proceeds in this concluding instalment to a consideration of the third alternative, namely, "re-establishment of a national center where, perhaps not the entire people, but a remnant can be saved."
THAT the effort to ameliorate the conditions through charity, and the effort to assimilate and yet keep the essentials apart, are ineffectual has been shown. There remains the third possibility—Zionism. To a consideration of its theoretic background this section will be devoted. Although a natural commingling is unavoidable, Zionism presents three distinguishable aspects—as (1) a creative vision, (2) a solution, (3) a fulfillment.
The National Ideal
IN its first aspect, Zionism applies the sauce of the proverbial goose to the proverbial gander. Nationalism is the partial cause, or at least the excuse, for making the modern position of the Jew in Europe untenable; nationalism for the Jew becomes a means of evacuating the position. Europe has intimated to the Jew that it can get along without him; the Jew now proposes to show that he can get along without Europe. Nationalism is nothing new to the Jew; from the final dispersion in 70 C. E., through the universalism of the Roman Empire and later of the Roman Church, the national ideal, as indicated in our introduction, was religiously preserved; but its modern practical form first arose among the leaders of the Chovevei Zion movement in the middle of the last century. The "Rom und Jerusalem" of Moses Hess (1862), "Die Verjüngen des Jüdischen Stammes" of Graetz, the Jewish historian (1864), the "Hashachar" of Smolenskin (1869), the "Auto-Emancipation"
of Dr. Leo Pinsker (1882) clearly foreshadowed the final and effective
expression of political Zionism—namely, "The Jewish State," published by Herzl in 1896.
The Vision of a Jewish State
BASING its structure on the formulas of the prophets,[1] who proclaimed that polity was indispensable for effecting the true mission of Israel—for the realization of the religious, social, or ethical ideal; conceiving Israel, as did Reform Judaism, to be its own Messiah, not fated, however, to remain a minutely scattered leaven among nations who condemned or destroyed it, but destined according to the prophetic promise to re-establish itself upon Zion;[2] convinced that a true assimilating of the fruits of emancipation in contradistinction to an imitating of Gentile culture could only be effected by an emancipation from within, by an auto-emancipation;[3] the vision of a Jewish State grew into outline. To the consummation of the picture, a wealth of economic, scientific, and cultural inspiration has been devoted. Herzl and his predecessors selected the stone which had been rejected by the philanthropists and the earnest, but mistaken, builders of Reform Judaism in their efforts to create a fit habitation for the European Jew; and lo! it has become the chief corner-stone.
To assure the foundation, to justify the conception of a Jewish State, a number of powerful arguments other than above indicated have been brought to bear. The problem of race was attacked,[4] and a consequent demolition of the basis of Reform Judaism undertaken, whereby the racial identity of the Jew became demonstrated and a comparative racial purity established. In turn, the claim of the anti-Semites that the Jewish race indeed existed, but to the peril of Western civilization, received scientific annihilation. At the most, the Aryan race was proclaimed a myth and Teutonic superiority a lie;[5] at the least, a justification of the Jewish race was achieved upon its contribution to civilization: in metaphysics, of the vision of reality in flux; in morals, the conception of the value of the individual; in religion, the conception of Jehovah as a moral-arbiter; in culture, a literature of basic inspiration for the western world.[6]
The Moral Right of the Jewish Race to Survival
THAT this race, definable in identity and valuable in content, is being either crushed by force or dissipated by freedom, raises on one hand the next question for creative Zionism, and constitutes on the other the problem which Zionism in its aspect as a "solution" assails. The question: Has this race, facing destruction, a moral right to survival? is in the instinctive, Darwinian sense unnecessary. Every race has a right to survive if it can prove its right by surviving; however, like most evolutionary thinking, this is tautological. Nevertheless, an affirmative answer[7] has been advanced, based on the conception of values recognized since Aristotle; whereby was demonstrated the intrinsic value of the Jews as witnessed by their virility and capacity for an intelligent enjoyment of life, which their social customs, religious ideals, and cultural ethos have created for them, and which have won for them the title "Am Olam," the perpetual people; and their instrumental value in the preservation and enrichment of life for the Western world at large, as witnessed by their contributions to civilization outlined above.
To the final question: How may the destruction facing a race, worth the saving, be averted? the Zionists, as already shown, answer: Let us establish a Jewish State. It now remains to explain how this answer can be made effective.
The Program of the First Zionist Congress
ALTHOUGH Herzl, like Pinsker, at first was indifferent as to the location of the State, Palestine was decided upon at the First Zionist Congress for the following practical reasons:[8]
1. Palestine is, of inhabitable and sufficiently uninhabited lands, the nearest to Russia and Roumania, where the greatest number of Jews are undergoing physical suffering.
2. It is not ruled by Christians, and penal discriminatory laws against Jews are not there in force.
3. Conditions of Oriental life are in accord with the stage and condition of life reached by Jews in Eastern Europe.
4. The country is already somewhat of a Jewish center.
5. Jews are more familiar with the language spoken there than with any West European language.
6. Palestine for sentimental reasons has a power of attraction that would operate practically upon Jews wishing to emigrate, and a power of inspiration which would flower in equally practical works when once Jews were established there.
Zionism, as a "solution," sets forth, in the program of this Congress, four ways to achieve its object:[9]
1. To promote the settlement of Jewish agriculturalists, handicraftsmen, industrialists, and professional men. This would offer an asylum for the persecuted Jew and assure him of an independent livelihood, and so simultaneously relieve suffering, starving Jewry—the immediate phase of the problem—and afford a substantial basis for the prosperity and ensuing civilization of the State.
2. To centralize the Jewish people by means of general institutions agreeable to the laws of the land. By institutions are meant banking-houses, schools, etc., which would promote the welfare of the people and render the growth of a culture more unconstrained.
3. To strengthen Jewish national self-consciousness and national sentiment;—this to be accomplished by the establishment of newspapers and societies throughout the world, so as to secure the aid or interest of the Jew who does not want to assimilate in behalf of a national center, and offer a road of return to the Jew who has become assimilated at the cost of his spiritual happiness.
4. To obtain the sanctions of Governments necessary for carrying out the objects of Zionism. This demand for legal assurances, for a charter if possible, distinguishes political Zionism in the matter of means from the mere small-scale colonizing efforts of the philanthropists and the Chovevei Zion societies, precisely as the very conception of a State distinguishes it in the matter of ends. In the words of Herzl, "We do not wish to smuggle in any settlers, and above all, we do not wish to bring about any 'accomplished facts' without preliminary agreement. We have absolutely no interest in bringing about an economic strengthening of Turkey without a corresponding compensation. The whole thing is to be accomplished according to the simplest usage in the world: 'do ut des.' We Zionists think it more foolish than noble to settle colonists without any legal and political guarantees."[10]
The Variant Views of Zionist Groups
BESIDE the political Zionists, a large group can be distinguished as Opportunist Zionists, the chief representative of whom is Israel Zangwill,[11] who in his eagerness to relieve the Jewish problem has become impatient with the slow and seemingly fruitless political progress, and who desires to lead his people to any vacant, habitable territory rather than wait for a charter in Zion. Other leaders in the movement, such as Ussischkin, contend that until the charter is granted, colonization in Palestine should continue, both to satisfy the Jewish demand for emigration and to give weight to the justice and necessity for autonomy.
In sum, the establishing of Zion, while in process, will rescue the sorely oppressed, magnetize and concentrate the interests of Jewry at large, and force the issue of suicide or salvation upon the race; and the establishment of the State, once accomplished, will rejuvenate a people. "They shall revive as the grain and blossom as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon." (Hosea 14.7). In the Zionist vision, assured not by the prophecies, but by the achievements of a glorious past, this new wine, ripening and enriching its flavor in a cup that had long been bitter, will be partaken of by the nations, Jew and Gentile. Jewish culture in its widest sense, embracing the realization of ethical, social, and artistic ideals, nourished by a people living again a homogeneous, autonomous, national life free as it has not been for eighteen centuries from outward pressure—a life imperative for the production of culture—will go forth as a pure vintage, taking its place with the vintages of other nations, to satisfy the soul in dry places and make strong the bones; and over this new wine a new Kiddush may perhaps be spoken. The Reform Jew, the "assimilated" Jew, who finds himself to-day in what we have nominated a position, in a conscious or unconscious inspiration and pride induced by the resurrection of a motherland, as the German in America is inspired by his national unity in Europe, will indeed find his soul satisfied in dry places, and can more generously and effectively contribute to the welfare of the fatherland of which he is a citizen. The Jew who walks in the darkness of a Russia, where his situation is a problem and where existence itself is threatened, will discover in this reawakened motherland a hope and possibly a material aid which will make strong his bones that he may endure until emancipation.
The Communistic Aims of the Social Zionists
UNDER the stimulus of a new creative vision, many poets, practical or otherwise, have brought their own tints to add to the rosy prospect, and these we have designated to be Zionism as a "fulfillment." Just prior to the birth of these United States, Thomas Paine, who in a few respects was the Herzl of the new republic, rapturously exclaimed in his pamphlet Commonsense: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation similar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah!" Stimulated by the potentialities of an empty country and a great race eager to reoccupy it, modern theorists have likewise, and with some reason, discovered in Palestine a land of promise.
Basing their faith in the inherent demand for social justice which racial genius, as witnessed in the Deuteronomic experiment and the whole social trend of the prophetic writings, has created as a permanent characteristic of the Jew and which the injustice of centuries has accentuated, a group of Jewish socialists have entered the Zionist cause in the hope of establishing a form of the communistic principle as a foundation for the new society. The communistic ownership of land is particularly urged. Past experiments of this nature—the Brook Farm and the French Commune as a small and a large example—have failed partly for lack of scientific guidance and sufficient exact knowledge of actual conditions, and partly because of the social unfitness of the participants. Social Zionism, however, has secured for its director an acknowledged authority in communistic economics, Dr. Franz Oppenheimer of the University of Berlin; and it is counting on the Jewish heritage of social instinct to furnish the proper human material for its purpose. Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, who came down from his mountain in 750 B. C. to storm at the capitalistic greed of Israel, raised the first plea in history for social justice. The successful consummation of the prophet's ideal in the new Israel would be a contribution to the world distinctly Hebraic and possibly the most valuable of the modern Jew.
The Yearning for a Spiritual Revival
TO Ahad Ha-'Am,[12] the leading writer of to-day in Hebrew, a "spiritual revival" should be the desideratum of the Zionists. Spiritual is of course not used in the restricted religious sense, but as the opposite of material. Although Ahad Ha-'Am concedes the establishment of a center in Palestine to be a necessity, he considers it only a means to the end of an "awakening" of spiritual forces in art, morals, and national consciousness among Jewry at large; and, to hasten this end, he urges the establishment of a University, an art-school, and bands of workers in the spirit—poets, painters, and all manner of creators—for he conceives the Jews not to be a young race who must climb from satisfying the needs of the belly to the needs of the brain, but an old people who can and must satisfy both demands together.[13]
Finally, the great mass of European Jewry, who weep on the Ninth of Ab, who send their pittance to the Jews of the Holy City in order that they may devote their days to lamenting at the old Wall, who pray each Passover "next year at Jerusalem," and who treasure their little casket of Palestinian earth, which some day will be placed over their shroud, look to Zionism as a "fulfillment" in its literal, Biblical meaning. Although the yearning for such a fulfillment may never be satisfied, it constitutes the impelling force, the prime motive, behind the people who are to settle once again in Canaan, and who are the stuff of which the philosophers' dreams are to be made.
The opportunists who work for the day when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, the politicals who plan that the house of Jacob may possess its possessions, the culturals who behold upon the mountain the feet of him who bringeth glad tidings, the socialists who strive to draw righteousness and peace within kissing distance, and the devout who pray that out of Zion shall go forth the Law, are all intermingling composites of the Zionist dream. That the dream is not in vain, there is no positive assurance; but somewhere it is written that Palestine is the Land of Promise.
The Organization of Zionism
SOPHISTICATION makes for sluggishness of action; and a sophisticated, practical people, such as the Jews, surrounded by an equally sophisticated world, have not marched upon Jerusalem with the flag-flying alacrity of the Crusaders. However, their sophistication has substituted for speed a broad measure of surety; and a summary of the organization of the movement and the work accomplished within and without Palestine gives promise that, if the will behind Zionism be sustained, the Jews who wail at the Wall may profitably direct their energies elsewhere.
The Zionist organization comprises all Jews who subscribe to the Zionist program and pay the annual contribution, known as a shekel, varying from 15 cents to 25 cents in different countries. The program is that formulated at the First Zionist Congress (Basel, 1897): "to obtain for the Jewish people a publicly recognized and legally assured home in Palestine." The members are grouped in local societies which, in turn, are organized into national federations, to be found at present in Argentina, Belgium, Bukowina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia-Slavonia-Herzegovina, Egypt, England, France, Galicia, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Roumania, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States. Unfederated societies exist in Palestine, Morocco, Servia, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, China, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.[14] In short, the atlas is practically exhausted. With a representation proportional to the number of shekel-payers, a Congress convenes bi-annually in a central European city (usually Basel), resolves, and prosecutes all work incumbent upon the furtherance of Zionist purpose. The executive power, although formerly invested in a president, is now exercised, since the death of Herzl (1904) and the resignation of Wolffsohn, by a commission of five, acting as the head of a committee of twenty-five, who constitute a permanent body meeting at intervals between the sessions of Congress.[15] The Congress itself is divided into party-groups, based on policy, and representative of the different theoretic elements that guide the movement.
The original Government party, which stood shoulder to Herzl in his brilliant but unsuccessful diplomatic schemes to secure a charter from the Sultan, upon the overthrow of the autocracy in Turkey (1908), has abandoned purely political Zionism, for the expedient reason that the Young Turk government has naturally been reticent in the granting of broad concessions. Political Zionism, of which Max Nordau and David Wolffsohn[F] are the leading protagonists, has through the accidents of Turkish politics been rendered ineffective; and the actual work of Zionism rests now upon the policies of the Opportunist wing, although the creation of a State, autonomous in as great a degree as possible, is the cardinal aim of the Zionists, and must be, in order to distinguish the movement from a large-scale philanthropy.[16]
Parties in Zionism
THE Opportunists were divided into two groups—the followers of Zangwill who urged immediate colonization anywhere, and the Ziyyone Zionists (Zionists toward Zion) who favored immediate settlement in Palestine. The first party broke from the Zionist movement at the Seventh Congress, instituted the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO), and have vainly devoted their energies toward securing lands in North, East, and West Africa, Mesapotamia, and Australia.[17] The Ziyyone Zionists, however, possess the controlling vote, and in the last Congress (1913) annulled the Basel program, temporarily at least, by securing from the Congress a recognition of the work of settlement in Palestine as the primary task.[18]
Socialistic Zionism is represented by the Po'ale Zion, a small but vigorous group, who are endeavoring to secure at least the adoption of the communistic ownership of land in the pursuance of the Opportunist program.
Dr. Franz Oppenheimer, lecturer in economics at the University of Berlin, has recently issued a pamphlet disclosing the success of the Merchavia Colony, a co-operative settlement near Nazareth, and demonstrating that the only practical method of achieving large-scale colonization is by this means.[19]
Strong in numbers and in influence, the Mizrachi party represents the orthodox wing of Jewry, who "believe a faithful adherence to the Torah and Tradition in all matters pertaining to Jewish life constitute the duty of the Jewish people."[20] In the assemblage of futurists, the Mizrachi stands as the spirit of the past, to whom all plans must be justified, and whose power has its source in the religious fervor of the majority of eastern Jews.
Finally, the Cultural Zionists may be said to find representation in all parties, for the furtherance of spirituality is inseparably bound up in the aims of every Zionist.
The Financial Institutions of Zionism
THE financial instruments by which the practical Zionist aims are seeking accomplishment are (1) the Jewish Colonial Trust,[21] incorporated as a limited company in London (1899) with a capital stock of $20,000,000 and a paid-up capital of $1,324,000; (2) the Anglo-Palestine Company,[22] an offshoot of the Colonial Trust, with a paid-up capital of $500,000, which finances Zionist undertakings in Palestine, and declares annual dividends of 4 1-6 per cent.; (3) the Anglo-Levantine Banking Company,[23] the financial institution of the Zionists devoted to their undertakings in the remainder of Turkey, with a capital of $125,000 declaring 6 per cent. returns; (4) the Jewish National Fund,[24] whose object is to acquire land in Palestine as the inalienable property of the entire Jewish people, with a capital of $650,000 raised by individual contributions; (5) the Palestine Land Development Company,[25] with a registered capital of $87,500, organized for the purpose of (a) acquiring, improving, and dividing into small holdings large Palestinian estates, (b) laying out and cultivating intensive crops, (c) systematically settling and training agricultural laborers in Palestine.
Of late the Jewish Colonization Association, which is backed by the forty-million dollar fund of Baron de Hirsch, is co-operating with the Zionists in the purchase of Palestinian land to be administered by the Palestine Land Development Company.[26]
The actual achievements, which these instruments have been the means of effecting, may be summarized in two classes—Palestinian and non-Palestinian. In both fields, the several branches of Zionist aims have borne fruit.
What Zionism Has Accomplished in Palestine
PALESTINE in 1880 contained 30,000 Jews, who studied the Law, wailed at the Wall, and lived miserably on the alms (the Chalukah) of pious Jewry at large. In 1911 the Jews comprised 100,000 out of a total population of 700,000. In Jerusalem are 50,000 Jews, 7,000 at Tiberias, 8,000 at Safed, and 10,000 at Jaffa. A large proportion, it is true, are settlers of the Ghetto type, but the young generation is rapidly being changed by the growing school-system.[27]
Numbering about fifty, Jewish agricultural colonies extend the length of the Holy Land and support some 5,000 Jews in their yield of olives, dates, wine, sugar, cotton, grain, and cattle. Broad streets, clean homes with gardens, and orchard land characterize the standard of living in the colonies, as machinery and agricultural school students characterize their modern standard of gaining their livelihood.[28] A constantly increasing number of emigrants are streaming into the Holy Land, although the Zionists are devoting their main endeavors toward firmly establishing the resident inhabitants and bettering their condition. On April 3, 1914, the London Jewish Chronicle reported the emigration from the single port of Odessa as numbering 250 persons a week.[29]
In 1886, $1,800,000 of trade passed out through Jaffa, the port of Palestine; in 1909, the value of the exports rose to $7,500,000.[30] Rischon-le-Zion, the oldest colony and containing 500 inhabitants, annually produces, alone, more than a million gallons of wine.[31]
The schools of the older class—Talmud Torah and Yeshibah—still dominate; but, following the example of the Alliance Israelite, a modern type of school with a modern curriculum taught in Hebrew has been established in every colony, and culminates in a Gymnasium at Jaffa as the principal national educational institution. The attendance of the colonial schools number about 1,500, and in the Talmudic schools number several thousands. The Mikveh Israel Agricultural School, near Jaffa, is the center of vocational instruction in Palestine, and aids materially the work of the colonists. Funds for a Hygienic and Technical Institute have likewise been started to further practical education.[32]
The Revival of Jewish Culture
THE cultural revival in Palestine is plainly apparent in the excellent work of the Bezalel,[33] the school of arts and crafts in Jerusalem, named after the builder of the first tabernacle in the wilderness, where are devised carpentry, copperware, wood-carving, basketry, painting, and sculpture "of cunning workmanship" and of distinctly Hebraic design. Another sign of great hope springs from the widespread revival of ancient Hebrew as a living tongue, which has become an awkward necessity among the older Jews gathered from many different nations, and the free and natural expression of the children. Several weeklies and monthlies are published in Hebrew.[34] A National Jewish Library, soon to be housed in a fireproof building at Jerusalem, was founded by Dr. Joseph Chazanowicz, a Zionist leader in Russia, who devoted his entire income to it. In 1910 the Library contained something over 15,000 volumes.[35] Finally, the Eleventh Congress (1913), convened on the 2,500th anniversary of the destruction of the old temple on Mount Moriah, witnessed the pledging of $100,000 to the building of a Jewish National University at Jerusalem—a new temple of culture and science.[36]
Precisely as the roots are more important than the blossoms in the growth of a plant, the accomplishments without Palestine are more significant than within. To-day the Golus (Diaspora) is the root, and Palestine the stalk; some day the Zionists hope to reverse the simile—this, in short, is the essence of the entire movement.
The Accomplishments of Zionism Beyond Palestine
ZIONISM'S chief aims without Palestine are two: (1) Revival of national consciousness, (2) Relief of the persecuted. In regard to the second, the Zionist organization, constantly working to shift emigration from West to East, has in a measure focused it upon Palestine; and more important, it is rapidly perfecting adequate machinery, which once securing the motive power of money in such quantities as is now devoted to the Jewish Colonization Association, will appreciably lessen the gravity of the Jewish problem.
In regard to the awakening of the national consciousness, the Zionist societies, which number in the thousands, constitute centers for the dissemination of propaganda and the stimulation of study in all things Jewish; and the Zionist press, comprising one hundred newspapers and periodicals, the official of which is Die Welt, and the leading American representative, The Maccabaean, materially aid this preaching of Zion gospel. Under the stimulus of the movement, numerous student societies have sprung up abroad, promoting and crystallizing a national sentiment and a race interest, while older societies of this order, such as the Kadimah, have received a renewed impetus. Women's societies of a literary, educational, and social character—the Benoth Zion (Sofia and New York) and the Hadassah (Vienna and New York) for example—have taken a place in the general revival.[37]
The effect of Zionism in large centers of population is ably shown by Charles S. Bernheimer in his study of the Russian Jew in the United States, and his findings may be taken as typical. In general, the Zionist societies have formed the chief social centers of the ghetto,[38] have opened religious schools[39] and libraries,[40] have brought the radicals in religion under the influence of the national idea,[41] and so prevented the loss of religion from being followed by a loss of race-consciousness, and have "enlisted the sympathies of the older people. The young people have grasped the great significance of Zionism, and have taken a renewed interest in religion, education, and culture."[42]
A renaissance of art is following that of culture; in painting Ephraim Lilien, Lesser Ury, Judah Epstein, and Hermann Struck, and in marble and bronze Boris Schatz (the founder and director of Bezalel), Frederick Beer, and Alfred Nossig are receiving their inspiration from Zionism.
The primary enthusiasm for the movement has long ago been expended; and the present interest is deep, healthy, and likely to abide. However, the sustainment of this interest appears to be the primary duty and task of Zionism; in a movement that is a long, dull, slow pull, every moment is a critical moment.
Misconceptions of Zionism
TO the modern Jew who lacks the gift of prophecy, the outcome of an undertaking must be determined by a consideration not only of the force propelling the movement, but of the opposition confronting it. A consideration of this opposition will afford an opportunity, moreover, for a clear and summarizing definition of what the movement is, and, equally important, of what it is not. Opposition to Zionism divides itself into three categories—ignorant; theoretic; practical. One is reminded of Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the servant, and Geshem the Arabian, who mocked and threatened Nehemiah when he undertook to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Ignorant opposition assails Zionism with arguments that are incontrovertible, but totally irrelevant; it busies itself with destroying claims which the Zionists have never made. A trio may be taken as representative. It is pointed out with cogency that Palestine is not capable of supporting the twelve million of Jews who inhabit our world; and more conclusively, the twelve million of Jews do not wish to go to Palestine. Briefly, the Zionists in seeking a home for the Jew in Canaan no more expect all the Jews to congregate within its bounds than a man who builds himself a house expects that all his posterity will live in it. As a matter of history, more Jews after the fall of the first Temple have lived without Palestine than within. Only a remnant returned after the captivity; and Babylon, Alexandria, and Rome contained a larger Jewish population than Jerusalem. Throughout the dispersion, the majority of the Jews lived apart from the nation center—whether that center was the Mesapotamia of Talmudic times, the Spain of the Middle Ages, or the Poland of the early modern period. The Zionist object is only to secure such a national center (free from outward pressure) as a ganglion radiating Hebraic culture, which can preserve Jewish unity and identity and inspire Jewish culture elsewhere, precisely as the Judæa of old rendered similar service;[43] and the modern Palestine with a soil capable of supporting a million inhabitants without extensive irrigation amply satisfies the Zionist purpose.
Zionism Leaves the Status of the Jew Uninjured
CLOSELY allied to this argument is the claim that Zionism constitutes an abandonment by the European Jew of his hard-earned Emancipation, and a traitorous retreat from the position of brother and fellow-countryman which he is now claiming in the several nations. In sum, renationalization in the East spells de-nationalization in the West, and the return of the Jew to the status of alien. Such a conclusion follows as inevitably as it follows that the unification of Germany in 1870 rendered alien the Germans of America who emigrated here in the '40s, that the French Revolution denationalized the refugee Huguenot population of Prussia, that the unification of Italy disfranchised the Italian Swiss, or that the Irish Home Rule Bill will transform the populace of Boston into undesirable citizens. On the contrary, the Zionists are convinced that the re-establishment of a Jewish nation will strengthen, for example, the claim of the German Jew that he is a German by distinctly separating the national from the universal Jew—the sheep from the goats, if you will—and will render his status less precarious because it will be more definable. Moreover, such a national center will increase Jewish self-respect with the consequence of increasing Christian respect. Jewish "aloofness" need no longer be a reproach, because it may safely be abandoned; with Zion itself preserving Hebraism in the East, the Jew in the West may throw himself unreservedly into the life about him; and a flourishing of Jewish culture will make his contribution the more valuable.
Finally, the third objection is formulated in the question, "What is the use?" Whether it be grounded in self-satisfied indifference, hostility, or a sense of hopelessness, it forms the most insidious opposition, because it betrays a lack of racial consciousness that cannot be supplied by argument, and exposes a weakness that cannot be remedied by emotional appeal. It is a weakness amounting to an absence, a literal lack, of the very functions through which a cure could be effected. An Englishman asking, "Why preserve the English?" a Scandinavian asking, "Of what use are the Scandinavians?" a Swiss asking, "Why maintain Switzerland?" is inconceivable. Answers indeed can be found, but the point is that to put the question indicates that the interrogator is beyond a comprehension of the reply. He is like a congenital blindman, who asks: "Of what use is seeing?" The question was, indeed, propounded in the third section of this paper, but only as the hypothetical question of an outsider, much as an Englishman might ask, "Of what value are the Chinese?" to secure an external, historical justification of their existence. However, if the great majority of Jews ever seriously question the need of preserving their own race, the answer becomes immediate and conclusive; there is no need, for there is no longer a race.
Zionism Has No Insuperable Obstacles
THEORETIC opposition is determined on one hand by racial questions, and on the other by religious dogmas. That the Jews are no longer a race, that their preservation need not be undertaken because they do not exist, is, laying aside the scientific disputations, in one sense begging the question. Whether the Jews are a racial unit, and whether their preservation will result in a distinct racial culture, is precisely what a successful consummation of the Zionist object will prove or disprove with finality; and until such consummation, even scientific theorizing on the subject will expose itself to the unscientific process of working without the check of laboratory experiment. To the scientist, Zionism offers Palestine as such a laboratory. The religious opposition offered by Reform Judaism has been previously discussed; however, it may be summed up in three statements. An appeal to the implied meaning of the Scriptures can only be authoritatively settled by the author. Granting, nevertheless, that a suffering Israel and a missionary Israel are essentials in a Divine plan, the establishment of a national center does not dogmatically preclude Israel from continuing to suffer elsewhere, nor forbid Israel from pursuing her missionary project of acting as a model example and shining light to the nations. Quite the reverse; inasmuch as the Dispersion is fast becoming a Destruction, which Zionism is attempting to avert, the preservation of Reform Judaism itself demands the success of Zionism.
Practical opposition is indeed ponderous, but not necessarily insuperable. The majority of Palestinian obstacles, such as the difficulties which the confusion of national tongues, culture, and habits will impose on unification, the precarious chance of ultimately securing legal recognition from Turkey, the possible obstructions amounting even to conflict to be offered by the native Arabian population, are distant bridges which the far-seeing may fear, but which, the wise will not attempt to cross until reached. However, three urgent perplexities and impediments are imminent in the danger of securing only a low class of settlers, of suffering from insufficient means, and of failing from diminution of interest. At bottom, the three are one, and amount to the necessity of keeping up the old heart and inspiring new hearts.
With a sufficiency of interest, the necessary money and the proper men will find their way to Palestine; in a word, only a people can save themselves, and, failing to do so, aside from scientific argument and religious dogma, they remain no more a people. That this people may not so perish, the Zionists are not only furnishing the vision; but with back and arm, they are working to rebuild the Wall where men have wailed the centuries by. To the captious, the hostile, and the persistently heedless, their cue is to say with Nehemiah of old: "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down."
THE Jewish students form so distinctive and gifted an element in the life of all our colleges that their self-expression should serve a valuable purpose. Through becoming articulate in such a publication as The Menorah Journal, the first issue of which is full of promise, they may well bring to pass not only a fuller realization of the part they are to play in American society, but also a better understanding of that part by the entire community to which they belong. Without such better understandings there is small hope for the community as a whole.—From an Editorial in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin, March 17, 1915.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I. Friedlaender, The Political Ideals of the Prophets (pamphlet) (Baltimore, 1910), p. 10.
[2] Jewish Encyclopedia under "Graetz."
[3] Ahad Ha-'Am, "Pinsker and His Brochure" (pamphlet) (New York, 1911), p. 5.
[4] Ignaz Zollschan, Das Rassenproblem (Leipsic, 1911). G. Pollack, "Jewish Race," The Nation, vol. 94, p. 609, in review of the above book. A. S. Waldstein, "A Study of the Jews," The Maccabaean, vol. 21, p. 41. M. Waxman, "The Ethnic Character of the Jews" (New York, 1910). The American Hebrew, "The Jewish Race Problem," vol. 90, p. 435.
[5] Zollschan, Das Rassenproblem, p. 140.
[6] H. M. Kallen, "Judaism, Hebraism and Zionism," The American Hebrew, vol. 87, p. 181.
[7] Idem, p. 182.
[8] R. C. Conder, "Zionists," Blackwood's, vol. 163, p. 598.
[9] Max Nordau, Zionism (New York, 1911), p. 11.
[10] The Maccabaean, "Theodor Herzl in His Writings," vol. 23, p. 229.
[11] Zangwill, "Zionism and Territorialism," Living Age, vol. 265, p. 663.
[12] Ahad Ha-'Am, Selected Essays (Philadelphia, 1912), p. 253 et seq.
[13] Idem, p. 290.
[14] Cohen, Zionist Work in Palestine, p. 198.
[15] The Survey, "The Tenth Zionist Congress," vol. 25, p. 845.
[F] This Essay was written before Mr. Wolffsohn's death.
[16] The American Hebrew, "Dr. Max Nordau on Herzl's Policies," vol. 93, p. 403.
[17] American Jewish Year Book, 1910-11, "Events of the Year." I. Zangwill, "Zionism and Territorialism," Living Age, vol. 265, p. 668.
[18] L. Lipsky, "Results of the Eleventh Congress," The Maccabaean, vol. 23, p. 250.
[19] Franz Oppenheimer, Merchavia (New York, 1914), p. 1-13. "Life Work of Franz Oppenheimer," The Maccabaean, vol. 24, p. 12.
[20] Jewish Encyclopedia under "Zionism—Party Organization."
[21] Idem, under "Jewish Colonial Trust." Cohen, Zionist Work in Palestine, p. 198.
[22] Idem, p. 127.
[23] Idem, p. 199.
[24] Idem, p. 203.
[25] Idem, p. 199.
[26] American Jewish Year Book, 1913-14, p. 203.
[27] H. Bentwich, "The Jewish Renaissance in Palestine," Fortnightly Review, vol. 96, p. 136.
[28] Cohen, Zionist Work in Palestine, p. 195.
[29] Jewish Chronicle (London), No. 2348, p. 34.
[30] Bentwich, "The Jewish Renaissance in Palestine," Fortnightly Review, vol. 96, p. 136.
[31] H. F. Ward, "Palestine for the Jews," The World Today, vol. 17, p. 1062.
[32] Cohen, Zionist Work in Palestine, p. 86.
[33] Bentwich, "The Jewish Renaissance in Palestine," Fortnightly Review, vol. 96, p. 136.
[34] Idem.
[35] Jewish Encyclopedia under "Arbanel Library."
[36] The Maccabaean, vol. 23, p. 263.
[37] Jewish Encyclopedia under "Zionism."
[38] C. S. Bernheimer, "The Russian Jew in the United States." (Philadelphia, 1905), p. 232.
[39] Idem, p. 180.
[40] Idem, p. 168.
[41] Idem, p. 155.
[42] Idem, p. 181.
[43] M. Waxman, "The Importance of Palestine for the Jews in the Diaspora," The Maccabaean, vol. 23, p. 232. A succinct detailing of this service.