One of the chief benefits of the study of the past is that it throws
light on the problems of the present and helps us to forecast the
future. This is why during the terrible struggle that has been going
on, so many of us have turned to the records of history for help and
direction. It is no less true of our Jewish history. When we engage in
a survey of it, and especially in a study of its course in the allied
countries, it is not merely for the purpose of refreshing our memories
of what happened in days gone by, but also in order to learn what we
might expect to happen in the future and to be fortified in our duty
today. "Universal History," says Lord Acton, "is not a rope of sand
but a continuous development; not a burden on memory, but an
illumination of the soul."
The survey of the course of Jewish history convinces us, first of all,
that nothing has been so helpful and profitable to the Jew as the
progress of democracy. From of old Jewish progress and democracy have
gone hand in hand. Every now and then we hear people complain that the
Jew is not democratic. This has as much truth in it as the off-hand
charge that the Jew is not patriotic or not idealistic. It is a
generality unsupported by the facts.
Much more true it is to say that the genius of Judaism has from the
first been essentially democratic, and that it expressed itself in
democratic institutions and personalities even in remote antiquity,
when the world at large was predominantly aristocratic. The Decalogue
was a democratic code. The Torah was democratic in form and ideal. And
no group of men ever were more representative of democracy in every
way--in origin, conduct, and purpose--than the Jewish prophets.
No one can consider these fundamental facts of Jewish history, and
what followed from them, without realizing the justice of the
affirmation that the Jewish genius has been essentially democratic and
that it has made important contributions to the advance of democracy
in the world.
On the other hand, the progress of democracy has made everywhere for
the advancement and appreciation of the Jew; and this is one of the
most valuable and encouraging lessons we gain from a study of the past.
In France, in England, in Italy, in Russia, in America--everywhere the
promotion of the democratic spirit and law are followed, sooner or
later, often promptly, by removal of Jewish disabilities and
recognition of the rights and powers of the Jew. A country, or a
leader, could not be democratic and fail sooner or later to acknowledge
what was due to the Jew. This is why all champions of democracy were
advocates of the rights of the Jews--Montesquieu and Mirabeau, Cromwell
and Macauley, Cavour and Mazzini, Uvaroff and Milyukoff, Washington,
and every other pioneer and hero of democracy. Gladstone in his early
days was opposed to the removal of Jewish disabilities, but as a
liberal, he was certain finally to turn to the right view, the only
view compatible with the ideals of justice and liberty, which are at
the core of every democratic feeling and force.
What follows? It follows as the night the day that the Jew has a
perfect right to look to democracy for a further vindication of his
rights and his place in the world--to hope that the more certain and
secure the future of democracy in the world, the more certain and
secure shall be the future of the Jew. Some superficial and servile
people may contend that it does not matter what kind of government a
country has, or under what kind of government we live; the student of
history knows that it does matter, that the difference is vital, and
if not apparent at any particular moment, certainly clear as the sun
in the course of time.
Triumphant democracy will lead to full recognition of the citizenship
of the Jew in every country. Apart from basic principles, what the Jew
has done during the War cannot fail to earn for him such citizen
recognition and complete incorporation in the several nations that are
now fighting for life and liberty. The Jew has always been a patriot,
but his patriotic devotion, service, and self-sacrifice shown in the
present War has never been surpassed and in point of magnitude and
scope never equaled. The effect of it will be the abatement of
anti-Jewish prejudice and suspicion, increased respect for the Jew,
and complete recognition of his position and rights as a citizen
everywhere.
Maurice Barres, a former anti-Semite, has called attention to this
effect that the War has already had in France; but it is destined to
produce the same effect in every country in which the end of the War
will make for the triumph of democracy.
Democracy, however, means not only recognition, but also
responsibility, duty as well as rights, service as well as privilege.
Jewish history teaches nothing so clearly as that the Jew has
persisted not so much because of what the world has done for him, as
because of what he has done for the world. The Jew has served. Through
light and gloom, amid flood and flame, in days happy or adverse, the
Jew has served. He has toiled for mankind. _Ebed Adonay_--God's
servant, he was called by the ancient Prophet; and such he has
been--God's servant among men, with whose bruises others were healed,
and by whose afflictions others were taught and ennobled.
This is why when Democracy finally arose and demanded the freedom of
the Jew, there could be no doubt as to his merit and his right. And in
the future, too, the Jew will have to continue to serve and to bestow
upon the world those benefits for which he was created.
It is foolish to think that the Jew's problem can be solved in terms
merely of happiness and comfort for himself. Not for that was he
created. It can be solved in terms only of service--of service to the
world! The Jew will never be able to run away from recognition of this
fact, which is of the very essence of his soul and his existence.
With the coming of his complete recognition as citizen, will come the
increased spiritual responsibility of the Jew. Not only will he have
to take part in the political and economic reshaping of the world. He
will have to justify his spiritual isolation or separateness. He will
be called upon to make his Religion, his peculiar spiritual ideal,
count in that spiritual and religious reconstruction which the world
will need after the War.
Is there no balm in Gilead? Has the Jew's Religion nothing to
contribute to the healing of mankind's spiritual wounds? If so, the
days of his Religion are numbered. But if it has, as we proclaim it
has, then the Jew will have his part to play, and his duty to perform,
when upon the coming of peace mankind starts to set up again the
fallen tabernacles--enters upon the process of religious and spiritual
reconstruction.
And this duty and part the Jew will have not in one corner only--not
in one only secluded, far-off spot, but everywhere, in the midst of
the world, amid the storm and stress of the world's life, amid the
agony of human suffering and need, where every other Religion will be
at work, and men will be engaged in the momentous tasks of rebuilding
and rejuvenation.
There are those who indulge in the sweet, idyllic dream of the Jew
departing from the common strife of mankind and betaking himself to
Zion, and there, amid bucolic surroundings, developing into a
spiritual entity the like of which has never been on land or sea. A
pleasant dream, this! But history is against it. History shows that
although the classical period of the Jew lay in Palestine, since then
the Jewish genius has flourished and produced its best fruits in lands
other than Palestine.
It is idle to expect reproductions of classical periods. The very
contact with the rest of the world, the very friction with other men's
thoughts, the very variety of environment, has made for the vitality
and versatility of Israel's genius. And in the future, also, it is in
the world at large that the Jew will be called upon to serve, and to
prove his capacity and his commission as a factor in the spiritual
advancement and the moral up-building of the human race.
This is not to say that there may not or shall not be a new centre of
Jewish life and glory in the old land of Israel's fathers, in
Palestine. On the contrary, we all pray there may be! Every loyal
Jewish heart is bound to Palestine, and no true Jew but wants to see
it restored and renewed as a place of beauty and of joy. If upon the
close of the War, Jews, under proper guarantees, are allowed to settle
in Palestine as a matter of right and not merely as a favor, let us
hope that those who migrate there, directed by necessity or idealism,
will find their heart's desire and will develop a life of which the
world and the Jew might be justly proud. Toward the securing of such
safeguards we ought all to work together. It must form one of the
fruits of the War.
But to think that the resettlement or reconstruction of Palestine is
going to dispose of the universal Jewish problem, is a chimera. We
need but think of the difficulties that will surround the new
settlement, difficulties of a political and religious, as well as of
an economic, character--of the small number of Jews the country will
be able to absorb, of the many years it will take before Palestine can
support in comfort as many as even a million Jews--we need but think
of the large number of Jews who do not believe in the formation of a
separate Jewish nation, to realize that they who assume that the
creation of a new centre, and particularly of a Jewish State, in
Palestine would wholly solve the Jewish problem, feed on flowers of
phantasy.
The Jew's place is in the world at large, the world now engaged in the
most momentous struggle of history, and in the world at large he will
have to show that capacity for service which will justify his past and
make his future secure and glorious!
In such a spirit let us dedicate ourselves to the defense of democracy
and the championship of Judaism. In such a spirit let us bear the
burdens of the War. Many of our dear ones are engaged in the actual
combat. Let us take pride in their sacrifices! Let us call those
blessed who shall outlive this combat and be allowed a part in the
reconstruction of the future. May they help in the promotion of
democracy, in the perpetuation of Judaism, in the advancement of those
forces of liberty, justice, and brotherhood which are destined some
day to bring peace and joy and good-will to the world!
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