FOR the first time since the days of Cyrus, a great Government has hailed the Jews as one among the family of nations. This is much more than a Jewish triumph. It is a triumph for civilization and for humanity. It will mean releasing for mankind, as a great spiritual force, the soul of our people.
JEWISH CHRONICLE, NOVEMBER 9, 1917.
A LAND focuses a people, and calls forth, as nothing else can, its spiritual potentialities. The resurrection of the Jewish nation on its own soil will reopen its sacred fountains of creative energy. Remember the days of old. After the proclamation issued by Cyrus, the mass of the Jewish people still remained in Babylon. All told only 42,000 men, women, and children took advantage of the king’sproclamation and followed Ezra back to Zion, the land of their fathers. But compare the contribution to civilization made by these men with that of their brethren who remained in the Dispersion. The handful of ‘Zionists’ and their descendants, because living on their own soil, changed the entire future of mankind. They edited and collected the Prophets, wrote some of the fairest portions of the Scriptures, formed the canon of the Bible, and gave the world its monotheistic religions. As in the days of Cyrus, the overwhelming majority of Jews of to-day will continue to live where they now are, praying and working in absolute loyalty for the land of their birth or adoption, and ever beholding their peace in its welfare. Only a remnant shall return. But it is the national rejuvenation of that remnant that will open a new chapter in the annals of the human spirit.
J. H. HERTZ, 1917.
FOR millions of poor and hundreds of thousands of prosperous Jews Mr. Balfour’s announcement had the serene sound of a long-expected Messianic message. The day that witnessed Great Britain’s decision to stake the whole of the Empire’s power in the Jewish cause is one which can never be blotted out from the world’s history.
MAXIMILIAN HARDEN, 1917.