The persecutions of the Jews in 1880–1884 were for Emma Lazarus a clarion call that awoke slumbering and unrealised feelings and aspirations. She was an assimilated Jewess herself at the beginning of her literary career. She had been in search of heroic ideals in alien fields, in Pagan mythology and in mystic, mediæval Christianity, ignoring all the time her birthright—the glorious vista of a great past and of a still greater future for the Jewish nation. Judaism had been a dead letter to her. But with the outbreak of the persecutions she found herself again. From this time dated the mission which she undertook on behalf of her race, and the expansion of all her faculties, that growth of spiritual power which is always stimulated when a great cause is championed and strong convictions awaken the soul. Emma Lazarus became an inspired poetess of the Jewish national idea. Her whole being had reshaped itself and found nourishment at an inexhaustible source. She threw herself into the study of her race, its language, its literature and history. Breaking the outward shell, she soon reached the kernel of the faith and the “miracle” of its survival. What was it other than the ever-present, ever life-inspiring spirit itself, which cannot die—the religious and ethical zeal which fills the whole history of the Jewish people, and of which she herself felt the living glow within her own soul? She had discovered the secret and the genius of Judaism—that complete transfusion of spirit with body and substance which, taken literally, often reduces itself to rites and ceremonies, but viewed in a proper light takes a nobler shape and form, and spreads its light over humanity in the prophets, teachers and saviours of mankind.
The idea that aroused the imagination of Emma Lazarus was a restored and independent nationality and the repatriation of the Jews in Palestine. In an article on the “Jewish Problem,” she wrote:—
“I am fully persuaded that all suggested solutions other than this of the Jewish problem are but temporary palliatives.[¹]
[¹] Century, February, 1883, p. 610.
“The idea formulated by George Eliot has already sunk into the minds of many Jewish enthusiasts, and it germinates with miraculous rapidity. ‘The idea that I am possessed with,’ says Mordecai, ‘is that of restoring a political existence to my people, making them a nation again, giving them a national centre, such as the English have, though they, too, are scattered over the face of the globe. That is a task which presents itself to me as a duty.... I am resolved to devote my life to it. At the least, I may awaken a movement in other minds such as has been awakened in my own.’” Could the noble poetess who wrote these words have lived until to-day, she would have been astonished at the flame which her torch has kindled and the practical shape which the movement brought to public notice by her has begun to assume.
In November, 1882, her first Epistle to the Hebrews appeared as one of a series of articles written for the American Hebrew. Addressing herself to a Jewish audience, she unfolded her views and hopes for Judaism without reserve, on the one hand passionately urging its claims and its high ideals, and on the other dispassionately describing the shortcomings and peculiarities of her race. She says: “Every student of the Hebrew language is aware that we have in conjugation of our verbs a mode known as the intensive voice, which, by means of an almost imperceptible modification of vowel-points, intensifies the meaning of the primitive root. A similar significance seems to attach to the Jews themselves in connection with the people among whom they dwell. They are the intensive form of any nationality whose language and customs they adopt.... Influenced by the same causes, they represent the same results: but the deeper lights and shadows of the Oriental temperament throw their failings, as well as their virtues, into more prominent relief.”
In drawing the Epistles to a close,[¹] she summarized the special objects she had in view: “My chief aim has been to contribute my mite towards arousing that spirit of Jewish enthusiasm which might manifest itself:—
[¹] February 24, 1883.
“First. In a return to the world pursuits and broad asylum of physical and intellectual education adopted by our ancestors:
“Second. In a more fraternal and practical movement towards alleviating the sufferings of oppressed Jews in countries less favoured than our own: