The opportunists who work for the day when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, the politicals who plan that the house of Jacob may possess its possessions, the culturals who behold upon the mountain the feet of him who bringeth glad tidings, the socialists who strive to draw righteousness and peace within kissing distance, and the devout who pray that out of Zion shall go forth the Law, are all intermingling composites of the Zionist dream. That the dream is not in vain, there is no positive assurance; but somewhere it is written that Palestine is the Land of Promise.
The Organization of Zionism
SOPHISTICATION makes for sluggishness of action; and a sophisticated, practical people, such as the Jews, surrounded by an equally sophisticated world, have not marched upon Jerusalem with the flag-flying alacrity of the Crusaders. However, their sophistication has substituted for speed a broad measure of surety; and a summary of the organization of the movement and the work accomplished within and without Palestine gives promise that, if the will behind Zionism be sustained, the Jews who wail at the Wall may profitably direct their energies elsewhere.
The Zionist organization comprises all Jews who subscribe to the Zionist program and pay the annual contribution, known as a shekel, varying from 15 cents to 25 cents in different countries. The program is that formulated at the First Zionist Congress (Basel, 1897): "to obtain for the Jewish people a publicly recognized and legally assured home in Palestine." The members are grouped in local societies which, in turn, are organized into national federations, to be found at present in Argentina, Belgium, Bukowina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia-Slavonia-Herzegovina, Egypt, England, France, Galicia, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Roumania, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States. Unfederated societies exist in Palestine, Morocco, Servia, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, China, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.[14] In short, the atlas is practically exhausted. With a representation proportional to the number of shekel-payers, a Congress convenes bi-annually in a central European city (usually Basel), resolves, and prosecutes all work incumbent upon the furtherance of Zionist purpose. The executive power, although formerly invested in a president, is now exercised, since the death of Herzl (1904) and the resignation of Wolffsohn, by a commission of five, acting as the head of a committee of twenty-five, who constitute a permanent body meeting at intervals between the sessions of Congress.[15] The Congress itself is divided into party-groups, based on policy, and representative of the different theoretic elements that guide the movement.
The original Government party, which stood shoulder to Herzl in his brilliant but unsuccessful diplomatic schemes to secure a charter from the Sultan, upon the overthrow of the autocracy in Turkey (1908), has abandoned purely political Zionism, for the expedient reason that the Young Turk government has naturally been reticent in the granting of broad concessions. Political Zionism, of which Max Nordau and David Wolffsohn[F] are the leading protagonists, has through the accidents of Turkish politics been rendered ineffective; and the actual work of Zionism rests now upon the policies of the Opportunist wing, although the creation of a State, autonomous in as great a degree as possible, is the cardinal aim of the Zionists, and must be, in order to distinguish the movement from a large-scale philanthropy.[16]
Parties in Zionism
THE Opportunists were divided into two groups—the followers of Zangwill who urged immediate colonization anywhere, and the Ziyyone Zionists (Zionists toward Zion) who favored immediate settlement in Palestine. The first party broke from the Zionist movement at the Seventh Congress, instituted the Jewish Territorial Organization (ITO), and have vainly devoted their energies toward securing lands in North, East, and West Africa, Mesapotamia, and Australia.[17] The Ziyyone Zionists, however, possess the controlling vote, and in the last Congress (1913) annulled the Basel program, temporarily at least, by securing from the Congress a recognition of the work of settlement in Palestine as the primary task.[18]
Socialistic Zionism is represented by the Po'ale Zion, a small but vigorous group, who are endeavoring to secure at least the adoption of the communistic ownership of land in the pursuance of the Opportunist program.
Dr. Franz Oppenheimer, lecturer in economics at the University of Berlin, has recently issued a pamphlet disclosing the success of the Merchavia Colony, a co-operative settlement near Nazareth, and demonstrating that the only practical method of achieving large-scale colonization is by this means.[19]
Strong in numbers and in influence, the Mizrachi party represents the orthodox wing of Jewry, who "believe a faithful adherence to the Torah and Tradition in all matters pertaining to Jewish life constitute the duty of the Jewish people."[20] In the assemblage of futurists, the Mizrachi stands as the spirit of the past, to whom all plans must be justified, and whose power has its source in the religious fervor of the majority of eastern Jews.