“Can it be doubted that the name of Montefiore would prove the magic spell, were only authority given to utter it? It is likely that in the first instance not all standard-bearers of Jerusalem would join the movement. The Continent might for a time hang back. It might at first be found impracticable to enlist for such a project the phlegmatic Germans. But practical England and her dependencies, as well as the acute Americans, would hail such a project: and after a while all other sections of Israel would join.”
We may appropriately pause at this point to consider the attitude of English Jews to the conflicting ideas of Zionism and assimilation.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
ZIONISM VERSUS ASSIMILATION
The first difficulties—The traditions of Anglo-Jewry—The influence of the English people on the Jews—Assimilation and the Jewish National idea—The Zionist conception of the Jewish problem—The tragedy of a minority.
In order that Zionism might be prevented from becoming a metaphysical theory instead of a practical principle, and might achieve concreteness and real life, it was most advisable that its development should proceed by steady and slow degrees, that it should meet with opposition at every step and be challenged to produce logical proof of its soundness. For it is only after antagonism has been overcome that truth reigns triumphant in the human mind. There is consequently no cause to regret that Zionism met with opposition among the Jews themselves.
At the time with which we are dealing—the sixties of last century—a number of Jews in some countries of Western Europe already showed a desire to assimilate with their fellow-countrymen in every possible way. This desire arises merely from a confusion of aspirations and ideas. It is of course natural for a Jew born in England to be proud of being an English citizen, for a Jew born in France, Italy or elsewhere to be proud of the greatness and progress of his native land. Everybody thoroughly understands and appreciates this sentiment. There are few feelings more noble than patriotism, and few have been responsible for greater deeds and more heroic achievements. It is a good thing when the “amour sacre de la patrie” fills one’s breast. But a Jew may be a good and loyal citizen and yet a thoroughly national Jew. The two things are in no way incompatible, and have been made to appear so only by inaccuracy in definition, and failure to understand the difference between ethnological and religious nationality on the one hand, and political nationality on the other.
The Jews are a nation, although they have not retained their full national status. Most non-Jews, whether they are anti- or pro-Jews, regard Judaism as a national tie, and if well-wishers hesitate to express this opinion it is only for fear of hurting the feelings of those Jews who wish to be thought merely a religious community. Delicate natures shrink from incurring the suspicion of anti-Semitism, and comply from conscious or unconscious kindliness with this singular wish of a few Jews. So this minority has contrived to suggest to many Christians a view which, in reality, they do not share at all, and which will not stand careful scrutiny. The best proof of the national quality of a given community is the conviction of the outside world that it is a nation. Whether the Jews are an absolutely pure race or not (absolute purity does not exist, but relatively the Jews are doubtless the purest race among civilized nations), they have a specific past, a peculiar temperament, a special mentality, which persist even when the Jewish religion has long ceased to be a living force, and make the most assimilated Jews a nation. And so it will remain, for, on the whole, the Jews are a tenacious people, and withstand extreme tendencies to assimilation. When some assimilated Jews, who really believe in nothing, call themselves genuine Teutons, Latins, etc., of the Jewish faith, it may be psychologically interesting to close observers, but it is in reality only an unconscious impulse on the part of self-despairing Judaism to survive in any shape whatsoever. And these assimilationists have never been—though the Jews have gone through greater and more extensive periods of assimilation than the present—more than a handful.
Of course the national force of present-day Judaism is in a latent state, and it can only become manifest when Judaism resumes its history. The Jewish nation has the cultural power to attain that goal, to form a national community, to maintain it and to make it prosper. Its intellectual and ethical aptitudes are denied by none but the malevolent and the envious. One cannot glance into the history of civilized nations, and of civilization itself, without meeting at every point with men of Jewish race who have achieved great things in poetry and science, in economics and politics.
“Yours is a mighty genius,” the French statesman Ernest Laharanne wrote in 1860, “and we bow before you. You were strong in the days of antiquity, and strong in the Middle Ages. You have preserved your existence throughout the dispersion, of course not without paying the heavy tax of eighteen centuries of persecution. But the remainder is still strong enough to erect anew the gates of Jerusalem. This is your task.”[¹]