In the Zionist programme every point of the old Zionist idea is preserved, but everything is modernized. Modern Zionism is the logical consequence of Jewish History. It does not appeal merely to old memories, which, however noble and moving, cannot be permanently sustained; it works by simple, intelligible means, by means of a Renascence. This Renascence kindles enthusiasm, renews courage, awakens in the heart fresh fervour and stimulus to action.
Zionism has tradition to support it; but if it were simply a thing of antiquity, it would perish; if it were simply a matter of history and not of living experience, it would be relegated to the sphere of archæology. Zionism, although old, like the Jewish people, thinks freshly and independently on Jewish subjects. The roots of Zionism are in the past, but its blossom is in the present and its fruit in the future. The reason is simply that everything really Jewish must be bound up with history. Zionism is, first of all, undoubtedly a great historical idea. It is a simple matter of fact that Israel’s history begins with Zionism. Israel’s history in ancient times shows the path to the realization of Zionism. The exodus from Egypt was an example of combined emigration and colonization. The Jewish people entered Canaan, occupied lands, and in a few generations became a glorious nation. The return from Babylon was a great Zionist event, without any supernatural miracle, dependent only on the grace of God and the approval of Cyrus the Great. The Jews who returned from Babylon were only an insignificant minority in numbers, but they were inspired, and therefore they succeeded in founding a centre, and that centre, Palestine, became a new light for Jews and Gentiles. In fact, the favourite idea of Modern Zionism, the idea of a spiritual centre in Zion for the whole Diaspora, the focussing of a pure Jewish life in Palestine, the creation of an intellectual and moral reservoir, from which a stream of influence should flow all over the scattered nation, and waves of Jewish inspiration and knowledge should spread in all directions, making the little land a metropolis of Judaism in religion and life—was not this Zionist programme laid down and carried out in the intentions and achievements of Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah?
In after years Jews went forth as emigrants to all parts of the world. They submitted to the laws of the various countries, and were capable of adapting themselves to surrounding circumstances. Wherever they went they carried with them their God and their traditions, their literature and their customs, nor did they ever forget the old, holy home which they had left.
This faithfulness is one of the most stirring and pathetic facts in the history of the world; it is the most sublime fact in the history of the Jews. The Jews never forgot Jerusalem, its ruined walls, its shattered palaces, its former grandeur, its old associations; they never forgot the old land and its desolate fields. This feeling never depended on individual Jews, it depended on the whole Jewish nation.
The Jews never forgot their old nationality. They never forgot that they were a nation apart, distinct in morality, in learning, in literature, in social arrangements and in agriculture: a civilized nation at a time when Western civilization was still unknown. For two thousand years after the loss of political independence, they believed with passionate intensity in their future as a nation in Palestine. While they were mingling with the world around them, no temptation, whether the hope of material success or the still more irresistible force of emulation, could withdraw them from their allegiance to the future. No inducement, however powerful, no suffering, no martyrdom, no agony could make them forget the sacred debt they owed to God, to their ancestors and to themselves. They always considered it their duty to be members of one great family, bound together not alone by a common past, but by a community of undying ideas, aspirations, and hopes for a national future. They remained unmistakably true to their duty. This strong conviction is deeply rooted in the hearts of millions of Jews. It is an unbroken chain stretching from the dawn of Jewish history through all generations from Abraham to our own times. This unshaken belief, which kept and still keeps together the Jews all over the world, is the quintessence of all Jewish prophecies, from Moses to Malachi, of all Jewish teaching, from the men of the Great Synod to Maimonides and to the present day.[¹]
[¹] See Appendix i: The Hebrew Prophets and the Idea of National Restoration.
This idea of a national future for Israel is the essence of all Jewish prayers, from the time when the “Eighteen Benedictions” were composed to the last of the Paitanim. It is the keynote of all Hebrew poetry, old and new, from the holy Psalms to the inspired poems of Jehudah Ha’levi, and from Jehudah Ha’levi to the living Hebrew poets of our own day. This everlasting, all-absorbing and unconquerable idea of a national future is absolutely Jewish. It has accompanied the Jews from the cradle to the grave. It is the secret of their long existence, which has no parallel in history. It has nothing to do with nationalistic tendencies and currents among the Gentiles in modern times. It existed as well in times of distress and misfortune as in times of prosperity. It was never the invention of individuals; on the contrary, there can be found occasionally the expression of individual views, in passages of little importance, which reveal a somewhat different standpoint. But the Jewish people as a whole, including even the most extreme sects, such as the Karaites and the Samaritans, remained faithful to this idea.
From an historical point of view, to speak of “Germans, Hungarians or Turks of the Jewish faith” in order to describe the Jews simply as persons of a certain religious faith similar to Protestants, Catholics or others, is nothing short of defying authentic history and hard facts. The Jews do not form a State within a State, as some anti-Semites maintain; but they are undoubtedly an old historic nation within other nations, an old nation which has outlived Egyptian Pharaohs, Assyrian Kings and Arabian Khalifs. That they at present do not live in their own land, but are scattered everywhere, that they have become acclimatized in different countries, and not only conform to their laws but belong to their most loyal citizens, that fact does not in the least alter the truth of our assertion. With a few unimportant exceptions Jews marry among themselves, and as far as the majority is concerned maintain their racial and historic peculiarities. Moreover, their entire religion abounds in historical ideas and national reminiscences. They can by no means be compared with Catholics or Protestants: there are French Catholics and German Catholics, English Protestants and German Protestants, but the Jewish religion has been a religion of the Jewish nation alone for thousands of years.
It is only in quite modern times that a kind of opposition to this idea has begun to find expression in some Jewish quarters, influenced by the general tendencies of the end of the eighteenth century, and chiefly represented by the so-called Mendelssohnian school. This opposition has been intensified to a certain extent, since Modern Zionism came into being with its clear programme and its up-to-date character.
The principal points of this opposition to the Zionist cause are the following:—