our first object to bring about a _revival_—to inspire men with a deeper
attachment to the national life, and a more ardent desire for the
national well-being. By these means we should have aroused the necessary
determination, and we should have obtained devoted adherents. No doubt
such work is very difficult and takes a long time, not one year or one
decade; and, I repeat, it is not to be accomplished by speeches alone,
but demands the employment of all means by which men’s hearts can be
won. Hence it is probable—in fact almost certain—that if we had chosen
this method we should not yet have had time to produce concrete results
in Palestine itself: lacking the resources necessary to do things well,
we should have been too prudent to do things badly. But, on the other
side, we should have made strenuous endeavours to train up Jews who
would work for their people. We should have striven gradually to extend
the empire of our ideal in Jewry, till at last it could find genuine,
whole-hearted devotees, with all the qualities needed to enable them to
work for its practical realisation.
But such was not the policy of the first champions of our ideal. As
Jews, they had a spice of individualism in their nationalism, and were
not capable of planting a tree so that others might eat its fruit after
they themselves were dead and gone. Not satisfied with working among the
people to train up those who would ultimately work in the land, they
wanted to see with their own eyes the actual work in the land and its
results. When, therefore, they found that their first rallying-cry, in
which they based their appeal on the general good, did not at once rouse
the national determination to take up Palestinian work, they summoned to
their aid—like our teachers of old—the individualistic motive, and
rested their appeal on economic want, which is always sure of sympathy.
To this end they began to publish favourable reports, and to make
optimistic calculations, which plainly showed that so many dunams[8] of
land, so many head of cattle and so much equipment, costing so-and-so
much, were sufficient in Palestine to keep a whole family in comfort and
affluence: so that anybody who wanted to do well and had the necessary
capital should betake him to the goodly land, where he and his family
would prosper, while the nation too would benefit. An appeal on these
lines did really induce some people to go to Palestine in order to win
comfort and affluence; whereat the promoters of the idea were mightily
pleased, and did not examine very closely what kind of people the
emigrants to Palestine were, and why they went. But these people, most
of whom were by no means prepared to submit cheerfully to discomfort for
the sake of a national ideal, found when they reached Palestine that
they had been taken in by imaginative reports and estimates; and they
set up—and are still keeping up—a loud and bitter outcry, seeking to
gain their individual ends by all means in their power, and regardless
of any distinction between what is legitimate and what is not, or of the
fair name of the ideal which they dishonour. The details of the story
are public property.
What wonder, then, that so great an ideal, presented in so unworthy a
form, can no longer gain adherents; that a national building founded on
the expectation of profit and self-interest falls to ruins when it
becomes generally known that the expectation has not been realised, and
self-interest bids men keep away?
* * * * *
This, then, is the wrong way. Certainly, seeing that these ruins are
already there, we are not at liberty to neglect the task of mending and
improving so far as we can. But at the same time we must remember that
it is not on these that we must base our hope of ultimate success. The
heart of the people—that is the foundation on which the land will be
regenerated. And the people is broken into fragments.
So let us return to the road on which we started when our idea first
arose. Instead of adding yet more ruins, let us endeavour to give the
idea itself strong roots and to strengthen and deepen its hold on the
Jewish people, not by force, but by the spirit. Then we shall in time
have the possibility of doing actual work.
“I shall see it, but not now: I shall behold it, but not nigh.”
II
“Let us not theorise too much, or slacken our efforts. Let us avoid
impatience and undue haste. Let us increase our devotion to our people
and our love for our ancestral land, and the God of Zion will help us.”
These are the concluding words of the long criticism of my first essay
which appeared in _ha-Meliz_.[9] It might be inferred that my advice to
the _Chovevé Zion_ was that they should confine themselves to theory,
give up practical work, proceed with undue haste, and refrain from
increasing devotion to our people and love for our ancestral land. But
any attentive reader of my article will not need to be told that as
regards the two last points I said the exact opposite: that we should
not, through undue haste, attempt to achieve by the appeal to
self-interest things which are not yet ripe for achievement by force of
the ideal itself, because so long as _Chibbath Zion_ is not a living and
burning passion in the heart of the people we lack the only basis on
which the land could be regenerated, and for that reason we must strive
with all our might to increase our devotion to our people and our love
for our ancestral land. But as regards theorising and neglecting action,
I may really have left my meaning uncertain through excessive brevity.
Though I said explicitly that propaganda could be made only by work
competently done, and not by speeches alone, it is possible that I ought
to have added—what is really self-evident from the context—that so long
as the time is not ripe for the actual carrying out of our idea, the
object of everything that we do on a small scale ought to be simply to
win adherents to our cause; that by that test and that alone we ought to
distinguish between what is well and what is ill done both in Palestine
and outside it; that therefore quality and not quantity must be our
concern, and we must not confine our efforts to the improvement of the
colonies, but must use all the many and various ways of appealing to the
people.
It is therefore futile for my critic to labour to prove that the
_Chovevé Zion_ had no right “to defer action until they had created a
new state of mind in the Jewish masses and awakened their national
consciousness.”
“Idea and action,” he says, “are not separated in our minds; it requires
deeds to convince us. How then could the idea of resettlement gain
acceptance with the masses if it were not accompanied by action?” All
this does not touch my position, because I did not demand deferment of
action. On the contrary, I demanded that everything possible should be
done to awaken the love of Palestine, and from that it follows that when
the champions of the idea themselves cultivate the Holy Land with the
sweat of their brows and their hearts’ blood, _as an example_, they are
doing the very best propaganda work. But the settlement as it is
to-day—can it be regarded as propaganda work of this kind? My critic
himself says that “the champions of the idea did not do the work with
their own hands,” but “talked in four languages;” and what they said was
calculated only to incite those who were out for material advancement to
go to Palestine and do the work. Such men did in fact go to Palestine,
and we know what they did and what happened to them and what the
settlement has become. No wonder, then, that the idea has gone on losing
its influence on the minds of the people, and that the heart of the Jew
does not glow at the vision of Jewish farmers hoeing and ploughing the
land of our fathers, as in the days of David and Solomon. Neither the
deeds nor the doers are such as to inspire enthusiasm in a people whose
heart is chilled by age and trouble.
But my critic joins issue with me in principle as well. He maintains
that by no possible means can we succeed in arousing a strong national
sentiment among our people, because ever since we became a nation “the
sentiment of nationality has been foreign to the spirit of our people,
and the individual Jew seeks rather his own good and his private
advantage;” and it is vain for us to fight against the spirit and
natural character of the people, “for nothing avails against national
character.” Hence the _Chovevé Zion_ chose the line of self-interest,
not because they preferred it, but because no other was open. “The
Jewish masses do not properly understand the language of the national
sentiment. Our endeavour must be to make actions speak to them in a
language which they do understand—the language of self-interest. Then
calculation will succeed where sentiment cannot.”
Now “the language of self-interest” is the language of the struggle for
existence, which speaks to each individual in the particular style
adapted to his position and ambitions, and to no man in a speech which
his neighbour understands; and I for my part am unable to see how it can
serve us instead of the unvarying appeal of the national sentiment,
which unites all hearts for one aim and one purpose. Even the
Utilitarians, who tried to trace all moral and social tendencies to the
pursuit of individual advantage, were concerned only to explain the
first cause of these tendencies, and to show how they came into
existence and developed, as against those who attributed their presence
to a direct interposition of Providence. But it is universally admitted
that self-interest alone, as it is in itself, cannot provide a basis for
any organised society or any great collective effort.
Let us, however, waive that point, and let us hear from our critic’s own
lips what is the language of self-interest in this matter. “National
sentiment,” he says, “is foreign to the spirit of our people. The way to
convince them is to show by figures that any industrious and peaceable
man will find what he wants in Palestine, provided he has physical
strength and capital.” He admits, then, that only a man who has capital
and physical strength, and is industrious and peaceable to boot, will
find in Palestine what he wants—that is to say, his individual
advantage. Now it is difficult to find the last-named qualifications in
a Jew who has capital, and is accustomed to make his living easily and
to have a great regard for his own dignity; and apart from that, we have
to remember that such a man will not easily find what he wants in
Palestine. For a man with capital wants not merely plain food and
raiment: he wants also the luxuries and pleasures to which he has been
used. And if he is thinking of his individual advantage, he will
certainly come to the conclusion that it is folly to lay out his capital
in purchasing a piece of land in Palestine, where at the very best he
will have to work hard without being able to find satisfaction for even
a half of his desires. To the truth of this statement our critic himself
bears witness. He tells us that “in those days also (_i.e._, in the
beginning of the colonisation work) the movement existed principally
among the poor, who hoped to be established by the generosity of others;
and the rich held aloof, then as now.” Again: “In the winter of 1881-82
the first emissary travelled to Palestine, bearing written authority
from a number of men in good circumstances to purchase land on their
behalf. He bought the land of Rishon-le-Zion, but those who had
authorised him to buy for them changed their minds.” And again: “Of
those who bought plots of land in the colony just mentioned it was only
the poor who went to Palestine; the rich remained at home.” Finally:
“The net result of the whole movement was that, with few exceptions,
those who remained in Palestine were men in the last stage of poverty.”
Experience, therefore, teaches us that men of capital, if they
understand no language except that of individual self-interest, will not
go to find in Palestine “what they want,” because they want more than
they will find there. Who is there, then, whom figures can persuade or
to whom self-interest can recommend Palestine, if those who could go
will not, and those who would cannot?
I asked in my article why the idea lost ground among our people from the
time when it began to take practical shape in the land. Our critic
answers with a sigh: “Our impatient people saw that a long time and a
great deal of money would be needed to put the colonies which had been
founded into a satisfactory condition, and their courage failed them.
For eighteen hundred years we found it possible to exist without moving
a finger for the colonisation of our land and the salvation of our
people; but now that we have not been able to make our colonies all that
they should be in six years, we lose heart. Are we not an impatient
people?” He does not realise that what he attributes to impatience is
simply an inevitable result of the appeal to self-interest. For eighteen
hundred years we did not move a finger for the colonisation of our land,
because we did not expect it to bring us advantage as individuals. In
recent years we have paid attention to the colonisation of our land,
because reports and statistics have led us to hope that it will bring us
advantage as individuals. But now, when we see that a long time and a
great deal of money will be needed to put the colonies already founded
into a satisfactory condition, it becomes clear that from the point of
view of individual self-interest the thing is not worth while; and so we
have quite justifiably lost heart, and the colonisation of our land has
become a charitable affair, which affords a scant subsistence to some
hundreds of people “in the last stage of poverty.”
* * * * *
Such, then, is the language of individual self-interest. Had our critic
really been able to adduce convincing arguments in support of his severe
judgment that there never was and never will be any national sentiment
among the Jews, and that individual Jews will never be able to rise
above “private advantage and individual self-interest,” then we might as
well throw up the sponge. We should have no right to be called a people
or to lay claim to a land. But, luckily for us, his arguments are not so
dangerous.
As a general rule, ethnological investigations into the characteristics
of different people are extremely speculative and hazardous. One
ethnologist set about to collect the opinions of the foremost
authorities as to the characteristics of the Arabs, and this is what he
found. Some maintain that the Arab is a man of action, concerned only
with concrete things, and very weak on the side of imagination; while
others assert that both the Arabs and the Hebrews are strongly
imaginative, and that among the Arabs the imagination is always more
powerful than the reason. On the other hand, Sprenger regards it as
self-evident that the predominance of the imagination over the reason is
a characteristic opposed to the Arab spirit, and lays it down as a truth
universally recognised that the spirit of the Semitic peoples generally
is objective; whereas Lassen, and after him Renan, regard it as
universally recognised that the fundamental characteristic of the
Semitic peoples is subjectivity.[10]
If there are these differences of opinion as regards the characteristics
of the Arabs, who have never been uprooted and driven into exile, can
anybody have the assurance to dogmatise about the characteristics of a
people like our own, which has been scattered among different peoples
these two thousand years? Can anybody be so all-knowing as to
distinguish with precision between those characteristics which are
innate and original in us, and those which have been produced in us by
our own environment in exile; to trace one by one all the mutations
which the original and the acquired traits have undergone in the passage
from generation to generation and from land to land; to forecast which
of our characteristics may or may not change with a change of
environment? Why, here is our critic laying down the law about the
Jewish character as though it were something fixed and unchangeable by
time or place, while one famous modern writer has picked out the Jews to
demonstrate the truth of his theory that national characteristics depend
more on environment and social conditions than on heredity, because he
finds that our characteristics differ in different countries and change
at different periods, according to our environment and the spirit of the
people among whom we live.[11]
This being so, I will not enlarge on the details of our critic’s theory
as to Jewish characteristics, but will confine myself to that one
dangerous characteristic which he attributes to us—the _innate_ lack of
national sentiment.
In my essay I argued thus: Seeing that the Law of Moses is entirely
based on the welfare of the whole nation, so much so that it has no need
to appeal to belief in future reward and punishment (a belief which was
known in Egypt in very early times) in order to satisfy the individual,
we are justified in inferring the existence at that time of a very
strong national sentiment in the whole people, or the most important
section of it; and it was only through historical circumstances that
this sentiment afterwards lost its force. Thus we are at liberty to
believe that by appropriate means it is possible to revive to-day in our
people a sentiment which it already had in ancient times. To this our
critic replies: “If the Law looked only at the general good, that is not
because at a certain time the spirit of individualism did not exist in
Israel, but because the Law is practical and reckons with facts. We see
that the individual is exposed to all kinds of accidents and
misfortunes. How, then, could a practical Law like ours guarantee
individual happiness, which is unrealisable?”
I have tried my hardest, Heaven knows, to discover what this means, but
in vain. It simply proves my point. For if Judaism is realistic, and if
the happiness of the individual on earth is unrealisable, and if at the
same time there was no national sentiment, and the people attached no
great importance to the well-being of the nation as a whole—then how
could Judaism be content with promising a reward which could not have
much value as an incentive to right living, when it might have done as
other religions have done, both before and since, and as it did itself
at a much later period, in response to the needs of the time: namely,
have promised every individual a reward in heaven?
And our critic gets himself into all this difficulty simply because he
finds it stated by Chwolson that all Semites are individualistic by
nature. If that is so, we cannot admit the existence of a national
sentiment in Israel at any period. Now we have seen above how much
reliance can be placed in such matters on the statements of well-known
authorities. But if we examine carefully the passage which our critic
quotes from Chwolson, we shall be even more surprised at his finding in
it sufficient ground for passing such a sweeping judgment on his people.
Chwolson says: “There was scarcely ever a strong bond of union between
the Jewish tribes. A full national consciousness has never developed
very far among Semites. Each tribe is a unity, the members of which are
closely bound together among themselves; but there is no feeling of
unity between the different tribes.” The explanation, according to
Chwolson, lies in that individualism “which is especially characteristic
of the Semites.” But who can show how “a full national consciousness”
differs in character from a feeling of love for and attachment to a
single tribe? And if it was individualism—and not external
circumstances—which prevented the Jewish tribes from being joined by “a
strong bond of union,” how is it that this individualism allowed each
tribe to become a closely-knit unity? Surely, when a man feels it
necessary and possible to subordinate his individual interests to those
of the larger unit to which he belongs, even if that unit is only a
petty tribe, he has already got beyond individualism, and is therefore
capable even of “a full national consciousness,” provided that there are
no external obstacles; and the only difference between the national
sentiment of a Frenchman and the tribal sentiment of a Montenegrin lies
in the magnitude of what inspires the sentiment, not in the character of
the sentiment itself. And, in fact, it does happen in all periods, under
suitable conditions, that tribal patriotism expands into national
patriotism. The ancient Greeks were at first divided into small tribes,
continually at war with one another, and it was only at a late period
that they acquired the sentiment of national unity. In the Middle Ages
the Italian cities were separate and mutually hostile, and yet at last
the Italians developed a strong national sentiment. And, to come to
recent times, who does not know what the Germans were until a few
decades ago? “We still remember,” says one of their great writers,[12]
“the time when we were justly reproached with being conspicuous among
all the civilised peoples of Europe for our lack of a strong and healthy
national sentiment.” And look at the Germans now!
In a word: the contention that Semites in general, or the Jews in
particular, cannot have a national sentiment (a sentiment of which one
of the greatest scientists[13] finds traces even in animals) needs to be
supported by weightier evidence.
And until such evidence is forthcoming, “let us not slacken our efforts,
and let us avoid undue haste. Let us increase our devotion to our people
and our love for our ancestral land, and the God of Zion will help us.”
Footnote 4:
[_i.e._, Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine.]
Footnote 5:
[_Chalukah_—lit. “division”—is the Hebrew name for the stream of
charity which flows—or flowed before the war—into Palestine from all
quarters of the Jewish dispersion. Intended primarily for the support
of scholars, it has in practice done much to pauperise the Jewish
population in the cities of Palestine, and has created a problem which
it may take a generation or more of economic progress to solve.]
Footnote 6:
[Baron Edmond de Rothschild.]
Footnote 7:
The Jewish teachers of the period (roughly) from 200 B.C. to 200 C.E.
They were responsible for the Mishnah—the first Code of Jewish Law
after the Pentateuch—and for the earliest commentaries on the Bible or
parts of it, one of which is called _Sifré_.
Footnote 8:
[A Turkish measure = about ¼ acre.]
Footnote 9:
[The Hebrew paper in which this and the foregoing essay originally
appeared.]
Footnote 10:
A. Müller, _Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie_, XIV., p. 435.
Footnote 11:
Henry George, _Progress and Poverty_, p. 352.
Footnote 12:
Ed. Zeller, _Vorträge_, II., p. 434.
Footnote 13:
Du Bois-Reymond, _Reden_, I., p. 309.
THE FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS
(1897[14])
The Congress of the Zionists, the subject of a controversy which has
filled the emptiness of our little world for some months past, is now a
piece of history. About two hundred Jews, of all lands and of all
parties, met at Basle, and for three days (29-31 August) from morning
till evening they discussed publicly, in the sight of the whole world,
the establishment of a secure home for the Jewish people in the land of
its ancestors. Thus the _national_ answer to the “Jewish problem” came
out of its retirement into the light of day, and was proclaimed to the
world in ringing tones, in clear language and in manly fashion—a thing
the like of which had never happened since the Jews were exiled from
their land.
That is all. The Congress could do no more, had need to do no more.