CHAPTER XLIXD.

Turkey, 1910‒14――The New Turkish Cabinet of 1912――The Balkan

War――The Tenth and Eleventh Congresses――Death of Wolffsohn.

WE may as well now cast a glance at the aspect of the general political

situation at the period this narrative has reached. Public opinion in

England was greatly disappointed when the first enthusiasm for Turkish

liberties had passed away. The ship of state in Turkey began to enter

very troubled waters, and no one saw safety ahead. The defeat of the

Committee of Union and Progress, the displacing of the Said Pasha

Cabinet and the downfall of the other leaders of the Young Turkey

party of 1908, followed by the amnesty of a number of officials of

the Hamidian regime, had naturally led many in Europe to believe

that reaction had set in, and that the Young Turks had once more been

overthrown and were in danger of being stamped out by the Old Turks or

reactionaries. On the other hand, some careful observers asserted that

the new Cabinet of 1912 was the best Turkey had had during the past

forty years, and that it was in no true sense reactionary, but really

constructive and progressive. They maintained also that the Committee

of Union and Progress had begun to use old methods and were now

hated by a large proportion of their former supporters. But all these

allegations were contradicted by rapidly developing events. Hardly at

any time within this generation had the political situation in Turkey

presented elements of greater uncertainty and danger than in the period

1910‒14.

The greatest misfortune was the impossibility of any improvement.

Turkey undoubtedly had the desire for progress along those lines which

Europe professedly was so anxious to see her follow; but she needed

advice, guidance, credit and patience. She required men――advisers,

counsellors――to give her practical help in carrying out the necessary

reforms. But, unfortunately, such a development was made impossible by

the disturbing political events.

The Balkan War broke out. The Balkan peoples took their fate in their

own hands. They did not look for liberators from elsewhere, and asked

no help in the settlement of their differences. Whenever the Balkans

had flared up and gone into war before it had generally been due to

the fact that other nations had drawn them into the struggle. The vital

difference of this conflict was that, for the first time for centuries,

all the peoples concerned thought themselves strong enough to decide

their own future by the sword. A fierce struggle began. The outlook

for the Turks was most gloomy from the very outset. The Turks were

beaten. They were discarded by all those who in Europe had seemed to

have supported them, abandoned by the Powers which once valued their

friendship. Speculation as to what would happen was on everybody’s lips.

One thing was certain: that the East was getting thoroughly aroused,

and that the developments led inevitably to a crisis unparalleled in

history. Meanwhile, the Zionist Organization continued its work with

great energy.

The Tenth Zionist Congress at Basle, August, 1911, with Wolffsohn and

Nordau again as Presidents, had an attendance of about four hundred

delegates, including a considerable number of English: Dr. Gaster,

Mr. H. Bentwich, Mr. Jacob Moser, Dr. Samuel Daiches, Dr. Weizmann,

Mr. J. Cowen, Dr. Hochman, Mr. H. Sacher, Dr. Salis Daiches, Mr.

S. B. Rubenstein and others. The question left over from the previous

Congress was settled at this one. A new Small Actions’ Committee was

elected, and David Wolffsohn retained his influential post as President

of the Council, and from that time again devoted his energies mainly to

Zionist finances.

The Eleventh Zionist Congress at Vienna, in September, 1913 (preceded

by an International Congress of the Hebrew Language Revival Societies),

with its attendance of five to six hundred delegates, its enormous mass

meetings, exhibitions, lectures, entertainments and demonstrations,

such as the visit to Herzl’s grave, the Gymnastic Display with 2500

national Jewish gymnasts and 25,000 Jewish spectators, was the greatest

Jewish display of forces that had ever taken place. The importance

of practical work in Palestine, the thorough, serious and systematic

treatment of all colonization questions, the powerful influence of the

Hebrew language, the great number of intellectuals present, the great

power of the Students’ movement, were new elements which were apt to

give the calmer and older Congress members the impression of something

chaotic. In reality, however, that was only the way in which the growth

of the movement, its development, and many-sidedness found expression.

Superficial observers, who have but vague ideas of Zionism, in its

narrow political and financial aspect, might have been surprised at the

sight of this Congress, but those who know how Zionism has grown up out

of the _Chovevé Zion_ and literature and education, with the University

movement, which we have described elsewhere, will understand why the

first “idyll” was bound to give way to a movement as reflected by the

Vienna Congress. Dr. Gaster, Mr. J. Moser, Mr. H. Bentwich, Dr. Ch.

Weizmann, Mr. J. Cowen, Mr. L. Simon, Mr. H. Sacher, and many other

active and well-known members of the English Zionist Federation and

of the Order of Ancient Maccabeans attended the Congress as English

Delegates.

There was also a large delegation (fourteen members) from Canada. For

the first time in the history of the Canadian Zionist Federation no

proxies had been given, as all the delegates to whom the Canadian

Federation was entitled attended in person.

The general Organization has since then been active in propaganda work,

in development work in Palestine through the “Zionist Office,” and

also in educational work in that country.

The Organization sustained a great loss by the death of David Wolffsohn.

He had been ailing for the past few years and died on the 15th of

September, 1914. He served the Zionist Organization with unequalled

fidelity, with intense devotion and a singleness of purpose that

nothing could divert. His passionate affection for the Zionist idea

never wavered. He was proud of the Zionist institutions and watched

over them with never-ceasing vigilance. All Zionists fully realize

the great devotion to the cause that actuated this remarkable man.

Unbounded industry, a passionate love of the work he had to perform,

these were the characteristics of Wolffsohn, and won for him wide and

deep sympathy and admiration during his life and have secured for him

a lasting and cherished memory in the hearts of Zionists throughout the

world.

CHAPTER XLIXE.

Baron Edmond de Rothschild in Palestine――Sir John Gray Hill

――Professor S. Schechter――South African Statesmen――A Canadian

Statesman――Christian religious literature again.

THE events in Turkey did not change Zionist convictions in the least

degree, nor lessen the faith in the ultimate triumph of the cause.

The colonization of Palestine by Jews is useful and desirable from

every point of view. It was as much a necessity when Europe upheld

the principle that Turkey was to form an indissoluble and indivisible

Empire as in different circumstances. Among Jews themselves it was

impossible to fail to notice the complete change of tone and spirit

with regard to Zionism. If there was still any feeling of rivalry

between _Chovevé Zion_ and Zionists, it has vanished completely in

recent years. In this respect Baron de Rothschild’s visit to Palestine

in 1913 was significant. The Baron, or “Our Baron” as the great

philanthropist is affectionately called by the Palestinian Jews, for

whom he has done so much, was received with royal honours: there were

triumphal arches, and crowds of people and school children lined the

streets singing songs of welcome. He expressed his keen satisfaction

with Zionist work, and particularly with the remarkable development of

the Hebrew schools and the spread of the Hebrew language in Palestine.

The attitude of English opinion, that is of real opinion based upon

knowledge of facts and circumstances, remained unchangeably sympathetic.

For instance, Sir John Gray Hill of Liverpool, who had an intimate and

direct knowledge of Palestine, where he used to spend his holidays for

many years, and whose reflections and observations were of great value,

gave in his address, delivered to the Liverpool Jewish Literary Society,

on the 30th of November, 1913, a detailed analysis of the work to be

done in Palestine. While admitting that exaggerated hopes were liable

to strong objections and indicating the existing limitations, he said:

“What you can do is to afford a refuge in Palestine to large numbers

of persecuted Jews, and you can teach them to cultivate the soil,

and to practise various arts and crafts so as to maintain themselves

in the home of their fathers. Now I think it is very important that

the English Jews should take a lead in this endeavour, because the

English Jews are the leaders in thought, in position and in common

sense, and have a calm way of looking at things.” He opposed the most

erroneous and absurd idea of a contradiction between Jewish racial

self-consciousness and English patriotism. “I am told that there

is some feeling amongst the English Jews of there being a want of

patriotism in interesting themselves in the Holy Land. That I do not

understand. A Scotchman is a Scotchman, full of love for his own land

and his own customs, poetry and song, but he is a Briton; so of a

Welshman; so of an Irishman; so of a Devonshire man; so of a Lancashire

man; we cherish these special local feelings, these feelings of local

pride, and yet we remain true to the Great Empire to which we belong.”

He offered a suggestion about travelling to Palestine.

“Now the leading Jews in England cannot, of course, go to live in

Palestine altogether, but they might visit the country; and those

who can afford the time might pass a portion of the year there, and,

I think, if they did so they would find an immense interest in the

country, and would be able to help their poorer brethren far better

than they can by remaining at a distance from it. Travel, open, open

your mind, travel to the Holy Land and see the great vision of what

the past did for us, that amazingly interesting country, without seeing

which I think it is extremely difficult to understand in a full and

proper way the meaning of the Bible; at any rate, the sights of that

land throw an immense deal of light upon it. Then there is another

reason. Englishmen are very much respected in Palestine; they are

thought more highly of than people of any other nation. One reason is,

that it is known that England is not seeking to exploit the country;

England does not seek for greedy concessions, and Englishmen, so far as

they have to do with the natives, always treat them considerately and

kindly, and, I think, the natives believe that whether the Englishmen

are going the right way about it or not, they are trying to help the

native to help himself.”

Here he struck a note which might have seemed new to him as a spectator

appealing to English Jews. In the Zionist literature and Press this

idea has frequently been expressed. Indeed, Palestine is still the land

of poetry and enthusiasm, but it has ceased to be that of mystery; and

though only the fame of its natural beauty has hitherto reached Western

Europe, travellers who have recently visited Palestine have learned

to appreciate the progress of this country in colonization. If anybody

has hailed with enthusiasm the rising of this new star in the East

on account of its brilliancy, beauty and poetical supremacy, he could

discover on a visit to the country those pioneers of vigorous frame,

with eagle eyes and well-formed, combining the sternness of the present

with the subtlety of the intellectual and the simplicity of the child.

The best means of becoming a Zionist is――a visit to Palestine. Sir

Moses Montefiore was the first European Jew who visited Palestine as a

tourist and philanthropist, and he was an English Jew. That was a great

traditional example for English Jewry.

Sir John Gray Hill emphasized the importance of the Zionist Jerusalem

University scheme: “Now I have to speak of the proposal to have a

University in Jerusalem. That is a proposal, I think, in which all

Jews might join. Any objection or feeling of apathy that there is

on the part of Jews for any reason against Zionism generally, cannot

apply to a Jewish University. You want a centre of Jewish culture and

instruction in Jerusalem. The Vienna Congress recently started the

scheme thoroughly by a good subscription. You would, of course, teach

Hebrew, thus preserving the purity of your language, and you would also,

I hope, teach medicine, arts and crafts, agriculture and horticulture.

Cannot you attract the attention of some very wealthy Jews to this

great project? Whatever objections they have to Zionist projects

generally cannot possibly apply to this. What a noble monument it would

be to a millionaire, or group of millionaires――those mighty kings of

finance who are so powerful in Europe――to erect and endow a splendid

University for the Hebrew race. If they were appealed to they would,

I think, listen. Surely they would not take for their motto the

injunction addressed by the followers of Solomon to the Bride from Tyre:

‘Forget also thine own people and thy father’s house.’ No, that cannot

be; I think if the matter is properly represented to them a response

will come. I believe, also, that a true and wise view of Zionism is

growing in force. The cause is moving at last. The long period of slack

water has ended. The tide has turned, although we may not yet see that

it has done so.

‘For while the tired waves vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain;

Far back through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent flooding in the main.’”

On the other hand, an appreciation of the moral and religious value

of the Zionist movement may be quoted. Speaking at a Zionist meeting

in 1914, in Cincinnati, the late Professor Solomon Schechter said:

“Zionism is now a living fact. We must have Zionism, if we want Judaism,

orthodox or reform, to continue to exist. Judaism is at the present

time in a very weak condition, not only in America, but also in Europe.

The Jew cannot live in his own atmosphere, he is compelled to breathe

the spirit of other religions.... The question then arises: What is

it that can preserve the Jewish people? ♦How can Judaism be saved from

complete annihilation? Jewish history tells us that the Hellenist Jews

who settled in Alexandria and other places remained loyal to Judaism,

although they had been excellent Greek citizens.... But after the

destruction of the Temple, these Hellenist Jews became completely

submerged by the Greeks, and nothing remained of their Judaism. That,”

said Professor Schechter in conclusion, “was why Jews must have at the

present time the Zionist movement. Zionism could effect for the Jew a

change in his material life, and it could also create for him a Jewish

atmosphere, in which he could breathe freely his religion.” It is

worthy of note that the late Professor Schechter did not join the

Zionist movement during the first years of its existence, but was then

opposed to it. Being, however, unlike the Bourbons, who are said to

have learned nothing, and having realized the wonderful effects of this

movement as far as the revival of Judaism was concerned, he became in

the last years of his life a faithful Zionist. This was the logic of a

progressive mind.

♦ “Now” replaced with “How”

The Right Hon. J. X. Merriman said in an address delivered on the 9th

of July, 1914, in opening the Zionist Bazaar at Capetown, that “Zionism

is a ramshackle movement, because it began in a very small way, and it

had gradually spread. This had been achieved by the general effort of

the people themselves, who had laudable desires. They had settled a

good many people on the land and had brought to bear their remarkable

faculty of energy, enterprize and skill in restoring Palestine to its

former fertility.” On the following day the Bazaar was opened by Sir

Thomas Smartt, M.L.A.: “There could be few,” said Sir Thomas in his

eloquent address, “but what admired their great leader, Dr. Herzl, in

his lofty ideal for re-establishment as in the days of old, after many

years of wanderings, the ancient glories of their race――of establishing

a nation which had done more than any other nation for the spread

of religious thought throughout the world. Notwithstanding the long

and dark ages of suffering and tribulation through which the race had

passed, the love and devotion to its traditions were just as strong

as ever. Their young men still continued to dream dreams and their old

men to see visions of that sun of righteousness which was to rise with

healing in its wings.” In seconding, Senator Powel said that it was a

great satisfaction to know that the Palestine movement had got beyond

the stage of dreams and visions, and was becoming an accomplished fact.

He hoped that they would never slacken their efforts in what is one of

the greatest movements in the world to-day.

At the General Conference of the Canadian Jews held in Montreal on

the 14th of November, 1915, which was unique in the annals of the

Jews of Canada (for this was the first time in their history that the

representatives of every section and every element of the Canadian

Jewish Community came together from all parts of Canada to take part

in a conference), a representative of the Canadian Government, Mr.

Maighen, brought the Assembly the good wishes of the Government for

the success of the Conference and its high appreciation of that spirit

of brotherhood which had caused them to come together. He spoke of the

history and traditions of the Jewish race and of the debt that mankind

owed to it. He referred to Jewish civilization as being the most

ancient that influenced the world of to-day and of the wonderful way in

which it had endured in spite of the ages of oppression its zealots had

suffered. Speaking of the wish cherished so long by the Jews to regain

possession of Palestine, Mr. Maighen gave utterance to the following:

“I think I can speak for those of the Christian faith when I express

the wish that God speed the day when the land of your forefathers shall

be yours again. That task will, I hope, be performed by that champion

of liberty the world over――the British Empire.” This speech shows how,

in the minds of English statesmen, the question of rights for the Jews

all over the world, and that of a Jewish homeland for the nation are

bound up in one great principle of justice and freedom.

To conclude the way we began mention must be made of Christian

religious literature, which continues to support Zionism in its own way.

The Rev. Earle Langston published recently his ideas on the subject.

The Christadelphians have published ample literature to which the

learned Mr. Walker has contributed extensively. Mr. Frank Jannaway, an

ardent Christadelphian whose interest in Jews and their homeland dates

back some forty years, and who has paid several visits to Palestine

at intervals of a few years, and has thus enjoyed some splendid

opportunities of watching the gradual development of the Holy Land,

has published a book, _Palestine and the Jews_ (1914), of which two new

editions, one of them entitled _Palestine and the Powers_, have since

appeared. His knowledge is wide and thorough. He sees Palestine as the

land of the future, and every new development is to him the fulfilment

of a prophecy. He offers biblical chapter and verse for the happenings

that have been convulsing the world, and in a way which reminds

one of the oldest English pro-Zionist literature of the seventeenth

century, which links up the position of the present and future aspects

with sacred prediction. His views favour the Jewish cause and show

considerable and correct acquaintance with the Zionist movement. It

must finally be observed that during the last two years a great number

of excellent articles have appeared in English newspapers and magazines,

and some also in the French Press, in which great sympathy is expressed

with the Zionist cause from a political, as well as from a humanitarian

point of view.

ZIONISM DURING THE WAR

1914‒1918

GENERAL SURVEY

THE year 1914 will stand out as the Great Divide in contemporary

history. It was a year of endings and beginnings. Humanity left an age

behind it, and entered upon an age in which old things have passed away

and all things had to become new.

Long feared and long foretold, yet never seriously expected, the

European War came at last. Nations, great and small, arose in their

strength, and gathered, in an avalanche of excitement, all their

manhood to battle, all their old age to guard, and all their womanhood,

not only as in bygone days, to tend and heal the wounded and sick,

but also to do preparatory work for the fighting armies. Generations,

young and old, rushed eagerly to defend their countries, leaving home,

property, calling; knowing no fear save that here and there one of

their fellow-citizens might prove less patriotic than themselves. The

world was thrown back to the moral level and the ethical conceptions

of thousands of years ago: man became again a wolf to man, as in the

Pleistocene Age. On the one hand, the vast and bloody epic produced a

sort of ecclesiastical moratorium which, for the duration of the war,

annulled all moral obligations and abrogated the Ten Commandments,

while on the other hand, it developed, to the highest degree, all the

great and noble feelings――sense of honour, unselfishness, magnanimity,

courage. Nationality, patriotism, the sense of duty, the spirit of

sacrifice, enthusiastic heroism and patriotic martyrdom filled the

hearts and created a new atmosphere, in which every kind of human

activity was intensified: industry, art, science, and literature. This

great storm, the greatest storm that had ever stirred mankind, produced

the greatest spiritual tragedy the world has ever known. The most

terrible aspect of the war was not the fact that Europe was being bled

white, that all the amenities of civilization were breaking down with

the strain of the military operations, and that each day some new and

more brutal engine of destruction was prepared and brought into use,

but――the ethical conflict carried on with minds and nerves on the rack

of tense emotion which not only upset mental balance and changed the

outlook of peoples, hitherto industrious and peaceful, but developed

moral and social fears and passions which will not pass away in a day.

This universal catastrophe would indeed have degraded the world into

“a sort of malign middle term between a lunatic asylum and a butcher’s

stall,” if it had not finally become――as it has become――“a war against

war.” The peoples turned their ploughshares into swords, they ceased

to make useful, beneficial rails and plates and angles and girders

of their iron ore and their coal, and they manufactured harmful,

destructive shells and guns to project them to the slaughter of the

enemy, hoping that when the time came they would again turn their

swords into ploughshares. They realized that the enemy of society is

militarist despotism, and that militarist despotism therefore must be

ended, or it will end society. A great moral idea arose out of this

war: the liberation of oppressed small nations. Another great moral

idea arising from it is the de-militarization of humanity. The whole

world is now involved in a life or death struggle for righteousness.

This is the justification for all the sufferings and all the sacrifices.

If this war were not a war of principles and for ideals it would be

nothing, and could result in nothing except the further enthronement of

the doctrine and worship of force, and the perpetuation of the untold

misery and degradation which that form of religion carries with it.

It should never be forgotten that this was a war for liberty of the

peoples, and in particular of the small peoples.

This great war has aggravated and made terribly clear the position of

Jewry and the tragic problem of its existence as a small and oppressed

nationality. The war has turned numerous _Ghetti_ of Galicia, Bukovina,

Russian Poland, Lithuania, Courland and Roumania into heaps of ashes,

and hell would be pleasant compared with the situation of great masses

of the Jewish people. In this war, particularly in Eastern Europe,

hundreds of thousands of Jews were fighting against one another in

the hostile camps of the belligerent countries; and the significant

factor is that they were not fighting because they were forced to, but

from a sense of supreme duty. Even among those that were fighting in

the Russian Army before the Revolution, there were many who were not

acting under compulsion: they were giving of their best and from their

heart. They wanted to take their places in the virile, the over-virile

world――which is also their world, they wanted to live and die taking

their place in the great living society which called to them. The

spirit of Europe――rather the spirit of present-day Europe, which

was the spirit of obstinate conflicts and of extreme courage of

devotion――has seized the Jews also: they also have entered into this

tremendous catastrophe, into this pilgrimage through chaos towards a

new world.

But for the Jews this war meant infinitely worse evil and greater

danger; the nations were divided one from another, Jewry was divided

against itself; each nation opposed its fixed shape and character,

untouched even by defeat, to the overflooding chaos, but the Jewish

nationality seemed to be its victim, in its own wavering and chaotic

form of the Diaspora. It almost seemed as though there existed Jews,

and divided Jews, but no Jewry.

And yet it was not really so. It was a dark time, and the storm was

ghastly enough, but the lightning has revealed things that might

otherwise have remained hidden. Rather should we believe that the

time of the greatest trial for Jewry denoted a high self-recollection,

and with it the commencement of a true gathering and union. In times

of great stress men discover their own deeper selves. Great trouble

somehow digs into the very foundation of a man’s existence, and he

cannot explore there without finding what is most essential in him.

When some tremendous trouble sends its plough through his heart

of hearts, then he becomes aware of wonderful things he has never

suspected before.

Now it is well worth our while to weigh all this and to make it part of

our outlook and equipment as we face the great present events. Because,

for one thing, it should go a long way towards delivering us from the

worst of all fears――the fear of to-morrow and the next day, and all

the days that the future hides. Nine out of ten of us are perpetually

spoiling what _is_ happening by dread of what _may_ happen, so that

we can all join Disraeli in saying that we have had many troubles, but

the worst have been those that never happened. If only we could let

the morrow be anxious for itself! But, to a large extent, we can, if

we will, school ourselves to it;

“וכימיך דבאך׃...”

דברים לג׳ כה׳¹‏

is a promise perpetually justified by the best psychological findings

and historic experience in the life of nations. It is really the fact,

that our “day” stirs and heightens our strength. Only when challenged,

do we know what we are capable of. Modern psychology tells us that

“the human individual lives usually far within his limits; he possesses

powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes

below the _maximum_, and he behaves below his _optimum_.” And to rise

to our _maximum_ and _optimum_ we need some unusual stimulus or some

unusual idea of necessity.

¹ “... And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.”――Deut.

xxxiii. 25.

Jewish history has revealed this truth several times. One individual or

another, one small group or another――separated from the masses of the

people――may fall away from Jewry; whoever can do that to-day has never

belonged to it. The majority, however, remain loyal, and are never more

loyal than in times of stress. The illusion is destroyed that a man can

live a truly moral life in a time of trial while he is only a spectator

of the life of society. In the Jews, convulsed by the events of the

war, the new unity of Jewry showed itself. The situation was so serious,

so full of menace for all that we hold dear, that every thinking

Jew saw that he must in these days help to create and maintain the

moral energies which alone can carry him through the crisis. At this

time the Jew had a duty to his country and a duty to Judaism. To his

country he owed, as a citizen, duties which could not be shirked. Every

support was to be given to all patriotic efforts for the prosperity,

the victory, and the glory of the country. To Judaism he owed the

obligation of securing and defending not only the existence, but also

the development and the realization of its traditional ideals, and

of strengthening its unity. The first expression of this unity was an

increase of self-consciousness. Jewry was affected by the war, but the

essential problems of the Jews in the modern world were not altered by

the war.

When we speak of Jewry, we speak of a living historic, ethnic and

cultural――although not political――nationhood, existing potentially

in its unity, independently of the Jewries of the countries in the

various forms of their divided destinies, and their dissensions at the

present moment. We strive to fix and to assure it――as far as external

conditions allow it――in the Diaspora. And when we wish to prepare

for it a sort of central Metropolis, an organic _chef-lieu_ in

Palestine――we are not engaged in adding one more nationality to the

existing nationalities which fight against and watch one another

suspiciously. It is not the question of introducing Jewry into

the divisions of the nations, to be absorbed by them, and thus to

contribute to their conflicts, but it is rather a question of aiming at

the union of all that is noble and just in the nations and in ourselves.

We want our own centre of simple active life, because the spiritual

and intellectual element without the simple active life degenerates

into subtlety and trickiness. We want――at least, for a section of

our nationality――normal life, with its variety and interpretation

of different influences of Nature. This is a question in which every

Jew should be interested, because not only does the nobility of a

nation depend on the presence of the national consciousness, but also

the nobility of each individual. Our dignity and our rectitude are

proportioned to our sense of relationship to something great, admirable,

pregnant with possibilities, worthy of sacrifice, a continual

inspiration by the presentation of aims larger than everyday life and

personal ease.

What was the attitude of the Zionist Organization with regard to these

great events? Why was the Zionist Organization more interested in the

war than any other section of Jewry? And why is Zionism at present

more up to date than it ever was? In order to answer properly these

questions we have to cast a retrospective glance on the history of

the last twenty years, and to recall to the minds of the readers a few

important facts which, although dealt with in this work in previous

chapters, must be again reviewed in their connection with the present

political situation.

Twenty years ago several hundred Jews from all parts of the world

met in the Swiss town of Basle and held a congress――the first Jewish

congress in history.

A strange community of Jews, a representative assembly of the great

Jewish _Diaspora_――from the most modern European writers to teachers in

Talmud colleges in small Lithuanian towns, quiet respectable citizens

and fiery students, bankers and Hebrew writers――representing all kinds

of civilization and all languages――and, nevertheless, some bond unified

the whole.

At the head sat a man of the kind which appears like meteors but

once in the course of generations――Theodor Herzl. A sage, a hero, a

leader of men, an artist? Everything――even more than everything――the

embodiment of an idea. In the body of this man there existed a soul,

and that soul was Zionism.

At his side there stood (besides other worthies whose titles to honour

we may not here linger to mention) a tribune of the people, in the

person of Max Nordau――another famous man only just awakened suddenly

and with great power to his Jewish nationality.

There the veil was torn away from the tragedy of the Jews. There it

was stated that the Jewish problem was a disease, and that against a

disease one should not protest and struggle wildly, but one ought to

cure it. Moreover, it was said that at times one cannot heal a wound

except by cauterizing it. And all were agreed that it was not a good

plan to postpone difficulties, but on the contrary that they should be

anticipated.

Speakers there indicated the “_Galuth_”――the serpent with a thousand

coils. And they pointed to the Land of _Israel_, to freedom, to

redemption.

In the Land of _Israel_, it was there affirmed, Zionism could become a

living reality.

Nothing new indeed was there discovered. It was simply stated that two

and two make four.

Out of the vocabulary of modern political nomenclature the word

“national” was adopted. Is Zionism national? Certainly. It can also

be called “human”; perhaps still more simply, “natural.” Let us learn,

however, from Nature, in its simplicity and honesty, which knows of no

sophistries nor manœuvring.

We Jews have become again children of Nature. There exist species

in Nature. The eagle does not toil for the pike nor the lion for the

cat; neither can the light of the stars replace that of the sun. Each

fulfils its own purpose, and thence results the sum total. Behold the

trees and the standing corn――would they be so splendidly developed,

so rich and so fresh in their growth, if they were forcibly mixed and

mingled together so that one drew its sap from the other? They are

flourishing and rich and beautiful, because each keeps its own natural

form and each draws its nourishment from the breast of mother earth.

“Give us our country,” said the Zionists. “Give it to us for our exiled

and wandering ones, who unwillingly find themselves mingled in the

great seething pot of assimilation, who drag themselves from place to

place. Give it to us for those who long and thirst for another kind of

life; our garments, our bread, and our freedom we do not wish to have

as alms. We wish to work and to obtain the fruits of our honest labour.

We love that little country; waters cannot quench and streams cannot

drown our love for it. Our love has the power to move mountains, it is

stronger than all material obstacles. We demand a peaceful spot for our

future and for our children who are becoming lost to us. Beholding this

misery, we are willing to sacrifice ourselves. Even a she-wolf throws

herself against danger to protect her young ones. Shall our love be

weaker then than that of a wolf? And shall those whom we love be worse

off than the offspring of animals? We want to rend asunder our chains,

to blot out the mark of serfdom upon us, and win for ourselves true

human rights, and the privilege of living equal to others, by honest

toil.”

This was the Jewish claim――the demand put by Zionists to the world. And

then the world turned against us, especially the little Jewish world.

We shall not talk about the levity, the insolence, the egotism, nor

about those satiated folk who philosophize with their stomachs, nor

about those others who do not know their own minds, whose shallow

little heads float like foam in any current. We do not talk about those

idle jesters who have found another opportunity of showing the sad

wit of the _Ghetto_ which takes pleasure in ridiculing and despising

one’s own self. Indeed even respectable, serious and honest, though

unfortunately shortsighted and obstinate men, who imagined themselves

enthusiastic concerning Judaism, kind-hearted but automatic leaders

of Jewish communal life who, though philosophizing about mankind, are

inwardly divided from their own people, came to us with “fatherly”

advice, with moral lectures, with sonorous phrases about humanity.

They wanted to destroy most quickly, annihilate and extinguish

the “dangerous chimæra,” the “reaction,” the “chauvinism,” the

“_Sabbatai-Zvi’ism_,” the “decay of religion,” “religious fanaticism,”

“tribalism,” and all the other things they ascribed to Zionism in their

political delusion and contradictory nomenclature.

“You must scatter yourselves all over the world,” they said, “just as

a handful of seeds, scattered by the wind, germinate, grow and ripen,

all in different spots, replenishing the earth with their fruits! What

do you want with a country of your own? You are made for something

better! To be priests, teachers of ethics, missionaries of God――that is

a higher ambition! Your contribution to mankind is social justice and

the brotherhood of men. Why be a nation and for what purpose? You will

be great in the memory of peoples. You have earned a golden throne in

history’s temple of fame. You _have been_, to-day you are no more!”

The Zionists replied: “We want to live. We know better than you do what

we are able to do, and how we ought to influence mankind; but we do not

wish to abdicate, we do not wish to be destroyed like a broken vessel,

whose contents have run out and have drained into the soil without

leaving a trace. We do not want to be lost like a falling star, which

for a time had shone brightly in space, only to sink into nothingness.

Our star is not yet dead. Our ambitions are not very high, but they are

based on reality. We do not want to be an exception, and we want to be

excused from such a ‘priesthood.’ We want to create a sound settlement,

a strong centre where we can develop our own nature and our character

to the highest and purest perfection. Should the world wish to learn

from us and accept our influence, we shall place no obstacles; on the

contrary, we shall be glad of it. But to drag ourselves from place to

place, to be the scapegoat of every ‘_Azazel_,’ and the sacrificial

lamb for every calamity, to mix everywhere with others, to lose more

and more that which is our own personality, and to imagine that we

are a sort of schoolmaster for everyone――for such imposture we are

too honest, for such megalomania we are of too normal a mentality,

and, morally, too modest. We do not want to be driven _ad majorem Dei

gloriam_ (for God’s greater glory) or to be intermingled with others.

We do not want to be like the goose that was offered the choice of

being either roasted, stewed, or boiled. Neither do we wish to have

lavished upon us the pity given to old people, because it is certain

that they will not for long continue to disturb the peace of the

living. We are old, it is true, but on that account we are experienced.

From Pharaoh and Balaam to the foreign Antiochus [Epiphanes] (_ob._

164 _b.c.e._) and our own Jason,¹ from the Hellenists to the modern

Assimilationists, we have been constantly invited, as the spider

invited the fly into her parlour, just to get it entangled in her web

and afterwards to suck it dry. No! a thousand times no! And if you

say the Land of _Israel_ is of no value to any one, then you are not

speaking in our name! Speak for yourselves alone! For you the Land

of _Israel_ means perchance only a cemetery, a legend, an amulet,

an archæological relic; for us its every pebble and grain of sand is

beloved, not only in a spirit of worship and of inactive enthusiasm,

but also as a necessity to our life labour. And if you believe that the

Jewish people are of a similar species to the Mammoth and the

Megatherium, which have been devoted to extinction, then please speak

only for yourselves! Perhaps the sense of Jewish nationality in you

has gone to sleep or has even died entirely. That is your own affair,

a personal question which you have to fight out with your own selves.

In us it is alive, suffering, fighting, clamouring! Zionism is the

movement of the Jewish people to reconstitute itself and to collect

again its scattered members, to provide Judaism, the Jewish spirit,

the Jewish soul, with a home once again after two thousand years of

exile and of wandering. Zionism is the struggle of the Jewish people

to preserve its existence. Zionism feels that the _raison d’être_ of

Judaism is not ended, that the Jewish race can still contribute its

share towards the raising of humanity, but to enable it to do so more

efficiently, in an organized form, and in accordance with its own

natural affinities and historic traditions, a Jewish _milieu_ is

necessary. To create such a Jewish _milieu_ is the purpose of the

Zionist movement. Such a Jewish _milieu_ can take root in one land

and one land only, for there is one land only that has a real glorious

Jewish history and Jewish past. That land is the Land of _Israel_!”

¹ יהושע or Jesus, High Priest from 174‒171 _b.c.e._, brother of

the High Priest. חוניא = נחוניא, Onias iii.

Both parties had exhausted the discussion――and, as is usual in such

cases, did not succeed in convincing each other. Then they each went

their own way.

The Zionists began to build straightway. No other colonial settlement

in the world is of nobler birth than ours in Palestine. Tradition

relates that young Rome was fed by a she-wolf. Some day it will be

told in legends that our new settlement on old foundations was fed by

a turtle-dove, by love, faithfulness, kindliness, and brotherliness.

Not wild animals, but angels, stood round its cradle. Muses and Graces

illuminated and crowned the morning star of its noble childhood. Jewish

thinkers like Leo Pinsker, Perez Smolenskin, David Gordon; enthusiastic

leaders and many others――a kind of Jewish Puritan pioneers, the

“_Bilu_”――had started to build up the settlement even before our

first and greatest, our immortal founder and leader of modern Zionism,

Theodor Herzl, had drawn up our programme, created our organization,

founded our institutions, and had given us the impetus, method and form

of the Zionist movement.

The success of a wonderful, personal, magnetic power, the method of

large-scale propaganda, the labour through relations with Governments

had for a certain time given Zionism a political bias. More considered

and everyday experience, on the contrary, pointed to a slow method of

practical labour. Different parties amongst the Zionists opposed one

another, and we need not be ashamed of that. Jews are inclined to

freedom in all their spiritual tendencies, they do not easily submit

to formulæ, they criticize, analyse, and search for the truth. Finally,

the whole struggle was reduced to a question of tactics. Whether one

attempts to reach the goal by means of the plough, plantations, schools,

literature, or propaganda, it is a question of time and circumstances.

And the essential truth was, that all means must be employed.

What was the result? The net balance was not great; forty settlements,

some farms, co-operative societies, _Tel Aviv_, the new _Achuzoth_,

the _Carmel_, the _Pardes_, the _Aggudath N’taim_, modern machines; new

methods of work introduced not only among Jews, but also among Arabs;

malaria centres disinfected; the best conditions for planting studied

in experimental institutions; our banks, the _Bezalel_, public health

centres, the music school, two well-filled secondary schools, the

girls’ school in _Jaffa_, the _Tach’kmoni_ school in the same place,

the _Petach-Tikwah_ school of agriculture, the settlement schools, the

committee organization of the settlements, the workers’ associations,

the teachers’ union, the _Hebrew_ newspapers and literature, the

“Houses of the People”――these represent what _Chovevé Zion_, Baron

Edmond _de_ Rothschild and the Zionists have created, and what we call

the new colonization of Palestine. The earlier rivalries have vanished.

The _Chovevé Zion_ and the Zionists are at one as to the policy of

Zionism. The Zionist Palestine office in _Jaffa_ is the head-quarters

of the work of colonisation. The struggle for _Hebrew_ has shown how

Palestine is becoming more and more an intellectual centre. The visit

of Baron Edmond _de_ Rothschild to Palestine in 1913 had set the seal

upon this unanimity. Even the blind could perceive that a true Jewish

Home was in process of establishment. No further arguments were needed.

The Jewish population in the land, although a minority, is the only

one that is growing and has grown during the past generation. It is the

only progressive population in the land, the others are stationary in

regard to numbers. Let any one go to Palestine, not on one of Cook’s

lightning tours, but as a Jew to the land of _Israel_; let him remain

in the settlements but a few weeks――that will be a certain cure for

anti-Zionism. If it should happen that any one could not be cured even

in this way, then he must unfortunately be regarded as incurable. We,

however, know of a great many that have been cured.

Thus the organization grew. It is sufficient to compare the beautiful

first Basle Congress of 1897 with the enormous Vienna Congress of 1913;

it is sufficient to compare the phantom Jewish National Fund of 1899

with the existing Jewish National Fund, which can show an annual income

of over two million francs; it is sufficient to compare the two or

three Zionist pamphlets of eighteen years ago with the Zionist press

and literature in existence to-day.

Thus Zionism has grown to what it is to-day for the Jewish people: a

spring of life, a signpost, the foundation of a mighty edifice.

In a few words the author can give the essence of the personal

impressions which he received during the course of his three months’

stay in Palestine, in 1913, before the war: a model factory of modern

Jewish national life; a nursery for rearing the fruitful parent-stems

for the blossoming tree of a living Hebraism; a laboratory for

sociological experiments in self-help and self-government in Jewish

economic life; a compendium of elements and corner-stones for the

erection of the Home; a systematic, laborious, slow preparation of the

preliminary conditions for a great, healthy, original Jewish province;

the genesis of a new world, naturally with many defects, with many

premature and unripe attempts, but that was just most beautiful and

most natural in people who search and strive and venture. And all this

was enlightened by a clear understanding, and glowed with a youthful

national enthusiasm. That is what Jewish colonization in Palestine is.

Do not try and count it over! The wisdom of the multiplication table

is too dull to be able to estimate it. Do not try and weigh it! On the

great scales of history a single unit sometimes weighs down a hundred

thousand! Enjoy it, as one enjoys art, or as the free soul becomes

intoxicated with and rejoices in freedom. As musical natures become

enraptured with music, so national natures become enraptured with

national life.

And if you will have net results, then do not forget one thing, namely,

that all this has been done, not by the entire Jewish people, but by

a small handful of Jews. When this small handful has become the entire

people, then this edifice will grow even grander. Palestine is a land

that stretches forth its hands to the future. For two thousand years it

has been ravaged by war and by misgovernment, until a country that was

once famous throughout the world for its fertility, has become a desert

land, degenerate from lack of cultivation. According to the statistics

of the Ottoman Board of Trade less than 9 per cent of the area of

European Turkey has been brought under cultivation, and still less of

Turkey in Asia. There are in Palestine twenty-seven inhabitants to the

square kilometre, and in the valley of the _Jordan_ four; while in the

irrigated districts of neighbouring Egypt ten thousand are concentrated

within the same area. Why should not Palestine be resettled like Egypt?

Why should it not be made a happy home for an unfortunate people?

Now the Zionists, after twenty years of work, plead their case again.

They have not succeeded in putting an end to the “_Galuth_.” Their

opponents maintain that they had overestimated their strength. Perhaps

so, but this does not prove that their labours have been to no purpose.

They have laid a few foundation stones, they have shown the way.

They defend their cause in the midst of a hell-fire. Our ancient people

that has lived so long, has now experienced the greatest of wars,

such as has never been in the world before. We live to-day in the most

critical period of the world’s history. It has been our lot to share

in the greatest drama which humanity has as yet lived through, not only

as spectators, but also as actors. The history of this world war is

written in letters of blood on the ancient and holy parchment, on the

brow of the Jew. No seismograph has indicated beforehand the coming

of this earthquake, of this outburst of the volcano of the nations.

But _one thing_ the Zionists have foreseen: the force of national

consciousness; the flood of hate, our pitiful situation, which cause

every storm to tear away the ground from under our feet.

Herzl had written his first pamphlet under the influence of the Dreyfus

affair. That cry of twenty years ago thunders now in unison with

the cries of mothers, wives, orphans, from underneath the pyres and

ruins which in their brutal reality leave the worst imaginings of

a _Jeremiah_ far behind. The dead arise from their graves, covered

with blood, trampled in the dust, with the fiery name of God, the

“_Shaddai_,” on their pale foreheads, and they demand to be heard. They

lament, and say:

“Vainly we strove to secure a little life――we could not grasp it.

Withered with sufferings, with pain and injury, shivering and frozen

with cold, we used to hug the earth closely, but it would not give us

warmth. We were teachers of the most ancient peoples, but death and

insult were the recompense paid us by our pupils. We shone like the

stars, but we were treated like silkworms, which have to die, so soon

as they have spun the fine web of their threads, so soon as they have

drawn forth and sacrificed their life-blood――they have fulfilled their

duty, and farewell!

“On our shoulders we bore the burdens of our masters’ interests, just

as the sea bears the little fishing-boats on its waves. We were more

faithful in guarding their property than dogs are. For the labour

which we performed, for our hard and humble services, for the sacrifice

of all our strength on their altars, for the resigned and patient

suffering of all the tortures of exile, we did not receive even the

reward of protection extended to the beast of burden, to the cow, or to

the sheep for its wool. Deprived of all human rights, even stripped of

the scantiest rags of toleration, we wandered and fell under the iron

yoke of serfdom, like a weary and impotent herd of cattle driven over

rocks and brambles. They felled us as a forest is felled, and we went

down without the slightest possibility of suitable self-protection,

with the dull thud of an old oak prostrated by a storm, yet with the

pain of bereaved, insulted and humbled human beings. We are the victims

not of the war, but of the ‘_Galuth_.’ Let no one talk to us about

Belgium, Serbia. Theirs is the well-known scourge of mankind taking

the shape of tyranny, militarism, war. Had we suffered only from these

things, then we should have suffered but in common with others. Our

misery, however, is of a peculiar kind. It is a double misery: we

suffer with the rest, and in addition we suffer specially as a people

without a country. Belgium and Serbia and Montenegro are nations

with countries of their own; they cannot be annihilated, they must be

restored. We envy Belgium in her misfortune, and sorely assailed Serbia;

we behold the strength and health of the Polish peasant. Truly, he has

been ruined for the time being, but he has his country, and though he

has been driven away ten times by the fury of war he will return, and

once again plant himself on his native soil, where his golden corn will

grow again. Not only could he not be uprooted, but he will regain more

than he had lost: a new, free, independent Poland!

“Everywhere the rights of nations are triumphant. Let it not be said

that only countries that had been stolen fifty or a hundred years

ago shall be returned to their former lawful owners. Whoever says so,

falsifies history, either intentionally or unintentionally. The right

of the Greeks to Greece is also a right which has remained through

thousands of years. The right of the Armenians to Armenia has also

been suppressed by force throughout the centuries. And yet these rights

will be granted. Let it not be said either, that a nation robbed of

the country must have remained on its native soil, or otherwise it will

have lost its rights. That is not true. More Greeks live outside Greece

than in Greece, and there are still other nations, the majority of

whose citizens dwell outside the frontiers of their old home. Nor let

it be said that it is sufficient to grant equal rights to mankind.

Were not equal rights given to the Greeks――and yet the problem was not

solved till Greece redeemed herself!

“We, the orphans, the disinherited, the playthings in history’s sports,

the step-children of a world founded on nationalities――we summon the

world before the high court of history.

“For two thousand years past they put us off with excuses and false

promises. Civilization has been progressing for thousands of years:

mankind now flies loftier than the eagle and dives deeper than the

_Leviathan_. Has it become better for us? Have we not remained the same

scapegoats from the time of Rome to the Crusades, from these to the

‘Haidamaks,’ and from them to the Pogroms of the present day?

“We, the wandering souls, demand our rest. Enough of wanderings and

being bandied about! Give us back our body, our country! We want to be

equal with the rest, suffer with the rest, fight with the rest, live

with the rest.”

Thus lament the dead, teaching the living. Will the world not listen to

them?

“What do you wish?” the Zionists are asked. They reply: We want a home

in the land of _Israel_. On the day of Judgment, when every historical

right――from the smallest to the greatest――is announced, elevated,

proclaimed, and demanded; when even the weakest, the most doubtful

claims of half-forgotten and but recently-awakened little peoples,

based on old, torn, ambiguous and now scarcely legible documents and

traditions, assert themselves and demand rights of ownership; when

history takes its place as judge on the throne of justice, and the

national territorial idea is accepted as the world’s code, in order

to resolve every doubt and to arbitrate every dispute; when the great

in power penitently declare that every injustice, especially towards

suffering peoples, must be righted; when these things come to pass,

then (we Zionists say) the Jewish people is in duty bound to proclaim

its old, holy, historical right to the heritage of its heroes, its

prophets, its civilization, its religion, its language, and its labours!

It is an ancient right, but it has not lapsed. It is the ancient

oath, the ancient covenant. No right has been earned more honourably.

None has been paid for with more and nobler blood. None is so highly

established and deeply founded.

In order not to lay itself open to a verdict of letting its claim go

by default, the Jewish people will have to proclaim its immortal right

to the land of _Israel_. It is the sacred duty-right of loyal children

towards their parents. Not to demand the land of _Israel_ means that we

tacitly waive our rights to it, and this means a waiving of our rights

to everything: tradition, honour, justice, the law of _Moses_, and the

general historical idea.

We don’t trust a man who denies his mother, however much of a patriot

he may be in his country. He is an opportunist, but no patriot, because

patriotism is idealism.

Nothing will daunt us in our resolve to proclaim solemnly our

historical right and to demand it with all our energy. Do not

trouble us with intimidations, on the score of a possible growth of

anti-Semitism, and so on! These fears are senseless. Anti-Semitism is

a consequence not of Zionism, but of the “_Galuth_.” Those who have

the courage of their convictions and a sense of honour, are not to be

influenced by craven fears. Our duty it is to proclaim our right, and

we shall fulfil this duty. Will this bring us sufferings? Good: we are

prepared for that. Martyrs from of old as we are, we have been through

fire and water during thousands of years, we have been the target

of every attack, the victims of every persecution, and we fear no

chicanery when it is a question of fulfilling a holy duty of our

conscience.

Whoever understands Zionism, knows it is not our intention to raise

conflicts. We stand for a peaceful movement. We began in a time of

peace and we desire to renew our work and substantially to enlarge

it, in the coming time of peace. We did not wish to harm anyone, to

wrong anyone, and we wish to do so still less, if possible, now than

before. We wish to make our country a model of social justice and human

brotherhood; the spirit of our prophets shall fill our land, and the

ancient _Hebrew_ genius shall there have its dwelling-place.

We certainly, not less than all the other Jews and all just men, are

strongly interested and are anxious that we, wherever we live, wherever

we are, and wish to be citizens, should have our rights secured. Where

the Jews are not yet emancipated, they shall be emancipated; where they

are but half emancipated, their emancipation shall be completed and

perfected; and where they are already emancipated, their emancipation

shall be in no way checked or diminished. This question of rights we

had better formulate in the following manner: Not that rights should

be given us, but that our rights shall no longer be filched away,

restricted and encroached upon wherever we have our domicile, wherever

we fulfil our duties, and bear all burdens in order to defend the soil

of the country to the death; wherever we work, live, and die together

with its other inhabitants. Not that we should be emancipated, but that

people should emancipate themselves from the instinct of persecution,

from malice, from envy, which find expression in various forms:

in pogroms, in boycott, in social ostracism, in open or masked

disabilities; that we should not be shut up in cages like wild animals,

whether it be in the brutal form of a _Ghetto_, a “pale of settlement,”

or in the more subtle form of social exclusion and coldly polite

hypocritical repulse: whether it be finally, in that cunning form not

of Anti-Semitism, but of Asemitism which declares that, as in the case

of poisons, the country can at best absorb only a limited quantity of

Jews, while any excess is dangerous.

If the civilized world really intends to make an end of war, then, also,

this war against the Jews must not be overlooked. It is a war in time

of peace, a war that has not the heroic character of a struggle between

two opponents equal in arms, but the character of a systematic and

brutal oppression of the weak by the strong.

That is the problem of the rights of the Jews in the countries of the

Diaspora!

Some sophists have, in their speculative, casuistical way, evolved

a strange doctrine. They assert, that when the Jews surrender their

claims to the land of _Israel_, when they deny their own nationality,

then they will “receive rights.” Pedants and arm-chair theorists as

they are, they paint in their luxurious imagination a picture that

recalls the classical example of Paris with the apple: in one hand,

Palestine; in the other, rights in the Diaspora. And as they point to

this picture, they cry out to the Jews: Choose! One or the other!

Such pictures may please children, but not grown-up men――since children

are innocent and do not understand the laws of logic. There are no two

kinds of truth, nor of justice, only _one_. If justice is done to us,

then our right to Palestine will be recognized, and we shall also be

left in peace in the Diaspora.

Be assured the Land of _Israel_ will not injure our situation in

the Diaspora. Only Zionism, not self-betrayal, is calculated to lend

us authority and prestige in the world. Avoid the old error, avoid

renunciation, stand true to your flag, to righteousness, like men!

We are asked, What are your politics? Others say that politics should

be indeed excluded. Zionism must be only either colonization or a

spiritual movement. We must be Zionists in colonization, in the spirit,

and in religion. In what each says, there is some truth. The error

lies only in the fact that in each of these assertions, a partial truth

claims to represent the whole truth. Zionism is not a part; it is the

totality, the sum, the synthesis of these efforts.

However little Zionists wish to enter into politics they cannot close

their eyes to the fact that Zionism is――at least, in part――a political

problem. However spiritual its arguments, its origins and its motives

may be, however metaphysical its aims may be, and however much its

methods may accordingly strive to remain pure, ♦nevertheless, it is

concerned with the problem of people desiring to settle in a particular

country, under a particular form of social life. They, consequently,

have to strive for a certain degree of political self-government,

whether it be high or low, and thus they must come into relations with

other groups and states already in existence, already formed, already

in possession and having rights. The boundaries of rights will have to

be drawn up, and these will soon become frontiers of existing spheres

of influences, and these again, later on, will need to grow to new

forms. Even if Zionism should devote itself entirely and with absolute

exclusiveness to spiritual matters, its centre of colonization will

have a political aspect, which must be developed as such. It is a

good thing that the war has thrust political temptations upon Zionism.

Nothing can become of greater advantage to it, than that it should

always grow more clearly conscious of being something practical, the

creator of life, of being conditioned and limited by frontiers, and

not that it should simply fill the rôle of redressing grievances from

a single point.

♦ “neverthless” replaced with “nevertheless”

The Zionist policy must always be controlled by the national idea.

Great changes will arise in the political situation in the world, the

extent of which cannot as yet be surveyed in detail. But one thing is

already certain; the national, the historical idea will be victorious.

The people that suffer most, the small and weak people, must weigh

on the scales of the coming changes in proportion not only to their

physical strength, but also to their moral strength, and in proportion

to the intensity of their will-power and self-determination――and this

will-power and this self-determination, although at all times needing

and capable of development, develops most rapidly under the influence

of such moments as the present. The first preliminary condition for

political success, therefore, is self-determination and will-power. The

first and most important political task is the awakening of will-power.

Only then commences the policy of finding support in the outer world.

And under this head we know of one policy only, namely, truth――absolute

and unconditional truth. Out of love for it Zionists desire to be

just to all men, even to their opponents. This may be disagreeable

to short-sighted people, but it does not trouble Zionists. Should

truth beckon in one direction and the greatest successes in the other,

Zionists should without a moment’s hesitation choose rather the former

and exclaim, “Away with falsehood.” Only truth can be of service to us;

wherever any shadow whatsoever falls upon that, there can be no place

for us.

No cause that is unjust, even if at the first glance it appears to

bring immediate help, and is advanced by people who wish us well, is

worthy of Zionist support, and, likewise, every righteous cause, even

though it appears to be against us, and is put forward by people who

are indifferent and even opposed to us, is deserving of our support.

For high above the plans dictated by benevolence or malice, stands the

loftiest cause which so rules it that injustice cannot help Zionism,

and that justice, on the contrary, must help it.

It is sometimes pointed out that certain among those who profess

sympathy for Zionism do not exactly belong to the most trusty friends

of the Jews, while, on the contrary, many so-called Liberals seem to be

opposed to Zionism. Truly, we say to you: this is of no concern to us.

Personal motives have no interest for us; we do not sit in judgment

upon individuals. We are neither flattered by friends nor deterred by

the envious. The Zionist’s only concern is the righteous cause.

The Zionist policy is one of principles, and not an opportunist policy.

A policy founded on principles can only base itself on truth. The

assistance of strangers can be of service to us only when it sees in

us the truth, sees us as we really are, as we are in the continuity of

our history, in our numbers, in our distress and in our hopes. Not the

plans of any individual, whether personal or general, only fidelity to

the axioms of international morality can help us. And if it be possible

to obtain such assistance, then it can be attained only through a

leading policy of true equality, but never through assimilation, which

is opposed to the truth.

Truly, to be on an equality with others means the solving of our

problem on national lines. That in the highest sense is equality of

opportunity. If the principle of self-determination is applied to all,

then it must be applied to us too. If historical rights are recognized,

then ours must also be recognized. It is right and fair that Armenia

should become Armenian; it is just as right and fair that the Land

of _Israel_ should become _Israelitish_. Grant equal rights and

compensatory justice; all else is hatred, cowardice, hypocrisy,

ambiguity.

The error of Jewish policy since the beginning of the last century

lay in the fact that it was an opportunist policy. We tried to please

different parties, to utilize political situations. Perhaps this was

formerly an opportunity――we have now outgrown this standpoint. Human

progress, like every development, advances ever further and further.

Every new advance leads to a new stage that could be reached only

through the earlier stages, and every new stage when reached has been

reached only to be left behind in its turn. As soon as a stage has been

reached, the time has once more arrived for leaving it. That is the

essential reason why the Jewish problem has now become a national

problem. Hence it is the purest childishness to wish to solve the

problem by the means adopted by the _Sanhedrin_ in Paris, in 1806.

It is not, however, to be supposed that because Zionists hold to a

policy of principles they are on this account incapable of profiting

from favourable opportunities, of utilizing a fortunate moment, that

may come and bring more with it than many years of hard toil. “Whoever

wants to sail to the new-discovered isles must use the winds as

they blow.” The centre of gravity lies in the Jews alone, in their

will-power, in the independence of their spirit.

The Jewish people have seen the dominion of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon

and Rome, and still survive. Under the standards of _Zion_ the Jewish

people will rise to new life.

What ought Jews to do? To this question we answer: In these serious

times all Jews should be united, all Jewish organizations, parties

and communities should set to work, by all lawful means, through the

press, literature, propaganda and personal connections, to attain the

recognition of a national home for our people in the Land of _Israel_;

and at the same time to carry through the abolition of all injustice

against the Jews in the countries of the Diaspora.

And in view of the enormous importance of the already existing Jewish

colonization in Palestine for our future, and, also, of the salvation

of the Jewish people from want and misery accentuated by the war, the

greatest possible assistance must be given to Palestine and to the

suffering masses of Jews in the Diaspora. For the sake of these causes,

and especially for the first, the Zionist Organization all over the

world should not only be maintained, but also placed in a position to

develop and enlarge its activities.

ZIONIST PROPAGANDA IN WARTIME

In the above the Zionist policy has been sketched. Experience has by

this time shown that in spite of the incredible difficulties of all

kinds, Zionism has not only not lost its power, but has also actively

developed its work.

The present war has not affected the unity of the Zionist idea nor has

it affected the unity of the Zionist Organization. As the Organization

was established on the federative principle, it was found possible to

continue the essential work of the movement by utilising the separate

organizations of the different countries. The work of propaganda and

the collection of funds, so far from diminishing, actually made great

progress. The societies already in existence continued their work

very effectively, and a considerable number of new societies came into

being. _Die Welt_, the central organ of the movement, had, however,

to be suspended; but a series of new Zionist publications made their

appearance. The Zionist press――in Russia particularly――made great

headway. The Zionist weekly, _Razswiet_, which is published in the

Russian language, increased its circulation threefold. Three new

dailies, _Ha’am_ in _Hebrew_, _Das Togblatt_ and _Der Telegraf_

in _Yiddish_, were established, and rapidly attained a circulation

comparable to the great European daily papers. A crowd of new

journalists and publicists accepting the Zionist platform, joined the

old guard of writers and workers in the cause. The _Yiddish_ Press

in Poland, which numbers its readers by the hundred thousand, put

themselves at the disposal of the Zionist movement. One in particular,

which had hitherto been territorialist, and only lukewarm towards

Zionism, declared openly its acceptance of the Zionist programme.

In England Zionist activity in press and literature made remarkable

progress, such as had scarcely been imagined possible in this country.

It is worthy of note that, quite apart from the Zionist Press proper,

the Jewish non-Zionist Press evinced a much keener interest in the

movement. The world’s general Press, in all languages, devoted to

Zionism an amount of space second only to the events of the war. The

mere fact that at a time such as the present, when the world is in

the throes of a universal struggle, and every nation is concerned for

its own safety, and even existence, so much interest was directed to

our movement throws a dazzling light upon the naïve absurdity of the

anti-Zionist assertion, that the whole movement is nothing more than

an Utopia.

The Zionists have long realized the need of public meetings and

discussions. The Zionist movement is the only Jewish national and

democratic movement to attach great importance to the free exchange of

opinions and to break down the somewhat autocratic method of conducting

Jewish affairs in favour with the _Kehillah_ leaders. It was the first

movement to replace the dry bones of bureaucracy by the introduction

of universal Jewish suffrage as a means of dealing with Jewish public

affairs. As the Zionist movement in pre-war times found full expression

in conferences and public meetings, it was to be feared that the War,

by reducing greatly the facilities of communication and intercourse,

would seriously affect this form of activity. But this was not the case.

The long record of the meetings and conferences held since the outbreak

of the war, and which by no means exhausts the total number, gives some

notion of the vast scope of this form of propaganda.

We will make a short survey of the most important dates in Zionist

activity during the course of the war, in chronological order.

CONFERENCES.

_September, 1915._

Zionist Conference――Dordrecht――Holland.

_Roumania._ Annual Meeting of the Roumanian Zionist Federation,

November 7th and 8th, held in Galatz. Country divided into four

districts for Zionist work: Galatz, Bucharest, Jassy, Foscani.

_Canada._ General Jewish Conference held in Montreal, November

14th and 15th, together with the Annual Meeting of the Canadian

Zionist Federation, presided over by Clarence _de_ Sola.

_December 5th, 1915._

West Austrian――Galician――and Bukowina Zionist Conferences (Adolf

Stand in the chair). Resolutions:――

“The Assembly expects to see the Jewish problem discussed at

the peace conference, and trusts that the Actions Committee

will find suitable means and ways to create a united

manifestation of the Jews of all countries for the demand

of securing for the Jews their civil and political equality

of rights all over the world, and in the nationality states

also recognition of their national existence.

“The Actions Committee is asked to prepare everything in a

suitable manner, in order that the interests of political

Zionism may be secured before the Forum of the future Peace

Congress.”

_December 26th and 27th, 1915._

_Holland._ At Nymegen one hundred and twenty delegates attended.

_December, 1915._

_Manchester._ Conference of English “_Poalei Zion_.” Delegates

from all parts of the country attended.

_January 1st, 1916._

_England._ Conference convened by E.Z.F. attended by _Rabbis_,

delegates of Synagogues, Friendly Societies and Trade Unions.

_January 5th, 1916._

_America._ Annual Conference of the Federation of “Knights

of _Zion_,” at Chicago. The Federation has fifty-three active

branches and three thousand members.

_January, 1916._

_Australia._ Annual Conference of the Sydney Zionist Society.

_February 6th, 1916._

_America._ Annual Convention of the Zionist Council of Greater

New York.

_February 13th, 1916._

_England._ Annual Conference of the English Zionist Federation

at Manchester.

_1916._

_Mizrachi._ The Annual Conference of the “_Mizrachi_” was held

at Chicago, May 26th‒30th. The “_Mizrachi_” of America comprises

one hundred and three associate-societies and twenty-four

synagogues. The membership is six thousand.

Some of the principal American _Rabbis_ attended the Conference.

A special Palestine Bureau was created. A new union, called

“_Achi Samach_,” was formed, for the encouragement of the sale

of Palestinian products.

_1916._

_Bombay._ A Meeting of the _Magen David_ Congregation was held

at Bombay. The proceedings were all in _Hebrew_. Sir Jacob Elias

Sassoon, Bart. (1844‒1916), was re-elected president.

_May 28th and 29th, 1916._

_Scandinavia._ The Twelfth Annual Conference of Scandinavian

Zionists was held at Copenhagen. Thirty-one delegates from all

parts of the country were present. Various resolutions were

passed, expressing confidence in the work of the Central

Executive.

_1916._

_Switzerland._ A Conference of the Swiss Zionist Federation was

held at Berne on June 1st.

_1916._

_South Africa._ The Annual Conference of the South African

Zionist Federation was held at Johannesburg on April 30th. Over

one hundred delegates were present.

_1916._

_Canada._ “_Poalei Zion_” of Montreal had a series of

Conferences on June 2nd‒4th.

_America._ Conference of American Zionist Federation held at

Philadelphia on July 2nd. Over five hundred delegates present.

_July 8th, 1916._

Conference at New York of the “Young Judea.” The membership is

three thousand five hundred.

_September 13th‒15th, 1916._

_Poland._ A Zionist Conference was held in Warsaw, attended by

one hundred and twenty-five delegates from Warsaw and the Polish

provincial cities.

The following resolution was passed:――

“1. That the Central Committee establish a special Palestine

Office, to gather information and material with respect to

the present situation in Palestine and with respect to the

possibilities for work after the war.

“2. That it elaborate this material and spread it within

wide circles. Further, it has to organize pioneer groups,

who are willing to go to Palestine, as well as to work out a

scheme for the preparation of these pioneers.”

_September, 1916._

_Russia._ “_Poalei Zion_” Conference――the first since the

outbreak of the war. Resolution passed:――

“That we agitate among the Jewish masses instructing them

the only solution for the Jewish problem is the creation of

a Jewish Home in Palestine.”

_September 18th, 1916._

Conference of Zionist speakers, held at New York.

_Bohemia._ The Annual Conference of Bohemian Zionists was held

at Prague on November 1st.

_America._ Zionist Students’ Organization of America held its

Second Annual Conference, November, 1916.

_November 14th‒19th._

_America._ “_Poalei Zion_” Conference at Boston. Attended by one

hundred and nine delegates from the United States and Canada.

(During the year two thousand new members had been enrolled.

Juvenile Societies, with eighteen branches and over one thousand

members, had been formed.)

_1916._

_England._ On December 24th and 25th the Order of Ancient

_Maccabeans_ held their Annual Grand Beacon Meeting in

Manchester. Resolution:――

“That this Grand Beacon Meeting reiterates its loyalty to

the Zionist programme, as endorsed from Congress to Congress,

and expresses the hope that the time may not be far distant

when our brethren will be accorded full civil and political

rights all over the world, and that the order co-operate

with bodies that strive for the above objects.”

_1916._

_Holland._ The Seventeenth Annual Conference of the Dutch

Zionist Federation was held at the Hague on December 24th and

25th, 1916.

About one hundred and twenty delegates were present, including

representatives of the “_Poalei Zion_” and the Belgian Zionist

Federation.

The Dutch Federation comprises twenty-six societies, with a

total membership of one thousand six hundred and sixty.

Collections: Palestine Fund, 11,453 _fl._; Central Fund, 913

_fl._; National Fund, 10,709 _fl._

_1917._

_Poland._ The Annual Meeting of the Warsaw Zionists, held on

January 11th, attended by a thousand _shekel_ payers.

_1917._

_America._ In March, a Conference of Jewish Socialist Workers

was held in New York, and attended by four hundred delegates.

The Basle programme was adopted.

_1917._

_Mizrachi._ Over two hundred delegates attended the “_Mizrachi_”

Convention at Pittsburg, where the deliberations extended for

over five days. Fifty of the most prominent orthodox _Rabbis_

of the country attended. The “_Mizrachi_” has a hundred and

nineteen branches in ninety-five cities spread over twenty-eight

States.

_1917._

_America._ “Knights of _Zion_” held their Twentieth Annual

Convention at Minneapolis and St. Paul. The “Knights of _Zion_”

had seventy-six societies with a membership of four thousand two

hundred.

_America._ _Hebraists_ Convention took place in New York on

February 10th, 11th and 12th. Many _Hebrew_ scholars from all

parts of the country were present.

_America._ The Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Zionist Council

of New York was held on February 16th, attended by eighty-eight

delegates, representing thirty societies.

_1917._

_England._ The Annual Conference of the E.Z.F. was held in

February in London. About sixty delegates were present.

_1917._

_Switzerland._ The Swiss Zionist Federation held a Conference at

Berne on February 18th. Thirty-five delegates attended.

_1917._

_Russia._ On March 28th‒30th there was held a Conference of the

Central Institutions of the Zionist Organization. About fifty

delegates attended.

Conference of all Russian Zionist Organizations, held in Moscow,

April 3rd. Dr. E. W. Tschlenow presided.

_1917._

_Greece._ On April 9th a Mass Meeting, attended by over

three thousand persons, was held at Salonica. After addresses

delivered by several speakers, a resolution was passed urging

the restoration of the oldest nation and its regeneration in

Palestine.

_1917._

_Belgian Zionists._ On April 29th the Belgian Zionist Federation

held a Conference at Scheveningen, Holland.

_1917. _

_Australia._ Annual Meeting held at Sydney, March 18th.

_1917._

_England._ Special Conference E.Z.F. in London, May 20th.

_1917._

_Russia-Turkestan._ Early in May a Conference of Turkestan

Zionists was held at Samarcand. The delegates were both

_Ashkenazi_ and _Sephardi_. Thirty delegates attended, besides

delegates for the Bokhara Jews, and two hundred guests.

A Zionist Central Committee was formed for Turkestan.

_1917._

_Poland._ June 3rd‒5th. Conference of Zionist Central Committee

for Poland, held in Warsaw.

_1917._

_Russia._ On May 24th (O.S.) the Seventh Conference of Russian

Zionists was held at Petrograd, and was attended by five hundred

and fifty-two delegates, representing one hundred and forty

thousand _shekel_ payers, from six hundred and forty towns

and villages. Eleven delegates came from Siberia. Bokhara and

Mountain Jews were represented. Twenty-four delegates were

soldiers coming by special permission of the Commander-in-Chief,

who got free passes. Five hundred guests came from the country

and one thousand guests from Petrograd were present. Ninety

representatives of Russian papers were present. The Foreign

Secretary, Teretschenko, sent greetings and best wishes for

complete success.

Dr. E. W. Tschlenow’s speech was reprinted in half a million

copies for the soldiers.

A meeting of Zionist Women was held in the hall of Kiew

University in May. More than one thousand five hundred Jewish

women attended.

_1917._

In 1913 there were only twenty-six thousand _shekel_ payers in

Russia――now one hundred and forty thousand. Resolution passed:――

“The Seventh Zionist Russian Conference proclaims its firm

conviction that the nations, in settling the bases of the

new national and political life, shall be conscious of the

clearly manifested will of the Jewish people to colonize

Palestine again as their national centre, and that they

shall create conditions enabling the unhindered evolutions

and concentration of all Jewish forces, for the purpose of

bringing about a regeneration of Palestine.”

A representative body of the Jewish people should be admitted to

the approaching Peace Conference, which shall obtain attention

for the historic and national rights of the Jewish people.

_1917._

_America._ Independent Order “_Brith Shalom_” held their

Thirteenth Annual Conference in Atlantic City on June 13th. Over

six hundred delegates were present. The resolution passed

commenced thus:――

“Whereas the Independent Order has adopted the Zionist

platform in spirit and in fact, and has pledged itself to

the furtherance of all principles it stands for, _etc._,

_etc._”

_1917._

_America._ The Twentieth Conference of American Zionists opened

at Baltimore on June 24th. Over a thousand delegates were

present.

_1917._

_America._ Twentieth Annual Convention of Progressive Order of

the West was held at Detroit, Michigan. The Order has a

membership of twenty thousand, and declared its allegiance to

the Zionist cause.

_1917._

_America._ Conference of “Young Judeans.” One hundred and twenty-

five delegates present, representing five thousand members. The

“Young Judeans” collected 3500 dollars for the Jewish National

Fund.

_1917._

_England._ Union of Jewish Friendly Societies, comprising fifty

thousand members, adopt the Basle programme.

Conference of the Order of Ancient _Maccabeans_, held at

Manchester, July 17th. Membership of the Order 2200.

_1917._

_Canada._ The Fifteenth Annual Conference of Canadian Zionists

took place at Winnipeg in July. Delegates from seventy-seven

towns, of three hundred and fourteen Jewish organizations,

attended.

The Governor of Manitoba came to the Conference, and expressed

his sympathy with Zionism.

_1917._

_Russia._ _Poalei Zion._ Conference in Kiew――September 8th. More

than one hundred and sixty delegates attended.

_1917._

_Greece._ _Salonica._ Great Meeting, attended by three thousand

persons at Salonica, on 9th of _Ab_.

_1917._

_America._ The “_Mizrachi_” in America celebrated in August the

Six-hundred-and-fiftieth Anniversary of the First Settlement

in Palestine by _R’_ Moses _ben_ Nachman (_Ramban_). The

“_Mizrachi_” started a Fund of 100,000 dollars, to aid

Colonization and Industrial Development in Palestine.

_1917._

_Poland._ The Third Delegates’ Conference of the Zionist

Organization in Poland was opened in Warsaw on October 28th,

1917. More than three hundred and sixty delegates attended,

representing forty thousand shekel payers.

_1917._

_Poland._ Fifth Conference of the “_Poalei Zion_” of Poland,

was held in Warsaw. Over forty-four delegates, representing

twenty-six towns, participated in the Conference. The

Organization had forty-six district groups, with a membership

of eight thousand.

_1917._

_America._ September 5th. Conference of _Rabbis_ resolved

to appeal to various powers, particularly President Wilson,

asking them to give their consideration to the question of the

Restoration of Palestine to the Jewish people.

_1917._

_England._ In October, Zionist Demonstrations took place all

over the country. In seventy-one synagogues, one hundred and

twenty-three lodges and associations, and in fifty-four Zionist

societies, resolutions were passed requesting the British

Government to use its best endeavours to bring about a

Restoration of Palestine as a National Home for the Jewish

people.

_1917._

_Holland._ Congress of Jews resident in the Netherlands, held in

Amsterdam on November 18th, for considering emancipation of Jews,

recognition of national rights in national States, and national

concentration of the Jewish people in Palestine.

One of the most popular of Zionist funds is the Jewish National Fund.

This Fund is outside the realm of discussion, and deals exclusively

with hard facts, i.e., financial contributions from all parts of the

world. The Jewish National Fund is in a very real sense an index of

the people’s will. It would seem that the terrible misery of the Jewish

masses occasioned by so many expulsions, evacuations, and loss of life

and property would have had the effect of, if not entirely cutting off

this source of revenue, at least, seriously reducing it. In point of

fact, the reverse is shown by the figures.

The income of the Fund during the last few months of the year 1914 and

during the year 1915, was about two-thirds of the previous years. But

in the year 1916 the National Fund received about 1,000, 000 francs,

which equals the amount in 1913. During the first half of 1917 the

average monthly contributions were doubled. The latest date up to which

exact figures for the various countries are available is September 1st,

1917. During the eight months from January to September, 1917, more

than 1,300,000 francs had been recorded. During the last four months

of the year approximately the same amount was received, that is, the

contributions were doubled once more in relation to the immediately

preceding rate. At the present moment the contributions to the National

Fund amount to about 150,000 francs per month.

The results attained by the National Fund must be attributed to the

general growth of the Zionist movement as well as to the effective

organization of its propaganda, to the popularity of its fundamental

idea――the acquisition of land as National property――and the importance

attached by Jewry at large to the rôle that the National Fund will have

to discharge in the forthcoming colonization of Palestine.

Contributions to the Jewish National Fund from the different countries

in the year 1917 were as follows: Russia, Rbl. 475,312; United States,

$73,502; Holland, Fl. 28,767; England, £1396 1s. 10d.; Argentina, Pesos

13,378; Canada, $4056; South Africa, £639 8s. 4d.; Switzerland, Frs.

11,572; Belgium, Frs. 8,329; France (including Tunis), Frs. 6,978;

Egypt, £255 11s. 4d.; Greece, Frs. 6,425; Sweden, Kr. 2,542; Denmark,

Kr. 2,447. Various countries, about Frs. 600,000. The total amounts to

Frs. 1,747,278. At the rate of exchange before the war it would be Frs.

2,730,011.

THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND

STATISTICAL TABLE OF ANNUAL INCOME IN FRANCS

Country. │ 1914. │ 1915. │ 1916.

────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────

United States │ 197,311 │ 291,604 │ 268,317

Russia │ 184,334 │ 30,120 │ 81,336

Holland │ 10,662 │ 13,972 │ 35,921

────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────

Argentine │ 4,196 │ 4,334 │ 22,807

England │ 24,655 │ 12,061 │ 20,766

Roumania │ 15,532 │ 23,997 │ 19,021

────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────

South Africa │ 27,511 │ 21,905 │ 15,001

Scandinavia │ 807 │ 1,715 │ 4,886

Canada │ 21,951 │ 23,129 │ 10,296

────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────

Switzerland │ 3,854 │ 3,748 │ 7,296

Greece │ 5,755 │ 4,545 │ 4,410

Belgium │ 10,472 │ ―― │ 4,161

────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────

Egypt │ 2,845 │ 832 │ 3,382

France │ 2,115 │ 1,862 │ 2,992

Far East │ 1,377 │ 280 │ 2,562

────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────

Australia and │ │ │

New Zealand │ 3,305 │ 1,080 │ 1,915

Italy │ 1,630 │ 2,641 │ 1,312

Portugal │ ―― │ 280 │ 937

────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────

Brazil │ 1,430 │ 1,082 │ 125

New Zealand │ ―― │ ―― │ 522

Other countries │ 224,962 │ 197,597 │ 425,110

────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼────────

│ 744,704 │ 636,784 │ 933,075

With regard to the Zionist Organization, it must be stated that some

of its functions, particularly those which were centralized in the

headquarters, such as the periodical meetings of the Greater Actions

Committee and the permanent contact and co-operation between the

members of the Inner Actions Committee, had to be suspended. The

Zionist Congress, the chief organ of the movement, which elects the

executive of all the officers of the movement, to decide all questions

of policy, could not be held owing to the war, and as a result the

position had to remain as settled by the Congress of 1913. As, however,

the events of the war threw upon the Organization not less but very

much more responsibility than previously, and confronted the existing

executive with problems of the greatest urgency and importance, new

instruments had necessarily to be created to meet the new situation and

to carry on the work of the movement.

In America, where the movement began to spread with great rapidity, the

American Provisional Committee for General Zionist Affairs was formed

in 1914, very soon after the outbreak of the war, and conducted the

affairs of the movement with great skill. Their efforts in connection

with Palestine relief were beyond all praise, and constitute one of the

brightest pages in the history of the movement.

In Copenhagen, also, a Bureau was opened, which rendered invaluable

services to the cause.

ZIONISM AND JEWISH RELIEF WORK

The greater part of the practical work of the Zionist Organization

consisted of Relief Work for Jewish sufferers from the war. The

terrible catastrophe which fell upon Russian Poland, Galicia, Bukovina,

Lithuania, Zamut and Courland, affected the Jews in a unique way.

Hundreds of towns and villages, in which Jewish inhabitants had dwelt

and woven into their lives the threads of their own characteristic

customs for many generations, in which they had faithfully preserved

their ancient spiritual treasures in spite of misery and poverty,

which had been a perennial source of inspiration and a rich storehouse

for the Judaism of the whole world, which had nourished and sustained

almost the whole House of _Israel_ in the Diaspora, suddenly became

a field of slaughter and the arena of the grimmest struggle in the

world’s history. Troops in numbers never seen before, with weapons

of destruction, threatening to reduce the world to ashes, passed like

angels of destruction to and fro over the battlefields, leaving not

a stone intact, not a blade of grass, or a living man or beast. Thus

far the wounds and misfortunes which befell the Jews were no different

from the wounds and misfortunes of the other inhabitants. But there

must be added the special Jewish affliction in these countries, the

persecution and the fierce anti-Jewish feeling which were the special

characteristics of the ancient regime in Russia, which was wont to

take advantage of every opportunity of avenging itself on the Jews,

attacking them and holding them up to scorn on every kind of pretext

and false accusation. This made the war a specially terrible phenomenon

for the Jews: it produced a war within a war.

The war called upon the Jews to make sacrifices in equal measure

with all the other inhabitants of these countries; their youth and

their strength were laid on the altar of the land of their birth;

they also bore the burden of all the taxes and payments which the

other inhabitants had to bear; they put forward tremendous efforts as

tradesmen and workers, as doctors and nurses; they were active workers

in all departments directly and indirectly connected with the war. Yet

side by side with this they had to face an insufferable hatred, they

had to wage a separate war with the powerful, who strove to reduce to

nothingness the little remnant which the war itself could not utterly

destroy.

That this impression became current among the Jews was inevitable, in

consequence of an old phenomenon which appeared before them in a new

guise. We refer to the curious mixture of expulsion and evacuation,

of pogroms and slaughters, of which they were the victims. They were

accustomed, from long and bitter experience, to expulsions from without

the pale of settlement into the regions of the pale, from villages

to towns, and to the suffering occasioned by the Russo-Turkish and

Russo-Japanese wars; but these expulsions occurred when conditions

in Russia itself were almost normal, and when the Jews who were left

untouched by the decree of expulsion were able to render assistance to

their unfortunate brethren. The combination of the two forms of trials,

of war and of persecution by their fellow-citizens, was more than even

a nation inured to suffering could bear. It was as though this nation,

which had been a wanderer from time immemorial, had only just begun

its wanderings. They were no ordinary wanderers――not merely expelled

and outlawed; but they were taken and hurled as out of the middle of a

sling from province to province and from district to district. Railway

carriages were not enough to hold them, so they were transported in

cattle-trucks, the doors of which were locked to prevent escape on the

way. The cattle-trucks were not sufficient to cope with the numbers and

horse-vans were impressed, and as the horse-vans were not sufficient,

even though the Jews paid their last kopecks for places in them, they

were sent on foot. Bands of wanderers――consisting of women, children,

aged, weak, sick and infirm――were accordingly dragged, driven, knouted

along every kind of road and over every kind of obstacle, not like

cattle beneath the watchful eye of the herdsman, not even like animals

led to the slaughter, on whom some mercy is taken because they can be

used, but simply like wild beasts pursued by huntsmen; whoever fell by

the way fell without attention, whoever fell sick was ruthlessly left

behind. Families were split up, and that iron bond which unites parents

and children was snapped; infants died of starvation pressed against

their mothers’ shrivelled breasts; weary old greybeards grew faint and

stumbled on the way and died without the last consolation of old age,

without seeing around them their offspring whose souls were bound up

with their own; tender infants were deserted without anyone to take

pity on them, and the clamour went forth from one end of the earth to

the other, “Where is my father?” “Where is my child?”

This tragedy was not included among the necessary tragedies of the war:

it was a Jewish tragedy. When Belgium was ruined, her Jews too were

ruined. Had the catastrophe to the Jews in Poland and Lithuania been of

such a kind it would have found a place in the general history and not

in the separate history of the Jews. When, however, bands of thousands

of Jewish fugitives came to Warsaw from the inland towns, in rags

and tatters, footsore, hungry and despairing, it was impossible to

regard them simply as victims of the war, because it was only the

Jews who came. They were not victims of the war, they were victims of

the _Galuth_, these thousands and tens of thousands of Jews who were

suddenly transplanted from the midst of their old homes in Lithuania.

When whole congregations, including inmates of their Homes for the Aged,

of their hospitals, and even of the asylums were evacuated, it was

impossible to believe that this was military tactics or a measure of

precaution, for it was only the Jewish congregations who were forcibly

and suddenly removed in this extraordinarily cruel manner. In many

places it happened that the expelled Jews before they left were able

to see with their own eyes other people entering and taking possession

of the shops which they had left behind them. There was no connection

between these sufferings and the events of the universal war. These

were incidents in the special campaign which had been waged against the

Jews before the war. For centuries the Jews had been living in these

places. Brest-Litovsk and Grodno were not only cities in which there

were fortresses for the Czar’s army and his _Tchinovniks_. They were

also centres of Jewish life, wherein the _Torah_ dwelt, cities of

the Jewish “Council of the Four Provinces,” cities which emanated

intellectual light over all the Diaspora, cities with institutions of

Jewish congregations, with _Yeshiboth_, with schools, with synagogues

and houses of learning, with old cemeteries, whose tombstones recorded

the happenings to Jews for many generations. All that was destroyed

and all the Jews who lived and thrived in them have been uprooted and

scattered, and that which they left behind them wiped out, and no one

knows if these towns will ever be rebuilt, and even if they are rebuilt

will the Jews and their communities, with their learning and their

traditions, ever be restored?

Accordingly there was but one cry, one intense and bitter cry, which

was heard from one end of the world of Jews to the other, a cry for

help. “Save all who can yet be saved.”

The Jewish people had realized that it was unwise to depend upon

governments or to rely on philanthropic effort in general. The needs

of the Jews were great and peculiar, so that only Jews themselves

could help their brethren. This help appeared to be necessary in two

directions: immediate pressing help and permanent prevention. Immediate

pressing assistance consisted in sending money, provisions and clothes

to save Jewish lives from hunger, disease and want, to help them to

find work and means of livelihood in the places to which they have

been driven, as well as in the places in which they have remained. But

at the same time, people began to realize more and more that the real

help for the Jews would be to rescue them from the unnatural conditions

which cause them to be the scapegoat for whatever punishment comes upon

the world. A people which dwells in its own land is also wont to be

smitten by the sword and the fortunes of war, but it is not accustomed

to complete destruction. When a nation has its own land and its own

soil beneath its feet, to which it is attached, all the winds of Heaven

cannot move it from its place, no weapon can permanently destroy it. A

whole nation cannot be driven by oppressors from its country, and even

though for generations the hand of the oppressor lie heavy upon it, the

day is sure to come in which its fetters fall away, and once again it

can breathe freely. Not so with a nation which floats in the air: it

cannot rise in time of trouble, for every passing wind carries it away

like chaff and makes it turn like the wheel of a windmill. Every page

of Jewish history teaches this lesson, and the present war has served

but to emphasize it. Therefore if we wish to prevent this evil and

to obviate such convulsions in the future, we must establish for the

remnant of this people a firm foundation and a safe shelter in the land

of their fathers. Thus once again the flame of war and the terrible

sufferings of our brethren have revealed the truth of the Zionist idea

in all its strength and clarity as being the only true solution of

the Jewish problem, that problem whose consequences are written in

the blood of myriads of our brethren.

History will relate that the present generation of Jews rose to the

height of its responsibility in comprehending both these duties equally.

Once again there was revealed the strength of the Jewish quality of

mercy. The Jews of Russia and Poland did their duty. With their young

ones and their elders they threw themselves into the work of relief: in

many places it was the Zionists who were the most ardent in this work.

The Zionist Organization had during the last generation become a school

of discipline and communal work, from which came forth initiators

and leaders. It is not our wish, however, to make in this respect

any distinction between Zionists and non-Zionists. Many who stood

far removed from the camp returned to their brethren: all sections of

Jews united: the icy cloak of indifferentism was melted, the divisions

between the observant and the Liberals were obliterated. The shadow of

sectarian faction disappeared, and on the scene appeared one people.

History will relate that American Jewry, that vigorous young branch

of the Jewish tree, made a mighty superhuman effort and performed

wonders surpassing the imagination. It was not charity, but greatness.

Voluntary effort went as far as self-imposed taxation. The history of

Jewish unity has never had a chapter more beautiful, more sublime, more

uplifting. America was not alone――a similar spirit rested upon the Jews

of every country, and not only with regard to relief work, but also in

the more permanent work of prevention, which was Jewry’s second duty.

The second duty was to watch over and safeguard the Jewish colonies in

Palestine, the colonies from which will spring the National Home. It

was necessary to provide the Palestinian Jews with food, and to support

the colonization――this small heritage of ours, this child of our sorrow,

conceived in anguish and in holiness. The difficulties were enormous.

Palestine was cut off from the whole world, by the sea on the West and

the desert on the East, without a government able or willing to help;

the New colonization is a young plant needing tender care――the Old

communities are poor and helpless. If in such circumstances Palestinian

Jewry was not entirely wiped out, we must thank the Jewish nationalist

heart, which was awakened in our brethren in every country, and

especially in America.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The downfall of the Czardom in Russia was undoubtedly one of the

greatest events in the world’s history. Russia entered into a period

of revolution which seemed to bring with it all the blessings of right

and liberty. The restrictions affecting nationalities and creeds were

removed. But far from destroying Zionism, the new liberty gave it an

immense stimulus.

In Moscow a Zionist District Committee was formed, comprising many

Provinces: Astrakhan, Vladimir, Vologda, Voronesh, Kazan, Kaluga,

Kostrooma, Kursk, Moscow, Nijni-Novgorod, Simbirsk, Smolensk, Tambov,

Tula, Ufa, Jaroslav, and the Don District.

At Odessa, a Zionist demonstration took place. Entire battalions of

Zionist soldiers bore through the town blue and white banners, with

the motto:――

“Liberty in Russia, Land and Liberty in Palestine.”

A hundred and fifty thousand men followed these banners, to which the

Military Governor of Odessa insisted on showing honour publicly.

Zionist meetings were also held at Minsk, Saratov, Juriev, Kharkov,

Nijni-Novgorod, Ekaterinburg, Homel, Proskurov, Baku Dubrovno, Riazan,

Ekaterinoslav, Moscow, etc.

At Kieff, when the procession approached the Town Hall, the Zionist

flag was hoisted on the balcony, where the “_Hatikvah_” was played by

the municipal orchestra.

At Berdicheff fifteen thousand Jews marched through the principal

streets carrying Zionist banners. The Municipality, the Administration

Executive of the town, and the chiefs of Ukraine National Organizations,

greeted the Zionist demonstrators.

In Turkestan and Bokhara the Zionist movement made remarkable progress.

The entire _Sephardi_ element has adhered to the movement. The

_Ashkenazim_ and _Sephardim_ worked together peacefully at the great

Zionist Conference held at Samarcand. A meeting of five thousand

Jews was held there, and a resolution adopted in favour of a Jewish

Palestine.

In Moscow, in the Great Hall, a Jewish Mass Meeting took place. Dr.

E. W. Tschlenow was elected president. The following resolution was

adopted:――

“The Jewish Mass Meeting in Moscow salutes freedom with great

joy. We are firmly convinced that the Constituent Assembly,

which is to be elected by universal suffrage, will establish

in Russia a thoroughly democratic administration, and that

not only civil rights, but also national rights, national

autonomy, and a free national evolution, will be secured to

the Jewish as well as to all other peoples of Russia. The

Meeting resolves to convoke a general Jewish Congress in

Russia.”

The Conference at Petrograd on May 24th, 1917, received official

recognition. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Teretschenko, wished

the Conference success in its deliberations.

Dr. Tschlenow delivered an Address, in the course of which he said,

among other things:――

“We beg the Provisional Government to believe that it may fully depend

upon our forces and our support in its heroic efforts directed toward

the strengthening of the freedom and greatness of Russia.

“What is necessary, and what we strive for, is to create a national

territorial centre for our scattered people. The construction of that

centre is already begun, and it will continue. The centre will

gradually be filled by the forces and means of the Diaspora.

“Who of you has not keenly followed for the last year and a half

the life of the youngest branch of the Jewish people: the American?

Hundreds of thousands of working men are unified in their demand for

national rights in the Diaspora and an autonomous centre in Palestine.

The New York _Kehillah_, representing a million and a quarter Jews,

comes forward with the same slogan. Finally, the powerful Congress

movement, embracing the entire three million Jewry, is to close the

coming autumn with most important decisions. Weigh all the facts, and

you will agree that the harmony of which we dream is already coming to

pass. With hope and with love we follow the work of our Trans-oceanic

champions, and send to them our brotherly greetings.

“But what could not have been prophesied and what fills our hearts with

untold joy and pride, is the attitude towards our ideal on the part of

the broad stratas of Jewry, which has revealed itself since the time of

the Great Revolution.

“From all corners of our great Russia come to us, together with cheers

of joy over the emancipation, assurances of unshattered faith in

the eternal ideal――the renaissance of our native Palestine. Old and

young, rich and poor, from the front and from the rear, orthodox and

free-thinkers, declare in one voice: ‘Now, even now, freed from the

chains of slavery, shall we be able zealously and gladly to give

ourselves to the service of our ideals?’

“I cannot refrain here from underscoring, with the feeling of deepest

recognition, the invaluable services which the Government of the

United States has so nobly and warmly shown to our pioneers. The noble

President of the United States has acted from motives of humanity and

brotherly relation of peoples, but at the same time, also, from deep

sympathy in our regeneration. The noble impulses of America have found

a worthy instrument in the person of the former Ambassador Morgenthau,

that faithful son of the Jewish people, whose services in these hard

years Jewry will not forget.

“But all this time, while working and building, we have not lost

sight of the basic point inscribed upon our banner――the public, legal

character of the hearth which we are creating. We are convinced that

the moment has come for reiterating our programme.

“We deem it necessary that the nations called upon to establish

the standard of the future national political life should reckon

with the definitely expressed will of the Jewish people, to populate

and regenerate Palestine as its national hearth. We deem it further

necessary that all obstacles should be removed from our path, and

that guarantees and conditions should be created which will ensure

the unobstructed and speedy development of our work in the land.”