This organ of the national movement, the nature and functions of which
we are at last dealing with, will, in fact, be created before
everything else. Its formation is perfectly simple. It will take shape
among those energetic Jews to whom I imparted my scheme in London.[B]
The Society will have scientific and political tasks, for the founding
of a Jewish State, as I conceive it, presupposes the application of
scientific methods. We cannot journey out of Egypt today in the
primitive fashion of ancient times. We shall previously obtain an
accurate account of our number and strength. The undertaking of that
great and ancient _gestor_ of the Jews in primitive days bears much
the same relation to ours that some wonderful melody bears to a modern
opera. We are playing the same melody with many more violins, flutes,
harps, violoncellos, and bass viols; with electric light, decorations,
choirs, beautiful costumes, and with the first singers of their day.
This pamphlet is intended to open a general discussion on the Jewish
Question. Friends and foes will take part in it; but it will no
longer, I hope, take the form of violent abuse or of sentimental
vindication, but of a debate, practical, large, earnest, and
political.
The Society of Jews will gather all available declarations of
statesmen, parliaments, Jewish communities, societies, whether
expressed in speeches or writings, in meetings, newspapers or books.
Thus the Society will find out for the first time whether the Jews
really wish to go to the Promised Land, and whether they must go
there. Every Jewish community in the world will send contributions to
the Society towards a comprehensive collection of Jewish statistics.
Further tasks, such as investigation by experts of the new country and
its natural resources, the uniform planning of migration and
settlement, preliminary work for legislation and administration,
etc., must be rationally evolved out of the original scheme.
Externally, the Society will attempt, as I explained before in the
general part, to be acknowledged as a State-forming power. The free
assent of many Jews will confer on it the requisite authority in its
relations with Governments.
Internally, that is to say, in its relation with the Jewish people,
the Society will create all the first indispensable institutions; it
will be the nucleus out of which the public institutions of the Jewish
State will later on be developed.
Our first object is, as I said before, supremacy, assured to us by
international law, over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to
satisfy our just requirements.
What is the next step?