THE MOTIVE FORCES OF ZIONISM
Modern _Hebrew_ literature――The _Chovevé Zion_――The pioneers
in Palestine.
THUS the Zionist Movement was launched. Before we follow its progress
during the intervening twenty years, it will be as well to give some
account of the forces at work in Jewish life which made the movement
and its success possible. For Zionism cannot be properly understood if
it is regarded merely as a result of certain political combinations or
as a reaction against anti-Semitism. It must be traced to its roots,
which lie deep in the national consciousness of the Jewish people; and
that national consciousness is not simply a vague sentiment, but has
long had its concrete expressions in connection with the revival of
Palestine and of the _Hebrew_ language. The inner history of Zionism,
then, is to be traced along the lines of Palestinian colonization
and the _Hebrew_ renascence. For convenience we may divide our brief
survey into three main headings:
1. Modern _Hebrew_ Literature.
2. The _Chovevé Zion_ and University Zionist Groups in various
countries.
3. The pioneers of the _Hebrew_ Revival in Palestine.
It must be remembered, however, that these are not watertight
divisions, and we naturally meet with the same men in different fields
of work.
The aim of the present chapter is to trace the development of each
of these three forces (so far as that has not been done in earlier
chapters), giving some account of the outstanding figures in each
department. There is in each field a host of less distinguished but
not less devoted workers. Of some of these mention is made in Appendix
lxxv.
1. _Modern Hebrew Literature_
From a linguistic and literary point of view, no less than from a
moral and religious standpoint, the Bible is a great and wonderful
book:
¹בן בג בג אומר הפך בה והפך בה דכלא בה
פּרקי אבות. ה׳ כה.
¹ Ben Bag Bag said, ponder in it, and ponder in it, for all is
in it. _Ethics of the Fathers_, v., 25.
Not that modern _Hebrew_ writers use the Bible merely as a storehouse
of words and phrases, depending on reminiscence for their effect.
The practice of cramming _Hebrew_ writings with scriptural quotations
so as to give them an artificial brilliance and a second-hand wealth
of idiom and grandeur of diction was characteristic of the so-called
_M’lizah_.¹ In our time there is no more of this patchwork writing.
The _Hebrew_ language has become independent of quotations, but none
the less the traditional spirit continues to live, and the Bible
is the corner-stone of modern _Hebrew_ literature. It could not be
otherwise, for in the Jewish view the Bible must enter into every
phase of man’s life, must exert an influence upon the words of his
mouth, the thoughts of his mind, and the feelings of his heart.
This is the result not of any dogma, but of the tradition of Jewish
learning, which is a sort of intellectual devotion, a reverent feeling,
a particular worship of the _Torah_ as knowledge, teaching, thought.
¹ _M’lizah_ = “flower of speech.”
The revival of the _Hebrew_ language was thus able to become the
foremost factor in the Jewish national revival. Yet little attention
has been paid to this part of the history of Zionism. Perhaps the most
important reason is the general ignorance of the _Hebrew_ language or
of its modern literature and Press. Some writers on Zionism are quite
ignorant of the whole of this literature, others are misinformed as to
its past, and often imperfectly and insufficiently conversant with its
present, and are only capable of repeating mechanically a few names
and titles which have gained currency. Few have an adequate conception
of the real activity of hundreds of writers, of the amount of work
which has been done, or of the succession of the different stages
of development. This lack of knowledge is the main reason for the
strange opinion so often expressed by anti-Zionists in Western
Europe, particularly in England, that Zionism is a mere political or
materialistic movement.
Our object here is not to write a history of _Hebrew_ literature
as such, but only to illustrate a part of Zionist history which has
hitherto been very imperfectly surveyed, and a certain knowledge of
which is necessary for a real and adequate conception of the inner
intellectual forces which have made Zionism what it is. The fact of
importance from our point of view is that the best, the noblest, and
the soundest ideas were brought into Zionism from _Hebrew_ literature,
that certain _Hebrew_ writers are prominent nationalists, that from
them have gone forth “the thoughts that inspire” and “the words
that ignite,” and that the wide dissemination of the Zionist idea
among hundreds of thousands of Jews (Russian Jews or those who came
from Russia) could not have been produced merely by organization
and business institutions, had they not been prepared for it by
the knowledge and every-day use of the _Hebrew_ language with its
innumerable national, historical and Palestinian reminiscences
and associations. And not only that: in our view even the better
elements of the _Hebrew_ literature of the period which preceded the
Zionist movement, and which is commonly known as the “_Haskalah_”
(enlightenment) period, as well as the writings of those modern
authors who do not support Zionism, have contributed to that great
regeneration which has enabled the national language and literature
to reach such an advanced stage of development.
For the beginnings of modern _Hebrew_ literature we must go back at
least as far as Abraham Dob Bär (1789‒1878) _ben_ Chayyim Lebensohn
(surnamed Michailishker; _pseudonym_ Adam), the Hebrew Klopstock――a
serious and somewhat dry poet and his son Micah Joseph (1818‒1852),
a graceful singer cut off in his early bloom. Contemporary with them
was F. Rothstein, an almost unknown Polish _Chassid_ and _Maskil_,¹
who translated _Hermann and Dorothea_ of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749‒1832) in stanzas of laconic beauty which in precision of outline
and completeness of impression are as sublime as the original. These
men founded a school of poets, the tradition of which was carried
on by men like Solomon _ben_ Baruch Salkind (1805?‒1868); Bernhard
Nathansohn (_b._ 1832); David Moses Mitzkun (1836‒1887); and Isaachar
Berush Hurwitz (_b._ 1835). Contemporaneously, the beginnings of a
modern prose literature were being created. To Mordecai Aaron _ben_
Judah Asher Günzburg (1795‒1846) we owe a _Hebrew_ style at once
forceful and condensed, in great contrast to the limp and diffuse
style prevalent before him. Abraham Mapu (1808‒1867), master of a
pure biblical style and a wonderful imaginative sympathy with the life
of Bible times, created in his romantic novel _The Love of Zion_ a
gossamer web in evanescent hues of gold and silver. Kalman Schulman
(1819‒1899), a versatile translator and popularizer, did much to
break ground for the ideas of the _Haskalah_. Isaac Erter (1792‒1851),
of Galicia, wrote satires which are masterpieces of art in their
epigrammatic beauty. These and a host of lesser men laid the
substantial foundations on which later a more specifically nationalist
_Hebrew_ literature could be built up. For themselves they were too
busy with their task of acclimatizing European culture on _Hebrew_
soil to trouble overmuch about nationalism. Their tendency was
even towards assimilation, so strong was their reaction against the
conservatism of their environment. This tendency is seen most strongly
in the greatest of these _Maskilim_, Judah Löb (Leon) _ben_ Asher
Gordon (1831‒1892), a poet, essayist and story-teller, who united
lightness of touch, clearness and elegance of diction with a great
gift of expression, and combined in one harmonious whole accurate
reflection and vivid imagination――an exceedingly keen satirist, and
the most profound among writers of the _Haskalah_ in the knowledge
and use as well of the biblical as of the post-biblical _Hebrew_
idiom. The recently deceased veteran novelist Solomon (Shalom) Jacob
Abramowitsch (1836‒1918) “_Mendele Mocher Sephorim_”² still continued
to carry on the _Haskalah_ tradition; and although dubbed “Grandfather
of _Yiddish_,” he also produced _Hebrew_ works of immortal value,
the works of a giant artist in language and imagination. But broadly
speaking the ideals of the _Haskalah_ have given place since about
1880 to a more distinctly nationalist tendency.
¹ _Chassid_――member of the sect of _Chassidim_ or
“Pious.” _Maskil_――upholder of the ideals of _Haskalah_
(“enlightenment”), as against strict traditionalism
with its restriction of intellectual interest to ancient
_Hebrew_ literature.
² The Jewish Cervantes.
The historical and philosophical bases of modern Jewish nationalism
were laid in the earlier half of the nineteenth century by a number of
Jewish scholars who wrote in _Hebrew_, and of whom the most noteworthy
are Nachman Cohen Krochmal (1785‒1840), Samuel David _ben_ Hezekiah
Luzzatto (1800‒1865) and Solomon Judah Löb Rapaport (1790‒1867).
Krochmal in his _Modern Guide for the Perplexed_ (a title which
alludes, of course, to the great work of Maimonides), strove to effect
a synthesis ♦between traditional Judaism and Hegelianism. The national
idea is a postulate of his method, and he presents it in a rational
and constructive manner, entirely free from sentimentality. Luzzatto,
who studied deeply and wrote much in the fields of history, religious
ideas and exegesis, was more of a mystic in temperament, but not
less fundamentally nationalist in outlook. Rapaport, an encyclopædic
scholar and one of the pioneers of the so-called “Jewish Science”
(scientific study of Judaism and Jewish history), was perhaps less
directly and consciously concerned with the national idea, but
his hostile attitude to the extravagances of the “Reform” movement
sufficiently indicates his leaning. Another profound scholar who has
received too scant attention is Jacob Reifmann (1818‒1895), whose
_Hebrew_ pamphlet _The Mission of Israel_――one of a hundred treatises
and articles――is an eloquent exposition of the national idea and a
thoroughgoing condemnation of radical “Reform,” not from a theological,
but from a purely nationalist and historical point of view. We may
remark in passing that some of the later representatives of “Jewish
Science,” though they wrote mostly in other languages than _Hebrew_
(principally German), were essentially nationalist in feeling:
especially Heinrich Hirsch Graetz (1817‒1891), the historian, who
was influenced by Moses (Moritz) Hess (1812‒1875), and really――though
perhaps unconsciously――laid the foundations of Jewish nationalism in
Western Europe, and David Kaufmann (1852‒1899), whose learning and
instinct combined made him welcome Zionism and defend its leaders on
occasion. Important, however, as was the work of these scholars in
giving Jewish nationalism the necessary philosophical foundation,
the spread of the national idea among the people is more directly
due to the popular _Hebrew_ writers of Russia, who, growing up during
the _Haskalah_ period, abandoned the vague, universalistic idea of
“enlightenment” for the conception of a modernized and progressive
Jewish people.
♦ “beween” replaced with “between”
Of these David _ben_ Dob Baer Gordon (1826‒1886) was one of the
earliest. In 1856 he became assistant editor of the first _Hebrew_
weekly paper, _Ha’magid_. He also assisted in the formation and
conduct of the Society _Mekize Nirdamim_ (1864), established for the
purpose of publishing old and valuable _Hebrew_ works. In 1884 he went
to London as the representative of the _Chovevé Zion_ to congratulate
Sir Moses Montefiore on the hundredth anniversary of his birth.
Peter (Perez) _ben_ Moses Smolenskin (1842‒1885), the most popular
_Hebrew_ writer of his time, was an ardent nationalist and Zionist
during the second period of his literary activity. He rejected the
theory associated with the name of Mendelssohn, which makes Judaism
nothing more than a religious confession; and against this theory
he wrote a series of articles and essays. About 1880 he began to
be interested in the colonization of Palestine. He joined Laurence
Oliphant, through whom he hoped to secure the intervention of European
Powers in favour of the Jews. His realistic Hebrew novels, as well as
his monthly _Ha’shachar_ (The Dawn), exercised a wide influence.
Moses Löb Lilienblum (1843‒1910) was a progressive “radical” during
the first half of his literary career. But the anti-Jewish riots of
1880 and 1881 aroused him to a consciousness of the unsafe position
of the Jews in exile, and he started writing articles in _Hebrew_ and
in Russian, in which he pointed to the re-establishment of the Jews
in Palestine as the only solution of the Jewish question. He wrote
several pamphlets, and as Secretary of the _Chovevé Zion_ took a most
earnest and energetic part in their activity.
Alexander Ossypovitch Zederbaum of St. Petersburg (1816‒1892)
indefatigably advocated the colonization of Palestine by Jews in his
_Hebrew_ paper _Ha’melitz_. He did not confine his labours in the cause
of Jewish nationalism to such editorial efforts. He took an active part
in obtaining the permission of the Russian Government for the formation
of an Association of _Chovevé Zion_ in Russia, with its centre in
Odessa, and afterwards in organizing the Association.
Samuel Joseph Fuenn (1819‒1891) of Wilna was an admirable scholar and
a _Hebrew_ writer of wide outlook. For many years he was editor of the
_Hebrew_ weekly _Ha’carmel_. His _Kiria Neemana_ (the History of the
Jews in Wilna) is a standard work. He was also author of _Ha’otzar_
(_Hebrew_ dictionary), of a biographical lexicon, and of many other
books of reference. During the last years of his life he was engaged
in the _Chovevé Zion_ movement.
Jechiel Mendelssohn (1817‒1892) of Lublin, was a distinguished
_Hebraist_. The diversity as well as the extent of his reading was
remarkable. He knew the whole of _Hebrew_ literature as well as the
classical writers of antiquity, and had a wide knowledge of Jewish
history. His _Hebrew_ style was of great exactitude and beauty. He
contributed to _Hàboker Or_, _Ha’melitz_ and _Ha’assif_, and preached
with artistic skill and historical discrimination the national idea of
the _Chovevé Zion_.
Asher Ginzberg――“_Achad Ha’am_”――deserves a special chapter in the
history of Zionism. He was the most prominent literary figure in the
_Chovevé Zion_ movement, and he is the most respected and influential
representative of modern _Hebrew_ literature. Born in Russia, and
educated in the traditional religious way, he went through a carefully
arranged course of studies in “Jewish Science” and in philosophy and
literature. He first attracted notice by his articles in _Ha’melitz_
about the condition of the colonies in Palestine. He had the clearness
of mind to see things as they were, and the courage to publish what he
believed to be the truth. The absence of exaggeration, the earnestness,
and the steadfast truth-seeking which are the characteristic features
of all his writings, and give them peculiar weight, were already
clearly developed and evident in his first essays. He founded the
_Hebrew_ monthly _Ha’shiloach_, which became a creative force in the
modern _Hebrew_ revival. He grouped around himself young men of talent,
and discovered, stimulated and guided many young writers and students,
who looked upon him as their spiritual father. _Ha’shiloach_ soon
became the leading literary _Hebrew_ review, principally owing to
his philosophical and publicistic articles. A deep and clear thinker,
he expounded with convincing logic, and in calm, noble and dignified
language the ideology of Jewish nationalism. His principal ideal is
Jewish national distinctiveness in the Diaspora, based upon _Hebrew_
culture, and making Palestine a spiritual centre or “nidus.” Some of
his essays can be read in an English version by Leon Simon of London,
published by the Jewish Publication Society of America. We should,
however, form a very inadequate estimate of the services which this
distinguished writer has rendered to Zionism, and of the influence
which he has exerted on his readers, were we to confine our attention
solely to his writings. It is the combination of a writer and a
personality that gives him his unique position. He was successfully
active in the _Chovevé Zion_ movement, he has visited Palestine
several times, and he founded in 1889 the Order “_B’nai Moshé_,”
a group of intellectual Jewish Nationalists. This Order, which
existed for eight years, gave rise to the foundation of the _Hebrew_
Publication Society “_Achiasaf_” in Warsaw, of the first modern
_Hebrew_ school in _Jaffa_, and of the Palestinian colony _Rechoboth_.
Out of these grew many other institutions for colonization, _Hebrew_
literature and education.
Chaim Nachman Bialik is the greatest living _Hebrew_ poet, and with
his name the national revival is inseparably connected. Born in
Volhynia, Russia, he had a _Talmudical_ education. He started his
literary career in the _Ha’shiloach_ and other _Hebrew_ reviews. He
rose quickly to great fame, making a new era in _Hebrew_ poetry. He
has an epic as well as a lyric gift. His marvellous artistic instinct,
his harmonious _Hebrew_, his liveliness of imagination, the melody
of his verse place him in the highest rank. He is a national poet in
the noblest sense of the term. He voices the feelings and traditions
of generations. He has measured the groans of our people, has counted
their sighs and tears, has gathered and sung them and played them
upon the celestial harp of his _Hebrew_ muse. Sometimes, like a rebel
_cherub_, he sounds the trumpet of judgment against tyranny. He is
familiar with every phase of Jewish thought and life, ancient as well
as modern, in the _Ghetto_ as well as in nature, but his heart is in
_Zion_, and here the freshness and vividness of his colouring, the
truth and life-like reality of his pictures, the enthusiasm of his
hopes are unsurpassed. He is also distinguished as a writer of prose,
and is active in the _Hebrew_ Publication Society “_Moriah_,” at
Odessa, which has enriched _Hebrew_ literature by many valuable works.
Saul Tschernichowsky, born in Michailovka, Russia, by profession a
physician, is, next to Bialik, the greatest living _Hebrew_ poet.
He is distinguished by depth and tenderness of feeling, fertile and
ingenious fancy, profound knowledge of the classical world, the easy
transition by which he passes from nature to man, exquisite sense of
beauty and a highly developed taste for music, which makes his verse
exceedingly melodious.
2. _The Chovevé Zion and University Zionist Groups_
We have more than once had occasion to mention the groups of
_Chovevé Zion_ (“Lovers of _Zion_”) which sprang up in Russia in the
early eighties for the support of the pioneers of immigration into
Palestine. Some account of the most important of these groups and
of the outstanding personalities connected with them will indicate
both the rapidity with which the movement spread, and the continuity
of development between the _Chovevé Zion_ and the new Zionist
organization founded by Herzl. We shall find throughout that those who
came into prominence in Herzl’s movement were almost without exception
men who had been active for years before as “Lovers of _Zion_.”
We shall find also that everywhere it was the Jewish University
Student――and particularly the Russian Jewish Student, whether at a
Russian or at a German or Swiss University――who, captured by the idea
of the national revival, became the life and the driving force of the
movement.
The first place among the _Chovevé Zion_ groups belongs to that of
Odessa, which became and has remained the headquarters of the whole
organization. We have already mentioned three prominent members
of this group――Pinsker, _Achad Ha’am_ and Lilienblum (the last two
in connection with their services to _Hebrew_ literature). Among
a host of other Odessa Zionists who have earned distinction, _M._
M. Ussishkin stands out most prominently because of the influence
which his energy and determination have won for him. He graduated
in engineering at Moscow, where he was instrumental in founding the
_B’nai Zion_ (“Sons of _Zion_”)――one of the earliest and strongest of
the _Chovevé Zion_ groups. Afterwards he went to Ekaterinoslaw, and
only later to Odessa, where he has been the centre of Jewish national
work in all its branches for some years. To him perhaps more than
to any single man is due the return of Zionist effort to practical
colonizing work in Palestine after the temporary concentration on
political negotiation under Herzl. He has worked strenuously for
the financial institutions of Zionism as well as for Palestinian
colonization and the _Hebrew_ revival.
Of the brilliant group of leaders which received its training in the
_B’nai Zion_ of Moscow we mention here the recently deceased Dr. Ephim
Wladimirovitch [Jechiel] Tschlenow (1865‒1918), Vice-President of the
Inner Actions Committee of the Zionist Movement. After graduating in
medicine at Moscow University, he settled in that city, and divided
his life between the claims of his profession and those of Zionist
work. He combined appreciation of the value of practical work in
Palestine with a sound sense of political values. He had been twice
to the Holy Land, and in a brochure, _Five Years’ Work in Palestine_
(written in Russian and translated into German), produced an admirably
clear and comprehensive record of recent Jewish achievements in the
country.
Scarcely less important than the Odessa and the Moscow Societies were
those of St. Petersburg, of Bialystok, of Pinsk, of Minsk and of Wilna,
every one of which was a training-ground for men who afterwards became
prominent in the Zionist movement. It was at Pinsk, his birthplace,
that Dr. Chaim Weizmann, now President of the English Zionist
Federation, began his Zionist activity, which was continued afterwards
with such fruitful results at German and Swiss Universities and in
this country. Wilna is the home of two Zionists, the brothers Isaac
and Boris Goldberg, who hold a specially distinguished place both
in Russian Zionism and in the movement at large. So in every Jewish
centre in Russia the “Lovers of _Zion_” movement attracted the best of
Jewish energy and idealism, especially among the youth, and the idea
of the return to _Zion_ took a firmer and firmer hold on the people
and demanded more and more imperatively an outlet in practical work.
In Poland and Galicia and Roumania, and to a lesser extent in Germany,
the movement spread during the eighties and nineties of last century,
so that when Herzl came on the scene the national consciousness to
which he appealed was largely awakened (though not in those elements
of Jewry to which he first addressed his call). In countries further
west there was little progress until after the creation of Herzl’s
organization. True there were _Chovevé Zion_ groups in England and
France, but the idea of the return had not really struck root in
the Jewish communities of those countries. One of the great services
rendered by Herzl’s organization to the cause of Jewish nationalism
is that it has provided a bridge over which the Jewish spirit and the
idealism of the reawakened Jewries of Eastern Europe could make their
way into the Western communities and give them new life and a new
sense of the realities of Judaism. Thus in Anglo-Jewry during the last
decade or so there has been a marked tendency away from the polite
conventions of assimilation towards a realization of the deeper and
more serious implications of Jewishness; and only a remnant of the
“old guard” still repeats the _shibboleths_ of an earlier generation
about Judaism as a “persuasion” and “emancipation” as a cure for all
the ills of Jewry.
We have spoken of the part that the Jewish student has played in this
evolution, and it is so important as to merit further examination.
The position of the Jewish students at the Universities of Western
Europe at the beginning of the third quarter of the last century was a
most deplorable one from a Jewish point of view. They had increased in
numbers, belonging partly to the native Jewish populations and partly
to Eastern Europe, nevertheless they were a negligible quantity. They
were scattered all over Germany, Austria and Switzerland as units
without cohesion or organization. Nationally they did not count: the
chief principle of assimilation――which was at the time the general
tendency of Western European Jewry――was to abandon Jewish national
claims. Their attitude towards the religion of their fathers was one
of indifference, want of faith, if not hostility. What marked them
out as Jews was in fact only the treatment meted out to them by the
anti-Semitic Students’ Societies, which hated and insulted them. And
while the Jews born in the Western European countries were regarded
as outcasts by the non-Jewish corporations and societies, the foreign
Jewish students――mostly from Russia――were regarded as outcasts by
the outcasts. The Western European and the Eastern European Jewish
students were thus divided into two fractions.
Then the new spirit of Zionism made itself felt. A group of Jewish
students at the Vienna University founded, in 1882, a National Jewish
Students’ Association called “_Kadima_,”¹ which was later, as we
have seen, the first organization to extend a welcome to Herzl.
These Vienna students have a better claim than any other similar
organization in Western Europe to be regarded as the pioneers of the
Jewish national idea.
¹ “Eastward,” “Forward.”
One of the leaders of the _Kadima_ was Nathan Birnbaum, known also by
his _nom de plume_ of “Mathias Acher,” who was born in Galicia and
graduated at Vienna University. A powerful writer and a keen thinker,
he became, in course of time, a considerable figure in German-Jewish
literature. In recent years he has become a Jewish democrat,
championing the cause of _Yiddish_. But in the early days of the
_Kadima_ he was heart and soul devoted to this Association, of which
he was the philosophical leader.
The members of the _Kadima_ soon attracted attention owing to their
courageous attitude, and steadily increased in number. They had become
conscious Jews, and derived from this fact a great access of moral
strength. They were no longer weak, downtrodden, degraded young men,
feeling helpless and demoralized; they began to be men, jealous of
their honour, demanding their rights as Jews among the nationalities.
The _Chovevé Zion_ movement appealed strongly to their emotions and
energies. The idea, a mere spark at first, developed into a blazing
fire that seized upon several Universities. Young Jews speaking
different languages and of many different habits and customs became
united by invisible ties all over the Continent of Europe. At the
end of the eighties there existed an important Association in Berlin,
which was at first somewhat theoretical in character, but very soon
afterwards became a sister society of the Vienna Association, taking
also the name of “_Kadima_” (Appendix lxxvii). The members of this
group include a great number of workers whose names are inseparably
bound up with the history of the Zionist Organization and with Jewish
national literature. Most of them were of Russian birth, as might
be expected; for it was the Russian Jewish student who, moving from
one German University to another, carried with him the torch of the
national revival. Besides Dr. Chaim Weizmann, already mentioned, we
find in the Berlin Students’ group two of the present members of the
Inner Actions Committee――Dr. Shemaryah Levin, a powerful speaker and
one of the most energetic propagandists of the movement, and Victor
Jacobsohn, who for some years represented Zionism at Constantinople.
Martin Buber and Berthold Feiwel, two gifted littérateurs, were
both members of the Vienna _Kadima_ who worked later in Berlin.
Davis Trietsch, not himself a University student, worked in close
co-operation with the Berlin group. An indefatigable advocate of
colonization schemes, he has given a great impetus to the study of
Palestine and has originated many fruitful ideas. Associated with
him on the staff of the _Jüdischer Verlag_, the Zionist publishing
house, was the artist Ephraim Moses _ben_ Jacob _Hacohen_ Lilien,
who together with Hermann Struck, an artist of a very different type,
best represents Jewish national development on the æsthetic side.
It remains to mention two Berlin Zionists who became members of the
Inner Actions Committee in 1911――Arthur Hantke, distinguished for
his services to the organization of the movement, and Professor Otto
Warburg, a well-known botanist and founder of the Palestine Land
Development Company.
Similar associations to the _Kadima_ were founded at many German and
Swiss Universities――Heidelberg, Munich, Leipzig, Königsberg, Breslau,
Berne, Zürich, Geneva and Lausanne. To them is due the national
awakening which has led to so great an improvement in the spiritual
condition of Jewry in Western Europe. In Germany especially the
progress of the national idea among the younger generation was
phenomenal. The sons of the most assimilated and denationalized
families became the most ardent champions of the new movement back
to the Jewish land and Jewish ideals. But much the same thing has
happened in all countries which have a considerable Jewish population.
In Russia it goes without saying that Jewish Students’ groups were to
the fore in the national work. Even in the Polish cities of Warsaw and
Lodz, the homes of the most extreme and disintegrating assimilation,
numbers of Jewish students at the Universities were kindled by the
national idea and did it valuable service. In Anglo-Jewry, isolated by
distance and by difference of language and environment from the main
currents of Jewish life, the university Zionist movement developed
later and has not gone so far. Its history belongs entirely to the
last dozen years, and its adherents are still a small band. But
it is one of the most remarkable and promising features of Zionist
development in England in recent years. While the older generation of
Zionists in this country worked mainly in the field of organization,
a group of younger men, largely of University training, has paid more
attention to the spread of the Zionist idea by means of literature and
education. Most of these younger men have been influenced by the ideas
of _Achad Ha’am_. They have produced monthly journals, pamphlets and
books on Zionism and in the Zionist spirit, and have contributed in
various ways to the spread of Jewish knowledge and the improvement
of _Hebrew_ education. They have also taken their share in the work
of organization, and one of them, Mr. H. Sacher, has recently become
Grand Commander of the Order of Ancient _Maccabæans_, a Zionist
association organised on Friendly Society lines.
3. _The Pioneers of the Hebrew Revival in Palestine_
While modern _Hebrew_ literature and the propaganda of the Return to
Zion were quickening the Jews of the Diaspora to new life and new hope,
there were not wanting men who were prepared to throw up their careers
and prospects in Europe in order themselves to help in laying the
foundations of the revival in Palestine. It is not our purpose here
to tell the almost miraculous story of the foundation of the earliest
Jewish settlements or “colonies” in the eighties, how by sheer
endurance the pioneer settlers maintained their hold in the face of
appalling difficulties, and how by the time when the great war broke
out there had been created the nucleus of a thriving _Hebrew_ nation,
firmly attached once more to its ancestral soil, and repossessed
of its ancestral tongue.¹ We have merely to glance at a few of the
outstanding facts and personalities of this revival (Appendix lxxviii).
¹ For an account of Jewish colonization in Palestine the
reader may be referred to _Palestine: the Rebirth of an
Ancient People_, by A. M. Hyamson (London: Sidgwick and
Jackson, 1917), _chs._ 11‒14.
The revival is not wholly, though it is largely, a result of the
terrible events which drove large masses of Jews to emigrate from
Russia in 1880‒1881. Even before that date there were a few Jews
in Palestine who, if they were not strong enough of themselves to
initiate a national revival, were able to help when new forces came
from without. Of these were Jechiel Brill (1836‒1886), who, born in
Russia and educated in Constantinople and _Jerusalem_, established a
_Hebrew_ monthly, _Ha’lebanon_, in Palestine in 1863, and later was
commissioned by Baron Edmond _de_ Rothschild to conduct a group of
experienced farmers from Russia through Palestine; Jechiel Michael
_ben_ Noah Pines (1842‒1912), also of Russian birth, who in 1878 was
sent to _Jerusalem_ to establish charitable institutions associated
with the name of Sir Moses Montefiore, and lived thenceforward in
Palestine, interesting himself in the welfare of the Jewish community
and the organization of the Jewish agricultural colonies; David
Yellin, a native of Palestine and one of the most eminent of living
_Hebraists_, who has devoted himself mainly to education, and has
played a large part in the development of _Hebrew_ as a living
language through his contributions to the perfection of the “natural
method” of teaching _Hebrew_; and the late Abraham Moses Luncz
(1854‒1918), who had lived in Palestine from early youth, and whose
long-established _Hebrew_ Palestine Annual has done much for the
historical and geographical study of the country. But it was not till
the immigration which followed on the Russian massacres of 1880‒1881
that Jewish life in Palestine really began to take a new direction.
Among the stalwarts of those early days a group of Russian students
known as _Bilu_ (Appendix lxxix) (from the initials of the four
_Hebrew_ words meaning “Come, let us go up to the house of Jacob,”
which they chose as their motto) will always be held in affectionate
remembrance. Their example of stubborn endurance and unfailing
optimism did much to rescue the colonization movement from the ruin
which threatened it in its early days, when the natural effects of
insufficient knowledge and resources began to be felt. Most of the
group died young, but a few still survive――among them Israel Belkind,
who is still at work in Palestine as a teacher. Elieser Ben-Jehuda,
who settled in _Jerusalem_ in 1881, is associated principally with
the revival of _Hebrew_. It is thanks largely to him that out of the
welter of languages spoken by Jews in Palestine _Hebrew_ has once
and for all won its place as _the_ national language. His monumental
_Hebrew_ dictionary, _Thesaurus Totius Hebraitatis_, in ten volumes,
was in course of publication when the war broke out. Another side of
the revival is represented by Boris Schatz, the founder and head of
the _Bezalel_ School of Arts and Crafts at _Jerusalem_, whose idea
of creating a distinctively Jewish art has already borne good fruit
(Appendix lxxx). And in yet other spheres the young Jewish settlement
owes much to David Levontin, Manager of the Anglo-Palestine Company,
the Jewish banking concern in Palestine; to Aaron Aaronsohn, head of
the valuable Agricultural Experiment Station at Atlit, near _Haifa_;
to Dr. Benzion Mossinsohn and his colleagues at the _Jaffa_ Hebrew
Secondary School, where an education similar to that of a Grammar
School is given entirely in _Hebrew_. Each of these men has done
pioneer work in one field or another. They have stood in the van of
a movement which has transformed Jewish life in Palestine as Zionist
propaganda has transformed Jewish life in the Diaspora, not only
creating new types and values of its own, but surely if slowly
breaking down the resistance of the anti-national Jewish agencies
which were at work in Palestine before Zionism came on the scene. And
if the propaganda and organization of Zionism have been essential to
the existence and growth of the Palestinian settlement, it is no less
true that if not for the work of those who built up the new Jewish
life in Palestine, there would have been no inspiring force behind the
propaganda of Zionism, and no solid basis for its organization.