The war called upon the Jews to make sacrifices in equal measure with all the other inhabitants of these countries; their youth and their strength were laid on the altar of the land of their birth; they also bore the burden of all the taxes and payments which the other inhabitants had to bear; they put forward tremendous efforts as tradesmen and workers, as doctors and nurses; they were active workers in all departments directly and indirectly connected with the war. Yet side by side with this they had to face an insufferable hatred, they had to wage a separate war with the powerful, who strove to reduce to nothingness the little remnant which the war itself could not utterly destroy.
That this impression became current among the Jews was inevitable, in consequence of an old phenomenon which appeared before them in a new guise. We refer to the curious mixture of expulsion and evacuation, of pogroms and slaughters, of which they were the victims. They were accustomed, from long and bitter experience, to expulsions from without the pale of settlement into the regions of the pale, from villages to towns, and to the suffering occasioned by the Russo-Turkish and Russo-Japanese wars; but these expulsions occurred when conditions in Russia itself were almost normal, and when the Jews who were left untouched by the decree of expulsion were able to render assistance to their unfortunate brethren. The combination of the two forms of trials, of war and of persecution by their fellow-citizens, was more than even a nation inured to suffering could bear. It was as though this nation, which had been a wanderer from time immemorial, had only just begun its wanderings. They were no ordinary wanderers—not merely expelled and outlawed; but they were taken and hurled as out of the middle of a sling from province to province and from district to district. Railway carriages were not enough to hold them, so they were transported in cattle-trucks, the doors of which were locked to prevent escape on the way. The cattle-trucks were not sufficient to cope with the numbers and horse-vans were impressed, and as the horse-vans were not sufficient, even though the Jews paid their last kopecks for places in them, they were sent on foot. Bands of wanderers—consisting of women, children, aged, weak, sick and infirm—were accordingly dragged, driven, knouted along every kind of road and over every kind of obstacle, not like cattle beneath the watchful eye of the herdsman, not even like animals led to the slaughter, on whom some mercy is taken because they can be used, but simply like wild beasts pursued by huntsmen; whoever fell by the way fell without attention, whoever fell sick was ruthlessly left behind. Families were split up, and that iron bond which unites parents and children was snapped; infants died of starvation pressed against their mothers’ shrivelled breasts; weary old greybeards grew faint and stumbled on the way and died without the last consolation of old age, without seeing around them their offspring whose souls were bound up with their own; tender infants were deserted without anyone to take pity on them, and the clamour went forth from one end of the earth to the other, “Where is my father?” “Where is my child?”
This tragedy was not included among the necessary tragedies of the war: it was a Jewish tragedy. When Belgium was ruined, her Jews too were ruined. Had the catastrophe to the Jews in Poland and Lithuania been of such a kind it would have found a place in the general history and not in the separate history of the Jews. When, however, bands of thousands of Jewish fugitives came to Warsaw from the inland towns, in rags and tatters, footsore, hungry and despairing, it was impossible to regard them simply as victims of the war, because it was only the Jews who came. They were not victims of the war, they were victims of the Galuth, these thousands and tens of thousands of Jews who were suddenly transplanted from the midst of their old homes in Lithuania. When whole congregations, including inmates of their Homes for the Aged, of their hospitals, and even of the asylums were evacuated, it was impossible to believe that this was military tactics or a measure of precaution, for it was only the Jewish congregations who were forcibly and suddenly removed in this extraordinarily cruel manner. In many places it happened that the expelled Jews before they left were able to see with their own eyes other people entering and taking possession of the shops which they had left behind them. There was no connection between these sufferings and the events of the universal war. These were incidents in the special campaign which had been waged against the Jews before the war. For centuries the Jews had been living in these places. Brest-Litovsk and Grodno were not only cities in which there were fortresses for the Czar’s army and his Tchinovniks. They were also centres of Jewish life, wherein the Torah dwelt, cities of the Jewish “Council of the Four Provinces,” cities which emanated intellectual light over all the Diaspora, cities with institutions of Jewish congregations, with Yeshiboth, with schools, with synagogues and houses of learning, with old cemeteries, whose tombstones recorded the happenings to Jews for many generations. All that was destroyed and all the Jews who lived and thrived in them have been uprooted and scattered, and that which they left behind them wiped out, and no one knows if these towns will ever be rebuilt, and even if they are rebuilt will the Jews and their communities, with their learning and their traditions, ever be restored?
Accordingly there was but one cry, one intense and bitter cry, which was heard from one end of the world of Jews to the other, a cry for help. “Save all who can yet be saved.”
The Jewish people had realized that it was unwise to depend upon governments or to rely on philanthropic effort in general. The needs of the Jews were great and peculiar, so that only Jews themselves could help their brethren. This help appeared to be necessary in two directions: immediate pressing help and permanent prevention. Immediate pressing assistance consisted in sending money, provisions and clothes to save Jewish lives from hunger, disease and want, to help them to find work and means of livelihood in the places to which they have been driven, as well as in the places in which they have remained. But at the same time, people began to realize more and more that the real help for the Jews would be to rescue them from the unnatural conditions which cause them to be the scapegoat for whatever punishment comes upon the world. A people which dwells in its own land is also wont to be smitten by the sword and the fortunes of war, but it is not accustomed to complete destruction. When a nation has its own land and its own soil beneath its feet, to which it is attached, all the winds of Heaven cannot move it from its place, no weapon can permanently destroy it. A whole nation cannot be driven by oppressors from its country, and even though for generations the hand of the oppressor lie heavy upon it, the day is sure to come in which its fetters fall away, and once again it can breathe freely. Not so with a nation which floats in the air: it cannot rise in time of trouble, for every passing wind carries it away like chaff and makes it turn like the wheel of a windmill. Every page of Jewish history teaches this lesson, and the present war has served but to emphasize it. Therefore if we wish to prevent this evil and to obviate such convulsions in the future, we must establish for the remnant of this people a firm foundation and a safe shelter in the land of their fathers. Thus once again the flame of war and the terrible sufferings of our brethren have revealed the truth of the Zionist idea in all its strength and clarity as being the only true solution of the Jewish problem, that problem whose consequences are written in the blood of myriads of our brethren.
History will relate that the present generation of Jews rose to the height of its responsibility in comprehending both these duties equally. Once again there was revealed the strength of the Jewish quality of mercy. The Jews of Russia and Poland did their duty. With their young ones and their elders they threw themselves into the work of relief: in many places it was the Zionists who were the most ardent in this work. The Zionist Organization had during the last generation become a school of discipline and communal work, from which came forth initiators and leaders. It is not our wish, however, to make in this respect any distinction between Zionists and non-Zionists. Many who stood far removed from the camp returned to their brethren: all sections of Jews united: the icy cloak of indifferentism was melted, the divisions between the observant and the Liberals were obliterated. The shadow of sectarian faction disappeared, and on the scene appeared one people. History will relate that American Jewry, that vigorous young branch of the Jewish tree, made a mighty superhuman effort and performed wonders surpassing the imagination. It was not charity, but greatness. Voluntary effort went as far as self-imposed taxation. The history of Jewish unity has never had a chapter more beautiful, more sublime, more uplifting. America was not alone—a similar spirit rested upon the Jews of every country, and not only with regard to relief work, but also in the more permanent work of prevention, which was Jewry’s second duty. The second duty was to watch over and safeguard the Jewish colonies in Palestine, the colonies from which will spring the National Home. It was necessary to provide the Palestinian Jews with food, and to support the colonization—this small heritage of ours, this child of our sorrow, conceived in anguish and in holiness. The difficulties were enormous. Palestine was cut off from the whole world, by the sea on the West and the desert on the East, without a government able or willing to help; the New colonization is a young plant needing tender care—the Old communities are poor and helpless. If in such circumstances Palestinian Jewry was not entirely wiped out, we must thank the Jewish nationalist heart, which was awakened in our brethren in every country, and especially in America.
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
The downfall of the Czardom in Russia was undoubtedly one of the greatest events in the world’s history. Russia entered into a period of revolution which seemed to bring with it all the blessings of right and liberty. The restrictions affecting nationalities and creeds were removed. But far from destroying Zionism, the new liberty gave it an immense stimulus.
In Moscow a Zionist District Committee was formed, comprising many Provinces: Astrakhan, Vladimir, Vologda, Voronesh, Kazan, Kaluga, Kostrooma, Kursk, Moscow, Nijni-Novgorod, Simbirsk, Smolensk, Tambov, Tula, Ufa, Jaroslav, and the Don District.