(or, as they call it now, “Zionism”), there is only one towards the
accomplishment of which we have at present the strength to approach in
any appreciable degree, and that is the _moral_ object—the emancipation
of ourselves from the inner slavery and the spiritual degradation which
assimilation has produced in us, and the strengthening of our national
unity by joint action in every sphere of our national life, until we
become capable and worthy of a life of dignity and freedom _at some time
in the future_. Everything else lies at yet in the realm of idea and
imagination. Those who oppose the “Jewish State” doubt whether it will
be possible to obtain the consent of the nations, and especially of
Turkey, to its establishment. But it seems to me that there is a still
more difficult question. If we had this consent, should we, in our
present moral condition, be fit to accept it?... Nor is that all. One
may even doubt whether the establishment of a “Jewish State” at the
present time, even in the most complete form that we can imagine, having
regard to the general international position, would give us the right to
say that our problem had been completely solved, and our national ideal
attained. “Reward is proportionate to suffering.”[15] After two thousand
years of untold misery and suffering, the Jewish people cannot possibly
be content with attaining at last to the position of a small and
insignificant nation, with a State tossed about like a ball between its
powerful neighbours, and maintaining its existence only by diplomatic
shifts and continual truckling to the favoured of fortune. An ancient
people, which was once a beacon to the world, cannot possibly accept, as
a satisfactory reward for all that it has endured, a thing so trifling,
which many other peoples, unrenowned and uncultured, have won in a short
time, without going through a hundredth part of the suffering. It was
not for nothing that Israel had Prophets, whose vision saw Righteousness
ruling the world at the end of days. It was their nationalism, their
love for their people and their land, that gave the Prophets that
vision. For in their day the Jewish State was always between two
fires—Assyria or Babylon on one side, and Egypt on the other—and it
never had any chance of a peaceful life and natural development. So
“Zionism” in the minds of the Prophets expanded, and produced that great
vision of the end of days, when the wolf should lie down with the lamb,
and nation should no longer lift up the sword against nation—and then
Israel too should dwell securely in his land. And so this ideal for
humanity has always been and will always be inevitably an essential part
of the national ideal of the Jewish people; and a “Jewish State” will be
able to give the people rest only when universal Righteousness is
enthroned and holds sway over nations and States.
We went to Basle, then, not to found a Jewish State to-day or to-morrow,
but to proclaim aloud to all the nations that the Jewish people still
lives and desires to live. We _have_ to proclaim this in season and out,
not in order that the nations may hearken and give us what we want, but
primarily in order that we ourselves may hear the echo of our cry in our
inmost hearts, and perhaps be roused thereby from our degradation.
This function the Basle Congress fulfilled admirably in its opening
stages; and for this it would have deserved eternal commemoration in
letters of gold—had it not tried to do more.
Once again our impatience, that curse which dogs us and ruins all that
we do, had full rein. If those who convened the Congress had armed
themselves with patience, and had begun by stating clearly that the
Messiah was not yet in sight, and that for the moment we could achieve
nothing beyond what words and enthusiasm could do—the revival of our
national spirit, and the announcement of this revival in a public
manner—then, no doubt, the Congress would have been much less well
attended than it was, and one day would have sufficed for its business
instead of three: but that one day would have been worth whole
generations, and the delegates, the chosen of our people (for only the
chosen of our people would have been interested in such a Congress)
would have returned to their several homes filled with life and
determination and new-born energy, to impart their life and
determination and energy to the whole people.
But as it is....
The founders of this movement are “Europeans,” and, being expert in the
ways of diplomacy and the procedure of latter-day political parties,
they bring these ways and procedure with them to the “Jewish State.” ...
Emissaries were sent out before the Congress, and various hints were
spread abroad in writing and by word of mouth, so as to arouse in the
masses an exaggerated hope of imminent redemption. Thus was kindled the
false fire of a feverish enthusiasm, which brought to the Basle Congress
a rabble of youngsters—in years or in understanding—and their senseless
proceedings robbed it of its bloom and made it a mockery.
Councils large and small, committees without number, a sheaf of
fantastic proposals about a “National Fund,”[16] and the rest of the
_haute politique_ of the Jewish State—these are the “practical” results
of the Congress. How could it be otherwise? Most of the delegates,
representing the down-trodden Jews who long for redemption, were sent
for one purpose and on one understanding only—that they should bring
redemption back with them. How could they return home without being able
to announce that the management of the “State” in all its various
branches had been put in good hands, and that all the important
questions connected with it had been raised and examined and solved?
History repeats itself. Seven years ago our people looked to the
Executive Committee[17] at Jaffa as it looks now to the Basle Congress.
A large number of people went to Palestine, thinking to buy the land and
to build dozens of colonies in a single day. Hope and enthusiasm grew
day by day, not less than now. Then also _haute politique_—though in a
different form—was our undoing. The leaders of the movement aroused an
artificial exaltation in the people by promises and expectations which
were not destined to be fulfilled; and this exaltation could not last
long. The dream fled, eyes were opened, and disappointment begat
despair. At that time, in the midst of the hubbub and enthusiasm, I
ventured to tell the public the bitter truth,[18] to warn the people not
to be led astray by false hopes: and many regarded me as a traitor to my
people, as one who hindered the redemption. Now we have seen these same
men, the “practical” men of that day, among the delegates at Basle,
crowning the new movement with wreaths, and making game of “practical
colonisation”—as though they had completely forgotten that the
responsibility for what has happened to the colonisation work lies not
on the work itself, but on them, because they carried it on by crooked
methods and turned it from its true purpose, in order to create a great
popular movement at a single stroke.
At Basle, as at Jaffa, I sat solitary among my friends, like a mourner
at a wedding-feast. But now, as then, I may not hold back the truth. Let
others say what they will, out of too much simplicity or for worse
reasons: I cannot refrain from uttering a warning that danger is at hand
and the reaction is close upon us. To-day, as before, the enthusiasm is
artificial, and in the end it will lead to the despair that follows
disillusionment.
Seven years ago the delegates returned from Jaffa full of good tidings.
Redemption had come to the land, and we had nothing to do but wait till
the vine bore its fruit. Now the delegates return and tell us that
redeemers have arisen for Israel, and we have nothing to do but wait
till diplomacy finishes its work. And now, as then, the eyes of the
people will soon be opened, and they will see that they have been
misled. The fire suddenly kindled by hope will die down again, perhaps
to the very last spark.
Could I command the waters of Lethe, I would see that everything that
the delegates saw and heard at Basle was effaced from their
recollection, and would leave them only one memory: that of the great
and sacred hour when they all—these down-trodden Jews who came from the
ends of the earth—stood up together like brothers, their hearts full of
sacred emotion and their eyes lifted up in love and pride towards their
great brother-Jew,[19] who stood on the platform and spoke wonders of
his people, like one of the Prophets of old. The memory of that hour,
were it not that many other hours which followed dimmed the purity of
the first impression, might have made this Congress one of the most
momentous events in our history.
The salvation of Israel will be achieved by _Prophets_, not by
_diplomats_....
Footnote 14:
[This note on the first Zionist Congress evoked a storm of
indignation, which led the author to explain his views more fully in
the essay on “The Jewish State and the Jewish Problem.” As to the
unwonted harshness of some expressions in the Note, see the concluding
paragraph of that essay (p. 55).]
Footnote 15:
[A familiar quotation from the Talmud—_Aboth_, V., 23.]
Footnote 16:
The capital then suggested was ten million pounds!
Footnote 17:
[Of the _Chovevé Zion_.]
Footnote 18:
[The reference is to an article called “The Truth about Palestine,”
written after the author’s first visit to that country in 1891.]
Footnote 19:
[Dr. Max Nordau.]
THE JEWISH STATE AND THE JEWISH PROBLEM
(1897[20])
Some months have passed since the Zionist Congress, but its echoes are
still heard in daily life and in the press. In daily life the echoes
take the form of meetings small and big, local and central. Since the
delegates returned home, they have been gathering the public together
and recounting over and over again the wonders that they saw enacted
before their eyes. The wretched, hungry public listens and waxes
enthusiastic and hopes for salvation: for can “they”—the Jews of the
West—fail to carry out anything that they plan? Heads grow hot and
hearts beat fast; and many “communal workers” whose one care in life had
been for years—until last August—the Palestinian settlement, and who
would have given the whole world for a penny donation in aid of
Palestine workmen or the Jaffa School, have now quite lost their
bearings, and ask one another: “What’s the good of this sort of work?
The Messiah is near at hand, and we busy ourselves with trifles! The
time has come for great deeds: great men, men of the West, march before
us in the van.”—There has been a revolution in their world, and to
emphasise it they give a new name to the cause: it is no longer “Love of
Zion” (_Chibbath Zion_), but “Zionism” (_Zioniyuth_). Nay, the more
careful among them, determined to leave no loop-hole for error, even
keep the European form of the name (“Zionismus”)—thus announcing to all
and sundry that they are not talking about anything so antiquated as
_Chibbath Zion_, but about a new, up-to-date movement, which comes, like
its name, from the West, where people do not use Hebrew.
In the press all these meetings, with their addresses, motions and
resolutions, appear over again in the guise of articles—articles written
in a vein of enthusiasm and triumph. The meeting was magnificent, every
speaker was a Demosthenes, the resolutions were carried by acclamation,
all those present were swept off their feet and shouted with one voice:
“We will do and obey!”—in a word, everything was delightful, entrancing,
perfect. And the Congress itself still produces a literature of its own.
Pamphlets specially devoted to its praises appear in several languages;
Jewish and non-Jewish papers still occasionally publish articles and
notes about it; and, needless to say, the “Zionist” organ[21] itself
endeavours to maintain the impression which the Congress made, and not
to allow it to fade too rapidly from the public memory. It searches the
press of every nation and every land, and wherever it finds a favourable
mention of the Congress, even in some insignificant journal published in
the language of one of the smaller European nationalities, it
immediately gives a summary of the article, with much jubilation. Only
one small nation’s language has thus far not been honoured with such
attention, though its journals too have lavished praise on the Congress:
I mean Hebrew.
In short, the universal note is one of rejoicing; and it is therefore
small wonder that in the midst of this general harmony my little Note on
the Congress sounded discordant and aroused the most violent displeasure
in many quarters. I knew from the start that I should not be forgiven
for saying such things at such a time, and I had steeled myself to hear
with equanimity the clatter of high-sounding phrases and obscure
innuendoes—of which our writers are so prolific—and hold my peace. But
when I was attacked by M. L. Lilienblum,[22] a writer whose habit it is
not to write _àpropos des bottes_ for the sake of displaying his style,
I became convinced that this time I had really relied too much on the
old adage: _Verbum sapienti satis_. It is not pleasant to swim against
the stream; and when one does something without enjoyment, purely as a
duty, one does not put more than the necessary minimum of work into the
task. Hence in the note referred to I allowed myself to be extremely
brief, relying on my readers to fill in the gaps out of their own
knowledge, by connecting what I wrote with earlier expressions of my
views, which were already familiar to them. I see now that I made a
mistake, and left room for the ascription to me of ideas and opinions
which are utterly remote from my true intention. Consequently I have now
to perform the hard and ungrateful task of writing a commentary on
myself, and expressing my views on the matter in hand with greater
explicitness.
* * * * *
Nordau’s address on the general condition of the Jews was a sort of
introduction to the business of the Congress. It exposed in incisive
language the sore troubles, material or moral, which beset the Jews the
world over. In Eastern countries their trouble is material: they have a
constant struggle to satisfy the most elementary physical needs, to win
a crust of bread and a breath of air—things which are denied them
because they are Jews. In the West, in lands of emancipation, their
material condition is not particularly bad, but the moral trouble is
serious. They want to take full advantage of their rights, and cannot;
they long to become attached to the people of the country, and to take
part in its social life, and they are kept at arm’s length; they strive
after love and brotherhood, and are met by looks of hatred and contempt
on all sides; conscious that they are not inferior to their neighbours
in any kind of ability or virtue, they have it continually thrown in
their teeth that they are an inferior type, and are not fit to rise to
the same level as the Aryans. And more to the same effect.
Well—what then?
Nordau himself did not touch on this question: it was outside the scope
of his address. But the whole Congress was the answer. Beginning as it
did with Nordau’s address, the Congress meant this: that in order to
escape from all these troubles it is necessary to establish a Jewish
State.
Let us imagine, then, that the consent of Turkey and the other Powers
has already been obtained, and the State is established—and, if you
will, established _völkerrechtlich_, with the full sanction of
international law, as the more extreme members of the Congress desire.
Does this bring, or bring near, the end of the material trouble? No
doubt, every poor Jew will be at perfect liberty to go to his State and
to seek his living there, without any artificial hindrances in the shape
of restrictive laws or anything of that kind. But liberty to _seek_ a
livelihood is not enough: he must be able to _find_ what he seeks. There
are natural laws which fetter man’s freedom of action much more than
artificial laws. Modern economic life is so complex, and the development
of any single one of its departments depends on so many conditions, that
no nation, not even the strongest and richest, could in a short time
create in any country new sources of livelihood sufficient for many
millions of human beings. The single country is no longer an economic
unit: the whole world is one great market, in which every State has to
struggle hard for its place. Hence only a fantasy bordering on madness
can believe that so soon as the Jewish State is established millions of
Jews will flock to it, and the land will afford them adequate
sustenance. Think of the labour and the money that had to be sunk in
Palestine over a long period of years before one new branch of
production—vine-growing—could be established there! And even to-day,
after all the work that has been done, we cannot yet say that
Palestinian wine has found the openings that it needs in the world
market, although its quantity is still small. But if in 1891 Palestine
had been a Jewish State, and all the dozens of Colonies that were then
going to be established for the cultivation of the vine had in fact been
established, Palestinian wine would be to-day as common as water, and
would fetch no price at all. Using the analogy of this small example, we
can see how difficult it will be to start new branches of production in
Palestine, and to find openings for its products in the world market.
But if the Jews are to flock to their State in large numbers, all at
once, we may prophesy with perfect certainty that home competition in
every branch of production (and home competition will be inevitable,
because the amount of labour available will increase more quickly than
the demand for it) will prevent any one branch from developing as it
should. And then the Jews will turn and leave their State, flying from
the most deadly of all enemies—an enemy not to be kept off even by the
magic word _völkerrechtlich_: from hunger.
True, agriculture in its elementary form does not depend to any great
extent on the world market, and at any rate it will provide those
engaged in it with food, if not with plenty. But if the Jewish State
sets out to save all those Jews who are in the grip of the material
problems, or most of them, by turning them into agriculturists in
Palestine, then it must first find the necessary capital. At Basle, no
doubt, one heard naïve and confident references to a “National Fund” of
ten million pounds sterling. But even if we silence reason, and give the
rein to fancy so far as to believe that we can obtain a Fund of those
dimensions in a short time, we are still no further. Those very speeches
that we heard at Basle about the economic condition of the Jews in
various countries showed beyond a doubt that our national wealth is very
small, and most of our people are below the poverty-line. From this any
man of sense, though he be no great mathematician, can readily calculate
that ten million pounds are a mere nothing compared with the sum
necessary for the emigration of the Jews and their settlement in
Palestine on an agricultural basis. Even if all the rich Jews suddenly
became ardent “Zionists,” and every one of them gave half his wealth to
the cause, the whole would still not make up the thousands of millions
that would be needed for the purpose.
There is no doubt, then, that even when the Jewish State is established
the Jews will be able to settle in it only little by little, the
determining factors being the resources of the people themselves and the
degree of economic development reached by the country. Meanwhile the
natural increase of population will continue, both among those who
settle in the country and among those who remain outside it, with the
inevitable result that on the one hand Palestine will have less and less
room for new immigrants, and on the other hand the number of those
remaining outside Palestine will not diminish very much, in spite of the
continual emigration. In his opening speech at the Congress, Dr. Herzl,
wishing to demonstrate the superiority of his State idea over the method
of Palestinian colonisation adopted hitherto, calculated that by the
latter method it would take nine hundred years before all the Jews could
be settled in their land. The members of the Congress applauded this as
a conclusive argument. But it was a cheap victory. The Jewish State
itself, do what it will, cannot make a more favourable calculation.
Truth is bitter, but with all its bitterness it is better than illusion.
We must confess to ourselves that the “ingathering of the exiles” is
unattainable by natural means. We may, by natural means, establish a
Jewish State one day, and the Jews may increase and multiply in it until
the country will hold no more: but even then the greater part of the
people will remain scattered in strange lands. “To gather our scattered
ones from the four corners of the earth” (in the words of the Prayer
Book) is impossible. Only religion, with its belief in a miraculous
redemption, can promise that consummation.
But if this is so, if the Jewish State too means not an “ingathering of
the exiles,” but the settlement of a small part of our people in
Palestine, then how will it solve the material problem of the Jewish
masses in the lands of the Diaspora?
Or do the champions of the State idea think, perhaps, that, being
masters in our own country, we shall be able by diplomatic means to get
the various governments to relieve the material sufferings of our
scattered fellow-Jews? That is, it seems to me, Dr. Herzl’s latest
theory. In his new pamphlet (_Der Baseler Kongress_) we no longer find
any calculation of the number of years that it will take for the Jews to
enter their country. Instead, he tells us in so many words (p. 9) that
if the land becomes the _national_ property of the Jewish people, even
though no individual Jew owns privately a single square yard of it, then
the Jewish problem will be solved for ever, These words (unless we
exclude the material aspect of the Jewish problem) can be understood
only in the way suggested above. But this hope seems to me so fantastic
that I see no need to waste words in demolishing it. We have seen often
enough, even in the case of nations more in favour than Jews are with
powerful Governments, how little diplomacy can do in matters of this
kind, if it is not backed by a large armed force. Nay, it is conceivable
that in the days of the Jewish State, when economic conditions in this
or that country are such as to induce a Government to protect its people
against Jewish competition by restrictive legislation, that Government
will find it easier then than it is now to find an excuse for such
action, for it will be able to plead that if the Jews are not happy
where they are, they can go to their own State.
The material problem, then, will not be ended by the foundation of a
Jewish State, nor, generally speaking, does it lie in our power to end
it (though it could be eased more or less even now by various means,
such as the encouragement of agriculture and handicrafts among Jews in
all countries); and whether we found a State or not, this particular
problem will always turn at bottom on the economic condition of each
country and the degree of civilisation attained by each people.
Thus we are driven to the conclusion that the only true basis of Zionism
is to be found in the other problem, the moral one.
But the moral problem appears in two forms, one in the West and one in
the East; and this fact explains the fundamental difference between
Western “Zionism” and Eastern _Chibbath Zion_. Nordau dealt only with
the Western problem, apparently knowing nothing about the Eastern; and
the Congress as a whole concentrated on the first, and paid little
attention to the second.