WE will return to Zion as we went forth, bringing back the faith we carried away with us.
MORDECAI M. NOAH, 1824.
II
ISRAEL’S contribution to the common treasure of humanity will ever be primarily religious. Wide sympathy, ready help, and absolute self-determination must therefore be accorded in the New Judea to Jewish religious learning, Jewish religious institutions, and Jewish religious life. They alone contain the secret of Israel’s immortality. The story of Israel’s ancient kinsmen—Moab, Ammon, Edom—though these remained on their own soil, loses itself in the sands of the desert, while the story of Israel issues in eternity. Why? Israel alone had the Torah, and it is that which endowed him with deathlessness. And Israel will remain deathless—as long as Israel continues to cling to the Torah. Without the Torah, Israel’s story will also lose itself in the sands of the desert, even on its own soil.
The New Judea must be the spiritual descendant of old Judea, and the mission of Judea, new or old, is first of all to be Judea.
J. H. HERTZ, 1918.
I LIKE to think of Jewish History as standing ever at the centre point of its path—having as much to look forward to as to look back upon; and the events of to-day, with their special message to Israel, must surely fortify us in this view, and speed us to make good our efforts for our people and for the nations.
A. EICHHOLZ, 1917.