The Variant Views of Zionist Groups
BESIDE the political Zionists, a large group can be distinguished as Opportunist Zionists, the chief representative of whom is Israel Zangwill,[11] who in his eagerness to relieve the Jewish problem has become impatient with the slow and seemingly fruitless political progress, and who desires to lead his people to any vacant, habitable territory rather than wait for a charter in Zion. Other leaders in the movement, such as Ussischkin, contend that until the charter is granted, colonization in Palestine should continue, both to satisfy the Jewish demand for emigration and to give weight to the justice and necessity for autonomy.
In sum, the establishing of Zion, while in process, will rescue the sorely oppressed, magnetize and concentrate the interests of Jewry at large, and force the issue of suicide or salvation upon the race; and the establishment of the State, once accomplished, will rejuvenate a people. "They shall revive as the grain and blossom as the vine; the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon." (Hosea 14.7). In the Zionist vision, assured not by the prophecies, but by the achievements of a glorious past, this new wine, ripening and enriching its flavor in a cup that had long been bitter, will be partaken of by the nations, Jew and Gentile. Jewish culture in its widest sense, embracing the realization of ethical, social, and artistic ideals, nourished by a people living again a homogeneous, autonomous, national life free as it has not been for eighteen centuries from outward pressure—a life imperative for the production of culture—will go forth as a pure vintage, taking its place with the vintages of other nations, to satisfy the soul in dry places and make strong the bones; and over this new wine a new Kiddush may perhaps be spoken. The Reform Jew, the "assimilated" Jew, who finds himself to-day in what we have nominated a position, in a conscious or unconscious inspiration and pride induced by the resurrection of a motherland, as the German in America is inspired by his national unity in Europe, will indeed find his soul satisfied in dry places, and can more generously and effectively contribute to the welfare of the fatherland of which he is a citizen. The Jew who walks in the darkness of a Russia, where his situation is a problem and where existence itself is threatened, will discover in this reawakened motherland a hope and possibly a material aid which will make strong his bones that he may endure until emancipation.
The Communistic Aims of the Social Zionists
UNDER the stimulus of a new creative vision, many poets, practical or otherwise, have brought their own tints to add to the rosy prospect, and these we have designated to be Zionism as a "fulfillment." Just prior to the birth of these United States, Thomas Paine, who in a few respects was the Herzl of the new republic, rapturously exclaimed in his pamphlet Commonsense: "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation similar to the present hath not happened since the days of Noah!" Stimulated by the potentialities of an empty country and a great race eager to reoccupy it, modern theorists have likewise, and with some reason, discovered in Palestine a land of promise.
Basing their faith in the inherent demand for social justice which racial genius, as witnessed in the Deuteronomic experiment and the whole social trend of the prophetic writings, has created as a permanent characteristic of the Jew and which the injustice of centuries has accentuated, a group of Jewish socialists have entered the Zionist cause in the hope of establishing a form of the communistic principle as a foundation for the new society. The communistic ownership of land is particularly urged. Past experiments of this nature—the Brook Farm and the French Commune as a small and a large example—have failed partly for lack of scientific guidance and sufficient exact knowledge of actual conditions, and partly because of the social unfitness of the participants. Social Zionism, however, has secured for its director an acknowledged authority in communistic economics, Dr. Franz Oppenheimer of the University of Berlin; and it is counting on the Jewish heritage of social instinct to furnish the proper human material for its purpose. Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, who came down from his mountain in 750 B. C. to storm at the capitalistic greed of Israel, raised the first plea in history for social justice. The successful consummation of the prophet's ideal in the new Israel would be a contribution to the world distinctly Hebraic and possibly the most valuable of the modern Jew.
The Yearning for a Spiritual Revival
TO Ahad Ha-'Am,[12] the leading writer of to-day in Hebrew, a "spiritual revival" should be the desideratum of the Zionists. Spiritual is of course not used in the restricted religious sense, but as the opposite of material. Although Ahad Ha-'Am concedes the establishment of a center in Palestine to be a necessity, he considers it only a means to the end of an "awakening" of spiritual forces in art, morals, and national consciousness among Jewry at large; and, to hasten this end, he urges the establishment of a University, an art-school, and bands of workers in the spirit—poets, painters, and all manner of creators—for he conceives the Jews not to be a young race who must climb from satisfying the needs of the belly to the needs of the brain, but an old people who can and must satisfy both demands together.[13]
Finally, the great mass of European Jewry, who weep on the Ninth of Ab, who send their pittance to the Jews of the Holy City in order that they may devote their days to lamenting at the old Wall, who pray each Passover "next year at Jerusalem," and who treasure their little casket of Palestinian earth, which some day will be placed over their shroud, look to Zionism as a "fulfillment" in its literal, Biblical meaning. Although the yearning for such a fulfillment may never be satisfied, it constitutes the impelling force, the prime motive, behind the people who are to settle once again in Canaan, and who are the stuff of which the philosophers' dreams are to be made.