ZIONISM _VERSUS_ ASSIMILATION
The first difficulties――The traditions of Anglo-Jewry――The
influence of the English people on the Jews――Assimilation and
the Jewish National idea――The Zionist conception of the Jewish
problem――The tragedy of a minority.
IN order that Zionism might be prevented from becoming a metaphysical
theory instead of a practical principle, and might achieve
concreteness and real life, it was most advisable that its development
should proceed by steady and slow degrees, that it should meet with
opposition at every step and be challenged to produce logical proof
of its soundness. For it is only after antagonism has been overcome
that truth reigns triumphant in the human mind. There is consequently
no cause to regret that Zionism met with opposition among the Jews
themselves.
At the time with which we are dealing――the sixties of last century――a
number of Jews in some countries of Western Europe already showed a
desire to assimilate with their fellow-countrymen in every possible
way. This desire arises merely from a confusion of aspirations and
ideas. It is of course natural for a Jew born in England to be proud
of being an English citizen, for a Jew born in France, Italy or
elsewhere to be proud of the greatness and progress of his native
land. Everybody thoroughly understands and appreciates this sentiment.
There are few feelings more noble than patriotism, and few have been
responsible for greater deeds and more heroic achievements. It is a
good thing when the “_amour sacre de la patrie_” fills one’s breast.
But a Jew may be a good and loyal citizen and yet a thoroughly
national Jew. The two things are in no way incompatible, and have
been made to appear so only by inaccuracy in definition, and failure
to understand the difference between ethnological and religious
nationality on the one hand, and political nationality on the other.
The Jews are a nation, although they have not retained their full
national status. Most non-Jews, whether they are anti-or pro-Jews,
regard Judaism as a national tie, and if well-wishers hesitate to
express this opinion it is only for fear of hurting the feelings
of those Jews who wish to be thought merely a religious community.
Delicate natures shrink from incurring the suspicion of anti-Semitism,
and comply from conscious or unconscious kindliness with this singular
wish of a few Jews. So this minority has contrived to suggest to many
Christians a view which, in reality, they do not share at all, and
which will not stand careful scrutiny. The best proof of the national
quality of a given community is the conviction of the outside world
that it is a nation. Whether the Jews are an absolutely pure race
or not (absolute purity does not exist, but relatively the Jews
are doubtless the purest race among civilized nations), they have
a specific past, a peculiar temperament, a special mentality, which
persist even when the Jewish religion has long ceased to be a living
force, and make the most assimilated Jews a nation. And so it will
remain, for, on the whole, the Jews are a tenacious people, and
withstand extreme tendencies to assimilation. When some assimilated
Jews, who really believe in nothing, call themselves genuine Teutons,
Latins, _etc._, of the Jewish faith, it may be psychologically
interesting to close observers, but it is in reality only an
unconscious impulse on the part of self-despairing Judaism to survive
in any shape whatsoever. And these assimilationists have never
been――though the Jews have gone through greater and more extensive
periods of assimilation than the present――more than a handful.
Of course the national force of present-day Judaism is in a latent
state, and it can only become manifest when Judaism resumes its
history. The Jewish nation has the cultural power to attain that goal,
to form a national community, to maintain it and to make it prosper.
Its intellectual and ethical aptitudes are denied by none but the
malevolent and the envious. One cannot glance into the history of
civilized nations, and of civilization itself, without meeting at
every point with men of Jewish race who have achieved great things
in poetry and science, in economics and politics.
“Yours is a mighty genius,” the French statesman Ernest Laharanne
wrote in 1860, “and we bow before you. You were strong in the days
of antiquity, and strong in the Middle Ages. You have preserved your
existence throughout the dispersion, of course not without paying the
heavy tax of eighteen centuries of persecution. But the remainder is
still strong enough to erect anew the gates of _Jerusalem_. This is
your task.”¹
¹ _La Nouvelle Question d’Orient_, _ibid._
Orientals through their inherited aptitudes of intellect and mind,
Occidentals through eighteen centuries of education, the Jews are
the only qualified intermediaries for the great work which is to
begin with the civilizing of the peoples of Asia and to end with the
conciliation of the races.
What is _nationally_ Jewish? The word _national_ implies racial unity
not merely in the sense of a common origin, but as a present fact and
an abiding influence, with a particular fervour and strength of its
own. This racial unity has its psychological counterpart in a certain
intense racial spirit, by virtue of which the whole nation is animated
by a definite aspiration towards a common ideal, and becomes merged
with it into a _living unit_. This characteristic spirit permeates the
whole people “like a salve, and causes it to glow as with one flame.”
Or in the words of the _Zohar_:――
“_Israel_ and its _Torah_ are one.”¹ This _Torah_ is precisely the
ethos of the fundamental racial unity of the Jews.
¹ ג׳ דרגין מתקשרן דא בדא ק״בח אורייתא וישׁראל ספר הזהר חלק ן אחרי מות דף ענ
To the singular and exceptional nature of the Jewish nationality is
due the fact that it is frequently difficult to determine with any
degree of exactitude in how far certain terms and assertions which are
applied to other nations may properly be applied to the Jews. Hence,
while it is a matter of the greatest importance for the preservation
of the full and precise significance of Judaism to use the most
definite and unequivocal expressions in speaking of Jewish nationality,
it inevitably happens that certain terms as used by the upholders
of assimilation have to be characterized as inaccurate because their
ordinary connotation is misleading, though they may in themselves be
legitimate. An examination of the whole series of phrases which occur
in the polemics of nationalism and assimilation would take us too far;
but it will be worth while to draw attention to certain fundamental
principles in the discussion of which misunderstandings frequently
arise.
In any attempt to define Jewish nationality, it is necessary first of
all to bear in mind that the only elements of nationality that enter
into consideration are the historical and the ethnographical. The
predicates of the conception of nationality as applied to all other
nations fall under the headings:
(1) Origin, historical solidarity, racial characteristics.
(2) State organization, political functions and civic
interests.
The predicates of the first category alone are germane to our subject.
Those of the second category are partly inapplicable (political
union, political functions), and partly limited in their application,
for example, to the sphere of local interests. In this connection
attention may be drawn to the fact that the local organization of the
Jews is strong and well-marked wherever the state or society drives
the Jews, by means of exceptional laws, ostracism or prejudice, to
an instinctive or organized self-defence, and is absent only where
the Jews enjoy complete emancipation not only in the eyes of the law,
but also in the view of public opinion as a whole, and not merely in
that of certain of the upper classes which are everywhere more or less
privileged.¹
¹ The desire to remove this sort of separatism was the
fundamental idea of the _Alliance Israélite Universelle_.
Exceptional laws tend to isolate the Jews; the attacks and accusations
directed against them collectively, the differential treatment meted
out to them, the anti-Semitic policy, all necessarily contribute
to strengthen the walls of the _Ghetto_. Every discrimination made
against the Jews, be it only the merest _chicane_, is a stone added
to the walls of the _Ghetto_. It is not to the Jews that the erection
of a “State within a State” is to be credited; it is the anti-Semitic
movement which is responsible for this anomaly. As soon as the Jews
are subjected to differential treatment, they must likewise alter
their attitude. Whether they will or no, there arises out of these
conditions a complex of problems in consequence of the instinct for
self-preservation, which acts with the force of an iron law. These
problems, which in their origin have nothing to do with the national
life and character of the Jews, invest them with the character of a
politico-economic nationality, artificially isolated within the State.
That is a kind of nationality to which the Jews do not aspire; it is
forced on them from without. And it is in such conditions that the
majority of the Jews live. It is a superficial method of computation
which estimates the condition of the Jews according to the majority of
the countries in which they live; the right method is to consider the
condition of the majority of the people. That is the decisive factor.
A well-known Jewish author has taken the trouble to collect in a book
all the laws promulgated against the Jews in Russia under the old
régime. These laws numbered more than a thousand, and subsequently
they were increased by many hundreds. This code of laws――a kind of
anti-Bible――affects half of the Jewish race. The originators of these
special laws have consciously or unconsciously bestowed upon the Jews
the predicates of a nationality within the domain of the State, but in
a negative sense and with (as it were) _inverted_ political rights. A
group of men may thus be converted into a nation isolated within the
State, not only by granting them special privileges, but also, and
perhaps more thoroughly, by subjecting them to special restrictions.
As an inevitable result of this treatment, the thoughts, feelings and
aspirations, the daily interests, the public opinion, the collective
will of the Jewish masses have been driven to assume a tendency
necessarily peculiar to themselves even in economic and general
questions, in which they would otherwise have no special concern as
Jews. In spite of the exceptional conditions artificially created for
them they yet contrive on the whole to maintain their loyalty to the
State, and make supreme sacrifices for it.
It stands to reason that when, in the course of one generation, a
certain class of men has been called upon to suffer the martyrdom of
violent persecutions and is constantly threatened by this gruesome
spectre, the consequence is that whether they will or no, the members
of the group become welded and cemented together into one body.
It is also self-evident that given a certain class of men confined
within a _Ghetto_ or debarred from many professions――only a few in
fact remaining open to them――the members of the community are bound
to become a people of entirely exceptional character, with cares
and problems of their own. In our day, as on innumerable previous
occasions in Jewish history, malice makes use of this fact to bring
forward fresh accusations against the Jew. The Jews are driven into
certain positions, and are then held responsible for them. It is of
no avail to give serious consideration to these charges. They are so
numerous and so obstinate that it would be impossible to dispose of
them all in an apology. Impartial observers will understand that the
exceptional status of the Jews within the States, and the separate
interests resulting therefrom, were not a consummation desired by
the Jews, but a necessity imposed upon them against their will and of
which they are compelled to bear the consequences. They are obliged
to combine in many countries, just as any people taken collectively
usually combine, when their interests as a collective body are at
stake. This is a necessity even in the most ordinary matters of daily
life, and it results in a national combination for economic interests,
as, for instance, in the case of boycott or of social ostracism. But
for these aggravations, it would not occur to the most zealous of
Jewish nationalists to make attempts at organization in this direction.
The distinctive Jewish national concept is not embodied in these
organizations, nor dependent upon them. But the demand that these
special organizations shall cease, is first of all a chimera: and
secondly an injustice: a chimera because it transgresses the law of
the instinct of self-preservation, and an injustice because one must
not forbid a man who has been attacked to defend himself. One can only
demand that the grievances shall be removed. Whether they will ever
vanish, and when, is another question. The Russian revolution, with
its boon of freedom to oppressed nationalities, will mark, we hope,
an epoch in the struggle of the Jewish masses for the right to live
freely in the political and economic sense. But history and experience
warn us against believing too readily that salvation has come.
However that may be, Jewish nationality, as we said above, in no
way depends on the political status and the position of the Jews
in various countries. This question may be left entirely out of
consideration. In dealing with Jewish nationality, we are concerned
only with those predicates which are based upon the _natio_, that is
the origin and the spirit or type of the race in question.
The Jewish national idea is not merely an historical tradition,
it is a programme for outward as well as inward use. Outwardly it
manifests itself in an energetic struggle for its own existence, in
the development of its self-consciousness, in an active regard for
its own interests; inwardly as a union of the Jews of all countries,
rites, grades of culture and political parties on all questions which
affect Jews and Judaism (though it is and must be set on one side in
all non-Jewish questions relating to the State). As in the _natio_
the fact of being at one with the race is the really characteristic
feature, it is necessary to regard all Jews as members of the Jewish
nationality without reference to their religious opinions or points of
view. This is the meaning of the _Talmudic_ dictum:――
אף על פי שחטא ישראל הוא
סנהדרין דף מד ע׳א׃¹
¹ Although he sinned he is an Israelite.――Sanhedrin 44ᵃ.
Nationality has nothing to do with the differences of theological
opinion between the various sections of Jewry; it is based simply
upon oneness with the race. The endeavour to form this union is the
foundation of the national idea.
By those who do not understand it the Jewish national idea is
reproached with constituting an antithesis to the idea of the
State and of citizenship on the one hand, and to the spiritual and
the _Torah_ on the other. This reproach has no foundation: Jewish
nationality cannot find expression in political citizenship in the
Diaspora, simply because it lies outside that sphere. On the other
hand, from the point of view of the inner, spiritual strength of
Jewry, the sense of nationality is a source of vitality, and produces
a fusion which transcends all parties. It is folly to regard it as a
degradation of the spiritual character of Judaism.
Those who were unable to comprehend this distinction, and could not
or would not recognize the true nobility of their Jewish nationality,
were impelled by a desire to destroy the distinctive characteristics
which recalled their origin. They wished to submerge their nationality,
glorious in tradition and history, illustrious in its record of
heroism, venerable in its antiquity, holy by the inspiration of
religion. They failed to see that their people’s history abounded in
events and incidents sufficient not only to stamp a nation as glorious,
but to confer upon themselves, as men and as citizens in the countries
of their birth, greater dignity, more native worth and integrity
of purpose. They forgot that assimilation involved the sacrifice
of a glorious historical tradition, of a living national sentiment,
and, worst of all, of their national genius. However, the pursuit of
assimilation did not always extend to a desire for total absorption;
its effect was to weaken rather than to destroy.
The attitude of assimilation was not adopted in its fulness by the
Jews in England. This was due to the influence of the English nation.
Jews in England could not fail to see the attachment of Englishmen
to time-honoured political observances, sometimes meaningless in
themselves, yet full of significance through their symbolism or
associations; that strong under-current of traditional feeling which,
though held in check by the swifter stream of progress, manifests its
presence and power in a dignified reverence for the past. With such
fellow-countrymen as the British people, in a land whose greatness is
built on the past, on tradition, on the Bible, the Jews had no need to
be ashamed of pointing to their own traditions, of dwelling upon their
own history and the glory of their own past. The Jews, whose history
is an epic, had no need to slur over that chapter of the poem whose
scenes are laid in the Holy Land. They knew that the ancient glory
of their annals shone brightly on those sacred shores. They knew
that that holy soil had been trodden by the prophets, the poets, and
the warriors of their race, and that there they had first impressed
themselves on their age and on the ages which were to follow. They
knew that amid the most splendid states of antiquity or of the modern
world no land had produced such brilliant examples of valour, wisdom
and virtue; that no land had ever rendered more wonderful services to
the world than this Holy Land of theirs; that no land had ever had so
great a past. And though the future is wrapped in darkness, national
hope sees a glimmer of promise even through the veil of mist.
English Jews understood, then, that the relationship of the Jewish
people to the Holy Land was a tie of a peculiar character. They
understood that in ordinary circumstances the connection between an
exiled people and its land would probably have been severed long ago.
It could hardly have resisted the influences that had been at work to
bring about its dissolution. Everybody knows of numerous instances of
such dissolution recorded in history. When a people, or a section of
a people, leaves the country which was the cradle of its nationality
to live in a distant clime, under the ægis of new institutions, the
link that bound it to the ancient soil loosens and gives way in course
of time and by force of events. At first old associations assert
themselves. Familiar names are resumed on the unfamiliar shore. The
followers of Cadmus (_fl._ 1493 _b.c.e._) planted a new Thebes in the
land to which they migrated. The Pilgrim Fathers raised a new Plymouth
on the shore which the _Mayflower_ touched at the end of its outward
voyage from the Plymouth of the motherland. For long years the
American exile called the old country his home. But even this feeling
scarcely survives the changes of which we are witnesses. Generations
pass by. New institutions take root: new feelings prevail, they ripen
and burst into fruit. There is no revolution more complete and more
enduring than that caused by the transplanting of a nation. But with
the Jews and the land of their lost glory the case is wholly different.
Elements of a higher character than those of an ordinary historical
nature enter into consideration. The Holy Land is the country of their
past greatness, present longings and future hopes. It is a bridge
which links the past with the future through the span of the present.
It is still a land of dreams, but it is to become a land of wakeful
activity, it is to be stirred to new life and progress. To carry out
such objects combined, sustained and intelligent action is required.
How could English Jews, living amongst the greatest colonizing nation
in the world, overlook this great necessity?
No other country under the sun can unite all the advantages which the
restored home of the _Hebrews_ will present, can attract the Jewish
people, with the knowledge which it has gained of the ways of the
world and its pre-eminence in commerce, can become the home of a
Commonwealth which will restore its national greatness.
From a purely practical point of view, again, there is no reason
why property in the land of _Israel_ should not offer as safe an
investment as any other. Surely it is within the realm of probability
that those who regard the idea as the ridiculous notion of a mad
enthusiast, or at least their children after them, may find it to
their interest to labour for the restoration of Palestine as the
surest method of placing their worldly possessions in safety, even
without taking into consideration the benefits which would accrue to
the Jews as a religious community, through their obtaining once more
a home for the practice of their laws, a spot where the ark of the
covenant may rest without being exposed to malevolence and prejudice.
These ideas, in fact, were prevalent among English Jews. There were
some adherents of Assimilation, but they were insignificant both in
numbers and in influence. It is note-worthy that the idea preached by
modern Zionism in the first years of the movement, namely, that the
Jewish tragedy is due to the fact that the Jews are everywhere in a
minority, and that therefore the only solution of the problem is to
make them a majority in their own country, was expressed in England
by a Jewish publicist in 1863 (Appendix lxvi).