It stands to reason that a real national feeling can only develop in Palestine. There this feeling would become what it is among all other sound, healthy and civilized peoples: the joyful consciousness of belonging to a nation that in life, customs and language bears the impress of an ancient and yet new culture. It is in this and not in the superficialities of a state that the centre of gravity of Zionist efforts consists. What Zionists want is to find in the historical fatherland the conditions requisite for the untrammelled development of a Jewish nation. Zionism is in its deepest sense a product of Jewish national consciousness.
What actually is national consciousness? National consciousness, a product of a national common consciousness and of an historically conditioned feeling of unity, is not based upon a single undertaking by a single group of men, or of a single impulse in the history of this group, but upon a certain inborn cultural value of a given people. National consciousness thus expresses this value as a peculiar embodiment of the human soul, which, during the course of special lives enriches humanity so that the right is claimed for the nation in question to safeguard its existence and to develop according to its own individuality within the world of nations. This consciousness is capable of a very varied development in strength, formation and tendency. It manifests itself in the joy felt in the preservation of its own national characteristics, in the promotion of its fitness, in the relation of the efficiency of the individual to the welfare of the whole, and in the willingness to sacrifice for the good of the whole people. This consciousness possesses, besides, certain specific aspects which are peculiar to the one nation more than to any other. It must possess these specific aspects or else it would be nothing more than an imitation or a continuation of its antithesis: assimilation.
Consequently a Jewish national consciousness must likewise lay emphasis upon the specific aspects which are of a spiritual nature. The Jewish people is essentially neither ambitious of domination, nor bent on proselytizing, neither adventurous nor aggressive; it is a people eminently endowed intellectually that wishes to enjoy the blessings of peace. Some of the immoral backwaters of the national consciousness are national pride, presumption, blindness to the qualities and efficiency of foreigners, malicious envy, lust of domination, ill-will. The Jewish people is sufficiently safeguarded against such failings by its spiritual endowment.
XI. (vol. i., p. 205)
Dr. Chas. F. Zimpel published in 1865 an Appel à la société Chrétienne toute entière ainsi qu’aux Israelites, pour la déliverance de Jerusalem (Frankfort-on-the-Main) in which he gave a description of the deplorable conditions in Palestine, and appealed to Christians and Jews to establish a new order of things in that country. He referred to the ideas of Napoleon I., and mentioned a statement that Napoleon III. made some definite promises in this matter: “Que S.M. Napoleon III. en ait le pressentiment ou la conviction, il est certain que, d’après ce qui m’a été communiqué, il a donné, il y a environ trois ans ... sa parole de travailler dans ce but” (p. 12). This statement is evidently related to the propaganda of M. Dunant, which was much stimulated by the beginning of the work on the Suez Canal. Earlier, in 1852, Zimpel had published a pamphlet, Die Israeliten in Jerusalem (Stuttgart, 1852), in which he appealed to his readers for support of the agricultural Jewish settlement established by the Americans in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Zimpel, who declared himself to be a Christian, contributed five hundred florins. He mentioned among the promoters of the idea the American Dr. J. T. Barclay, and a prominent Jerusalemite, John Meshullam. About Meshullam, who was a baptized Jew, born in London, who had had an adventurous career, a part of which was spent in the service of Lord Byron, some interesting particulars are given, under date 20th March, 1852, in The Sabbath Recorder of New York, No. 413, of the 20th of May, 1852. This paper quotes an extract from a journal of Mr. C. S. Minor, an American (Christian) gentleman, who was associated with Meshullam in his agricultural settlement at Bethlehem:
“Through a recent petition of the Turkish Effendis of Jerusalem, the Sultan has lately sent him (Meshullam) an offer of the site of the ancient Cæsarea and its fertile vicinity, if he will undertake and superintend its rebuilding and cultivation. This is greatly surprising and important, as Cæsarea has the most lovely and easily rebuilt ruins in Palestine, and is a point of great commercial importance and entrance to the whole land, and was formerly the chosen port of the Romans. This he declines from his love to Jerusalem and his suffering brethren within its walls.”
Meshullam is again mentioned in Colonel George Gawler’s book, Syria, etc. (London, 1853, p. 78): “Some have supposed that the Hebrew people are at present unfitted for field or garden work. Such as think this cannot have witnessed Hebrew labourers, aye, and Hebrew Rabbis, at work in Mr. Meshullam’s farm at Urtan.”
XII. (vol. i., p. 216)
In the year 1884 the delegates of the Chovevé Zion Unions, mostly from Russia, met in conference at Kattowitz in Silesia, close to the Russo-Polish frontier. A Bne-Brith Union had formerly been founded there which had for its object: “To afford moral and material support for the foundation of colonies, to Jews undergoing religious persecution.” The words “In Palestine” were only introduced later. But in the appeal which this Union had circulated in 1882, Palestine was expressly mentioned as the future home of the Jewish nation, and the national future of the Jewish community was exalted with every conceivable distinctness. In this appeal Palestine was opposed to America, towards which the main stream of emigration was flowing, and was represented as a suitable land of immigration on account of all the reasons which it is usual to adduce: the low cost of the journey, the value of the concentration of Jewish masses upon common territory; the country’s fertility, among others. The president of this Bne-Brith Lodge, M. Moses, was known as a zealous Chovev Zion. This circumstance, and the proximity of the town to the Russo-Polish frontier, were the reasons for its selection for the Conference.
The Conference had elected a central committee, whose seat should originally have been in Berlin, but it turned out differently. Odessa remained the centre of the Friends of Zion. It also determined that henceforward a better administration of the funds was to be carried through. An attempt was to be made to obtain the recognition of the Society by the Russian Government; the position of the colonization was to be tested on the spot, and it was only then to be determined which colonies were to be supported. New foundations were not to be considered in the meantime. Finally, a delegation was to be sent to the Turkish Government to effect the removal of the difficulties standing in the way of Jewish colonization in Palestine. Although, as had been foreseen, it was not yet possible to gather all the threads into one hand, the organizing thought and a Zionistic programme were proclaimed here for the first time. The newly founded institution was given the name “Maskereth Moshe,” or “Montefiore Foundation for Supporting Colonies of the Holy Land,” so named in remembrance of Montefiore, whose hundreth birthday had been celebrated with widespread enthusiasm, especially in Russia. Through the sale of Montefiore pictures, the first common fund, 40,000 roubles, had been raised.