Of course, it requires many years and a great expenditure of money to establish a nation on a firm basis. But in Pinsker's dictionary the word "impossible" does not exist. "Far, very far," says he, "is the haven of rest towards which our souls are turning. We know not even whether it be East or West. But be the road never so long, it cannot seem too long to the wanderers of two thousand years."
Pinsker's impassioned appeal made a deep impression. It was obvious that colonization would be the shortest road to renationalization. But as to the place in which the colonies should be established, no agreement could be reached. Pinsker, like Herzl after him, left the problem unsolved. Some preferred America or even Spain. In southern Russia a society, 'Am 'Olam (The Eternal Nation), was organized on communistic principles. It sent an advance guard to the United States, where, as the Sons of the Free, they established several settlements, the best-known of which was New Odessa, in Oregon.[8] The majority, however, preferred Palestine, the land which, in weal or woe, in pain or pleasure, remains ever dear to the Jewish heart; the land to which the ancient exiles by the waters of Babylon had vowed that sooner than forget her would their right hands forget their cunning and their tongues cleave to the roofs of their mouths; the possession whereof had been held out as the most alluring promise, and to be deprived of which the prophets had regarded as the severest punishment.
Zionism, even Territorialism, among the Russian Jews is by no means solely the result of modern anti-Semitism. At the same time that Mordecai Manuel Noah was planning his Jewish state Ararat in western New York (1825), Gregori Peretz, who, as a child, had been converted, with his father, to the dominant religion, and had been advanced to the rank of an officer in his Majesty's army, was dreaming of the renationalization of his alienated brethren. As a leading figure in the councils of the Dekabrists, he never ceased his efforts until his comrades accepted the restoration of Israel to his pristine place among the nations of the earth as part of their revolutionary programme. But with the suppression of the Dekabrists by Nicholas I the scheme died "a-borning," and sank into oblivion. Later, David Gordon revived the yearnings of Judah Halevi by his articles in the weekly Ha-Maggid (1863), which he edited in Lyck, Prussia. Smolenskin's writings resound with a love for Zion from the very beginning of his literary career. And a rising young Hebraist, Eliezer ben Yehudah, while still a student of medicine, wrote, in 1878, and again in 1880, stirring letters to the editor of Ha-Shahar, in which he advocated the return to the Holy Land and the revival of the holy tongue as a conditio sine qua non for the realization of the Jewish mission. These views, at first advocated by the Hebrew-writing and Hebrew-reading Maskilim, gradually filtered into the various strata of Russo-Jewish society, and when the clouds began to gather fast in Russia's sky, and the change in the monarch's policy augured the approach of evil times, Zionism rapidly made enthusiastic converts even among the most Russified of the Jewish youth. On November 6, 1884, for the first time in history, a Jewish international assembly was held at Kattowitz, near the Russian frontier, where representatives from all classes and different countries met and decided to colonize Palestine with Jewish farmers.
Since then Haskalah in Russia has become nationalistic and Palestinian. Even those who were at first opposed to it gradually grew friendly, and finally became "lovers of Zion" (Hobebe Zion). Among the Russo-Jewish students in Vienna, Smolenskin, the militant Zionist, organized an academic society, Kadimah, a name which, meaning Eastward and Forward, contains the philosophy of Zionism in a nutshell. Seeing that the Alliance Israélite Universelle encouraged emigration to America, both he and Ben Yehudah published violent attacks on the French society, and endeavored to thwart its plans as far as possible.[9] The Hebrew weekly Ha-Meliz, published in St. Petersburg, was a staunch supporter of the movement, and a little later Ha-Zefirah, published in Warsaw, which was at first indifferent, if not antagonistic, joined the ranks. In Russian, too, the Razsvyet and especially the Buduchnost spread Zionism among their readers, while books, pamphlets, and poems were published in Yiddish for circulation among the masses. In addition to the Hobebe Zion societies formed in many cities, secret societies were organized, such as the famous Bene Mosheh (Sons of Moses), which had for its object the moral and intellectual improvement of the future citizens of the Jewish Republic; the Bilu (initials of Bet Ya'akob leku we-nelekah, "O House of Jacob, come and let us go"), formed by Israel Belkind, who went to Palestine with his fellow-students of the University of Kharkov, and founded the colony of Gederah; and the Hillul (Hereb la-Adonaï u-le-Arzenu, "A sword for God and our land"), the members of which pledged themselves to remove any obstacle to the cause of nationalism, even at the cost of their lives. The Bone Zion (Builders of Zion), a sort of Masonic fraternity, was a very potent secret society, which undertook to constitute itself a provisional Jewish Government, and assiduously watched the Zionistic societies and their leaders in every portion of the globe.[10]
These dreamy youths, however, heartbroken and disgusted with a civilization which had failed to redeem its promises, proved but poor material for laying the foundations for a future nation. It was as with the Darien Company organized by William Paterson when Scotland was sorely distressed, and the Champ d'Asile, by the remnant of Napoleon's grand army—a fine idea, but the men and the means were wanting to execute it. The colonies in Palestine fared no better than those in America. They were opposed by the Government from without and by many of the orthodox Jews from within. The former, though claiming to be glad to see the Jews emigrate, though declaring to the Jewish delegation that pleaded for mercy, Zapadnaya graniza dlya vas otkrita ("the Western frontier is open to you"), was still, Pharaoh-like, reluctant to see so many "undesirable citizens" leave, and prohibited the formation of organizations to accomplish the end. The orthodox were against the movement on religious grounds, because it was "forcing the end" of Israel's trouble before the destined day of God arrived.[11] But with the "nineties" the movement received a strong impetus. Alexander Zederbaum, the publisher of Ha-Meliz, succeeded in obtaining a charter (February 9, 1890) for the Association for the Aid of Colonization in Palestine and Syria. Such eminent rabbis as Mordecai Eliasberg, his son Jonathan, Samuel Mohilever, N.Z.Y. Berlin, and Mordecai Joffe espoused the cause, and set the example for their less prominent colleagues. When the question arose whether Jewish agriculturists in Palestine are obliged to observe the Biblical injunction not to till the ground in the seventh year (shemittah), Rabbi Isaac Elhanan Spector of Kovno, the leading rabbi and Talmudist of his time, decided, in opposition to the Jerusalem rabbinate, that the law had ceased to be effective with the destruction of the Temple. Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris also came to the rescue of the colonists, and, more important still, there began an immigration of Russo-Jewish farmers into Palestine, of the class, numbering about ninety-five thousand souls, whom Arnold White described as "an active, well set-up, sun-burnt, muscular, agricultural people, marked by all the characteristics of a peasantry of the highest character." With them the colonies began to flourish, the debts were paid off, and a better regime set in. "There was no crime or drunkenness," says Bentwich, "in those settlements, and the only usurer was a Russian peasant, who charged the Jewish borrowers thirty-six per cent for loans. If ever I saw practical religion carried into daily life, it was among those brave and sober Hebrew ploughmen."[12]
Whatever may be one's views on Zionism, there can be no doubt that it has proved a power for good in Russia. It introduced new ideals and revived old expectations. It has accomplished, in a measure, the fond hope of the Maskilim and awakened within the Russian Jew a feeling of self-respect and a "consciousness of human worth." Different and contending elements it has coalesced into one. It has, above all, brought back to the fold the doubting Thomases and careless Gallios, even the avowed scoffers, among the Jewish youth, and imbued them with courage and pride,[13] and given them a new shibboleth, Meine Kunst der Welt, mein Leben meinem Volke ("My art for the world, my life for my people").
"We have seen our youths return to us," writes Lilienblum,[14] "and our hearts were filled with joy. In their restoration we found balm for our wounds, and with rapturous wonderment we asked 'who has borne us these?'" The poets welcomed them with songs. Gordon, whose sorrow had silenced his muse, was inspired once more and called:
Behold our sons, of whom we despaired,
Return to us, the great and the small;