EDITED BY 
 
 SUNDEL DONIGEH

 
 A Zionist Primer 
 
 ESSAYS BY 
 VARIOUS WRITERS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 SUNDEL DONIGER 
 
 WITH TWO MAPS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 YOUNG JUDAEA 
 
 44 EAST 23RD STREET 
 1917
 
 Copyrighted by Young Judaea 
 
 1917 
 All rights reserved
 
 This volume published by Young Judaea attempts to make 
 clear to the Jewish youth the Jewish problem and the solution 
 as formulated in the Zionist program. 
 
 Young Judaea is an organization of young men and young 
 women who are awakened to the needs of our people and who 
 desire to equip themselves for effective service in the training of 
 our youth. 
 
 We feel the menace of a generation growing up in ignorance 
 of its history, traditions and national ideals. Education in the 
 schools of America can teach the new generation only the beau- 
 ties of other cultures, and the heroisms of other nations. The 
 Bible has become a sealed book, or one to be read in the light of 
 an interpretation dominated by alien thought; and the heroic 
 figures of our own history, our national revival and the Hebrew 
 renaissance are almost entirely unknown. 
 
 The new generation is largely unconscious of the vital and 
 creative forces that have their roots in the East, and of which the 
 Jewish nation is the guardian; of the national heroism that has 
 endured throughout the ages ; of the lofty vision of a common- 
 wealth to be rebuilt in Palestine and based on justice and right- 
 eousness, a vision cherished with unfaltering courage for thou- 
 sands of years and which has given continuity and significance 
 to Jewish history. 
 
 Palestine is the motif that runs through all the drama of our 
 history. It is the subject of the dreams of our prophets, our 
 sages and our poets. This book is the account of an attempt to 
 realize the dreams of the centuries. 
 
 We feel that this volume must appeal to the love of heroism 
 in the Jewish youth, to his sense of dignity and to his highest 
 aspirations for freedom and self-realization. 
 
 We hope the response will be such as to encourage us in our 
 efforts to bring back and hold our Jewish youth to the path of 
 HTs fathers. 
 
 CHARLES A. COWEN.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 PREFACE - - 3 
 
 by Charles A. Ccwen 
 
 WHAT OUR HISTORY MEANS - 7 
 
 by fessie E. Sampter 
 
 THE JEWISH PROBLEM - 21 
 
 by D. de Sola Pool 
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF ZIONISM 30 
 
 by Lotta Levensohn 
 
 DR. THEODOR HERZL - - 35 
 
 by Israel Goldberg 
 
 THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION 43 
 
 by B. A. Rosenblatt 
 
 PARTIES IN ZIONISM 47 
 
 by Louis Lipsky 
 
 WHAT OUR PIONEERS HAVE ACCOMPLISHED - 53 
 
 by Margaret Gluck 
 
 No, You Do NOT KNOW THE LAND - 62 
 
 by Ittamar Ben Avi 
 
 PALESTINE AND THE JEWISH DISPERSION 78 
 
 by D. de Sola Pool
 
 WHAT OUR HISTORY MEANS 
 BY JESSIE E. SAMPTER 
 
 1. ABRAHAM 
 
 The Biblical history of our people begins with Abraham. 
 What we read in the Bible before reading of Abraham refers to 
 the whole world. It is a sketch, in few words and in poetic 
 stories, of life before we became a people. It explains why God 
 chose the Jewish people to be his servant. 
 
 Perhaps two thousand years before the year one of the 
 modern era, God chose Abraham to be the father of his chosen 
 people. What does it mean that Abraham was chosen? It 
 means that Abraham alone knew God to be God. And he knew 
 something else : that man must be like God, must live in wisdom 
 and justice, and that his people must live as one man would live 
 before God. God promised to multiply Abraham's seed as the 
 stars of the heavens and as the sands of the seashore, and to 
 make of his children a great nation in which all the nations of 
 the earth should be blest, and to give him the land of Canaan as 
 an inheritance forever. For only a people living together can 
 prove that it loves and serves God. It is easy for one man to 
 live alone in righteousness. But for a people to keep the laws 
 of God, that is the great and difficult task. Canaan, or Pales- 
 tine, in southwestern Asia, was chosen because it is a certain 
 kind of land. It is a tiny land, more varied than most great 
 countries. There are the Lebanon mountains, always capped 
 with snow; the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, .those 
 wild, strange depths far below the sea-level ; the fertile plains of 
 Sharon, full of gaily colored flowers and vineyards ; and the bar- 
 ren rocky lands, gardens and deserts, seashore and mountains. 
 It is also a land through which many peoples have ever passed 
 to and fro, for it was always a passage way between the Medi- 
 terranean Sea and the Euphrates River, a battle-ground and a 
 market-place between Egypt and Babylon. Why should the 
 chosen people, the people that are to express and teach the laws 
 of God, live in such a land as this? Because the kind of land 
 one lives in helps to shape one's character. Those people who 
 sail or fish at the seashore, and those who hunt on the moun- 
 tains, or who plant vineyards and farms, or who lead flocks in 
 fertile valleys, or who travel over deserts, grow through their 
 different occupations to have different characters. Therefore a 
 people who lived in one small land that had all these qualities
 
 would develop a many-sided character. If they live in a land 
 where many strangers pass, they will be greatly tempted to 
 break their peculiar and strict laws ; the weak will be lost among 
 the nations, but the strong will become stronger. And mean- 
 while this people will become broad-minded, it will learn from 
 all peoples their best knowledge to add to its own knowledge. 
 As a man alone can easily be good, so can a lonely nation. The 
 great life which God demanded was to love peace in the midst 
 of war, to keep pure in the midst of impure nations, to worship 
 God in the midst of idolators. God's covenant with Abraham 
 was that if the Children of Israel by fulfilling his law proved 
 worthy of this land, then they should possess it forever. 
 
 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (or Israel), Joseph if we study dili- 
 gently, we shall some day understand the full historic meaning 
 of their deeds. After the famine in Canaan, after Joseph's 
 triumph in Egypt, the Children of Israel lived in Egypt for many 
 years, independent and comfortable. Perhaps some, still call- 
 ing themselves Israelites in a vague way, forgot that they had 
 any other future than to be rich in Egypt. But because they 
 did not really belong in the land, therefore a time of trial must 
 surely come, when in their trials they would see their separate- 
 ness. A king arose who knew not Joseph, who oppressed and 
 ill-treated the Children of Israel as foreigners, who made of them 
 poor drudges and outcasts. 
 
 And then arose Moses, the first and greatest prophet. 
 Moses was a loyal Israelite educated in a kingly Egyptian house- 
 hold. Therefore he must have added all Egyptian knowledge 
 to his own knowledge. He believed in God. But so did some 
 of the learned Egyptian priests believe in one God. They did 
 not tell the common people this because they thought the com- 
 mon people could understand only idols. 
 
 Moses in the wilderness whither he fled after smiting the 
 Egyptian, had time to think and to see visions. He then dis- 
 covered that belief in God was not enough, that he had also to 
 obey God as the God of his fathers, of his people, that he had 
 to believe in the chosen people. How did the religion of Moses 
 differ from that of the enlightened Egyptian priests? Moses be- 
 lieved in democracy, in the people. He believed that all the 
 people must know and obey God, that they must be a Kingdom 
 of Priests, not a nation of a few wise priests who knew God, 
 and of many foolish people who worshipped idols. With this 
 people the priests were to be their servants and representatives. 
 He believed in progress. The God who called himself " I will 
 be that which I will be" would surely reveal himself to the world 
 through the deeds of his chosen people, his holy nation. He 
 also believed in our land. He knew that religion is not only 
 believing, but doing. Not the goodness of one man, but the 
 righteousness of his people must glorify his God. Only a free 
 man or a free people can be noble, and only in the promised 
 
 8
 
 land could the Jewish people develop in their freedom. When 
 Moses believed in God he was a good man, but when he dis- 
 covered the God of his fathers, his own people, and his own 
 land, he became a prophet. * * * 
 
 II. MOSES. 
 
 When Moses called his people to follow him, many of them 
 reproached him because now Pharaoh would burden them still 
 more. So long had they been humbled that they forgot they 
 were princes of God in disguise. They thought they were 
 just unfortunate Egyptians. And when at last Moses led them 
 forth, he had to keep them for many years in the wilderness 
 because they could not live the kind of life worthy of the chosen 
 people in the chosen land. He had to wait for the next genera- 
 tion and teach that. 
 
 Those laws of God which we are told Moses taught during 
 this time, are a national constitution to the Jews. The ten com- 
 mandments might be called the foundation of this constitution, 
 which cannot be amended. Other laws have been explained or 
 interpreted from time to time by the leaders or teachers of the 
 people, with the consent of the Jewish people. The Jews are 
 a lawful, democratic people whose constitution is the law of 
 God. 
 
 Notice that in the second commandment we have the state- 
 ment that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children to 
 the third and fourth generation. Besides being a statement of 
 fact, this shows that the Jews should not think of themselves as 
 persons, but of their whole people as if it were one person. The 
 people was rewarded, the people was punished. 
 
 III. TO THE SECOND TEMPLE. 
 
 After Moses' death, his little holy nation struggled on for 
 many years in Palestine. Theirs was never an easy life. Many 
 terrible wars were forced upon them; and if they returned vic- 
 torious, it was because of their faith and their clean lives. They 
 resembled their neighbors in all but two things, their devotion 
 to God and their democratic and just state. The people round- 
 about worshipped gods of wood or metal or stone, and lived 
 cruel, immoral and dirty lives. And often the Children of Israel 
 were tempted and many of them fell, for they were not protected 
 from temptation. Especially after they became a kingdom 
 even though the people and the prophets chose Saul and David 
 their kings began to imitate the kings of other countries, to be 
 luxurious, tyrannous and cruel, and to try to make the people 
 serve them for their pleasure. Then came revolts. The one 
 kingdom was divided into two. The kings and many of the 
 people became idolatrous and corrupt. Truly it was hard for 
 
 *** Moses: Selected Essays, Achad Ha-ain.
 
 them, a handful of God's people, to keep themselves distinct 
 from their neighbors. It is always much easier to imitate others 
 than to be true to ourselves. 
 
 But Israel and Judah, divided and at war, still had their 
 democratic leaders, the prophets, who saved them from being 
 wholly destroyed, who thundered against the wicked kings and 
 nobles, and guarded their pure faith in God and his chosen 
 people. The differences between a priest and a prophet are 
 these: a priest is born to his office, and his work is to help the 
 people apply the laws of God to their daily life and worship. A 
 prophet is chosen to his office by his own vision of God. He is 
 an inspired poet, and his task is to enlighten the people, who 
 gladly listen to him, and to show them how the laws of God will 
 act upon them in the future, if they dare to disobey. He fore- 
 sees what must happen, because he knows the unchangeable 
 justice of God. He prophesies punishment and reward. The 
 punishment is always destruction of the nation and banishment 
 among strange peoples. The reward is always establishment 
 in their own land of Palestine, with the freedom to serve God 
 in worship and in life, and the bringing together of all the 
 nations of the world in the Kingdom of God. 
 
 When Assyria, and later Babylonia, became great, Judah 
 and Israel had been so weakened by sin, quarrels, foreign alli- 
 ances and intermarriages that they were easily conquered. 
 Israel, more corrupt and divided, fell first. Judah, the Southern 
 Kingdom, with Jerusalem as its religious center, lasted 150 years 
 longer. 
 
 God does not pet and spoil his children. He entrusts them 
 with great tasks. He had not given Palestine to Israel as a 
 pleasure-ground, but as a spiritual battlefield for his righteous 
 cause with the world. Now they forfeited that right. 
 
 Had the Jews remained contented with their law and their 
 land, and willing to govern themselves democratically, to worship 
 at their temple in Jerusalem, to be independent without political 
 ambitions, and not to care who was emperor, then the fair- 
 minded Babylonian king would have let them so remain, and 
 Judah might have stayed an island of peace amid the raging seas 
 of war. But she rebelled internally and externally. Then the 
 holy city was beseiged, and after a long, bitter struggle was 
 conquered and horribly destroyed. The holy temple lay in 
 ruins on the Ninth of Ab, 586 B. C. E., and most of the people 
 who were not killed were carried away captive from the desolate 
 land. 
 
 Across the Jordan, to the flat plains of Babylon, went the 
 people of the mountain of God. For about seventy years they 
 remained a nation without a land. Even when they were com- 
 fortable they did not forget their land, else had they ceased to 
 be a people. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand 
 forget her cunning." So they sang. Their prophets and poets 
 
 10
 
 encouraged and comforted them until the day when a kind 
 king allowed a number of them to return to Palestine, and to 
 rebuild Jerusalem and the temple. A great hope and purpose 
 filled these returning Jews. Idolatry had died out among them. 
 They cared not for power or riches. Their power was freedom 
 and their riches were the word of God. 
 
 IV. TO THE SECOND DESTRUCTION. 
 
 After great trials and hardships, the temple was rebuilt, 
 under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah. And then these 
 men began to build something even greater than the temple 
 the Jewish People for all time. The next two hundred years 
 were the most wonderful in all Jewish history; and yet very 
 little is known of them, for the people lived so peacefully, they 
 had no history to write. Theirs was a greater task. As part of 
 the Persian Empire, they still had absolute freedom; they gov- 
 erned themselves democratically, through a great assembly. 
 The first leader of the assembly was Ezra, the last was Simon 
 the Just; and those that came between have not even been re- 
 corded. Yet these unrecorded leaders and their people did as 
 great a work as has ever been done in the world. They edited, 
 arranged, and completed the Torah and the Prophetic Books, 
 and so gave the Bible to all mankind. The monument and 
 memorial of this happy time of Jewish history is the Bible. 
 
 When Alexander, the great Greek general, conquered the 
 then known world he conquered also Palestine. During his 
 lifetime, the Jews continued self-governing. But when his em- 
 pire was divided after his death, they fell to the portion of the 
 Syrian governor. But, as before, the greatest enemy of the 
 Jews was their own weakness. They might have continued to 
 govern themselves, had not weak Jews fallen in love with the 
 Greek fashions and pleasures, with Greek gods and goddesses, 
 and with Greek gymnastics. Then there arose a party opposed 
 to the Greek way of life, the Chassidim, who were ready to die 
 to preserve the Jewish law and religion. The Hellenists, or 
 Greece-loving Jews, opposed these Chassidim, and spoke ill of 
 them to their foes, until matters became so bad that Antiochus 
 Epiphanes, Syrian governor, decided to wipe out the Jewish re- 
 ligion. He crushed and persecuted the Jewish people ; he set up 
 a statue of Zeus on the altar of the temple ; he murdered all 
 who kept the Sabbath or circumcised their children, or refused 
 to eat pork. We all know the story of the death of brave Han- 
 nah and her seven sons. Another great Jew, Eleazer, died 
 rather than to pretend to eat pork in the presence of his people. 
 
 Then one day, in the little town of Modin, the brave old 
 Jewish priest, Mattathias, arose and slew another Jew who, 
 at the command of the Greek soldiers, was worshipping a Greek 
 god. Mattathias, joined by his loyal Jewish friends, fought the 
 
 11
 
 Greek soldiers. And so began the famous wars of the Macca- 
 bees, of a handful of true-hearted Jews, who first fought from 
 their hiding places in caves, and then, as they were joined by 
 others, fought victoriously in the open, and at last reconquered 
 the Jewish land, re-inspired the Jewish people, and under the 
 hero, Judah Maccabee, son of Mattathias, cleansed and re-dedi- 
 cated the temple and relit the temple lamp. And then they cele- 
 brated Chanukah, the festival of the few who overcame the 
 many, of the little light that grows and grows. 
 
 Now the Jews ruled their country once more, and they were 
 happy and prospered. Colonies of them also lived in Egypt and 
 other parts of the world. Palestine, still a passage-way be- 
 tween many nations, was beset by temptation, and yet, small 
 as it was, and weakened by the fact that it began to have an 
 aristocratic, or noble, party of soldiers, still resisted the growing 
 power of Rome longer than any other country. At last the 
 power of Rome, like an iron hand, was laid upon Palestine, and 
 gradually the Jews lost their freedom. The world about them, 
 even more than in older times, was immoral in religion and life. 
 People became selfish and greedy, and loved luxury and ease 
 more than justice, and began to doubt even their pagan gods. 
 Among the Jews, too, were many untrue to Judaism and traitors 
 to their people, and the land was torn with quarrels. 
 
 Then arose three parties among the Jews, each of which 
 tried to solve the Jewish problems in a different way. 
 
 The Sadducees were the soldiers and the nobility. They 
 were very hard. They said : " We must fight Rome even if we 
 are all destroyed. We cannot be true Jews while we are not 
 free. We must keep exactly the laws of the Bible, and not try 
 to change them for our present needs." 
 
 The Pharisees were kindlier and more learned. They were 
 the more democratic party, the strong middle-class. Hillel be- 
 longed to them. They said: "It is true, we cannot build up 
 Judaism while we are not free; but if we let Rome destroy us 
 all, what will then become of Judaism? We will teach and 
 study, we will never forget that at last we must be free to be 
 successful Jews, but we will not destroy ourselves by fighting 
 now, when there is no hope. As for the Biblical laws, we will 
 study them, and find in them ways of keeping them modern. 
 We will honor the spoken tradition of our fathers; we will, if 
 need be, make the laws even stricter than they are now; we will 
 build a fence around the law, so as to keep ourselves separate 
 from other peoples by every act of our life. Thus will we pre- 
 serve our nation." 
 
 The Essenes, the third party, said : "We cannot be good in 
 this wicked world. We will go away from cities of men to 
 where we can keep the laws of God." They thought of them- 
 selves as persons, not as part of a nation. They lived a simple, 
 good life, in virtuous communities in the mountains near the 
 
 12
 
 Jordan; and as they feared in marriage to break some of the 
 strict Biblical laws, they did not even marry. But their good- 
 ness did no good, for it was a selfish goodness, for themselves 
 and not for their people. It was un-Jewish in spirit, unfruitful, 
 and it soon died out. 
 
 But it may have had a great effect on the world through 
 Christianity. 
 
 About this time, about 30 C. E., Jesus of Nazareth began to 
 preach to some of the Jews. He may have been an Essene; he 
 certainly shared some of their ideas. He taught Judaism to "the 
 lost sheep of Israel," to some of the ignorant northern Jews 
 whom the Pharisees had not had a chance to teach. He was 
 very kind and good to these people. On the whole, he taught 
 what Hillel and the other Pharisees had taught, and he used 
 many of their sayings. But there were some differences. For 
 instance, he taught that the nation did not matter; that a slave 
 should be a good slave and not try to free himself; that if a 
 person were good he would be happy, and he need not trouble 
 about nations or governments ; that the Kingdom of Heaven was 
 the only kingdom worth striving for, and that the only way to 
 reach it was by being good. In other words, like the Essenes, 
 he withdrew from big social questions because they seemed too 
 terrible at that time. He preached personal goodness for the 
 sake of personal reward. 
 
 His followers, most of them ignorant people, who, in their 
 despair, were waiting for the Messiah to save them, called him 
 Messiah and King of the Jews. The Jews of the Synhedrion at 
 Jerusalem arrested him and accused him of blasphemy for call- 
 ing himself the Son of God. He was turned over to the Roman 
 court, and by them he was of course considered a Jewish rebel. 
 Whereupon the Romans crucified Jesus. 
 
 Some years later one of the Christian converts, Paul, de- 
 cided that Christianity must be taught to the gentiles, the 
 heathen, so that all the world might be saved. Jesus had been 
 a Jew, teaching Judaism ; and what Paul taught the world was 
 a form of Judaism. But he knew that although the pagans 
 might accept belief in God, and in Jesus, the Christ or Messiah 
 of God, they would never be willing to live the hard Jewish life, 
 to be circumcised and keep the dietary laws. An old Jewish 
 legend says that when the Messiah comes the law will end, 
 which means that when we are all good we can stop thinking 
 of laws. "Therefore," Paul argued, "as Jesus the Christ was 
 the Messiah, the law is at an end. You need only believe in 
 Jesus Christ as the Son of God, who came into the world and 
 died to save you. Faith, not works, will attain the Kingdom of 
 Heaven." 
 
 But law is necessary where people live together. One must 
 act as well as believe. It is easy to have faith. The gentiles, 
 disgusted with their old gods, rapidly became Christians. Their 
 
 13
 
 Christianity was a mixture of Judaism and Paganism, of belief 
 in God and belief in the Virgin Mary and in Christ as God's 
 son, ideas borrowed from their old belief in idols. It is still 
 that. Sometimes it is nearly Jewish. At other times it is 
 nearly pagan. 
 
 If Jesus had been truly the Messiah and had brought peace 
 to all nations, the Jews would have kept their independence and 
 their life without a struggle. But they knew that time had not 
 come. They must resist destruction. 
 
 Bitterness and oppression increased, until, at last, driven to 
 desperation by cruel governors, the Sadducees and the Zealots 
 who were wild patriots rebelled and fought madly and with 
 high courage. But Rome was too strong. In the year 70 C. E., 
 again on the fearful Ninth of Ab, Jerusalem and the temple were 
 destroyed by flames. Our country was lost to us; our holy 
 city desolate. 
 
 V. THE LONG SIEGE. 
 
 But from the ruins crept one with the seed of our nation 
 in his heart. One of the great teachers, Jochanan ben Zakkai, 
 secretly left Jerusalem during the siege he was carried out in 
 a coffin by his pupils, as if he were dead went to the Roman 
 general and begged to be allowed to found a Jewish school in 
 Jamnia. He received permission. And so, the first general in 
 the fearful mental struggle to maintain the Jewish people a 
 struggle in which we are each one to-day a soldier or a deserter 
 he gathered disciples about him and began to train that army 
 that at last must march, victorious without bloodshed, back into 
 the holy land of its forefathers. He was a Pharisee, a national- 
 ist. For a long time, here and there, the Jews still rebelled and 
 fought, for they loved their country desperately. But they were 
 beaten. The struggle of the swords was ended, and the struggle 
 of the mind begun. 
 
 Besides the Bible, their greatest fortress and weapon in this 
 mental fight, the Rabbis also had the Mishnah or oral law. The 
 Mishnah, or spoken law, explained the laws in the Torah to make 
 them fit special cases. For the Jews, a democratic people, have 
 the right to make by-laws to their constitution, and to interpret 
 it. This Mishnah had never been written. But when the Rabbis 
 in Palestine were persecuted and were killed for teaching Juda- 
 ism, then Rabbi Judah I, fearing lest all the teachers die, and 
 the Mishnah be wholly lost, wrote for the future all these spoken 
 laws. Still wherever they could the Jews studied and studied. 
 Their standing army was not soldiers but teachers. Their head- 
 quarters came to be in Babylonia, where many Jews were living 
 in comfort and freedom. Here they governed themselves and 
 had a "prince of the exile." Here they founded two schools, 
 or academies, at Sora and at Pumbaditha, where they studied, 
 
 14
 
 and wrote those commentaries on the Mishnah which together 
 with the Mishnah came to be called the Babylonian Talmud. 
 This was their second great weapon and fortress in the terrible 
 time to come. 
 
 Later the Babylonian Jews also were persecuted, until they 
 could not keep their footing in that country. In the llth cen- 
 tury their schools come to an end. Now their camp, their head- 
 quarters, had to be shifted to some other land, until there too 
 they should be besieged and destroyed. For at this time Jews 
 were living all over the world. Always their hope and their 
 longing was toward Jerusalem. Everywhere they were 
 strangers or else ceased to be Jews. The mental battle con- 
 tinued. And the weak ones deserted and the strong ones some- 
 times died for their faith, but they left their children or their 
 pupils to continue the fight. 
 
 These have been some of the chief temporary camps of 
 Jewish learning and prosperity from that day to this : Alexandria 
 (in Africa), Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, Germany and 
 America. Why were the camps changed? Because in each, 
 after a certain time of freedom, the Jews became too prosperous 
 or too plentiful to suit the "nations", and so as foreigners they 
 were envied, persecuted, shamed, and often murdered or driven 
 out. Even when they did not call themselves foreigners, the 
 world called them so. For every one knew their home was 
 Palestine. Their religion taught them that as a holy nation in 
 that holy land they were to be a light unto the nations. And 
 Palestine itself, now in the hands of one country, now of another, 
 now under Christian rule, now under the rule of those Moham- 
 medans whose religion, born in the 7th century, was also an 
 offshoot of Judaism, Palestine itself never prospered from the 
 day its children left it until this day, when again it begins to 
 flourish under the hand of a few hopeful, brave Jews, working 
 as well as praying, who are there clearing the way a green way 
 of farms and schools and colonies for our Messianic time. 
 
 But what happened to the Jews during their two thousand 
 years of wandering? 
 
 Many were their dreams and delusions, the deliriums of a 
 painful fever. They hoped so fervently for a Messia/h that 
 often they were deceived by pretended Messiahs. They copied 
 the ideas of their neighbors. During the dark ages of history 
 arose the "Kabbala", a strange, semi-Christian, mystic form of 
 Judaism. But they returned to sane Judaism; some of them al- 
 ways preserved for us the truth. 
 
 In Spain in early times the Jews were so great that they 
 ruled at the side of princes; they were poets, court-physicians, 
 and councilors. They were rich and wise and learned and re- 
 spected, and they thought themselves Spaniards. Suddenly the 
 prince changed, the Christian clergy or the Popes prevailed, the 
 Jews were persecuted, robbed, shamed, murdered. Worse than 
 
 15
 
 all, they were forced to become Christians, and then if in natural 
 weakness they preferred this to death, they were hounded and 
 spied upon lest they turn again to Judaism. The least sign, a 
 Sabbath kept, a child circumcised, and they were burnt at the 
 stake as heretics. The country they had helped to build tor- 
 tured them as a reward for it was not their own country. 
 
 In the llth and 12th centuries a "religious" fever swept 
 over Christian Europe. Then were fought the crusades, the 
 "holy" wars to win back Palestine from the Mohammedans for 
 Christendom. For it was also their holy land, since it cradled 
 Jesus. As they desired to conquer and destroy all heretics 
 and as all their sins were to be forgiven them if they did this 
 virtuous deed of blood they naturally began with the Jews in 
 Europe. In every country, from England to Spain, from Spain 
 to Palestine, thousands upon thousands of Jews, men, women 
 and children, were horribly murdered by the passing crusaders. 
 Or else these wretched Jews were baptized at the point of the 
 sword. Princes who valued the Jews for their money or their 
 skill as physicians or advisors, tried to protect them, but in vain. 
 The blood-thirsty mob burned and robbed and murdered to 
 their hearts' content. 
 
 As the Jews were foreigners everywhere, they were not 
 allowed to be ordinary citizens in any country. Usually they 
 were looked upon as the property of the king or prince, as his 
 slaves or his special wards. As they might not own lands or 
 carry on trades, they became either students or merchants; and 
 in many cases they were forced into the money-lending business. 
 The king or prince would protect the Jews while they were get- 
 ting rich, and then find some excuse for robbing them of the 
 riches thus collected. The common people hated the Jews for 
 their knowledge and their riches, or because they were money- 
 lenders. From every side the Jews had the worst of it. And 
 they could not turn to their own country for protection, for 
 they had no country. How they yearned and prayed for Pales- 
 tine and hoped for a second Moses, the Messiah, to lead them 
 from this second slavery ! But they had not the courage nor the 
 means to start for themselves. 
 
 In England the Jews were forbidden to own land, to practice 
 trades or professions, or to do anything at all except to lend 
 money for interest. So naturally the weaker among them be- 
 came criminals. They had almost no choice between that and 
 death. Therefore in 1290 it "became necessary" to banish them. 
 Where did they go? Do not ask that dreadful question. Many 
 went to their death, drowned or starved. Others found a tem- 
 porary living among communities of Jews whose condition at 
 that time happened to be better. Hundreds of years later, in 
 the 17th century, they were quietly, almost secretly, allowed to 
 re-enter England. 
 
 16
 
 In 1492 that eventful year all the Jews were banished 
 from Spain, hundreds of thousands of them ! How the ships 
 could not hold them, how they were turned back from port 
 after port, how they were drowned, starved, murdered, how 
 they carried misery and disease all over the world it is too 
 horrible to tell ! Think of all the babies ! What do you suppose 
 became of most of them? 
 
 Many little children were stolen from their parents, and 
 educated in convents as Christians. 
 
 Those Jews who had turned Christian were allowed to stay 
 in Spain, but were not allowed to live in peace. The Inquisition, 
 a criminal court to punish heretics, or people untrue to the Chris- 
 tian religion, spied out these Jews, and on the least suspicion 
 that they still were Jews, tortured, imprisoned, or burnt them 
 alive. Their property went to the king, and their children to 
 the convent. 
 
 The "Shma* " is what every good Jew wishes to say when 
 he is dying. But when a Jew pale and strong, repeated the 
 "Shma' " as he stood among the flames, this aroused the sympa- 
 thy of the crowd that watched him. Therefore after a time the 
 Jews were burnt with their mouths tied. 
 
 VI. MODERN TIMES. 
 
 In the 16th century a wonderful change came over Europe. 
 During all the years of Christianity, of Catholicism, the Bible 
 had not been much used by common people. Indeed, it existed 
 only in Greek and Latin and other translations, except among 
 the Jews. They had preserved the Hebrew Bible for the world. 
 
 At this time, as often before, the Talmud and all other 
 Hebrew books were brought into question as being anti-Chris- 
 tian. Not only Jews but Jewish books, their chief weapons, 
 had also been burned many times. For you remember the 
 Jewish army was its scholars, the Jewish ammunition was its 
 books. A miserable traitorous converted Jew named Pfeffer- 
 korn, in the pay of certain Catholic priests, now accused the Tal- 
 mud of being anti-Christian. Whereupon a German Christian 
 professor, John Reuchlin, who had studied the Talmud and the 
 Hebrew Bible, and discovered that they were great and wonder- 
 ful books, proved that the Talmud was not anti-Christian. This 
 interested many Christian scholars who began to study Hebrew 
 and the Bible. 
 
 Soon afterwards, through the influence of many other stir- 
 ring events, a large body of Christians broke away from the 
 Catholic Church under the leadership of Martin Luther. This 
 was called the Protestant Reformation, and from it sprang all 
 those other Christian sects that are not Catholic. They are 
 nearer Jewish teaching than the Catholic religion, for they fol- 
 low the Bible, not only the New Testament or teaching of Jesus 
 and Paul, but also the Bible of the Jews. 
 
 17
 
 From this time forward the nations of Europe, which for 
 many reasons had been ignorant and had not advanced in knowl- 
 edge for hundreds of years, began to awaken and to progress 
 rapidly. 
 
 Not so the Jews. They had shut themselves in their ancient 
 knowledge as in a fortress; and sometimes it became their 
 prison. They lived in their Ghettos separated from the world. 
 They had been terribly weakened and hurt by persecution; for 
 while persecution awakens strength and heroism in certain men 
 and women, it is very bad for a people to be persecuted for ages. 
 They become afraid and shrink like a beaten dog. They lick 
 the hand that beats them and try to please and even to imitate 
 their tormentors. That is what happened to some of the Jews. 
 
 In 1654 Joseph Karo, a great Jewish rabbi, wrote a book 
 called "Shulchan Aruch" or "The Table Set in Order" which 
 contained all the old laws of Jewish life and service. The Jew- 
 ish people accepted it as their standard. This was the last time 
 that all the Jews of the world followed one leader, as a demo- 
 cratic people. Since then they have been too scattered and 
 separated democratically to revise their laws. Observant Jews 
 to this day follow the laws of the "Shulchan Aruch." 
 
 The Jews continually longed and prayed for their return 
 to Zion, but they had been so weakened and disheartened by 
 their suffering that they did not have the courage to try to act 
 for themselves. It took all their strength just to remain Jews. 
 Besides, they made the terrible mistake of being prejudiced 
 against their own people ; the Jews of one country sometimes 
 even hated the Jews of another country. 
 
 Though the world grew wiser, it still oppressed the Jews. 
 They had for ages been falsely accused of a hundred crimes. 
 When there was a plague they were said to have poisoned the 
 wells, and as through their greater cleanliness they escaped 
 death through disease, they found it in riot and massacre. 
 Worst of all, they were accused of murdering Christian boys 
 to use their blood in the Passover service. They were tortured 
 and killed for a crime no Jew would ever commit. Even to-day 
 one still hears this horrible accusation. 
 
 But in the last hundred years, since the French Revolution, 
 a great change has come over .the Jewish question as it camie 
 over everything else. Gradually in Western Europe, as demo- 
 cratic ideas came into the world, partly through certain Jews 
 themselves, the Jews were given more and more political rights, 
 and bloody persecution stopped. There is still prejudice men- 
 tal persecution but Jews are no longer actually robbed and 
 murdered for being Jews. 
 
 In Eastern Europe, in Russia and in some of the Balkan 
 states, where most of the Jews of the world live to-day and 
 where democracy has not yet awakened, the Jews are perse- 
 cuted as they always were persecuted. Never before have so 
 
 18
 
 many Jews suffered, or suffered more terrible tortures than 
 during this great European war. 
 
 And what of the Western Jews themselves ? One can be en- 
 nobled by bodily persecution, by bravely facing torture and even 
 death. But there is nothing ennobling in being kept out of a uni- 
 versity, a high government position, or a summer hotel. Many 
 Jews are constantly turning Christian, or at least losing every- 
 thing that makes them Jews, in order that they may be allowed to 
 do these things. About a hundred years ago some German Jews 
 said "Now that we are allowed to be Germans we must not be 
 too patriotic as Jews, lest the Germans doubt our loyalty to 
 them. We will no longer pray for the restoration of Zion." 
 They gave up many Jewish forms and customs, because they 
 no longer considered themselves part of the whole Jewish people. 
 Many of them married Christians. These Jews say, "Judaism 
 is only a religion." But they have forgotten that important 
 part of the Jewish religion which says that the Jews are to be a 
 nation in the service of God. 
 
 The Jew out of his Ghetto, rich, learned, un-Jewish, un- 
 Zionistic, is still defamed in Western Europe. A Dreyfus in 
 France was falsely and horribly accused of treason, simply be- 
 cause he was a Jew. German universities restrict the number 
 of their Jewish students; and ever goes up the cry, "After all, 
 they are aliens !" 
 
 The story of America is quite special. You remember that 
 America was discovered in that year in which the Jews were 
 banished from Spain. And very soon America began to be a 
 refuge to them as to all others when they fled from persecution. 
 You know how to-day thousands upon thousands of Russian 
 Jews are struggling to reach our shores. I need not tell you 
 how much or how little prejudice, how much or how little free- 
 dom there is in America. You can judge that for yourselves. 
 But I can tell you the reason why Jews are better off in America 
 than in any other country in the world. It is because America 
 is now a nation of foreigners. Therefore the Jews among other 
 foreigners are not in a strange position. In America we have 
 begun to see that one can be loyal to more than one country. 
 We can work both for America and for Zion. Indeed the truer 
 Jews we are the truer Americans we can be, for America needs 
 what religion and social ideas the Jew can give her through his 
 love for Zion. And Palestine needs the strength, courage, 
 scientific knowledge of the American Jew. We gave the Bible 
 to the world. Now, by the example and activity of our restored 
 Zion, we must show the nations that democracy and religion 
 are one. We must teach the world the brotherhood of nations. 
 
 Already America is complaining that too many Eastern 
 Jews are coming to her shores; for America does not wish to 
 be the Jewish nation, and she knows the Jews are a people. Let 
 
 19
 
 us turn the stream southward. Let our Eastern Jews return to 
 Palestine, where the land they long for is also longing for them. 
 
 VII. ZIONISM. 
 
 And now I come to the last words of our history, those 
 words that lead us on into the future. I come to Palestine. 
 Throughout the ages some Jews have always dwelt in Palestine, 
 all Jews have longed for Zion and hoped and prayed for her 
 redemption even in the bitter days when not a Jew dared enter 
 Jerusalem. A few pious Jews have ever found it possible to re- 
 turn to Palestine to live and die there, strangers in their own 
 land. But in spite of the fearful hope and disappointment in- 
 flamed by many false Messiahs, no successful efforts were ever 
 made to rebuild Palestine as a Jewish home until within the last 
 twenty years of the 19th century. 
 
 While political freedom made some Jews forget their own 
 people, and like Essau sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, 
 in other stronger and more heroic natures it awakened only 
 greater love for their suffering brothers, and new hope for their 
 devastated land. About 1880 some Russian students, amid 
 dreadful hardships, started the first Palestinian colony. Others 
 followed. Then in 1897 Theodore Herzl, who himself lived in 
 free Western Europe, began the Zionist Movement in order to 
 obtain for the Jewish people, with proper guarantees, a publicly, 
 legally assured home in Palestine. We want to govern our- 
 selves in our own land. We do not care who is emperor, for 
 the Jews have only one King. And as the Turks have almost 
 always befriended the Jews, we are quite willing to belong to 
 their empire. Herzl died when his great task was only begun. 
 But the work did not end with him. It grows and grows. The 
 colonies blossom and bear fruit. The trade of Palestine has 
 trebled in less than twenty years; the speech of our Bible, 
 Hebrew, is again spoken in school and street and farm ; the holy 
 land again can keep its Sabbaths, not the long Sabbath of deso- 
 lation, but the short Sabbaths of praise and joy. For the land 
 knows its people and rejoices once more. 
 
 The land that once was fertile can surely bloom again. It 
 still stands between the nations, a gateway of peace between 
 Europe and Asia, a highway for the world. Let us make it our 
 own land once more. Then even if we are strangers elsewhere, 
 we will be strangers with a country to which we can turn if we 
 are wronged and from which we can repay what we receive. 
 Then we will no longer be beggars but guests. Then we will 
 know what it means to be a Jew. Then will our new prophets 
 arise, and all the world rejoice in them. For since we have left 
 Zion we have not been great ; the strongest of us have only held 
 our own, and the weakest have been altogether lost. Our land, 
 too, has only waited, waited for us. 
 
 20
 
 THE JEWISH PROBLEM 
 
 BY D. DE SOLA POOL. 
 
 THE PROBLEM FOR OUR NEIGHBORS. 
 
 What does the world mean when it talks about the Jewish 
 problem ? 
 
 The people of Russia talk of a Jewish problem in Russia. 
 The Poles talk of a Jewish problem in Poland. Englishmen talk 
 of a Jewish problem in England, and the people of the United 
 States are beginning to talk of a Jewish problem in the United 
 States. 
 
 Why should we Jews everywhere be a problem to the rest 
 of the world? The Russian is not a problem in Russia, the Pole 
 is not a problem in Poland, nor the Englishman in England, nor 
 the American in the United States. No people is a problem in 
 its own land. It is only the people of foreign race in a land 
 who are a problem to that land. For example, the Japanese and 
 the Chinese who are settled in the Western States of the United 
 States constituted no problem while in their own lands. But 
 since they have come in large numbers to California and other 
 Western States, they have become a serious problem to the 
 United States. 
 
 Similarly, the world everywhere regards us Jews as a prob- 
 lem because everywhere we are different from other peoples 
 and strange in our appearance, our race, our habits, our tradi- 
 tions and our religion. In every generation of our Golus or 
 dispersion among the nations of the world, we have been a 
 problem to these nations. 
 
 In the far away days of ancient Persia, Haman described 
 the Jewish problem to the king as consisting in the fact that the 
 Jews are "a people in all the provinces of Persia, but their laws 
 are different from those of every other race * * * and it is 
 not proper for the king to tolerate them." 
 
 Throughout the Middle Ages, our ancestors suffered terrible 
 persecutions, because everywhere they were strangers without 
 rights. In modern times, although we have obtained political 
 rights in most lands, we are still different from our neighbors. 
 Persecution, which was the medieval world's solution of the 
 Jewish problem, still finds favor in the eyes of Russia as the 
 best means of solving the Jewish problem in that land where 
 half the Jews of the world live. In other lands, the different 
 
 21
 
 peoples try to solve the Jewish problem by political anti- 
 semitism, by restrictive immigration laws or by varying ex- 
 pressions of prejudice. Everywhere we are regarded by non- 
 Jews as a problem. 
 
 The situation is rendered the more painful for us because of 
 the fact that we have no home-land of our own in which we can 
 settle without being a problem to someone else. In whatever 
 remote corner of the world we choose to settle in appreciable 
 numbers, we are always strange to the people of the land so 
 long as we remain Jews, and we are therefore everywhere gen- 
 erating local outbreaks of the Jewish problem. In this way, as 
 we have been scattered North, South, East and West, we have 
 carried the Jewish problem with us all over the world. Whither 
 can we go to escape persecution? Whither can we flee to be 
 free of anti-semitism? Wherever we go, prejudice and anti- 
 semitism follow us. We are a people without a home, a race of 
 wandering Jews looking everywhere in vain for rest. If the 
 Japanese is not welcomed in California, he may go back to Japan. 
 If the Hindoo is not permitted to enter Canada, he may return 
 to India, where he is at home. Other peoples of the world can 
 escape becoming a problem to their neighbors by the simple ex- 
 pedient of staying at home in their own lands. We only are 
 compelled to be a problem to our neighbors everywhere, because 
 we have no home land to which we may retire or in which we 
 may remain. 
 
 Dr. Theodor Herzl and other Jewish thinkers who founded 
 the modern Zionist movement, therefore said to the nations of 
 the world: "The real solution of your Jewish problem lies in 
 giving back to us Jews our own home-land. Not all the Jews 
 would return to this land, and you would not rid yourselves of 
 all your Jews. But you would relieve yourselves of your acute 
 Jewish problem by making it possible for many Jews to emigrate 
 to their own home-land in order to escape ill-will. If, like Rus- 
 sia, you persecute the Jews living in your land, then the Jews 
 who wished to escape persecution at your hands could take 
 refuge in their own land and be safe in their own home, instead 
 of going to some other land and becoming a problem there. At 
 the present time, since we Jews have no home, persecuting Rus- 
 sia drives us out and we go perforce to Germany, to Switzerland, 
 to France, to England, to America and to other countries, and 
 eventually grow numerous there like our ancestors in Egypt 
 and become a burden to those lands. We wish to avoid being 
 driven round the world in a vicious circle, like schnorrers who are 
 sent on from village to village and from town to town because 
 no one wishes them to stay and no one gives them a welcome. 
 If therefore, you nations of the world really wish to know how 
 to solve this Jewish problem, which seems to you to be so difficult 
 and which troubles you so sorely, we can tell you how this can 
 be done very simply : give to us or sell to us or allow us to gain 
 
 22
 
 control of our own home-land so that we need not crowd into 
 your lands. You will then be the happier and we shall be the 
 happier. We ask for a fair opportunity of living in our own land 
 without being obliged to take up our residence with you if you 
 do not desire us. We do not ask a favor, we ask justice. But 
 we can never be satisfied with a land of refuge in East Africa or 
 South America. There is only one land that we call ours, and 
 that is the land of our hope, the land of our ancestors, the land 
 made sacred by our past and by our Bible, by all our traditions, 
 by our prayers and our tears, the Promised Land, the land of 
 Palestine. If we can be given the opportunity to make that land 
 our own, we shall solve for you the Jewish problem of which 
 you complain." 
 
 THE PROBLEM FOR OURSELVES. 
 
 The aspect of the Jewish problem that we have just con- 
 sidered, the problem that our neighbors feel, is not of so much 
 importance as the other aspect of the Jewish problem our own 
 problem. The problem that our neighbors face is merely how to 
 live more comfortably with the Jews who dwell in their midst. 
 The problem that we face is how to preserve ourselves from 
 Jewish death. 
 
 For living as we do everywhere in non-Jewish surroundings, 
 we are confronted by the question of national life or national 
 death. Charles Darwin made it clear that flowers, animals, men 
 and any living organisms flourish best in the surroundings that 
 are best suited to them. Since competition in life is so strong, only 
 those flowers, animals or men which are best adapted to their 
 environment can hope to survive, while those living organisms 
 that are out of place and not in keeping with the conditions in 
 which they find themselves will eventually disappear. We Jews, 
 not having our own home and being everywhere more or less 
 out of place and unfitted for the non- Jewish conditions in which 
 we find ourselves, are therefore faced with the danger of dis- 
 appearing, unless we create for ourselves our own national center 
 where we can be at home and can live in an harmonious Jewish 
 environment. In our physical life, in our cultural life and in our 
 religious life in the non-Jewish surroundings of our dispersion, 
 we are everywhere at a disadvantage, and since we cannot hope 
 to win ultimately against such heavy disadvantages, we are 
 threatened with the defeat that ultimately means our extinction 
 as Jews. 
 
 Before examining what are the physical, the cultural and 
 the spiritual disadvantages under which we are laboring and 
 which create for us the Jewish problem which menaces our Jew- 
 ish existence, it is perhaps necessary to make clear that this 
 problem is a comparatively new one for us. Non-Zionists argue 
 that since we have managed to survive as Jews without a na- 
 tional home-land for nearly two thousand years, there is no 
 
 23
 
 reason why we should not continue to exist as Jews for another 
 two thousand or even twenty thousand years. But they forget 
 how cruelly unhappy our nineteen hundred years of homeless- 
 ness have been. We Jews have not lost our courage ; but the 
 prospect of having to live for an indefinite number of centuries 
 through agonies of bitter hatred, relentless persecution, un- 
 speakable torture, inhuman outrage and bloody martyrdom simi- 
 lar to the sufferings that we have passed through, is an outlook 
 before which the stoutest-hearted people might quail. 
 
 Moreover, the argument that we shall always survive as a 
 people because we have survived so far, is just as illogical as 
 would be the argument of a man that because he has lived until 
 now without dying, he will always continue to live. To read 
 the history of the nineteen hundred years of our dispersion is to 
 read the history of the disappearance of great communities of 
 Jews and the loss of hundreds of thousands and even millions 
 of our people either by massacre or by apostasy. Millions of 
 Jews have been either slowly or forcibly converted to Christian- 
 ity or Mohammedanism during our Golus. But in the past, not- 
 withstanding the great drain of Jewish blood, we have always 
 been preserved by a loyal remnant that carried on the history of 
 the Jewish people. However many Jews escaped through the 
 walls of the Ghetto and became Christians, a remnant of loyal 
 Jews was assured to us. But during the last century, most of 
 the Ghetto walls have been broken down, and now we Jews are 
 slowly or rapidly turning our backs on our Jewish people and 
 are becoming lost to the Jewish people and to Judaism. Only 
 in Russia and Roumania are conditions still largely as they 
 were in the middle ages, and in those lands Judaism and the 
 Jewish national feeling are still relatively strong. But in lands 
 where we enjoy political freedom we are in danger of disap- 
 pearing as Jews and our problem is the problem of how to 
 preserve ourselves. 
 
 OUR PHYSICAL PROBLEM. 
 
 In every phase of our physical life among non-Jewish peo- 
 ples we are under great disadvantages as Jews. The Jew is not 
 popular, as we have seen, because he is a stranger. To look 
 like a Jew is therefore to draw down prejudice on oneself. To 
 have a Jewish name is to invite ridicule and prejudice. To be 
 known as a Jew means to have to fight down opposition in busi- 
 ness, and to resign oneself to having no participation in a large 
 number of pleasures and occupations in which one would like 
 to indulge. Everywhere, even in so-called free lands, Jews are 
 discriminated against. Jewish boys and girls meet ill will at 
 school and are taunted and made to suffer because they are 
 Jews. They find themselves as a rule unwelcome in the school 
 or college societies. When they go out into business, they find 
 it harder to obtain positions than do their non-Jewish com- 
 
 24
 
 panions. If they set themselves up in business or in a profes- 
 sion, they soon find that many people do not care to deal with 
 them. Not only in their work, but also in their play, life is 
 harder for them because they are Jews. For when they wish 
 to join a club or go to a summer hotel, they are likely to find 
 themselves excluded because they are Jews. 
 
 The Jewish weaklings escape these difficulties and make 
 life easier for themselves by hiding or disguising the fact of 
 their being Jews. Thus they change their names from Moses 
 Cohen or Sarah Levy to Maurice Collins or Sadie Lewis, and 
 in every way try to cover up the fact of their Jewish affiliations. 
 But it is impossible to be constantly acting a part without 
 finally living the part, and these timorous and runaway Jews 
 very rapidly put themselves or their children outside of Jewish 
 life. In this way we are more or less quickly losing hundreds 
 of thousands of Jews from Jewish life. 
 
 It is particularly the Zionist who consistently and per- 
 sistently refuses to gloss over the fact of his being a Jew. 
 Instead of sharnefacedly keeping quiet about his being a Jew, 
 instead of furtively changing his Jewish name, and instead of 
 being content to pass unrecognized as a Jew, the Zionist, glow- 
 ing with Jewish pride, steadfastly insists at all times on his 
 self-respect as a Jew. He is proud of his people and believes 
 in this people's future. He is therefore not willing to cut him- 
 self off from his Jewish people even for a moment. Just as the 
 Englishman or the German, wherever he may be, does not 
 dream of shamefacedly denying that he is English or German, 
 but glories in his being a member of so great a people, so the 
 Zionist Jew, in whatever land he may be, scorns to deny or 
 cover up the fact of his being a Jew and openly glories in his 
 belonging to so great a people. 
 
 Our Jewish problem on its physical side is therefore seen 
 to arise from the fact that, having no home-land of our own 
 where we can be Jewish without prejudice, we are not adapted 
 to our non-Jewish environments. In accordance with Darwin's 
 law of the survival of those best fitted for the environment, non- 
 Zionists are trying to make themselves un-Jewish so that they 
 may the better fit their un-Jewish surroundings. How tragic 
 and how disastrous is such a policy for our people ! How little 
 hope it gives for our survival as Jews ! And how fine and brave 
 is the Zionist protest against this policy of weakness and deser- 
 tion! 
 
 OUR CULTURAL PROBLEM. 
 
 But our problem goes yet deeper than these important 
 externals of our physical life. Our inward Jewish life is also 
 threatened with extinction. In past centuries Jewish boys and 
 girls were usually given a good Jewish training. They knew 
 
 25
 
 ana loved the great names of Jewish history. They were taught 
 to understand Hebrew and they read, thought and felt as Jews. 
 An alien who wishes to become an American citizen is expected 
 to know something about the Constitution of the United States, 
 the Declaration of Independence, Washington, Lincoln and the 
 greatest figures of American history ana what America has 
 stood for. The Jew of olden days knew something about our 
 Jewish constitution the Bible and the Talmud; he knew about 
 our declarations of independence Passover, Chanuka and our 
 history of martyrdom; he knew our Washingtons and Lincolns 
 Moses, David, Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezra, Judas Macca- 
 baeus, Hillel, Akiba, Jehuda Halevi, Maimonides and many 
 other heroes of our past. But the Jews of today are like aliens 
 in Jewry. They do not know their own Hebrew, their own 
 Bible, their own Talmud, their own history or their own re- 
 ligion, and every year they are neglecting these more and more. 
 Every year they are learning and thinking less and less as Jews 
 and more and more as non-Jews. 
 
 Our great men in the past, such as those just mentioned, 
 were great as Jews. Our great men of today are, as a rule, 
 Jewishly insignificant. The great painters, sculptors, musicians, 
 scientists, physicians, jurists, authors, actors and business mag- 
 nates whom we Jews are giving to the world in ever-increasing 
 numbers are usually men who have ceased to be interested in 
 Jewish life and achievement, and who do not paint, think, write 
 or work as Jews. They paint the pictures, compose the songs, 
 write the books, build up the commerce and write the laws of 
 other peoples instead of for their own Jewish people. They 
 give their splendid ability to peoples who usually despise them 
 as Jews, and they deprive their own needy Jewish people of 
 the fruits of their great gifts. In grotesque inversion of the 
 Biblical law, we are giving away our rich harvest to the stran- 
 gers and leaving only the corner of the field for ourselves. Our 
 famous Jews succeed in the world at the sacrifice of their Jew- 
 ishness. The most famous of these "Jews," such as Disraeli, 
 Felix Mendelssohn, Heine, Karl Marx, Sarah Bernhardt, have 
 not been Jews at all by religion, but have been baptized into 
 Christianity. 
 
 It is the Zionists who insist at all times that it is the poor, 
 suffering Jewish people that most urgently needs the loyal, lov- 
 ing services of its own sons and daughters. It is the Zionists 
 who insist that Jews and Jewesses owe their first duty to the 
 solving of the problems of their own Jewish people. It is the 
 Zionists who insist that we Jews still have our own language 
 Hebrew, our own Jewish literature, culture, ideas and ideals, 
 and that it is treachery to our past, to our present and to our 
 future lightly to throw these overboard. It is the Zionists who 
 insist that it is not necessary to de-Judaize oneself in order to 
 be a good citizen of a non-Jewish land, and that, on the con- 
 
 26
 
 trary, the more loyal and true the Jew remains to his Jewish 
 traditions, the better citizen he is to the country in which he 
 lives. 
 
 But with our famous and our cleverest men leaving us on 
 all sides, with most of the rest of us forgetting our own Jewish 
 learning and culture, what hope have we of effectively working 
 for our own people and our own ideals and of preserving our 
 Hebrew language, our own literature, our Jewish culture and 
 our Jewish thought? Every true people lovingly guards and 
 stands for its own language, literature, culture, ideas and ideals, 
 regarding them as its most treasured and proudest possessions. 
 We Jews are basely giving up our own language, literature, 
 culture, ideas and ideals and are thereby giving up both our rea- 
 son for existence and our hope of survival. This is our cul- 
 tural Jewish problem, a problem that only the Zionist seems 
 to see clearly and that only the Zionist is attempting to solve 
 with any hope of success. 
 
 OUR SPIRITUAL PROBLEM. 
 
 But yet deeper and even more serious is the last phase of 
 our Jewish problem the problem of our religious survival. If 
 we Jews can lay any claim to greatness in the past, it is be- 
 cause of the religious ideas that we gave to the world. We 
 were the instrument chosen for presenting the world with the 
 ten commandments and the Bible with its wonderful Torah or 
 law of Moses, its magnificent prophetic teachings of right and 
 wrong and its unsurpassed Psalms and other sacred writings. 
 The purpose of our original choice as a people and of our sub- 
 sequent existence was to set before the world the purest ideals 
 of religion and to stand in the world as witnesses to that re- 
 ligion. This purpose our ancestors carried out bravely and 
 nobly, however much persecution and martyrdom their being 
 Jews brought down upon them. They were the suffering 
 servant of God. But so long as they knew that they were God's 
 witnesses, they were content to suffer in God's name. 
 
 But what do we see today? The Jews politically emanci- 
 pated are scarcely conscious of any divine purpose in their sur- 
 vival and they are therefore no longer content to suffer hard- 
 ship or even inconvenience for the sake of their religion. Their 
 religion is hard to keep in a non- Jewish environment and there- 
 fore they are neglecting their religious teachings and duties 
 more and more. Darwin's law of adaptation to the environ- 
 ment is at work among them. To be an observant religious 
 Jew in the midst of a society that is Christian is to be out of 
 keeping with that society. In the face of the keen competition 
 in the business world, it is becoming harder and harder for a 
 Jew to observe the Sabbath. Where the law of the land demands 
 that no work be done on Sundays, the Jew finds it almost im- 
 possibly hard to keep his business closed both on Saturday and 
 
 27
 
 on Sunday, and the difficulty is heightened by the comparatively 
 large number of Jewish festivals and holy days on which an 
 observant Jew does not work. Where all the stores selling pro- 
 visions, the restaurants, the hotels, the dining cars on trains, 
 the dining rooms on board ship and all the public purveyors 
 and preparers of food take no account of the Jewish dietary 
 laws, it requires constant self-restraint and self-denial to keep 
 these Jewish laws of diet. 
 
 In every way it is hard to live a religious Jewish life in a 
 Christian environment, and in accordance with Darwin's law 
 of the survival of the fittest, Christianity must win the victory 
 over Judaism in a country where Christianity is the recognized 
 religion. Let it be clearly understood that when scientists 
 use the term "the survival of the fittest" they do not necessarily 
 mean the survival of the best or the most admirable. They 
 mean the survival of the "fittedest" or best fitted for the con- 
 ditions. Thus, in an environment of water, fish are more fitted 
 to survive than are men, though men are unquestionably more 
 valuable than fish. So when we say that by the law of the sur- 
 vival of the fittest, Christianity in Europe and America will win 
 the victory over Judaism, we do not thereby grant that Chris- 
 tianity is a purer or better religious system than is Judaism, 
 but only that it is better fitted to survive in a Christian country 
 than is Judaism. 
 
 Therefore, since in Christian lands Judaism is difficult and 
 Christianity is easy, the Jewish weaklings are solving their 
 religious difficulties in the same way as we have seen that they 
 are solving their physical and their cultural difficulties namely, 
 by turning their backs on their Jewishness and throwing in 
 their lot with the Christian majority or winning side. Some 
 rapidly pass out of Judaism into Christian influences by the 
 treachery of intermarriage or baptism. Others, once they break 
 their three main mooring ropes of observance of the dietary 
 laws, observance of the Jewish festivals and Sabbath observ- 
 ance, slowly drift away from the Synagogue through extreme 
 liberalism and ethical culture to be swallowed up in the end in 
 the grea,t maelstrom of the Church. Religiously, we are being 
 overwhelmed and the problem of the survival of Judaism is a 
 most urgent and tragic one. 
 
 The Zionist tries to solve this problem also. First, Zionism 
 gives to the Jew self-respect and stiffens his Jewish backbone 
 so that he scorns to sell his hallowed religious birthright for a 
 mess of pottage. He refuses to give up his religious loyalties 
 and jealously guards his Jewish soul. 
 
 In the second place, Zionism makes the Jew realize what 
 Judaism is, what it has meant in the past to the Jews and to 
 the world and what it shall mean in the future. The Zionist 
 insists that we still have a spiritual message to give to the world, 
 and therefore he despises a neglect or betrayal of Jewish spirit- 
 ual ideals. 
 
 28
 
 Lastly, the Zionist believes in the creation of a Jewish 
 home-land in Palestine, where Judaism will not be out of keep- 
 ing with the environment and difficult of observance, but where 
 Judaism will be the very atmosphere of life, where the daily 
 food that comes to market will be Jewish, where the public 
 festivals and holy days of the calendar will be Jewish and where 
 the day of rest will be the Jewish Sabbath. In such a Jewish 
 society, Judaism assuredly will not die out, but will win the 
 victory over other religions. 
 
 To sum up: The Zionist finds the solution of the four- 
 fold Jewish problem in the re-creation of a Jewish home-land 
 in Palestine. 
 
 (i) This would greatly relieve the non- Jewish world of 
 its Jewish problem. 
 
 (ii) This would give to the Jew who felt unequal to solv- 
 ing the physical Jewish problem in a non-Jewish land the oppor- 
 tunity of going to his own Jewish land, where he would not 
 have to fight prejudice and hostility throughout life because 
 he is a Jew, but where he would be a Jew at all times, naturally 
 and normally. 
 
 (iii) This would give to the Jew who was not content to 
 sell his mind and abilities to others, the opportunity of gaining 
 Jewish knowledge, of talking, writing, reading and thinking 
 Jewishly, and of devoting himself with all his energies and 
 talent to the cause of his Jewish people. 
 
 (iv) This would give to the Jew who despaired of being 
 able to live a truly Jewish life in non-Jewish surroundings, 
 the opportunity of living a full, frank and free Jewish life in a 
 Jewish land. 
 
 This re-creation of a Jewish national home center not only 
 would do these things, it has already commenced to do these 
 things, even though the center consists at present of only a 
 handful of colonies in Palestine. Yet that little Zionist center 
 in Palestine has put new life, new hope, new spirit and new 
 belief in ourselves into us, even though we are living far from 
 it. The solution of the Jewish problem that Zionism offers is 
 no dream or empty theory. It faces the facts and is proving 
 itself to be the long looked for solution of the Jewish problem. 
 Without Zionism the days of the Jewish people are numbered. 
 With Zionism we shall survive through all generations to bear 
 witness as an eternal people to the purpose and love of the 
 eternal God. 
 
 29
 
 THE FORERUNNERS OF ZIONISM. 
 
 by LOTTA LEVENSOHN 
 
 Zionism is very young, as time is reckoned in great move- 
 ments. Despite its youth, Zionism has roots deeply imbedded 
 in the historic beginnings of Jewish life and thought. What is 
 now known as the Zionist movement came into being in 1897, 
 when Theodore Herzl published his "Judenstaat" (Jewish State). 
 Essentially, however, Zionism is an outgrowth of the Messianic 
 ideal, which is an integral part of the national consciousness 
 of the Jewish people. 
 
 Through long centuries of persecution, the Jewish people 
 was sustained by its invincible faith in a God-sent deliverer to 
 lead the return to Palestine. The hope of the coming of the 
 Messiah, as much as any other factor, has saved the Jewish 
 people alive to this day. 
 
 THE PROPHETS. 
 
 The Messiah and the Messianic era loom large in the books 
 of the Prophets of Israel. The Prophets foretold an heroic de- 
 liverer, the model of the righteous king and judge, to spring 
 from the line of David, and appear at the end of days. The 
 Prophetic descriptions of the Messianic era are instinct with 
 faith in the potentialities of human nature when it reaches out 
 toward God. Then, oppression and warfare shall no more be 
 known, and all the peoples will come to worship in the mount 
 of the Lord. Jewish religious thought is unique in its insistence 
 that the Golden Age of humanity does not lie in the past, but 
 in the future. For the full divinity of mankind is still to be 
 unfolded. 
 
 The whole Jewish people, from generation to generation, is 
 consecrated to ideal aims that require the participation of every 
 Jew that is the burden of the teaching of the Prophets and 
 the sages of Israel. The Jewish people stands for ideals of 
 democracy, of just dealing between man and man, of righteous- 
 ness between nation and nation. The Jewish people is conceived 
 as the servant of the Lord, which must order its whole life so 
 that the will of God may become manifest to all men. Every 
 relation and every aspect of the life of this consecrated people 
 must be regulated by the standards of absolute righteousness 
 and justice. Jewish national life was planned to furnish a model 
 to all other peoples. 
 
 Zionism strives for the restoration of the Jewish people to 
 its ancestral land because Jewish ideals, in their very nature, 
 
 30
 
 presuppose a free, happy people at home in its own land. With- 
 out a free national life, Jewish ideals and idealism can be real- 
 ized only to a very small degree. Escape from persecution, 
 though it may stimulate Jews to become Zionists, is only one 
 motive for Zionist striving. 
 
 The attempts to regain Palestine after the downfall of the 
 Jewish political state in the year 70 of the Common Era, and 
 the pathetic acceptance of the false Messiahs, cannot be sketched 
 here even in outline. This fascinating and enheartening aspect 
 of Jewish history is worthy of careful study. 
 
 The present outline of the beginnings of modern Zionism will 
 be confined to the preachers and workers in the cause of Zion 
 before Herzl appeared, and before the word "Zionism" itself 
 was coined. Hess, Kalischer, Pinsker and Smolenskin differed 
 from each other in education, position and views of life so much 
 that one would not be apt to look for anything in common 
 among them. Yet, all brought their minds to bear on the situa- 
 tion of the Jewish people and the dangers to Judaism; and all 
 arrived, by different routes, at an identical conclusion. These 
 men based themselves on a common premise : that the Jews are 
 one people, though they are scattered among all the nations and 
 over all the countries of the world. The solution proposed by 
 Hess, Kalischer, Smolenskin and Pinsker alike, was that a self- 
 respecting people must resume its historic role in the land of 
 its birth the Jewish people must unite in the cause of its own 
 restoration to its proper place among the nations of the world. 
 
 MOSES HESS. 
 
 Moses Hess, the "communist German rabbi," and a leading 
 Socialist thinker, discussed the national Jewish problem in his 
 "Rom und Jerusalem." The Jews, thought Hess, would always 
 be despised and oppressed if they were content with living in 
 countries that barely tolerated them. He had a vision of man- 
 kind living as a great brotherhood of nations in times to come. 
 The place of the Jews was that of a nation among the rest, 
 equal with the rest. Hess was an eager protagonist for the 
 legal and political rights of the Jews, but he placed the restora- 
 tion of the Jewish nationality over and above all. If the Jews 
 were to have a choice forced upon them, Hess would have had 
 them forego emancipation and devote themselves to their na- 
 tional redemption. 
 
 HIRSCH KALISCHER. 
 
 Contemporary with Moses Hess, but of a widely different 
 type, was Hirsch Kalischer of Thorn, Prussia, an Orthodox rabbi. 
 Kalischer approached the Jewish problem from the purely re- 
 ligious point of view. Yishub Erez Israel (settlement in Pales- 
 tine) is a religious obligation. Kalischer's viewpoint differed 
 
 
 
 31
 
 from that of other Orthodox leaders in that he did not approve 
 of waiting for the Messiah to lead the Jewish people to Pales- 
 tine. He believed devoutly in the coming of the Messiah, just 
 as they did ; but he taught that the Messianic time would follow, 
 and not precede, the colonization of Palestine and the develop- 
 ment of national life there. The pamphlet "Drishath Zion" 
 summarized the ideas of Kalischer, and he was personally an 
 active propagandist for some of the earliest colonization work. 
 
 PEREZ SMOLENSKIN. 
 
 Perez Smolenskin was a Russian Jew, a Maskil, an ad- 
 herent of the important movement for spreading European cul- 
 ture through the medium of the Hebrew language. This move- 
 ment was known in Russia as the "Haskalah," meaning "Enlight- 
 enment." In the eighteenth century, Moses Mendelssohn had 
 called to the Jews of Germany to come out of their medieval 
 obliviousness to the intellectual life all around them. Later on, 
 the enthusiasm for "enlightenment" swept over Russian Jewry, 
 and fired young Jews who hungered and thirsted to taste of 
 European culture. Perez Smolenskin found that in their zeal 
 many young men were losing their contact with Jewish life. 
 They threw the Hebrew language overboard once it had served 
 to introduce them to the new culture, and all but repudiated 
 Jewish belief and traditional practices. This was the situation 
 in the 60's of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Smolenskin's great service was that he diverted the course 
 of the Haskalah safely into the channel of Jewish nationalism. 
 In Smolenskin there was incarnate something of the old exalta- 
 tion of the Prophets, of their spiritual-national conception, of 
 their belief in the eternity of the Jewish people for the sake of 
 its eternal ideals. He laid bare the heart of Jewish idealism. 
 He demanded that Hebrew be restored to its high office as the 
 voice of the "Am Olam" (The Eternal People), as he called his 
 chief work. Love of Zion was the central idea in Smolenskin's 
 nationalism. He published a little magazine in Vienna at almost 
 inconceivable sacrifices, calling it "Ha-Schachar," (The Dawn), 
 and spread his propaganda through it. He and his group of dis- 
 ciples ardently devoted themselves to their labor of love. Smo- 
 lenskin was a literary artist, and did much to develop the Hebrew 
 language for modern usage. 
 
 LEO PINSKER. 
 
 Leo Pinsker, the immediate forerunner of Herzl, was closely 
 akin to him in his idea of the solution of the Jewish national 
 problem. He, too, advocated national organization and political 
 means. Pinsker was a Russian physician, who was stirred to 
 thought by the pogroms and restrictive legislation against the 
 Jews in the early 80's of the nineteenth century. He concluded 
 
 32
 
 that the freedom of the Jewish people must be achieved by the 
 people itself. He summed up his thought in a word "Auto- 
 Emancipation" the title of his essay calling upon the Jews to 
 stand up to their task. Pinsker's criticism of the Jews was that 
 they never asserted themselves as a people ; governments were 
 used to dealing only with Jews, never with the Jewish people. 
 Their intolerable situation was due mostly to the hatred that 
 was the portion of the alien stranger. Even if the European gov- 
 ernments granted legal and political emancipation to the Jews, 
 they would benefit as individuals only, and would not achieve 
 full scope for their abilities at that. The Jewish people would 
 still have no national status. The nation must therefore eman- 
 cipate itself as a whole. 
 
 At first Pinsker thought that any suitable territory would 
 do for a Jewish home-land. Like Herzl, when his interest in the 
 Jewish question was first stirred, he knew little of the sentiment 
 and spiritual aspirations of the Jewish people. Both he and 
 Herzl, when they came into intimate contact with the people, 
 learned that only Palestine could serve as the national home. 
 
 Pinsker proposed that whatever land was selected be ac- 
 quired by purchase, and the title thereto guaranteed by the 
 Great Powers of Europe. This is a direct foreshadowing of the 
 Basel Program, the basis of modern Zionism. The methods sug- 
 gested by Pinsker for cultivating and allotting the land have 
 since been employed by the Zionist movement through the Jewish 
 National Fund, the Jewish Colonial Trust and the Achooza. 
 
 "Auto-Emancipation" contained a call for a Jewish Con- 
 gress, which was but partially realized in Pinsker's own lifetime. 
 It resulted in a convention of the Chovevi Zion (Palestine col- 
 onization) societies, at Kattowitz in 1884, when a federation was 
 formed with Pinsker as the president. The truly representative 
 national assembly that Pinsker had in mind was realized only 
 thirteen years later in the Zionist Congress called by Herzl. 
 
 PALESTINIAN COLONISTS. 
 
 Hess and Kalischer, Smolenskin and Pinsker served the Jew- 
 ish people with all their heart and soul. They fanned the flame 
 of Jewish aspiration into new life. When we pay them our 
 tribute of gratitude, we may not omit to mention the heroic 
 vanguard that returned to the Land of the Fathers to give living 
 form and substance to the words of the preachers of national 
 restoration. 
 
 The pioneers of Palestinian colonization were East European 
 Jews, city-dwellers with little money and less knowledge of 
 farming. Though the Chovevi Zion organization and Baron Ed- 
 mond de Rothschild came to their help, the achievements of the 
 last forty years must be mainly credited to the superhuman 
 
 33
 
 perseverance of the colonists. The forty and more colonies ("vil- 
 lages," they are called in Palestine) are the fruit of the idealism 
 of these settlers, and the nucleus of the national center that is 
 to be. The Land itself has been an inspiration, the colonists say. 
 The tale of their sufferings, of their courage and of their stead- 
 fastness, will form one of the brightest chapters in the history 
 of the Jewish Renaissance. 
 
 ZIONISM. 
 
 The providence of history brought Theodore Herzl to the 
 fore after a generation of active thought and labor had paved 
 the way for him. He insisted that the problem of the Jewish 
 people must no longer be confined to inner Jewish councils, but 
 that it must be placed on the calendar of world politics for 
 statesmen to grapple with. This is the genesis of political Zion- 
 ism, or the modern Zionist movement. 
 
 The Zionists do not aim at the establishment of an inde- 
 pendent Jewish state. Zionism does not go beyond the political 
 requirements of the Prophets : the right to self-government in all 
 inner and local matters that is, national autonomy. Full and 
 unqualified allegiance to the Ottoman Government has been a 
 matter of course in the Zionist program. 
 
 In this autonomous national center Zionism will strive to 
 realize the Prophets' vision of Israel as a "Light unto the na- 
 tions," reflecting to all mankind the glory of the Presence of 
 God. 
 
 34
 
 THEODOR HERZL 
 
 A Brief Sketch of His Life 
 BY ISRAEL, GOLDBERG 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 By what miracle did an exiled people, after centuries of 
 oppression and humiliation, call to life from its midst the power- 
 ful personality, the resplendent hero that was Theodor Herzl ? Inex- 
 haustible must be the life-force of this people ; undimmed should be 
 its hope even in its darkest moments. 
 
 In the towns of Eastern Europe the great masses of the 
 Jewish people were living in physical and moral subjection. The 
 old continued to cherish their mystic dream of a supernatural 
 deliverance. The young, hemmed in and hampered in every en- 
 deavor, yielded to despair or broke their feeble strength against 
 the barrier in causes that were not theirs. 
 
 Here and there a few passionate voices like those of Pinsker 
 and Smolenskin had called on the people for self-activity and 
 self-help, but they failed to find an echo in the hearts of the 
 great masses. The solution of their problem through national 
 organization and political action could scarcely even suggest 
 itself to the Jews of Eastern Europe, whose nationality was 
 the object of persecution and who were deprived of political 
 rights. 
 
 In the lands of Western Europe, the Ghettos had been 
 thrown open, and the legal restrictions against the Jews re- 
 moved. The young generation of Jews looked upon itself as 
 completely emancipated. But this "emancipation" brought in 
 its train two great evils. In the first place, the young Jews, in 
 their eagerness to avail themselves of the new opportunities for 
 personal advancement, in their uncritical admiration for the cul- 
 ture of their neighbors, and, above all, in their desire to appear 
 sufficiently grateful for the favors they enjoyed, sought to iden- 
 tify themselves with their Gentile fellow-countrymen by throw- 
 ing off as much of their Jewish distinctiveness as they possibly 
 could. They surrendered the age-long hope of the national res- 
 toration of Israel in return for what was after all only their 
 right as human beings. They were willing to sell their birth- 
 right, as did Esau of old, for a pot of lentils. In the second 
 place, the success which the Jews achieved in competition with 
 their Gentile fellow-citizens who continued to look upon them 
 as an alien element stirred up envy and hatred, and gave rise 
 to the modern anti-Semitic movement. Like a withering gale 
 
 35
 
 anti-Semitism rose up in the cities of Germany and swept across 
 the whole of Europe, poisoning the life of the Jew, sparing not 
 even the stronghold of tolerance and liberalism, democratic 
 France. "Emancipation," certainly, had not solved the Jewish 
 problem. 
 
 HERZL'S BOYHOOD AND YOUTH. 
 
 Herzl was born May 21, 1860, in Budapest, the capital of 
 Hungary. He received but a very meager Jewish education, but 
 his Jewish pride asserted itself in his earliest years. One of 
 his teachers at the technical high school one day defined the 
 term "heathens" as including "idol worshippers, Mohammedans 
 and Jews." Theodor after this had no more use for that school, 
 and enrolled, instead, in the Classical Gymnasium. His powerful 
 and sweeping imagination, which later conceived in total inde- 
 pendence his all-embracing solution of the Jewish problem, re- 
 vealed itself in his earliest boyhood. At the age of ten, he drew 
 up a plan for cutting through the Isthmus of Panama. 
 
 When he was eighteen years old, his family removed to 
 Vienna. Here he took up the study of law. In the university 
 he belonged to a student fraternity which decided one day to 
 admit no more Jews to membership while "graciously" allowing 
 those Jews already members to stay. Herzl immediately sent in 
 his resignation to those "elegant young men." 
 
 After securing his juridical degree in 1884, he retired to the 
 Tyrolean city of Salzburg, attracted by its beautiful scenery, 
 there to practice his profession. But he gave himself up almost 
 entirely to literature. His enormous capacity for work, a quality 
 which has characterized nearly all great men, revealed itself at 
 this time and resulted in the production of a large number of 
 plays, essays, sketches, critical studies, etc. Many of his plays 
 were successfully produced. He became famous as a journalist 
 and writer of feuilletons or short sketches. 
 
 In 1891 he went to Paris as correspondent of the Vienna 
 newspaper "Die Neue Freie Presse," an event which brought a 
 new turn to his thought and action. 
 
 "A JEWISH STATE." 
 
 On several occasions, as indicated above, Herzl had already 
 felt the sting and menace of anti-Semitism. He had even con- 
 cluded to abandon Salzburg, because, being a Jew, he saw no 
 prospects there for a successful career. But his literary suc- 
 cesses and diverting travels had made him lose touch with the 
 miseries and problems of the Jews. In Paris, however, the 
 Dreyfus affair was at that time absorbing attention, and there 
 he witnessed such a violent and unreasoning exhibition of hatred 
 and spite against the Jews that he was forced to look into his 
 own soul and define his attitude to his own people. He saw the 
 
 36
 
 vast majority of the French nation in Europe eager "to convict 
 one Jew, and, in him, all Jews." He underwent a painful and 
 tremendous inner struggle from which he emerged with a clear 
 conception of the Jewish problem and with a simple but funda- 
 mental plan for its solution. Herzl came back to his own peo- 
 ple, not alone to suffer with them, but to lead them to a new 
 and dignified life. 
 
 In words of the loftiest spiritual exaltation he embodied his 
 ideas in a pamphlet, which he called "The Jewish State." Dur- 
 ing the last two months of his stay in Paris he worked on this 
 pamphlet every day, until he was exhausted. While writing, as 
 he tells us in his little "Autobiography," he seemed to hear the 
 rushing of eagles above his head. 
 
 In this pamphlet Herzl emphasized the following two propo- 
 sitions : 
 
 First: The Jews are a distinct nation whose problem can 
 be solved only by restoring them to a normal national life in a 
 land of their own. He mentions Palestine and Argentina as 
 possible Jewish lands. 
 
 Second: The Jewish problem can be solved only through 
 the self-activity of the Jewish people that is to say, the Jewish 
 problem can be solved only by the Jews themselves. 
 
 With the precision of an architect and the inspired vision 
 of a prophet, Herzl proceeds to outline in detail the process of 
 creation of the Jewish State. The "Society of Jews" is to be 
 the recognized political agency for the Jewish people, the "Jew- 
 ish Company" its financial and executive arm. The territorial 
 rights are to be secured by a charter with the sanction and 
 good-will of all the European governments. Colonization is to 
 proceed by organized groups. The seven-hour working day is 
 to be instituted. The Jewish masses, and even some from the 
 upper classes, will flock to the new land to gain economic and 
 spiritual freedom. "A generation of wonderful Jews will spring 
 from the earth. The Macabbees will rise again. Let the open- 
 ing words once more be repeated: the Jews who will it shall 
 have a State of their own!" 
 
 HERZL HAILED AS LEADER. 
 
 It was neither the intention nor the desire of Herzl to take 
 the lead in a movement for the creation of a Jewish State. Even 
 before publishing his pamphlet he had conferred and correspond- 
 ed with the great Jewish philanthropist, Baron Maurice de 
 Hirsch, who, he hoped, would start the movement. But the 
 timidity and lack of imagination which has characterized so 
 much of Jewish philanthropy made even the great Hirsch unre- 
 sponsive to Herzl's plea. 
 
 In fact, of the notable Jewish personalities of that day, only 
 one, the famous writer, Max Nordau, came at once to his sup-
 
 port. The others remained either hostile or indifferent. 
 
 But as for the great masses of the Jewish people, Herzl in 
 his Judenstaat had spoken the word for which they were wait- 
 ing. The first public expression of adherence came from Jewish 
 students in Austria and Germany, from whom he received an 
 address covered with thousands of signatures. From Russia, 
 Galicia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Hungary he received enthusiastic 
 expressions of adherence and pleas for action. Herzl was thus 
 forced by circumstances to take the lead. At the same time he 
 reached the conclusion that the only land which could fire the 
 imagination and energize the will of the Jewish people was 
 Palestine. From this belief he never swerved. 
 
 Inspired with his great mission, Herzl now began his career 
 of wonderful activity which could be adequately recounted only 
 in an epic poem. In order to acquaint himself with the political 
 and diplomatic ground he made a special journey to Constanti- 
 nople (April, 1896). He returned buoyantly optimistic, and on 
 his way through Sofia received a stirring ovation from the Bul- 
 garian Jews. In England, although he found opposition or in- 
 difference among the rich and distinguished Jews, he was hailed 
 as leader by the Zionists of the East End of London. 
 
 THE FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS. 
 
 He came to the conclusion that it was most important to 
 win the Jewish masses, and in order to give them the oppor- 
 tunity to declare themselves, as well as to provide a general 
 forum for the discussion of the Jewish problem, he conceived the 
 idea of convening a Jewish Congress. 
 
 In the name of a commission organized for the purpose, he 
 issued a call for such a Congress, which was to convene in 
 Munich in August, 1897. "The direction of Jewish affairs," said 
 he in this call, "must not be left to the will of individuals no 
 matter how well-intentioned they may be. A forum must be 
 created, before which each one may be made to account for 
 what he does or fails to do in Jewry." 
 
 A storm of opposition arose from most of the prominent 
 Jews of Western Europe, who were unaccustomed and afraid 
 to discuss Jewish affairs openly and before a democratic Jewish 
 body. The representatives of the Munich Jewish community ob- 
 jected to the holding of the Congress in their city. As a result 
 the Swiss city of Basel was chosen. Finally a number of German 
 rabbis, fearful lest their German patriotism be questioned, issued 
 a formal protest against the holding of the Congress. But the 
 enthusiasm and support which Herzl found among the Jews of 
 Eastern Europe more than made up for the opposition of the 
 "emancipated." 
 
 In the meantime, in order to have a weapon of defence 
 against his numerous opponents and a means of advancing the 
 
 38
 
 Jewish cause, Herzl had with his own funds founded the weekly 
 newspaper, "Die Welt," which to this day remains the central 
 official organ of the Zionist movement. 
 
 The first representative Jewish assembly since the Disper- 
 sion, the first Zionist Congress, brought together 197 delegates 
 from almost every land of the earth. It was perhaos the most 
 significant event in all the post-Biblical history of the Jewish 
 people. The movement for the redemption of the Jews through 
 the national organization and self-activity of the Jewish people 
 was inaugurated, and its program defined to be the "creation of 
 a publicly-assured, legally-secured home for the Jewish people 
 in Palestine." Over the entire event hovered the magnetic per- 
 sonality and creative spirit of Theodor Herzl. 
 
 STATESMAN AND DIPLOMAT. 
 
 As leader of an organized movement, Herzl now took up 
 with feverish energy the numerous tasks which crowded in upon 
 him, chief of which at this moment was the creation of the finan- 
 cial instrument of the movement, the Colonial Bank. Here again 
 it was the masses of the Jewish people who subscribed the 
 greater portion of the Bank's capital. 
 
 The second Congress, held in 1898, was another triumph 
 for the ideas and personality of Herzl. The enthusiasm with 
 which he was greeted was indescribable. The principles he advo- 
 cated for the control of Palestinian colonization were practically 
 adopted. A commission was elected to institute the Colonial 
 Bank. During the year the movement had grown enormously. 
 
 To secure the consent of the governments, Herzl sought to 
 win the good will of the European monarchs. He was received 
 in audience by some of the most powerful rulers or their chief 
 ministers. Upon all of them his wonderful personality made a 
 profound impression. He appeared before them not as a sup- 
 pliant for favors, but as the emissary of a people, the guardian 
 of their political interests and their dignity, in presence and 
 bearing a king among kings. 
 
 In the fall of 1898 Herzl, at the head of a Jewish deputation, 
 was received by the German Emperor, William II, in the city 
 of Jerusalem and won the sympathy of that monarch for his 
 cause. In May, 1901, he had his first audience with the Sultan 
 of Turkey. In the summer of 1903, upon the invitation of the 
 Russian minister, Von Plehve, he visited the Russian capital and 
 had interviews with the principal Russian ministers. Later he 
 was also received by the King of Italy, Victor Emanuel II, and 
 by the Pope. For the first time since the destruction of the 
 second temple, the Jewish people, through Herzl, was becoming 
 a factor in the politics of the world. 
 
 In the meantime, as the movement continued to grow, its 
 needs and problems multiplied. The Colonial Bank, after numer- 
 
 39
 
 cms difficulties had been overcome, was at length founded. At 
 the third Congress Herzl reported: "It was a good year; we 
 have moved a step forward." But the strain and struggle was 
 intense and was beginning to affect the heart of the great 
 champion. 
 
 It seemed doubtful if Herzl would find the strength to attend 
 the Fourth Zionist Congress in London. But the mighty will 
 compelled the weak heart. He left his sick bed and in the midst 
 of a group of the foremost men in Jewry, Nordau, Mandel- 
 stamm, Caster, Zangwill, his majestic personality stood forth 
 and thrilled the vast throng that gathered in the great assembly 
 hall, as well as the delegates at the sessions of the Congress. 
 The English press and the English statesmen hailed the move- 
 ment and promised their support. 
 
 If only the rich and powerful among the Jews had come to 
 support him ! Then his audiences with the Turkish ruler, upon 
 whom he produced so deep and favorable an impression, would 
 have resulted in the obtaining of that Charter for the Jewish 
 occupation of Palestine which Herzl sought. But the rich and 
 satisfied Jews held aloof, and Herzl, although he suffered keen 
 disappointment, resolved to put his trust in the poor. At the 
 Fifth Congress, held at Basel (1901), the Jewish National Fund 
 was created, the fund through which the vast masses of the 
 people, by uniting their strength, might gather the means which 
 the shortsighted and timid rich withheld. 
 
 "ALTNEULAND" : A VISION OF RESTORED ISRAEL. 
 
 In the midst of his numerous and immense labors, which, as 
 he declares, used to exhaust him completely, Herzl, the prophet 
 in action, found time to dream his golden dream of the future. 
 In the form of a novel, which he called "Altneuland," "The Old 
 Newland," he allowed his rich poetic fancy to anticipate the aims 
 for which he was striving. He projected his prophetic vision 
 twenty years ahead and saw Palestine and the lewish people 
 redeemed in each other. He saw the land covered with cities, 
 farmsteads and varied institutions in which science, experience 
 and ingenuity combined to free men from economic stress. He 
 saw proud men and women eager to serve the cause of their 
 people and of humanity a new human society dedicated to the 
 principle of universal well-being, social justice, and peace. "The 
 dream is not so much different from the deed as some think," 
 Herzl had said. Thus he, the man of iron will and ready action, 
 lighted a beacon-fire as a guide for himself and his followers. 
 This beacon-fire, which still blazes in the night, is "Altneuland." 
 
 UGANDA: "A SHELTER FOR THE NIGHT." 
 
 In the meantime, the actual state of affairs was becoming 
 more complex, the movement attracted new interests and 
 aroused deeper passions. 
 
 40
 
 On July 16, 1902, Herzl testified as an expert on Jewish 
 affairs before the Alien Commission which was investigating 
 immigration into England. His personality and his testimony 
 produced a profound effect, and from that moment the British 
 Government began to interest itself in his plans with far-reaching 
 consequences. 
 
 Early in August, by invitation of the Russian minister, Von 
 Plehve, he journeys to Petrograd in order to try to convince the 
 Russian Government that Zionism does not conflict with Rus- 
 sian interests. He succeeds in obtaining from the Russian min- 
 isters important promises in the interests of Zionism. The most 
 formidable obstacles seem to melt away from his triumphal path. 
 During his stay in Russia he is the witness of the misery and 
 oppression of the Jewish population. 
 
 On his return, the streets of Vilna are dense with the throngs 
 who come out to greet him. In the crowded synagogue, when 
 the old rabbi in his tremulous voice gives him the blessing, the 
 people burst into loud weeping. It is the prayer of gratitude 
 and love addressed by a helpless people to its champion. His 
 great heart is wrung with pity. But the speedy redemption of 
 his people seems to be in sight. 
 
 In order, however, to obtain from the Sultan the charter 
 for the colonization of Palestine, very large sums were required, 
 sums much larger than could be obtained soon enough from 
 the impoverished masses of the Jewish people. The Kishineff 
 massacre had occurred, and, while it horrified the civilized world, 
 the threat and danger of further massacres, like a dreadful 
 shadow, hovered over the life of the Jews of Russia. Immediate 
 relief was imperative. 
 
 And now, as if in answer to this need, came the British 
 Government and offered territory in one of its East African 
 colonies, known as Uganda, for the colonization of the Jews. 
 Even before this, El-Arish, south of Palestine, had been offered 
 by Great Britain, but for important reasons could not be ac- 
 cepted. Herzl laid the Uganda offer before the Sixth Zionist 
 Congress held in Basel on August 23, 1903. But even in his open- 
 ing speech Herzl declared the ultimate aim of the Jewish people 
 to be no land other than Palestine. And his closing speech he 
 ended with the words : "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my 
 right hand forget its cunning." Uganda he looked upon merely 
 as a "shelter for the night," and as a political weapon in the 
 struggle for Zion. 
 
 Nevertheless there were many men who declared that by 
 his willingness to accept Uganda, Herzl had surrendered Pales- 
 tine. No amount of assurance could convince them or pacify 
 them. They attacked Herzl bitterly. Feeling ran high. A num- 
 ber of the foremost Russian Jews met in the famous Conference 
 at Charkow and chose a deputation to lay certain ultimatums 
 before Herzl. 
 
 41
 
 Throughout this conflict Herzl suffered acutely. The at- 
 tacks of heart failure increased, but in spite of the entreaties of 
 his friends he refused to spare himself. 
 
 The Charkow deputation came, but, having come as accusers, 
 they went away as the accused. With infinite patience, Herzl 
 answered his opponents and reiterated his assurances. At the 
 sessions of the Greater Actions Committee of April 11-15, 1904, 
 peace was finally re-established and a vote of confidence was 
 given to the leader. 
 
 HERZL'S DEATH. 
 
 "The fight was over, and the organization again united. 
 The participants at the Conference rode home with satisfied con- 
 science to take up the work anew. For the founder and unifier 
 of the movement, however, begins the last hard fight in which, 
 finally, he was to yield for the first time to a stronger."* 
 
 The weak heart was unable to keep pace with the mighty 
 spirit. In the little mountain town of Edlach, whither he had 
 gone for rest and cure, Herzl, early in July, 1904, was at last 
 forced to bed. He knew that the end was near. "Greet Pales- 
 tine for me" are his words to a friend. "I have given my life- 
 blood to my people !" In spite of pain and difficulty of breathing 
 he remained uncomplaining, cheerful and self-possessed. Finally 
 on the afternoon of July 3d, 1904, after having kept Death at 
 bay by sheer power of will until he could again see his mother 
 and children, Herzl, aged only forty-four years, breathed his last. 
 The Jewish people had lost the strongest, the most glorious 
 personality it has produced in modern times. 
 
 Said Theodor Herzl once to an audience in Berlin (Feb. 8, 
 1898) : "I believe I may say to you that we have given some- 
 thing to the Jewish people : to' the young, a hope ; to the old, a 
 dream ; to all men. something beautiful." The hope, the dream, 
 the beauty which Herzl gave did not depart from the Jewish 
 people with his departure. Like a Pillar of Fire in the night, 
 his luminous example still moves before us to lead us onward 
 to the Promised Land. 
 
 *Friedemann : Das Leben Herzls. 
 
 42
 
 THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION. 
 
 BY BERNARD A. ROSENBLATT 
 
 The Zionist movement is organized on a democratic basis, so 
 that every Jew and Jewess who endorses the program of "secur- 
 ing a legally assured home for the Jewish people in Palestine" 
 has an equal vote. The influence of the individual Zionist in the 
 organization depends upon his or her ability, sincerity of purpose, 
 and devotion to the cause. Since Zionism has no lucrative offices 
 to distribute, the reward for services in the organization consists 
 largely in affording to the individual Zionist the opportunity for 
 greater services in the future. S'char mitzva mitzva. 
 
 THE SHEKEL. 
 
 Anyone who is desirous of working for the Zionist ideal can 
 enlist as a soldier in Zionism by the payment of the shekel each 
 year. The payment of the shekel, or poll tax on the Jewish people, 
 is the symbol of allegiance to the Zionist cause. The shekel is 
 the name of an ancient Jewish coin. Half a shekel was the tax 
 paid by every Jew towards the maintenance of the religious 
 organization of the Jewish people, and the Zionists have brought 
 back its old significance by using it as the tax towards the upbuild- 
 ing of the future Jewish commonwealth. The shekel tax is fixed 
 at twenty-five cents in American money, so that poor as well as 
 rich may have equal opportunity to signify their allegiance to 
 our cause. Upon the shekel tax the whole political structure of 
 Zionism is built. Every group of four hundred shekel payers 
 has the right to select one delegate to the International Zionist 
 Congress, which is usually held biennially in the summer of every 
 odd-numbered year. After the various groups of shekel payers 
 in all countries have selected and sent their delegates to the 
 Zionist Congress, the latter body, upon the opening of its sessions, 
 becomes the authoritative and supreme power in Zionism. 
 
 THE CONGRESS. 
 
 The Congress formulates all Zionist policies ; it discusses the 
 Jewish problems of the day and presents officially the arguments 
 for the Zionist solution of the Jewish question ; it determines how 
 the funds of the organization shall be spent, and, finally, it selects 
 the officers and committees who are charged with the duty of 
 carrying on the work of the movement in the interval until the 
 next Congress. During his lifetime, Dr. Herzl was uniformly 
 chosen as president of the Zionist movement, and Dr. Max 
 Nordau was chosen vice-president. They, together with a small 
 committee, carried on the work of the organization from 1897 
 until 1904. 
 
 43
 
 ACTIONS COMMITTEE. 
 
 After the death of the founder of modern Zionism, the Con- 
 gress adopted the policy of selecting a committee of five or six 
 leading Zionists to act as a board of directors for the organization 
 between one Congress and the next. Thus, at the present time, 
 entire direction of Zionist activity is centered in this small 
 Actions Committee, consisting, at the present time, of Dr. 
 E. Tschlenow, Dr. S. Levin, Prof. O. Warburg, and Messrs. V. 
 Jacobson, A. Hantke and N. Sokolow. This small Actions Com- 
 mittee is supported and assisted by a larger Actions Committee, 
 chosen by the Congress, to represent the constituent Zionist or- 
 ganizations of the various countries. The larger Actions Com- 
 mittee meets several times in the period from one Congress to 
 another, in order to consult with the smaller Actions Committee, 
 and to advise upon plans and policies. 
 
 ZIONIST FEDERATIONS. 
 
 Even as the Congress is built from the bottom up by the 
 shekel payers, so the international Congress, in its turn, estab- 
 lishes Zionist Federations in the various countries for more effec- 
 tive local Zionist propaganda. While these federations are 
 established and recognized by the International Zionist Congress, 
 the democratic character of the local organization in the various 
 countries is always maintained since each country's federation 
 is composed of societies or groups of Zionists who voluntarily 
 unite themselves in order to advance Zionist principles. Thus, 
 the Federation of American Zionists is recognized by the Inter- 
 national Zionist Congress as the general Zionist body for the 
 United States of America. The policies and methods of the 
 Federation, however, are determined, subject to the general rules 
 laid down by the International Congress, by an annual convention 
 to which delegates are sent from the various constituent societies. 
 In the United States, every society affiliated with the Federation 
 has the right to send one delegate for each twenty-five of its 
 membership. Each federation may, for convenience, group its 
 societies into various state associations, such as the Texas, Ohio 
 or Virginia Zion State Associations, as well as into larger groups, 
 representing various forms of propaganda or membership, such 
 as the Knights of Zion, with its Zionist propaganda localized in 
 the Middle West, the Order Sons of Zion, which is the insurance 
 branch of the Zionist organization, Hadassah, the women's 
 Zionist organization, which carries on a system of District Nurs- 
 ing in Palestine, and Young Judaea, the junior Zionist organiza- 
 tion. The Mizrachi and the Poalei Zion organizations are de- 
 scribed in the essay on "Parties in Zionism," to be found else- 
 where in this volume. 
 
 ZIONIST BANKS. 
 
 At the inception of the Zionist movement, it was realized 
 that our program necessitated the upbuilding of strong financial 
 
 44
 
 agencies for carrying out practical aims in Palestine. Accordingly, 
 the Jewish Colonial Trust was established in London, England. 
 It now has a capital of nearly two million dollars. It is interesting 
 to note that most of this money has been subscribed by the poorer 
 classes (a share is of the par value of only $5.), and it is only 
 recently that the richer classes in Jewry have become sufficiently 
 interested to contribute largely to the cause. Perhaps the best 
 work carried on by the Jewish Colonial Trust consists of the 
 activity of its subsidary company, the Anglo-Palestine Co. The 
 latter has branches in all the important centers in Palestine, in- 
 cluding Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, etc. It has been successful from 
 the point of view of the profits which it has earned, at least until 
 the outbreak of the war ; but its great value to us consists in the 
 impetus it has given to the Jewish development of Palestine by 
 the loans which it has been able to offer the Palestinian farmers 
 and merchants. By encouraging agricultural and industrial enter- 
 prises, the Anglo-Palestine Co. has been perhaps the largest 
 factor in the Jewish economic upbuilding of the Land of Israel. 
 
 THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting institution in the Zionist 
 movement is the Jewish National Fund. This is an English cor- 
 poration, organized by Zionists for the purpose of acquiring land 
 in Palestine as an inalienable estate of the Jewish people. It is 
 guided by a unique principle, namely, it uses practically all of 
 its fund for buying land and developing such land; but it is 
 prohibited under its charter from selling any land which it may 
 have purchased. As a result, as the fund continues to grow, 
 more and more land passes into the hands of the company, which 
 holds it practically as a trustee for the Jewish people. The 
 Jewish National Fund has already passed the one million dollar 
 mark, and its income is increasing rapidly from year to year. 
 
 The methods of collection for the Jewish National Fund 
 prove that Zionists are progressive and democratic in their 
 propaganda. Zionist stamps at one cent each are sold for use on 
 letters. Flowers may be purchased on "Flower Day" and Zionist 
 flags on "Flag Day". Certificates are sold for sums sufficient to 
 purchase a dunam (one-quarter of an acre) of land in Palestine, 
 and friends may inscribe the name of any faithful Zionist in the 
 "Golden Book," upon the payment of $50. 
 
 PALESTINE LAND COMPANIES. 
 
 The Palestine Land Developing Co. has been organized in 
 Europe as an agency for the purchase and development of land, 
 which may be subdivided into estates and sold or leased to indi- 
 vidual Jews. It has not yet secured a sufficiently large capital to 
 enable it to achieve extraordinary results, but it has done pioneer 
 work in Palestine, from which we should profit greatly in the fu- 
 ture. In the United States, a number of Achoozas have been organ- 
 ized with the object of transplanting their members as Jewish 
 
 45
 
 farmers in Palestine upon soil purchased and developed by these 
 societies. The general plan of the Achooza is to accumulate a fund 
 from the savings of its members. With this fund, land is purchased 
 and developed, so that each member will be able to secure his 
 farm within ten years from the organization of the Achooza. By 
 that time, he will have paid into the common fund $1,400 or more, 
 depending upon the size of the farm which he will secure. During 
 the last two years, an outgrowth from the Achooza movement, 
 known as the Zion Commonwealth, has been organized in this 
 country and has incorporated a social program with its Palestine 
 policy. It aims to reserve to the whole community all the land 
 which is not utilized as farming estates, so that the benefits from 
 rents of city property, industrial sites, or any mineral resources, 
 will be secured for the advantage of all the settlers equally, in- 
 stead of falling to the fortune of individual large landholders. 
 
 PROVISIONAL ZIONIST COMMITTEE. 
 
 During the great European war, owing to the fact that com- 
 munication with the European headquarters of the Zionist move- 
 ment became very difficult, it was found necessary to organize 
 temporarily in the United States a Provisional Executive Com- 
 mittee for General Zionist Affairs. We were fortunate in secur- 
 ing the leadership of Louis D. Brandeis, who acted as 
 the chairman of this committe. Through the work of this com- 
 mittee, the whole movement in America has been revolutionized 
 in less than two years. The income of the Zionist Organization 
 in this country has been increased more than twentyfold, and its 
 strength multiplied in like proportion. It has organized a bureau 
 for forwarding money to Palestine, and during the last year 
 (1915-1916) it has sent through that office alone nearly one 
 thousand ($1,000.) dollars every day to the Holy Land. It has 
 vitalized all our Zionist activities in this country, and it deserves 
 mention as an important factor in the Zionist movement of the 
 world. 
 
 THE JEWISH SETTLEMENT IN PALESTINE. 
 
 It must ever be borne in mind that the future of Zionism is 
 necessarily in Palestine, and it therefore behooves us to take note 
 of the organization of the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. 
 There are now over one hundred thousand Jews in Palestine, of 
 whom nearly fifteen thousand are grouped in the agricultural 
 colonies which are the backbone of the future Jewish common- 
 wealth. With the development of Hebrew schools, Hebraic cul- 
 ture has already become a dominant force in Palestine. The agri- 
 cultural and industrial efforts of our brethren are preparing the 
 way for a large and successful Jewish community. All the colo- 
 nies are founded on a democratic basis, so that we may be certain 
 that the Jews in Palestine are creating a community of which we, 
 as American Jews, may well be proud. 
 
 46
 
 'PARTIES IN ZIONISM 
 
 BY Louis LIPSKY 
 
 When a general moves his army against the enemy he has, 
 as a rule, a sketch of his plans, knows his own strength, and 
 makes a topographical map of the country which he must pass. 
 
 When the Zionist movement was organized by Theodor 
 Herzl, he had no idea of the strength of the party behind him. 
 He flung his idea into the forum of public discussion and re- 
 cruited his army while at the same time he moved forward to 
 his objective point. 
 
 And just as with every other group of people animated by one 
 idea as to the ultimate goal toward which they are moving, different 
 plans were born as to how the ultimate goal was best to be 
 attained. 
 
 In everyday life there are persons who move slowly, per- 
 sons who are reckless, persons who are conservative perhaps, 
 who are animated only by religious, by economic, by philo- 
 sophical or by political ideas. In American life these differing 
 points of view have produced political parties, each of whom 
 strives to impress its ideas upon the features of the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 So, too, in Zionist life. Before the advent of Herzl, there 
 were earnest, idealistic men and women who felt that the re- 
 nationalization of the Jewish people could be accomplished by 
 the gradual colonization of Palestine. These men and women 
 were known as Lovers of Zion (Chovevi Zion). They felt that 
 a new settlement of Jews in Palestine, eventually arriving at 
 national significance, could be established by individual Jews 
 going over to the Holy Land and settling on the soil as farmers. 
 On increasing in number, they would make it possible for the 
 Jewish people to regain their national status. They appealed 
 to religious sentiment, to national feeling, to national pride 
 in fact, to any motive that might induce individuals to sacrifice 
 their immediate personal interests for the interests of the 
 entire Jewish people. 
 
 The success of the Chovevi Zionists was not considerable. 
 Establishing a few colonies, they found themselves lacking 
 strength to go on with the organization they had created. The 
 Chovevi Zionist movement was at a low ebb when Herzl came 
 with his idea of political Zionism, the Zionism that aimed to 
 solve the national Jewish problem by acquiring political recog- 
 nition from the other nations of the world. 
 
 In line with his endeavors, Herzl organized the first Zionist 
 
 47
 
 Congress, the National Fund, and the Jewish Colonial Trust. 
 These three institutions were to be the instruments for acquiring 
 Jewish national rights in Palestine. First, the Congress, in 
 which the democratic character of Zionism was to be the feature, 
 showing that the Jewish people demanded national recognition. 
 Second, the Bank, with which to conduct the negotiations with 
 the Powers, who were to guarantee certain concessions, or an all- 
 inclusive charter. Then the National Fund, with which to ac- 
 quire the land. 
 
 The question arose early in the history of Zionism, How 
 would Zionism deal with the religious question, with the capital 
 and labor question, with the question of education? Was Zion- 
 ism to be based on the prevailing democratic ideals of govern- 
 ment? The Democratic fraction, formed at one of the early 
 Congresses, was organized to meet the last question. Was 
 Zionism to stand for the separation of Synagogue and State? 
 That was answered by the formation of the orthodox Mizrachi. 
 What was Zionism to say regarding the rights of labor? That 
 was answered by the formation of the Poale Zion party. And 
 then another party was formed, occupying a position in a sense 
 outside the official Zionist camp, which declared that political 
 Zionism, or the Zionism that aimed to establish a national entity 
 by diplomatic negotiations, had no validity, and that a nation 
 could be established only by creating a national cultural center. 
 This party, which has never attained an official character, is the 
 Cultural party, the leading figure of which is the Hebrew phil- 
 osopher, Achad Haam, in everyday life known as Asher Ginsberg. 
 The Cultural ideals of Achad Haam have colored the views of 
 Zionists of all parties. 
 
 These represent the conflicting or various strivings within 
 the Zionist organization. They are, in a sense, similar in intent 
 to what in America are known as the Republican party, the 
 Democratic party, the Progressive party, the Socialist party. 
 They all agree that the national life must be preserved and 
 strengthened, but disagree as to what policies or principles 
 shall rule in the government which crowns it all. So, too, in 
 Zionism. All our parties are agreed as to the need for a na- 
 tional rebirth. They may differ, without losing their place in 
 the movement, as to the way this end is to be attained, or as to 
 the features of the national life that are to be emphasized in 
 order to be successful. 
 
 THE CHOVEVI ZIONIST PARTY. 
 
 Although Herzlian Zionism secured the mastery over all 
 other phases of the national movement, it never actually over- 
 came them. During Herzl's life, the Chovevi Zionist ideas of 
 many within the movement retired into the background. Herzl 
 succeeded in organizing Zionism, giving it world significance, 
 establishing institutions, opening negotiations for securing a 
 
 48
 
 Charter; and, while our great leader was engaged in these 
 great efforts, all other parties remained in retirement, hoping 
 for his success and willing to abide by the results of his efforts. 
 But as his tactics revealed more and more that auxiliary efforts 
 had to be maintained, that pending the securing of the Charter 
 the masses of Jews could not be held to Zionism, the old Chovevi 
 Zionism, believing in colonization without political guarantees, 
 returned to power. Under the leadership of M. M. Ussischkin, 
 an engineer in Russia, a dominant personality with unusual 
 powers of organization, the Chovevi Zionist party, or the im- 
 mediate colonization party, became stronger, as the Herzlian 
 tactics showed themselves to be unfruitful in immediate results. 
 
 Herzl said: Without a charter of rights, we cannot move 
 into Palestine. As a first requirement of Palestinian coloniza- 
 tion, we must have political security. Such political security at 
 that time could be obtained only through the exercise of power 
 by the Great Nations over the Ottoman empire, over which 
 ruled an autocrat. We must, said Herzl, prepare for the mo- 
 ment when such security can be purchased. We must gather a 
 national fund, we must organize a financial corporation, and 
 must call upon every influence that may be useful for our ends. 
 
 He went about securing political influence ; he organized the 
 institutions mentioned; but as the time seemed distant for that 
 recognition which he sought, and as he himself, for diplomatic 
 reasons, endeavored to divert the attention of the Jewish peo- 
 ple from Palestine to other lands, it was felt by many, and, to 
 some extent by Herzl himself, that immediate work in Palestine 
 must be begun. 
 
 Immediate work in Palestine thus became the slogan of 
 the Chovevi Zionists, who became more insistent that the Con- 
 gress should take up what they called practical work. At this 
 juncture Herzl died, having given his life and fortune to Zionism, 
 and having, in effect, by the appointment of a Palestine Commis- 
 sion, laid the foundation for the practical work that, followed. 
 
 The Chovevi Zionists believe in securing the preponderance 
 of influence in Palestine for the Jewish people by settling Jews 
 at once, investing Jewish capital, and engaging in immediate in- 
 dustry. The Ottoman empire having meanwhile been trans- 
 formed from an autocracy into a constitutional monarchy, there 
 remained no obstacles in the way of free Jewish enterprise in 
 Palestine. 
 
 THE MIZRACHI PARTY 
 
 This party was formed at one of the first Congresses by 
 Rabbi Reiness and other orthodox leaders to safeguard the re- 
 ligious interests of the Jewish people within the movement and 
 the religious character of institutions in Palestine. It aimed 
 to maintain the neutral character of Herzlian Zionism in edu- 
 
 49
 
 cational matters. It was impressed by Herzl's political ideas, 
 and wished to have a large number of orthodox Zionists in the 
 organization in order, first to strengthen Zionism, and, second, to 
 prevent Zionism from becoming responsible for politics that 
 denied traditional Judaism. 
 
 It favors practical work in Palestine, but is opposed to the 
 Zionist organization giving any support to enterprises of a cul- 
 tural character, such as schools. It is opposed to the culture 
 Zionism of Achad Haam. It is in a sense the critic of Zionism 
 from a religious point of view. While it is religious, it does not 
 ask the Zionist movement to support religious institutions in 
 Palestine, believing that all education should be left to private 
 enterprise. 
 
 Being composed of orthodox Jews, its propaganda is limited 
 to that element of the Jewish people. Zionism coming from the 
 lips of orthodox observers and learned men is bound to impress 
 the religious Jew with the need for Zionism. 
 
 The Mizrachists are represented in the Congress by dele- 
 gates, and they have a Federation of Mizrachi groups scattered 
 in every country. 
 
 THE POALE ZION PARTY. 
 
 The Poale Zionists are socialistic Zionists. They seek to 
 influence the Zionist organization to the end that it will avoid 
 the mistakes of the present industrial system and establish in 
 Palestine as far as possible a system of society which will give 
 the working classes the opportunity to rise in influence and 
 power. It therefore objects to all forms of Palestine industry 
 that operate on a capitalistic basis. It stimulates the forming 
 of labor unions in Palestine. It objects to the capitalistic sys- 
 tem of employment of labor, and by establishing colonies of a 
 communistic character, tries to impress upon Palestine as much 
 as possible its socialistic tendencies. 
 
 In this they have the powerful aid of Jewish tradition, the 
 Mosaic law, the decisions of the rabbis and the general feeling 
 that Zionism appeals to the feeling of brotherhood in all Jews. 
 With this background of sentiment and tradition, they hope to 
 minimize as much as possible the evils of the competitive system. 
 
 The National Fund appeals to them more than does any 
 other Zionist institution. They are responsible for the adoption 
 by the National Fund of the Oppenheimer co-operative settle- 
 ment plan, which is being tried out in the colonies of Merchavia 
 and Dagania. Numerically, they are not strong, but their groups, 
 especially in Galicia, are made up of energetic persons who are 
 capable of unusual sacrifices. In America they maintained for 
 many years a weekly Yiddish paper, and they are a considerable 
 factor in Zionist propaganda. 
 
 50
 
 THE HERZLIAN PARTY. 
 
 During Herzl's life, a large number of leading Zionists, es- 
 pecially those who controlled the administration of Zionist insti- 
 tutions and of the Zionist organizations, were known as political 
 Zionists, as distinguished from all other partisans. These politi- 
 cal Zionists laid emphasis upon the political aspects of Zionist 
 problems, and insisted that only by acquiring political recogni- 
 tion and legal right to admission to Palestine could the Jewish 
 problem be solved. They believed that a grant of rights was 
 essential, and that all Zionist enterprise, whether in the Golus or 
 in Palestine, should be directed to forcing the desired political 
 recognition. Acting on this policy, Herzl sought to inspire a 
 mass movement among the Jews, and based all his endeavors 
 on the theory that the Jewish people could be awakened to na- 
 tional consciousness. With this mass movement be"hind him, 
 he hoped to secure political recognition. All Palestine work 
 was regarded by him merely as a source of political power. 
 Necessarily, he was not so much a lover of Zion as a believer in 
 the Jewish people. He placed the Jewish people above the land, 
 the land being only an incident to the regeneration of the people. 
 
 But even Herzl conceded points to those who opposed him, 
 and in his administration one fails to find much of a difference 
 in fact between him and his opponents. He organized the Pales- 
 tine commission, but he also organized the Uganda expedition. 
 He regarded them both from the same point of view. 
 
 With his death, his followers lost not only a leader, but a 
 plan of action. They lacked the imagination and daring of the 
 founder of the organization, and soon degenerated into a pseudo- 
 opposition party, co-operating, rather unwillingly, in practical 
 work in Palestine, but ever ready to criticize the practicability 
 of the work. 
 
 At the Vienna Congress in 1914 they attempted to form a 
 party, but, lacking a common point of agreement, the movement 
 failed. But at the outbreak of the war there seemed to be on 
 foot a strong desire on the part of the political Zionists to formu- 
 late a policy which would give recognition to Palestine enter- 
 prises, and, at the same time, reassert the political aspects of 
 the situation. 
 
 Unfortunately, the outbreak of the war precluded such an 
 organization ; but the war itself seems to have strengthened the 
 position of the political Zionists, and a number of leading Zion- 
 ists friendly to the Chovevi Zionist policy have come to recognize 
 the importance of political action, and even the necessity of 
 exclusive political action. 
 
 Prophecy would be of no value, but it is clear that inasmuch 
 as the war has evoked the national spirit of all peoples, it will 
 also make a deep impression upon the Jewish people. Those 
 Zionists who affected to ignore political action now realize that 
 all national endeavors must be safeguarded by political bulwarks, 
 without which no human energy can succeed. 
 
 51
 
 PALESTINE AND ADJACENT 
 4^. PROVINCES WITH RAILROADS 
 
 Rivers 
 
 Railroads in Operation 
 
 Projected Railroads 
 
 I JUDEA 
 
 1 Abu Djudje 
 
 2 En-Gannim 
 
 3 Artuf 
 
 4 Ben Shamen 
 
 5 Bir Adas 
 
 6 Bir Jacob 
 
 7 Dilb 
 
 8 Djemama 
 
 9 Ekron 
 
 10 Hulda 
 
 11 Kafruria 
 
 12 Kastinieh 
 
 13 Katra 
 
 14 Mikweb. Israel 
 
 15 Moza 
 
 16 Petah Tikwah 
 
 17 Rehobot 
 
 18 Rishon le-Zion 
 
 19 Wady 
 
 el-Hanin 
 
 20 Jehudieh 
 
 II SAMARIA 
 
 21 Athlit 
 
 22 Hederah 
 
 23 Hefzi-bah 
 
 24 Kafr Saba 
 
 25 Kerkur-Bedug 
 
 26 Zichron Jacob 
 
 27 Tantura 
 
 III GALILEE 
 
 28 En-Zeitun 
 
 29 Bedjen 
 
 30 Hattin 
 
 31 Yemma 
 
 32 Kinneret 
 
 33 Milhamich 
 
 34 Merhawiah 
 
 35 Mesha 
 
 36 Metullab. 
 
 37 Medjdel 
 
 38 Mishmar 
 
 ha-Yarden 
 
 39 Mizpah 
 
 40 Poriah 
 
 41 Rosh-Pinnah 
 
 42 Sedjera 
 
 43 Ycsod 
 
 ha-Maalah 
 
 IV TRANS- 
 
 JORDANIA 
 
 44 Bene Jebudah 
 
 45 Daganiah 
 
 46 Mataba 
 
 THE JEWISH COLONIES OP PALESTINE 
 
 Courtesy of Jewish Publication Society 
 
 Population of Palestine - Over 600,000 
 
 Jewish Population of Palestine - - 90,000 
 
 Jewish Population of Cities - About 75,000 
 
 Jewish Population of Colonies - Over 15,000 
 
 Number of Self-Governing Colonies - 43 
 
 52
 
 WHAT OUR PIONEERS HAVE CREATED 
 
 ADAPTED FROM HENRIETTA SZOLD: "RECENT JEWISH 
 PROGRESS IN PALESTINE" 
 
 BY MARGARET GLUCK 
 
 The pioneers of America, the Pilgrim Fathers, are well known 
 to every American boy and girl. All are familiar with the story of 
 that valiant group of men and women who, being denied the free- 
 dom to worship God according to their conscience, left their native 
 land and set sail for the. bleak and inhospitable shores of an unknown 
 country America. There they willingly accepted hardships and 
 privations of every nature in order to be free to live true to their 
 ideals. The heroism, self-sacrifice and persistency of these pioneers 
 in their loyalty to an ideal call forth our highest respect and admira- 
 tion. 
 
 Pioneering work is not at an end. There exists today a group 
 of Jewish pioneers equally as valiant and idealistic as the Pilgrim 
 Fathers, but their work is not as well known, for it is still in the 
 making. 
 
 This Jewish pioneering movement had its beginnings in Russia 
 immediately after the outbreak of the pogroms of 1880. These 
 pogroms, coming at a time when the Jews were voluntarily giving 
 up much of their distinctiveness, disillusioned completely that group 
 which had hoped to find in the emancipation and enlightenment 
 recently acquired the solution for the Jewish Problem. 
 
 The men in this Haskallah group, as it was called, were known 
 as Maskillim. They aimed to broaden their scope of knowledge by 
 becoming acquainted with the literature and culture of other nations. 
 On the one hand, this movement had the very beneficial influence 
 of reviving to some extent the Hebrew language, for the Maskillim 
 also translated the literature of the other peoples into their own 
 tongue. On the other hand, it threatened to end in assimilation, in 
 the attempt on the part of the Maskillim to imitate completely the 
 life and culture of surrounding peoples. 
 
 The progroms averted this danger. The Russian Jew was 
 forced to realize that he had chosen the wrong path in seeking to 
 assimilate, and that he must blaze for himself another path. 
 
 It was then that the groups of pioneers were formed. They 
 sought a home. They needed a spot where they could have liberty 
 as a group, where they could be free to worship, to live and to 
 develop according to their own ideals, according to their own law 
 and tradition. 
 
 The dream was not new with the pioneers. For two thousand 
 years the Jewish people had kept alive the memory of the marvel- 
 
 53
 
 lous achievements of their ancestors when they were yet a nation in 
 their own land, Palestine. For two thousand years they had been 
 praying and yearning to be restored to that land. Nowhere in his- 
 tory is there another such example of devotion to a country. The 
 stories of the False Messiahs, showing the eagerness of the Jewish 
 people to follow anybody promising to lead them back into Palestine, 
 are a tragic but faithful indication of the intensity of their yearning 
 for their home. 
 
 So sacred had Palestine become to the Jew that it was con- 
 sidered a "mitzvah," a consecrated duty, for old Jews to return to 
 Palestine so as to spend their last years and find a final resting 
 place in the soil of the Holy Land. 
 
 At all times since the dispersion there has been a small settle- 
 ment of such Jews in the city of Jerusalem who spend their time 
 entirely in study. Jews living in lands of the diaspora consider it a 
 religious duty to support them, for through this support they show 
 their attachment and loyalty to Palestine. This beautiful custom 
 has unfortunately had a degenerating effect on the Jews in Jerusa- 
 lem. It has resulted in pauperizing them. The fund for the sup- 
 port of these Jerusalem Jews is known as the Chaluckah. 
 
 The pioneers, however, did not return for the purpose of study 
 alone. The loyalty of succeeding generations of Jews to Palestine 
 and to the Jewish people had developed in them an intense Jewish 
 consciousness. They looked back with pride to the splendid achieve- 
 ments of their people in the past, and resolved to return to their 
 old home so as to prepare for the Jewish people a future worthy 
 of its past. 
 
 EARLY TRIALS 
 
 The task they undertook proved more difficult than even the 
 staunchest of them had imagined. Palestine had been sorely neglect- 
 ed during the long absence of the Jews and large sections of it had 
 become waste swamp land. The pioneers did not know this until 
 they had settled in the districts and hundreds died of malaria. 
 There is record of one colony which was completely wiped out 
 by malaria. All that remained of it was a graveyard. 
 
 In addition to the unfavorable conditions of the land, the colon- 
 ists were also greatly handicapped by their lack of agricultural 
 knowledge. They had been trained for the university and for the 
 business world, not for the fields. They had been accustomed to 
 the conveniences of cities and towns and not to the hardships of an 
 agricultural life. 
 
 The success of the colonization work can be attributed only to 
 the powerful determination of the pioneers to bring about the Jewish 
 National Restoration. For that end no sacrifice was considered too 
 great. They gave up freely not only the material things of life 
 comfort, pleasure and a comparatively easy existence they gave 
 their very life-blood. 
 
 54
 
 The first of the forty-six agricultural colonies established in Pales- 
 tine was Petach Tikvah (Door of Hope). Jews in Jerusalem had 
 also become imbued with the nationalistic aspiration, and, in 1878, a 
 small number of them journeyed to a section nearer the Mediter- 
 ranean Coast and there founded Petach Tikvah. They were, how- 
 ever, too weak for the work. 
 
 When a band of Russian pioneers arrived in Palestine two years 
 later, Petach Tikvah was found deserted. These Russian pioneers, 
 fired with the enthusiasm and zeal which distinguish the Russian 
 Jew, soon rebuilt Petach Tikvah and also founded another colony, 
 which they named Rishon-le-Zion (First in Zion). 
 
 From this time on there were constant migrations to Palestine, 
 particularly from Russia, Poland and Galicia, where the Chovevi 
 Zion, "the lovers of Zion," had their headquarters, with branches 
 all over Europe and in the United States. The aim of the Chovevi 
 Zion was to establish agricultural colonies in Palestine. 
 
 In 1897, under the leadership of Dr. Theodor Herzl, a new 
 Jewish movement was launched. This movement embodied in pur- 
 pose the aim of the Chovevi Zion Society and much else besides. 
 The Zionist Movement, as it became known, was not satisfied with 
 establishing agricultural communities merely. It aimed to create 
 in Palestine a home for the Jewish nation. It planned to secure 
 Palestine not by war, but through the purchase of political conces- 
 sions. By means of diplomacy, it aimed to have Palestine "publicly 
 recognized" by the world as the national home of the Jewish people. 
 This purpose was concretely set forth in the platform of the Zionist 
 organization adopted at the first Congress held in Basle, Switzer- 
 land. 
 
 THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND. 
 
 Perhaps the most important, and certainly the most popular, 
 institution created by the Zionist organization is the Jewish National 
 Fund. This is the Jewish treasury. Its purpose is to acquire by 
 purchase the Jewish land for the Jewish people. Based on the 
 passage from Leviticus, "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, 
 for the land is Mine," the Jewish National Fund provides in its 
 statutes that no piece of land bought by the Fund can ever be sold 
 to an individual. All land that it purchases in Palestine is the 
 property of the entire Jewish people forever. 
 
 The resources of the National Fund, which now amount to 
 over a million dollars, have been gathered from among the Jewish 
 masses the poorest having contributed his mite to the fund of the 
 people. The principal means employed for increasing this fund are 
 sale of National Fund stamps, collections from National Fund 
 boxes, inscriptions in the Golden Book and subscriptions to the 
 Olive Tree Fund. 
 
 The Olive Tree Fund serves several ends. It is a source of 
 revenue for the National Fund, a means of re-afforestating Pales- 
 
 55
 
 tine and providing employment to the Jewish farm laborers in the 
 planting of the trees. Later, when the trees bear fruit and the 
 olives are sold, the profits will be devoted to Jewish education in 
 Palestine. 
 
 The Golden Book, too, besides increasing the resources of the 
 National Fund, was intended as an honor roll of the Jewish people, 
 where the names of its great men and women might be inscribed. 
 The National Fund receives the sum of $50.00 for the inscription 
 of each name. 
 
 Zionists the world over have also set aside two days of the 
 year, known as Flower Day and Flag Day, both of which are 
 devoted to securing collections for the Jewish National Fund. 
 
 It has become customary to give special donations to the Na- 
 tional Fund on the day commemorating the fall of Jerusalem, 
 Tishabeav. This act illustrates well the new spirit of the Jewish 
 people. The day of passive mourning is over for them. The day 
 of revived hope and action has begun. 
 
 The Jewish National Fund, besides purchasing land in Pales- 
 tine, has recently also provided for the building of homes, particu- 
 larly for the Yemenite Jews, who have come in very large numbers 
 from Arabia. 
 
 These Yemenite Jews had lived in Arabia for twenty-four cen- 
 turies and had come to regard it as a permanent home. But they, 
 too, suffered the tragic fate of the Jew of the dispersion. Not- 
 withstanding the fact that they had been in Arabia for centuries, 
 that during this time they had contributed their full share toward 
 enriching the country, they were persecuted solely because they were 
 Jews, and as Jews were considered an alien people who had no 
 place in the land of the Arab. 
 
 In their restored home, Palestine, the Yemenite Jews have 
 proved themselves very valuable to the colonists, as they are more 
 accustomed to agricultural life than the European Jew, and are also 
 more familiar with the customs and language of the native peoples. 
 
 LAND DEVELOPMENT COMPANIES 
 
 There are some tracts of land in Palestine which cannot be 
 bought in small plots. The purchaser must take over the entire 
 estate. In order that the colonists might acquire parts of such 
 estates, several land development companies have been formed to 
 purchase these large tracts of land and divide them up into small 
 plots for sale to the colonists. 
 
 The largest of the land purchasing organizations are the Jewish 
 Colonization Association (ICA) and the Palestine Land Development 
 Company. Estates purchased through these organizations are com- 
 pletely developed, roads are built, irrigating systems provided, trees 
 planted and the land made ready for occupancy before being turned 
 over to the owners. In this way, the land is made productive and 
 begins to yield its owner an assured income before he actually set- 
 tles in Palestine. 
 
 56
 
 The Achooza and the Zion Commonwealth are American organ- 
 izations which purchase land on similar plans. The colony Poriah 
 in Galilee was founded by the St. Louis group of the Achooza. 
 
 THE WORK OF BARON ROTHSCHILD. 
 
 The colonists had a ioyal and generous friend in the person of 
 Baron Edmund de Rothschild, without whose material aid perhaps 
 all the self-sacrifice and labor of the early pioneers would have been 
 wasted and many of the agricultural and industrial enterprises 
 would have been impossible. 
 
 Large sections of Palestine, especially in the vicinity of the 
 colony Rechoboth, yield an abundance of grapes. The first few 
 years these large vintages rotted away, as there was no place where 
 the grapes could be properly stored or pressed into wine. Now 
 there is a large, well-constructed wine cellar in Rishon-le-Zion, built 
 for the colonists by Baron Rothschild. 
 
 The building of this wine cellar has resulted in the development 
 of the largest and most successful industry in Palestine. So profit- 
 able has the grape and wine industry grown that the colonists have 
 been able to return to Baron Rothschild a part of the money he 
 loaned them for the building of the cellars. 
 
 The colony Petach Tikvah owes a particular debt of gratitude 
 to Baron Rothschild. After its reorganization it was again on the 
 verge of ruin because of malarial conditions due to marshy regions. 
 
 After some experimenting it was found that a certain Aus- 
 tralian tree, the eucalyptus, had the capacity of absorbing moisture. 
 Baron Rothschild imported a great number of these trees, had them 
 planted throughout Petach Tikvah, and in a short time this swamp 
 and hotbed of malaria became a healthful and beautiful tree covered 
 section. 
 
 The same experiment was tried in other marshy sections and 
 everywhere the eucalyptus proved successful. It is interesting to 
 note that the eucalyptus is now known by the Arabs as the "Jews' 
 tree." 
 
 JEWISH COLONIAL TRUST. 
 ANGLO-PALESTINE BANK. 
 
 Just as the founding of the Zionist organization introduced a 
 broad, statesmanlike viewpoint in Jewish affairs and brought about 
 the adoption of modern means for the attainment of its ends gen- 
 erally, so in the colonies it fostered and brought about the adoption 
 of modern commercial systems. 
 
 Zionists realized that while the assistance of Baron de Roths- 
 child had been of inestimable value to the pioneers, a continuance of 
 philanthropic methods would not have wholesome effects on the 
 development of the new settlement. The knowledge that the means 
 
 57
 
 for carrying on their work was dependent on the bounty of one 
 man would in time have destroyed even the strong sense of inde- 
 pendence among the colonists. 
 
 Some means had to be devised whereby material assistance 
 could be given the colonists on a purely businesslike basis. To meet 
 this need the Zionist organization established the Anglo-Palestine 
 Bank. 
 
 This bank is a branch institution of the Jewish Colonial Trust, 
 which was organized to finance the work of the Zionist movement. 
 Through the Anglo-Palestine Bank the colonists are a!51e to borrow 
 large sums of money for building and agricultural purposes. The 
 money is given not in the form of a gift, as had previously been 
 the custom, but as a strictly commercial loan. 
 
 During the financial crisis created by the present war, the 
 Anglo-Palestine Bank averted a panic by issuing paper bank notes, 
 which were accepted and discounted at unusually low rates. 
 
 JEWISH AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT. STATION. 
 
 In the United States the Government conducts what is known 
 as the Department of Agriculture for the aid of those in the country 
 engaged in agricultural pursuits. It employs agricultural experts 
 to experiment with various products, to cultivate through cross- 
 fertilization, to find just what kind of soil is best suited for each 
 product, and what products each farmer can raise most successfully 
 on his particular soil. 
 
 This same work now is being done for Palestine by the Jewish 
 Agricultural Experiment Station, headed by Dr. Aaron Aaronson 
 and founded and supported by a group of American Jews. 
 
 The Experiment Station has gained world-wide renown in the 
 agricultural field through its discovery of wild wheat. In fact, it 
 was this discovery by Dr. Aaronson which led to the founding of 
 the Experiment Station. Agriculturists had been seeking this for 
 years, as it was needed for the cultivation of a species of wheat which 
 could be grown in dry regions where highly cultivated wheat does 
 not thrive. 
 
 Dr. Aaronson is at present experimenting with the cultivation 
 of this wild wheat. If he succeeds in his work, Palestine will have 
 made an added and entirely unlocked for contribution to the world 
 through discovering the product which will increase the bread sup- 
 ply of the world four-fold. 
 
 THE "SHOMERIM." 
 
 The colonists have been fortunate in not arousing much antag- 
 onism from the native Turks and Arabs in Palestine. The only 
 people who have molested them in any way are the Bedouins, a 
 semi-barbaric tribe. 
 
 These Bedouins despised the Jews until recently as physical 
 
 58
 
 weaklings, and made frequent raids upon the fields and vineyards 
 of the colonists. They continued this to such extent that the colonists 
 found it necessary to employ watchmen to protect their property. 
 These watchmen, however, also being Arabs, were in league with 
 the Bedouins and often only aided them in their plunders. 
 
 The situation caused the colonists much anxiety. They were 
 at a loss to find means of protecting their property. Finally, there 
 evolved, from among the colonists themselves, what is now known 
 as the Hashomer Organization, the Jewish Guard. This is a group 
 of the bravest and most stalwart youths in the colonies, young men 
 who take upon themselves the safeguarding of the lives and property 
 of the other colonists at the risk of losing their own lives in combats 
 with the Bedouins. 
 
 The Shomerim can ride bareback and shoot as well as the 
 Bedouins and better. Such a reputation have they gained for fear- 
 lessness that recently an advertisement appeared in one of the 
 local Palestinian papers for a Jewish Shomer to act as watchman 
 over the property of an Arab. 
 
 The Bedouins have learned that the new generation of Jews 
 reared in Palestine are not to be classed as their physical inferiors. 
 As they grow to fear and respect the Shomerim, their raids on the 
 property of the colonists become less and less frequent. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 What of educational activity in the colonies? Is the school 
 being forgotten in the attempt to establish the colonies and to raise 
 a strong, healthy generation of Jews? This is an evil often found 
 among agricultural peoples. But in Palestine, in the Jewish colonies, 
 this evil does not exist. 
 
 Education has always occupied the foremost position in Jewish 
 life, and in the Jewish land, the school is naturally given foremost 
 consideration. No colony is considered too small to have an ele- 
 mentary school. The larger ones have in addition kindergartens, 
 higher schools for boys and girls, manual training schools and agri- 
 cultural schools. 
 
 The colony Tel Aviv, situated on the outskirts of the city of 
 Jaffa, boasts of the Herzl Gymnasium, a high school which is con- 
 sidered the equal of European institutions in scholarship standards, 
 and which prepares students for any university. Its students come 
 from almost all countries of the world, particularly from those of 
 Eastern Europe, where only a restricted number of Jews are per- 
 mitted to enter the higher schools. 
 
 A Teachers' Seminary has been established, and just before 
 the outbreak of the war, the plans for the founding of a Jewish 
 University in Jerusalem were completed. 
 
 From the kindergarten through to the gymnasium,' the language 
 of instruction in all the "national" schools, the schools founded by 
 the Zionists, is Hebrew. With the rebirth of Jewish national life 
 
 59
 
 and the regeneration of the Jewish national soil, has naturally come 
 a complete revival of Hebrew, the Jewish national language. In 
 the colonies, Hebrew has become the language of the market place 
 and of the child at play. It has gradually replaced both Yiddish 
 and Ladino, the latter being a dialect used by the Spanish-Sephardic 
 Jews. 
 
 The pioneer in the revival of Hebrew is Eliezer ben Yehudah. 
 He came to Palestine from Russia determined that Hebrew should 
 become a living tongue among the colonists. To set an example, he 
 made the strange announcement that the woman he married must 
 speak Hebrew. Fortunately, he found such a woman and was 
 therefore able to introduce Hebrew into his home. 
 
 The rebirth of this ancient national language of the Jews has 
 had a powerful influence in strengthening the sense of unity among 
 the colonists. The Russian Jew, the German Jew, the Arabian Jew 
 and all the Jews who come to Palestine are rapidly being merged in 
 the Jewish Jew. 
 
 The schools in the old settlement, that is in cities like Jaffa, 
 Jerusalem, Haifa, etc., are of a different character from those in the 
 colonies. Most of them are similar to the Ghetto institutions old 
 fashioned Hederim and Talmud Torahs employing obsolete educa- 
 tional methods, conducting classes in small and poorly ventilated 
 rooms under the direction of teachers not particularly well fitted for 
 their work. 
 
 There are also more modern schools in the old settlement, 
 those established by the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Hilfs- 
 verein der Deutschen Juden. These are model institutions from an 
 educational standpoint but originally they were more French and 
 German than Jewish in character. Both of these organizations have 
 done praiseworthy work in educating the Jews of Palestine, but as 
 the education thev offered was along French and German and not 
 Jewish lines, and fitted the student for European and not Palestinian 
 life, it resulted not seldom in the most promising students leaving 
 Palestine for Western Europe. 
 
 Unique among the educational institutions in Palestine is the 
 Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in the city of Jerusalem. To 
 Bezalel comes the Jewish art student who seeks a means of express- 
 ing his art in Jewish form and his Jewishness in art. Instead of 
 trying to find inspiration for his work in adopted lands, among 
 foreign peoples whose inner life he cannot understand, he comes 
 back to his home-land, to his own people, whose life is the very soul 
 of himself. 
 
 In the short space of nine years, Bezalel, under the direction of 
 Prof. Schatz, has succeeded in creating the beginnings of a Jewish 
 art. It is particularly famous for the finely wrought silver filigree 
 work which it has produced. Many of these filigree articles as well 
 as rugs, fancy woodwork, etc., have been brought here to America 
 for display and sale. We have seen that the articles made at Bezalel 
 
 60
 
 are not only distinctively Jewish in character but genuinely beautiful 
 and artistic. 
 
 Besides being a school of art, Bezalel has become a valuable 
 commercial institution of Palestine by giving employment to hun- 
 dreds in its rug-weaving, basket making and filigree work shops. 
 
 By making it possible for the inhabitants of Jerusalem to gain a 
 livelihood in a dignified way through the work of their own hands 
 Bezalel is helping to undermine the evil influence of the Chalucka. 
 It is developing a new sense of independence in the old settlement. 
 
 HADASSAH. 
 
 An account of the developments in Palestine would be incom- 
 plete without some mention of the work of Hadassah, the Women's 
 Zionist Organization of America. Imbued with the same ideal which 
 inspired the colonists, it has undertaken to do the American woman's 
 share in the regeneration of Palestine, choosing Jerusalem for its 
 field of activity. Here, through its trained American nurses, Ha- 
 dassah provides medical attendance for the sick mothers and babies, 
 takes care of the health of the school children and also attempts to 
 educate the people generally to more sanitary modes of living. 
 
 When after the declaration of war, the Jewish non-citizens of 
 Palestine were exiled to Alexandria, Egypt, Hadassah sent its head 
 nurse there to resume the work she had been doing in Jerusalem. 
 
 While this account of our institutions in Palestine is being 
 written, the war is still raging. The colonies created out of the life- 
 blood of the Jewish People, at the expense of the most heroic strug- 
 gles and sacrifices, are now going through a test of fire. 
 
 With its industries destroyed, its youth drafted in opposing 
 armies, crops rotting, with suffering and privation rampant in the 
 land, young Palestine still hopes and still works. Its industries and 
 wealth may be destroyed through this cruel war, but its spirit the 
 spirit of the Jewish People which made the establishment of the 
 colonies possible that spirit is indestructible. 
 
 After this war, our colonists will resume their task with in- 
 creased determination and energy. They will rebuild all that has 
 been destroyed and continue to build until the destiny of the Jewish 
 People shall have been achieved. 
 
 61
 
 NO, YOU DO NOT KNOW THE LAND 
 
 BY ITTAMAR BEN-AVI OF JERUSALEM 
 
 "Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread 
 shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the 
 river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall 
 your coast be." 
 
 (Deut. xi. 24) 
 
 Some time ago, I was sitting in the home of one of the prom- 
 inent New- York Jews. Father and Mother were not at home; 
 they were travelling, now for the fifth time, in Northern Alaska. 
 I was being entertained by the pleasant chatter of the elder 
 daughter, her thirteen year old brother and her ten year old 
 sister. They spoke to me of America: of its giant buildings in 
 its giant cities; of ball-games; of May parties and June-walks. 
 We were on the eleventh story. Through the spacious windows 
 the golden sunbeams sifted in, made the motes to dance in the 
 Spring radiance, and played on the reddish-blond locks of the 
 little girl. Before us, into the far distance, stretched the pano- 
 rama of the vast City with its myriad gleaming window-panes. . . 
 
 Suddenly the little boy fixed his blue eyes on my astonished 
 
 "Where do you come from ?" 
 "From Jerusalem," I answered eagerly. 
 
 "From Jerusalem?!" exclaimed the boy, his eyes flashing. 
 "From Jerusalem? Where is this Jerusalem? In Africa?" 
 
 A smile played about my lips; but before I had time to 
 answer him, the little girl, shaking her golden crown, snapped at 
 her unfortunate brother: 
 
 "You silly," she called out in a natural schoolmarm's 
 manner "do you not know that Jerusalem is in Persia?" And 
 then, turning to me : "Isn't that so ?" 
 
 With supreme effort I choked my laughter back into my 
 throat, and patiently I explained to my young co-religionists that 
 this Jerusalem of which they had heard is somewhat west of 
 Persia and rather east of Africa. I told them that Jerusalem is 
 situated on the mountains in one of the most beautiful countries 
 of the whole world, a country whose official name today is 
 Turkey, but which will soon be freely designated by its ancient 
 name : "Eretz-Yisrael," the Land of the Jews. 
 
 I took my leave ; and, as the pale sun sank and twilight fell, 
 I left them richer by a thought they had never heard nor dreamt 
 of before ---- 
 
 * * * 
 
 Of course, I know full well that there is no comparison 
 whatsoever between those little friends of mine and yourselves. 
 I am aware, moreover, that I should be making a great mistake 
 
 62
 
 if I indiscriminately charged the Jewish youth of this great land 
 with such total ignorance of things Jewish. I am fully acquainted 
 with the fact that there are thousands of true Jews left even 
 among our boys and girls. They love our past, cherish our coun- 
 try, and long for the fulfilment of our national hopes. This spirit 
 of faithfulness I find expressed most emphatically in "Young 
 Judaea." Yet I believe that the little anecdote is a graphic and 
 vivid indication of the general spiritual condition of the majority 
 of our Jewish-American youth. Whenever I pass along the 
 streets of New-York, say, on Fifth Avenue, at about five o'clock 
 in the afternoon, and look at the scores of boys and girls walking 
 there, and overhear their talks and their jokes, I, the Jerusalemite, 
 cannot shake off the sad feelings that oppress my heart. Are 
 these then my brothers, these boisterous and frivolous things, 
 whose greatest ambition is to imitate the tricks of Charlie 
 Chaplin? Are these my sisters, these overdressed dolls, brimful 
 of life and laughter, whose only purpose seems to be dancing, 
 whose only ideal seems to be the moving-picture, and whose only 
 thought seems to be ice-cream? 
 
 There are a million and a half Jews in this City of New York ; 
 you meet them at every step ; and for the most part, they are the 
 only ones heard and seen. But in this great sea of Jewish life, in 
 these turbulent waves, how much is there of genuine Jewishness ? 
 How many of these Jews give free expression to their Jewish con- 
 sciousness ? How many of them are proud banner-bearers of our 
 national ideals ? How many of them give a thought to the glories 
 of the past, and to the possibilities of the future ? How many of 
 them are willing to stop, for ever so short a while, in the midst of 
 their business and pleasures, in order to listen to the call of 
 Jerusalem Restored? And how many, pray, would sacrifice an 
 hour a week to study Hebrew, to read the Jewish Bible, to help 
 along the marvelous work of reconstruction which we are under- 
 taking there, yonder, far-away, in the enchanted East of Sinai, 
 
 Moriah, Lebanon, Euphrates, Moab and the silent Desert? 
 
 * * * 
 
 But what can I expect of these thousands that are plunged 
 into the abyss of New York, and are slowly being consumed by 
 its tense atmosphere, surcharged with electricity, if even those 
 who have stayed in the fold, and those too who have returned of 
 late years, are still far from possessing a comprehensive knowl- 
 edge concerning all that touches upon our country and its peculiar 
 life? How many are there, even among the members of Young 
 Judaea, with whom the very conception of Eretz-Yisrael is still 
 wrapt in a vague mist? How many young Zionists are there who 
 have plied me with questions that I should be ashamed to repeat 
 and therefore refrain from exposing? They are firm, indeed, in 
 their conviction, sublime in their national aspirations, mighty in 
 the spirit of self-sacrifice. But they are still groping in the dark 
 to find the road that leads to our land. What wonder that frozen 
 Alaska occupies a more distinct place in their minds than our 
 snowy mountains and our fiery desert? 
 
 63
 
 . /.^ , - !? "
 
 No, brothers and sisters, no ! You do not know the Land . . . 
 
 You do not know her because even your big brothers and 
 sisters do not know her precisely ; you do not know her because 
 even your parents have failed to impress upon you all her pristine 
 beauty, as their parents had impressed it upon them; because 
 even your teachers have forgotten her, almost all of them. They 
 have stripped her of her spring charm, they have deprived her of 
 her rich Hebraic coloring; thus they have turned her into the 
 rattling skeleton of a dead past, having no future, showing naught 
 but a mere chilling shadow of her former self. 
 
 And because you do not know the Land, you often believe in 
 things that would make the hair stand on end on the heads of 
 modern Jerusalemites. You believe that she is small and poor, 
 sun-scorched and dust-laden; that she is barren, over-populated, 
 a hot-bed of countless diseases, a haunt of wild beasts, mosqui- 
 toes, locusts and scorpions; that the majority of her population 
 consists of uncouth Arabians and repellent barbarians; that the 
 few Jews living there are feeble, old, looking only to die there, 
 intent upon stretching out their hands for alms, and indifferent 
 to the contempt and hatred they are bound to arouse. I myself 
 have heard one of the more enlightened Zionist ladies exclaim: 
 "How can I go to miserable Palestine of today, while the cholera 
 is chronic there, while lepers have the freedom of the streets, 
 while the beggars are there to snatch the pennies out of your 
 hand, while the heat is killing in summer and the tropical rains 
 cause sickness in winter and so long as there is not even a 
 picture-show at which to pass the evening?" 
 
 And this ill-suppressed feeling of apprehension caused by the 
 riddle of an imaginary Eretz-Yisrael is deeply imbedded in the 
 hearts of many, many Zionists, both great and small, not only in 
 New York, but everywhere where Jews live. 
 
 It is imbedded in the hearts, you will admit, because there are 
 very few among us who really know the land. 
 
 * * * 
 
 For example, do you know that the good and beloved land, 
 in whose name I, the Jerusalemite, speak to you, is not quite so 
 small and insignificant as is supposed, but, on the contrary, is 
 vast and far-spreading? 
 
 Didn't I laugh when a young American Jew, an ardent 
 Zionist, stepped up to me one day, and, coming fresh from his 
 courses in universal geography, asked me naively if Monaco, 
 San-Marino and Andora were smaller or a trifle larger than my 
 country? And didn't I laugh still louder when, after having set 
 him right, he, in his overflowing enthusiasm, generously con- 
 ceded to Palestine an area as large as that of Rhode-Island? 
 Many of you, I'll be bound, thought very nearly as he did, and I 
 suppose many of you are inclined to be just about as generous as 
 he was. 
 
 However, what will you say, and will you not be astonished, 
 if I confess to you that I laugh at all those and they are the 
 
 66
 
 large majority among us who compare the area of our land to 
 the size of the biggish island of Sicily, or to the dimensions of 
 teeming Belgium, Holland, Denmark, or even Switzerland? With 
 these notions, is there any wonder that so many arise in our midst 
 expressing their misgivings as to the future of Israel, in view of 
 the small territory of Palestine, whose soil in most sections has 
 already found masters that are hard and stubborn, unwilling to 
 yield her to us spontaneously? 
 
 But no. Neither San-Marino,, nor Andora, nor yet any of 
 the above-mentioned countries, can give a fair idea of our land, 
 for hers is a spacious territory, with far-flung boundaries, which 
 might swallow up all of them together, and even twice as much 
 and more. Glance at the map and study it for a spell, and then 
 you will get to know that the stretch of land which you erro- 
 neously compared at the most with Belgium, but which corre- 
 sponds only to the circumscribed space enclosed within the 
 coast and the dotted line, is but a modest section of the real 
 Palestine; for, in very truth, neither Dan in the North, nor 
 Beer-Sheba in the South ; neither Jordan in the East nor 
 Canaan and Pelesheth in the West, form the definite frontiers 
 of our land. The mighty Euphrates, the Great Desert 
 spreading towards the far East, the Red Sea with its two warm 
 bays, the marvelous Mediterranean, Lebanon and Hermon with 
 their eternal snows these, and only these, are the confines of 
 Greater-Palestine, our own Palestine, one and indivisible. Head- 
 ing this article, I of set purpose chose as motto the burning words 
 of the greatest leader in our national history. Read these words 
 over again, and you will learn that they contain the political will 
 of Moses addressed to our people, in full agreement with the lofty 
 dream of our ancestor Abraham. This will, whose validity nothing 
 can shake, became afterwards a guiding line for Joshua the 
 Conqueror, who gave it fresh emphasis in a new testament to 
 posterity. David, in his holy zeal for his people, fulfilled the 
 terms of this testament, sealing it in the blood of the Hebrews. 
 Joab, the generalissimo, made his horses to drink from the tur- 
 bulent Euphrates, and Solomon, with the insight of genius, built 
 Tadmor in the North, lying south of the river, and 'Etzyon-Gever 
 in the South, at the Bay of Elath, whence his ships set sail for 
 India and Ophir. 
 
 And this wide, wide land, which on foot could not be covered 
 in less than forty days eastward, and thirty days southward; 
 which a train would take two days to traverse, has nearly a 
 million square kilometers in extent, something like one and a half 
 times the size of Germany, or equal to about Spain and France 
 put together, certainly larger than both Italy and England. And 
 since I am addressing you, my American friends, you may grasp 
 my meaning more clearly, if I say to you that this Greater 
 Palestine is about one-tenth of the whole of the United States of 
 North America. . . . 
 
 Who of you, Young-Judaeans, even if your demands be most 
 exacting, would not be content with such a land? 
 
 67
 
 To be sure, I know there are those who would object : "What 
 is the good of this enormous area, if most of it is desert land ? 
 
 Tell them : "There are no such things as deserts nowadays !" 
 Did not France, in the days of Voltaire, declare that Canada was 
 nothing but a few square miles of ice? Did not Russia herself 
 imagine that Alaska was only a dark realm of frozen death ? And 
 you yourselves know how bitterly the United States were 
 opposed to the acquisition of the immense State of Louisiana, on 
 the fancied ground of its being an unredeemable desert. Yet 
 today see and behold : Canada has a glowing future ; Russia de- 
 plores the loss of Alaska; and Louisiana is one of the richest 
 possessions of Uncle Sam. 
 
 There are no such things as deserts nowadays. France has 
 redeemed the Sahara and turned it into a province pregnant with 
 untold possibilities; England has redeemed the Sudan, covering 
 it with cotton plantations ; Russia has redeemed the deserts of 
 Bokhara, which are now flowing with milk and honey; while 
 Italy did not despise the wildernesses of Tripoli and Cyrenaica, 
 and already the sandy wastes are beginning to adorn themselves 
 with luscious grass. 
 
 But granted that the calumnies of our foes and the imagin- 
 ings of some of our friends are true, can we, the beggar-nation of 
 the world, we who are poorer than rocky Andora, Lilliputian 
 San-Marino and Negro Liberia, can we afford to refuse even a 
 desert, if we but had the chance to take it, if they but let us have 
 it? 
 
 In ancient times, you will remember, the desert served us 
 well. It was a wall and a fortress against repeated invasions. It 
 can, it will, serve us just as well in times to come. By all means, 
 
 let it be a desert, so long as it is ours our veriest own 
 
 * * * 
 
 Probably you do not know that even the little we found at 
 the beginning of our colonizing efforts was not much more than 
 a desert. Sand-hills stretched from the coast and shifted as 
 far as "En-Hakkore," where Samson of old slew thousands of 
 
 Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass. The sad spirit of solitude 
 and desolation hovered over the awesome domain from "En-Hak- 
 kore" onward. Noisome weeds, briars and thistles, parched clods 
 and burning sun-darts, imparted to the place a deadly aspect. 
 Jackals and foxes, serpents and scorpions, ravens and owls, were 
 the only inhabitants of the entire region, and but seldom were a 
 few solitary Bedouins or banditti seen to pass through. Then 
 our pioneers came, thirty-five years ago, and redeemed this very 
 "desert," for fertile land was denied them by the natives ; and they 
 removed the stones and cleared the thorny growth, and hedged 
 it about with cactus and dug at its centre a deep well. 
 
 How beautiful and idyllic is the tale of this well ! How many 
 legends were woven around it, how many songs were composed 
 concerning it ! Until this day, listening to the babbling sound of 
 
 68
 
 its waters, one fancies he hears the story of the drought and thirst 
 which tormented the patient diggers during the first month. Inch 
 by inch the spade penetrated into the ground but no water. 
 Water had to be hauled on horseback from outlying hostile vil- 
 lages or far-off Jaffa, on rides lasting several hours ; no more than 
 enough to quench the thirst; none at all for washing purposes, 
 for the burning sand was their only cosmetic. At length, on a 
 hot summer-day, when the sunrays blended into the hazy gloam- 
 ing the point of the pick slipped into something soft: Water! 
 Murky water, and not very sweet, but water nevertheless ! The 
 ancient Hellenes, on seeing the sea from afar off, when returning 
 from their Persian adventures, did not emit a more jubilant shout 
 than did the creators of Rishon-Leziyon. 
 
 Yes, Rishon-Leziyon. Is it not a beautiful name? Does it 
 not tell the whole tale? Were you to see it to-day, this first and 
 foremost of our colonies, on her sand-mound, submerged in the 
 ocean of her trees, gleaming with the abundance of her fruit, 
 fertile and florescent, her happy smile reflected in her white walls 
 and reddish roofs, humming with the noise of her many farmers, 
 bleating flocks and frolicking children, drunk and intoxicated with 
 the light that floods her, as well as with the boundless freedom 
 of her overflowing Hebrew spirit, were you to see all this, 
 you would not believe that this is a new creation of that spirit, 
 but a pleasing memento of our long-flown past, when heavy 
 clustering grapes, milk and honey, fig and olive trees, dates and 
 pomegranates, cheered the heart and gladdened the eye of a 
 Deborah and Barak, an Isaiah and Ahaz, a Hasmonean or 
 
 Maccabean 
 
 * * * 
 
 And at every step in this land, wherever our foot treads, 
 wherever our influence reaches, we have changed this "desert" 
 into a paradise. The swamps by the Yarkon stream, which used 
 to be breeding-places of yellow-fever, we have changed into a 
 dense forest, into the largest and richest of our present-day 
 colonies, namely Petah-Tikvah, with a population of 6000 souls, 
 and an aggregate value of 6,000,000 dollars. Out of the swamps 
 of the Sharon and her accursed sands we have created Hederah, 
 surrounded with woods, reaching down to the coast, the chief 
 point of interest in which is the large cemetery containing the 
 white tombs of the martyrs of the new settlement; Zichron- 
 Ya'akov with her blooming gardens ; Atlith the fair-one, with the 
 ruins of her ancient port and her modern experiment-stations. 
 Among the pointed rocks of Upper Galilee we have constructed 
 Metullah characterized by her Swiss beauty of landscape, whence 
 may be plainly seen the waves of the Mediterranean, the eddies of 
 the Litani river, the blue thread of the Jordan, the mirror of the 
 Genesareth lake, and the round summit of Mount Tabor. On the 
 Galilean highlands, we have also established Rosh-Pinah, whose 
 mulberry trees feed tens of thousands of silk-worms ; and in the 
 valley of Esdraelon whose soil is perhaps the most fertile in the 
 
 69
 
 whole world, we have erected Merhabyah with her undulating 
 ocean of golden corn. Between Jerusalem and Jaffa, on rocky 
 hills, Har-Tob is outlined against the sky, filling the air with the 
 redolence of her roses and the fragrance of her lilies. And 'Ekron 
 in the Shefelah dazzles our eyes with the color-riot of her fruits, 
 the latter belonging to all countries and climes. Even in the 
 extreme South, towards Idumea, with her sun-parched solitude, 
 we have displayed our strength, and out of the drought we have 
 forced fresh sap, a deeper green and colors more vivid than any- 
 where else in the land : making the blighting sun there a blessing. 
 Ruhama is the Hebrew name of this new Beer-Sheeba. 
 
 Only the "Great Desert," which still fills us with apprehen- 
 sion, we have not touched for good or ill. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Thus, little by little, in the course of thirty-five years of 
 struggle and sweat, in spite of haunting despair and continuous 
 dangers, and in the face of obstacles and hindrances such as 
 could not be foreseen, the land became garnished with beautiful 
 settlements, Hebrew in speech and spirit. And thus we see to- 
 day, lifted above her hills and spreading over her plains, by the 
 side of her blue lakes and her native sea, alongside the sweep of 
 her rivers and the song of her wells, between the debris of her 
 past and the dreams of her future, fifty-seven Jewish villages, 
 fifty-seven throbbing centres of life, which grow progressively 
 from year to year, absorbing their neighbors and giving rise to 
 ever new settlements. And thus was our country once more re- 
 stored to practically her former state! 
 
 * * * 
 
 You do not realize what wondrous sentiment seizes me and 
 other Palestinians when we traverse our land towards the four 
 winds. At almost every step we pass by some Hebrew home, 
 some Hebrew quarter, some Hebrew settlement, some Hebrew 
 village, some Hebrew City. At times our feet do not cease touch- 
 ing Hebrew soil for hours and hours. If you see at the dim hori- 
 zon, by the side of the road leading to Jaffa, two straight lines of 
 tall eucalyptus trees, and among them serene edifices, be sure it 
 is Mikveh-Yisrael, the centre of agricultural education. At times, 
 one sees in a broad field a solitary building, half-empty, sur- 
 rounded by tender plants, pointing to the foundation of a new 
 colony. And at times, there is neither building nor young trees, 
 only fallow ground, and six or seven Yemenite Jews, with their 
 swarthy laughing countenances, the pistol in their belts and the 
 pick in their hands, watching and clearing the field, which is a 
 sign that the farm was bought but the day before. 
 
 You travel on the little snail-like train from Jaffa to Jerusa- 
 lem, in the company of French, English, German and American 
 tourists ; you all peer through the train-windows at the land- 
 scape ; you behold the Shefelah with her golden oranges, the foot 
 of the blue-peaked Judean mountains ; here and there proud 
 palms, lifting their leafy crowns heavenwards boldly, like fans; 
 
 70
 
 groups of storks, black-and-white, flitting to and fro over the 
 fields of wheat and sesame. Suddenly, there is a stir of sensation 
 in the train: there is whispering, chattering, querying and won- 
 dering, and the local Cicerones Arabian dragomans answer 
 and explain : 
 
 "What's that over there on the left?" 
 
 "A Jewish village," the- dragoman replies to his Christian 
 questioners, "the Hebrew Ben-Shemen." 
 "And over there, to the right ?" 
 
 "A Hebrew village," the dragoman rejoins, "old-new 
 'Ekron." 
 
 "And who are these stalwart men, with their kerchiefs 
 around their heads, riding on horseback at a swift gallop?" 
 
 "Hebrew 'shomerim,' who race from colony to colony to 
 guard the Hebrew farms against the assaults of lusty bedouins." 
 
 Thus it goes all along the way. Settlements and villages, 
 farms and estates all in Hebrew hands ; sometimes surrounding 
 completely the native holdings. Can it be that the land has al- 
 ready been re-conquered by the Hebrews ? Are the glorious days 
 of Joshua restored? 
 
 When the train stops at Har-Tob, once a Christian mission 
 to the Jews but now one of our most productive colonies, a dark- 
 complexioned girl is apt to step up to the window. Let us take 
 a look at her: olive-skinned and with features enhanced by 
 oriental expressiveness, her eyes seem to recall the scintillating 
 pools of light which Miriam might have owned ; her wayward 
 locks seem worthy to grace the Amazon head of a Deborah ; her 
 form is tall and slender as of an imperious Judith ; her speech 
 ripples forth with the bubbling sweetness of a Huldah ; while 
 her smile is serene in its wistful pathos as that of the daughter of 
 Jephthah before her immolation. In her hands she holds a bunch 
 of flowers, which she lavishly bestows upon any Hebrew traveller 
 who chances to ask for them: blood-red anemones; golden 
 daisies; milk-white lilies; violets and roses, the pride of Har- 
 Tob whose fragrance intoxicates the senses. Who is this fair 
 maiden? 
 
 She is a Har-tobite, a Sepharadi girl, scion of those aristo- 
 cratic Jewish families that had early settled here and embellished 
 the country-side in keeping with their own spirit of esthetic re- 
 finement. 
 
 And the foreign tourists join in the smile with which all 
 greet her it is a smile of sympathetic understanding: the times 
 of Joshua are upon us indeed. . . . 
 
 * * * 
 
 And now we are near Jerusalem. Jerusalem the Beautiful ; 
 Jerusalem the Best-Beloved, which I would not exchange for the 
 richest city in the world, so much do I love her. They all, 
 whether new-comers or old residents, stand up as if spell-bound, 
 and a mighty yearning gleams in their eyes : Jerusalem ! 
 
 71
 
 One fancies that even the train approaches the Holy City 
 with solemn reverence ; her syrencall is a shout of exultation and 
 proud greeting, for here, every stir in the radiant atmosphere 
 makes itself felt as the mysterious urge of all that is sublime and 
 exalted. 
 
 There, there she is before your astonished gaze as she looms 
 up, white and fresh in the fading softness of her sinking sun, 
 above her ten garden-embroidered mountains. There, there she 
 is with her towers and minarets, with her wall languishing be- 
 neath the burden of her past, with the stone-slabs of her square- 
 buildings, with the ancient olives crowning her horizons, with her 
 skies bluer than the waves of the sea; and with her calm: that 
 characteristic calm of the Jewish Orient brooding all over her, as 
 she lies cool in the temperate breeze. Such is she, Jerusalem, the 
 much-desired Yebus. 
 
 There are cabs waiting at the station, but very few in 
 number; why are there not enough cabs? 
 
 "Because to-day is Friday," remarks the dragoman. 
 And while the cabs roll onward in the thickly-curling dust 
 towards the city : 
 
 "Why are most of the shops closed? Is it the custom to 
 close them at five o'clock?" 
 
 "No; because it is Friday, and most shops belong to the 
 Jews." 
 
 And peace, undisturbed peace, reigns everywhere. The 
 streets are almost empty why ? 
 
 "Because the Jews are gone to the Synagogue and most of 
 the inhabitants are Jews." 
 
 Has the messianic era dawned ? No, not yet ! Nevertheless, 
 the city is already, to a very large extent, Hebrew in character. 
 Everywhere, Hebrew signs ; on every wall and gate, posters in 
 Hebrew; and it appears almost as if all the passers-by, even 
 Christians and Moslems, were at this hour garbed in Sabbath- 
 raiment, as if their very faces were beaming with the pervasive 
 Sabbath-spirit. The night is past, the matchless Jerusalem night 
 known for its jet skies, jewelled with leaping star-light to the far 
 edge of infinitude. The sun has arisen, and all the Jews are 
 hurrying to and fro, clothed in their festive garments, according 
 to the traditions of the lands they hail from ; while the boys and 
 girls swarming through the streets fill the air with their tripping 
 Hebrew conversation. 
 
 "Are these too Hebrews?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And what is this they speak?" 
 
 "Hebrew." 
 
 "Is that so? Is it possible that all these thousands speak 
 the language of Jeremiah and Zedekiah, Amos and Hillel?" 
 
 72
 
 And then I myself heard it the dragoman sets about ex- 
 plaining- to these surprised foreigners the story of the "Great 
 War," antedating the European war, the war waged by the 
 Hebrew language against the German language within the 
 schools of the Hebrews : 
 
 "This happened," thus runs his tale, "about a year, or a 
 year and a half, ago. One fine morning the voice of song rang 
 through the City, waxing in intensity every moment. Everyone 
 rushed to the windows, to the doors. We looked and saw an 
 impressive procession of boys and girls, headed by drums and 
 trumpets, with white-and-blue flags in their hands, fresh flowers 
 on their breasts and coat-lapels, motley ribbons in the hair and 
 around the arms, and Hebrew songs in their mouths. What had 
 come to pass? All these children went on a strike of their own 
 accord, leaving the "German" schools (the latter too were Jewish, 
 but the language of instruction was German) and resolving not 
 to return to their lessons until the German language was banished 
 and the Hebrew tongue put in its place. 
 
 Such was the dragoman's account to the foreigners. But we 
 who were with these children, marching in their procession to- 
 gether with their self-sacrificing teachers, the latter preferring to 
 lose their positions and salaries in order to lead this child-rebel- 
 lion, we shall never forget the solemn hour of this public demon- 
 stration, an hour pregnant with new possibilities and prophetic 
 of wonderful things yet to be. How pleasing in those days the 
 sight of this new generation all agog with schemes that criss- 
 crossed each other. How genuine was the spontaneous enthusi- 
 asm; how charming even the irresponsible follies of youth, in 
 which there mingled a dash of characteristic audaciousness, that 
 wholesome buoyant "Chutzpah" of the latter-day Palestine which 
 we have created. With what warm indignation did the pupils 
 tear to pieces their German text-books and copy-books; with 
 what glee did they scatter the bits to all the winds ; and with what 
 utter devotion did they vow never to submit to the sway of any 
 foreign tongue. 
 
 We were but a small people then, at most a hundred and fifty 
 thousand souls, during this our "Great Hebrew Revolution ;" we 
 were, nevertheless, a people in the full meaning of the term, a 
 people that, once again after the desolation of the past, empha- 
 sized its own national existence, not in the Diaspora but in its 
 own land, not as an undifferentiated aggregate of men and 
 women, but as Hebrews, cherishing first and foremost their own 
 individuality : 
 
 "Ho, ho! Let us sing! 
 
 Let our gladness ring! 
 
 This is a day of light 
 
 To-day we won our fight 
 
 Against the foe! 
 
 Let us celebrate in joyous song 
 
 Our people and our holy tongue 
 
 Three cheers! Ho, ho!" 
 
 73
 
 This was the song composed and sung by our young people 
 after their victory. This is the ringing echo of Awakened Zion ! 
 
 * * * 
 
 You cannot form a correct idea of the great pleasure which 
 Palestinians, both great and small, derive from sitting on their 
 door-steps, near their vine or olive-tree, while the panorama of 
 their ancient land, replete with suggestions of patriarchal times, 
 stretches before them in all its variegated richness. You cannot 
 imagine what pleasure it is for these modern Hebrews to walk 
 along the way and think: "here Judas Maccabeus passed by of 
 old ; there Deborah defeated Sisera her foe ; here fell prostrate 
 the Greek Nikanor; and yonder stood Bar-Cochba till he 
 breathed his last." 
 
 Neither can you know how moved the Palestinian heart is 
 at the sight of those hills and valleys and flowing rivers, whose 
 every clod, whose every drop, is epic of the wondrous past of our 
 people. Upon Mount Olive, Isaiah spoke, and there his voice 
 still seems to ring forth in clear accents. In the "Hatzar-Ham- 
 mattarah," the court of prison situated beyond the wall of Zion, 
 Jeremiah raised his lament, and his weeping voice seems to wail 
 through the ages. Proud Nebo looms afar on the blue ridge of 
 the Moabite mountains; and it is not difficult to imagine that 
 Moses is still standing there, fastening upo'n us his prophetic gaze. 
 And if your fancy casts its subtle net into the rippling waves of 
 the Jordan, it may haul forth from its depths the ghosts of 
 Joshua and Jericho. 
 
 Or do you think you can have an adequate impression of the 
 "Kothel ha-Ma'aravi," the Weeping Wall, this unique and signi- 
 ficant national relic, the symbol of our former power and present 
 endurance, with its gigantic slabs of hewn stones, time-worn and 
 bearing the marks of myriads of clinging hands? Imagine one of 
 the New-Hebrews standing at the foot of this sacred wall ; what 
 must his thoughts be ! On its bold crest the heroic soldiers of Ben- 
 Gorion and Johanan of Gush-Halav poured seething oil upon the 
 panic-stricken Romans, and at its base the present-day comba- 
 tants, descendants of those olden fighters, pour out their scalding 
 tears while vowing with iron determination to work for a glorious 
 future. 
 
 Tell me, you Young-Judaeans, in what nook or corner of this 
 wide, wide world will you ever come upon monuments that shall 
 speak to your hearts as those numerous Palestinian monuments 
 might, which tell the tale of our past? Where else will you find 
 a "Yad-Abshalom," reminder of Absalom's uprising against his 
 old father, which displays the peculiar charm of its slanting form 
 in the Valley of Jehoshaphat? Where else will your hands touch the 
 tombs of Hebrew kings, of prophets and scribes? Where else will 
 your eyes alight upon mementoes of the dim beginnings of our 
 nation's life, such as were found in the newly-discovered ruins of 
 cliff-crowning Yebus, thanks to the generosity of our maecenas 
 Rothschild who subventioned the Jewish explorer Captain Weil ? 
 
 74
 
 And where will your memory be stirred more mightily, and where 
 will your imagination take a bolder flight, than by the breakers of 
 the Sea of Jaffa, that dash themselves with foaming fury against 
 the forbidding rocks, which our rafts and merchantmen used to 
 brave, sailing as far as Tyre and Sidon, and even further to Tar- 
 shish of West-most Sepharad ? 
 
 * * * 
 
 And what tale will even the Present recite to you ! Populous 
 Tel-Aviv, for instance, with its graceful villas, with its water- 
 tower discernible from afar off, with its white-walled College re- 
 sembling a battlemented fortress, with its asphalted Herzl Street 
 always thronged with gay crowds, with its children of both sexes 
 indulging in merry sports, and its tiny park lined by young palms 
 and sycamores overlooking the azure sea. And to complete the 
 picture, there are the posters in large Hebrew letters, the an- 
 nouncements of the moving-picture shows for the evening, the 
 promised reels freshly arrived from Paris, and men and women 
 feverishly catching up the new editions of the Hebrew dailies. Is 
 this not a Nice, but a Nice transplanted in Hebrew soil? 
 
 Still more vivid will be the tale of any Jewish colony, with the 
 alarm-bell on its vantage-point, with its lumbering mail-coach 
 from the near-by city, with its farmers happy in the lassitude of 
 the evening, with its pale moon smiling ironically through space 
 and pouring out its fluorescent radiance upon the sleeping land- 
 scape far and wide. 
 
 And if this is insufficient, there is the mute and eloquent 
 testimony of this Jewish maiden, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, 
 daughter of the Galuth bearing still all its ear-marks, and yet 
 already different. There she sits in her little hut in the vineyard, 
 built of thatch, her needle-work in her lap, her watch-dog who 
 answers to the name of "Goliath" by her side ; while a few yards 
 away laborers of both sexes, clad in light Arabian garments, are 
 gathering the heavy clusters of grapes, which they pack into 
 hundreds of baskets, singing all the while spirited Oriental songs, 
 braced by the clear air that seems as if steeped in future hope. 
 The very sunbeams pour into them new life, the wholesome nat- 
 ural life of free men living on their own soil. 
 
 Behold, a small people bidding fair to become once again a 
 
 great people. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Up then, Young-Judaeans, go forth and tell in clarion notes 
 the glad tidings: "Eretz-Yisrael IS!" 
 
 Go forth, and in the name of the hundred and fifty thousand 
 Hebrews of Palestine, lay bare before your elders, teachers and 
 parents, this new-America namely, this Greater-Eretz-Yisrael, 
 so fair, so vast, so rich, so replete with promise. 
 
 Tell them that never did the rank and file of the people forget 
 this land ; that there was no period, even after the destruction of 
 the Temple, but there remained a few Jews in the land; that 
 Peki'in in Galilee and Shechem in Ephraim still harbor a fine and 
 
 75
 
 proud remnant of Ancient Hebrews; that the Yemenite Jews, 
 who are the far descendants of the Ten Tribes exiled in the time 
 of Ashur, never departed from our enchanted East, preserving in 
 Yemen, forty-days journey southward, the cherished traditions 
 of old. 
 
 Tell them, that the Lebanon stores iron and coal, that the 
 Sinaitic peninsula is full of copper and lead, that the Plain of 
 Jordan and the sun-scorched Vale leading to the Red-Sea yield 
 mineral oil; that the Dead Sea is alive with sulphur, mercury, 
 asphalt, bitumen and phosphorus. 
 
 Tell them that the great Euphrates rolls with its waters fine 
 gold-dust; that basalt and granite are scattered all over the 
 desert ; that there is even marble to be found here and there, and 
 many other minerals that have not yet been brought to light. 
 
 There is no country on earth so well provided with water 
 -by nature; only that desolation and utter neglect sent the 
 water back into the bowels of the earth, beneath the sandy wastes 
 and into the recesses of the Wadis ; that with a little will-power 
 and some outlay of money, with an uninterrupted stream of 
 pioneers, all this hidden water will well up once again, irrigating 
 the forlorn stretches, causing the green things to sprout forth, 
 regenerating the old pastures, and fertilizing groves and forests. 
 
 Cotton, Olives, Turkish Tobacco, African Rubber, Brazilian 
 Banana, Indian Pine-apple, and all imaginable fruits and products, 
 have been found to thrive in Palestinian soil as the result of the 
 first experiments instituted for this purpose. All that is needed is 
 that the Jews come from everywhere and join in the work; that 
 they come in masses ; for Greater Eretz-Yisrael, as I have de- 
 scribed it for you, can shelter not only a paltry million ; not only 
 the entire Jewish nation of today, but even scores of millions, if 
 we but will, if we but grow, strive and aspire. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Even before the outbreak of the present world-war, my little 
 map will tell you that the English planned to build a railroad 
 from Egypt to Mesopotamia, and from thence to India, through 
 Southern Palestine; at the same time the French projected to 
 continue their existing railway from Beyruth-Damascus to the 
 self-same Mesopotamia and from thence onward to Persia. And 
 the Turks, too, desiring to lord it over neighboring Arabia, had 
 already constructed a track from Constantinople and Damascus 
 as far as Medina and Mecca, this line passing right through 
 Eretz-Yisrael. 
 
 For Palestine, to our great fortune, is situated at the focal 
 point of three worlds, between progressive Europe, populous 
 Asia and dusky Africa; and all the three must needs meet here. 
 Shall we then give others the opportunity to build that which we 
 can and should build ourselves? Shall we leave it to others to 
 settle upon and appropriate that which we can and ought to 
 acquire for our people ? 
 
 76
 
 No, a thousand times no ! My brothers and sisters, members 
 of Young Judaea, I charge you to redouble your efforts, fol- 
 lowing in this the example of your pioneer brothers who went 
 before you, and join ever new forces in behalf of our work of 
 restoration. 
 
 For each new house which we erect in our land, each new 
 garden, each new vineyard or field which we plant and sow, each 
 new centre which we create and each new soul which we re- 
 create, will bring us a step nearer to that coming era in which the 
 glories of Yesterday and Tomorrow will meet. 
 
 We are an One People, whether conservative or liberal, 
 whether Ashkenazi or Sepharadi, whether Rabbanites, Karaites, 
 or Shomronites, and Zion is our One Aim. Once the war is over, 
 and the upheavals caused by it are past, the freedom of the seas 
 will be re-established and new horizons will open before us. Then 
 a new flux of eager pilgrims will start for our country, and there, 
 in our beloved East, there in our own land, we the Hebrews of 
 long standing and you the Hebrews to come, will unitedly lay our 
 hands on every spot which once belonged to us : from Sidon to 
 Sukkoth, from Tadmor to Ur-Kasdim, from the Mediterranean 
 to the Red Sea, from the mighty Euphrates to the far-stretching 
 Desert, the Desert as yet empty and solitary, but rich despite its 
 seeming poverty and fresh in its unused vigor ; the Desert dear to 
 me above all things, for in the baffling mystery of its hiding- 
 places I discern the footprints of our brethren, blood of our blood 
 and bone of our bone, the tenacious remnants of Jerusalem, laid 
 low by the ruthless tyrant, namely: the Tribe of Bene-Rechav 
 whose men exact a heavy tribute, until this very day, from all the 
 Mohammedans traversing their territory on their way to Islamic 
 Mecca. . . . 
 
 No ! You do not know the Land ! 
 
 Translated from the Hebrew. 
 
 77
 
 PALESTINE AND THE JEWISH DISPERSION. 
 
 "O May the Salvation of Israel 
 Come from Zion" Psalm XIV, 7. 
 
 BY D. DE SOLA POOL 
 
 What is the influence of the work being done by the Zionists 
 of Palestine on the Jews dispersed over the rest of the world? 
 Although Zionist work in Palestine has begun to realize its possibil- 
 ities only during the present generation, we, the Jews outside of 
 Palestine, are already gathering the harvest of the first planting. 
 Our Zionist work in Palestine is creating and exporting for us 
 in our Galuth something that is more important than Jewish agri- 
 culture, and that is, Jewish culture. In Palestine alone is this 
 true Jewish culture being created to-day. Such a claim seems at 
 first sight to be an exaggerated one ; but a brief consideration of some 
 of the main elements of culture will show that it is fully justified 
 by the facts. 
 
 JEWISH ART. 
 
 What is the Jewish art of the Diaspora? Is it the grotesque 
 medieval wood-cuts which disfigure our modern Haggada service 
 books? Is it seen in the sketches of the sepulchre of Rachel our 
 Mother, or of the Temple, which are sent to us by the non-Zionist 
 Palestinians living on the Chalukah? Is it to be traced in the 
 uncouth style of book-binding or the unsightly ornamentation of 
 the title-page which is exported with Jewish books from Wilna 
 or Warsaw? Can we look for it even in the paintings of a great 
 Dutch Jew like Josef Israels, or an English Jew like Solomon J. 
 Solomon, or of a German Jew like Max Liebermann? Is there 
 Jewish art in the pagan-classic or Moslem-Moorish architecture 
 of our American synagogues? We can claim neither the hideous 
 products of Ghetto art nor the aesthetically beautiful work of a 
 Josef Israels as being true Jewish art. It is often contended that 
 the work of a Lilien, a Hermann Struck and other Zionist artists 
 who depict by preference Jewish scenes, is Jewish art. But there 
 is more of Aubrey Beardsley than of Jewishness about the work 
 of Lilien, and in Struck we have the German etcher with intense 
 Jewish sympathies. German, Russian or English art, even when 
 produced by a Jew, and when picturing Jewish scenes, is Jewish 
 only incidentally. Essentially it remains German, Russian or Eng- 
 lish. 
 
 The work of the artists who have flourished in cloudy Hol- 
 land is distinguished on the whole by chiaroscuro, Dutch atmos- 
 phere and Dutch motifs. So also should our Jewish art be an 
 expression of Jewish environment, an art in which the sky and 
 air and life of Palestine are an indispensable inspiration. Until 
 the Zionists founded the Bezalel School in Jerusalem, there was no 
 Jewish art in the true sense of the term. To Professor Boris 
 
 78
 
 Schatz, the originator and guiding spirit of our School, belongs 
 the glory of beginning the development of an intrinsically Jewish 
 art. Motifs of essentially Jewish life are created and developed 
 there. He has formed within the School a museum of the flora 
 and fauna of the Holy Land to enhance the inspiration of the land. 
 Even the very letters of our Hebrew alphabet are given artistic 
 value and are used for decorative design. 
 
 In such ways, Palestinian Jewish feeling is becoming predom- 
 inant in the creations of the Bezalel School. There, under our 
 very eyes, an art is being developed which is Jewish in conception 
 and execution, feeling and motif. It is not simply a German or an 
 English art Judaized, but, being created by Jews living under 
 Jewish influences in a Jewish land, it is originally and inherently 
 Jewish. As yet, it is in its beginnings; but the works of the 
 Bezalel School were rapidly increasing in number, importance and 
 artistic value before the war, and were finding a place in Jewish 
 homes in all lands of the Galuth. We Jews of the exile are no 
 longer mere parasites on the art schools of the world, everywhere 
 copying and learning from others, while adding nothing of our own. 
 Through the Bezalel School, we have begun to give the world 
 beautiful examples of our own Jewish art, created and inspired by 
 a free Jewish life in Palestine. 
 
 JEWISH MUSIC. 
 
 Conditions are similar with our so-called Jewish music. Fam- 
 ous composers of Jewish birth, such as Meyerbeer, Halevy or 
 Offenbach, have not written and do not write Jewish music. Bril- 
 liant artistes, such as Mischa Elman or Harold Bauer, do not 
 play Jewish music. They write or play the musics of Russia, 
 Germany, Italy or France. In our synagogues there is music that 
 is usually called Jewish. But the synagogue music is Judaic 
 rather than Jewish, that is, it is usually the music of environment 
 Judaized, not uniquely and originally Jewish music. We have 
 also the music of Yiddish operas or Yiddish lullabies and folk- 
 songs. But these are Yiddish music, that is, music built up on 
 Judaized versions of Slavonic modes, and they give melodic 
 expression to the soul of the weeping Ghetto, not to the soul of the 
 free Jew. 
 
 Again, we are compelled to look to the Zionists of Palestine 
 for the development of a truly Jewish music which shall be some- 
 thing more than a Judaization of the musical modes of our Galuth 
 environment. The beginnings have already been made. A Jewish 
 Conservatoire of Music has been established in Jaffa. Abraham 
 Zevi Idelsohn has published a collection of one hundred all-Hebrew 
 songs, songs for children, for their games, for the school-room, 
 lyrics of nature, marches and national songs. These songs, with their 
 Hebrew words, Hebrew spirit and beginnings of Hebrew melody, 
 are being exported from Palestine to Hebraize and Judaize our 
 young in the Diaspora. To bring to full development a truly 
 Jewish music, determined in its Jewish character by the national 
 
 79
 
 Jewish life from which it springs, will take more than a decade or a 
 generation. But that development is going forward among the 
 Zionists of Palestine, where alone in the world the environment is 
 essentially Jewish. 
 
 JEWISH LITERATURE. 
 
 A third element of Jewish culture which is receiving a new 
 birth in Palestine, is Jewish literature. The long centuries of Galuth 
 have produced a wealth of Jewish writings, consisting mainly of 
 a development of our ancient religious masterpieces. While Jewish 
 national life on its own soil produced the Bible, Jewish denational- 
 ized life in the Galuth has produced commentaries. It is true that 
 there have been occasional outbursts of passionate song in the exile ; 
 but even these were usually called forth by the longing for Pales- 
 tine and renewed national life in our own land. Of secular litera- 
 ture the Galuth has produced next to nothing. Even such splendid 
 modern products of Jewish literature in the Diaspora as Graetz's 
 History, written in German, or the Jewish Encyclopedia, written 
 in English, are Judaic rather than Jewish. They represent the Ger- 
 man scientific method Judaized, not an originally Jewish spirit and 
 method. Fine as is the religious literature that is the glory of our 
 exile, the Bible proves that we could achieve far better did we 
 have our own Jewish land with a national Jewish culture in that 
 land. It is to the Zionists in Palestine that we must turn for the 
 foundations of a national Hebraic literary culture, which shall be 
 more characteristically Jewish than are the works of a Zangwill 
 or a Georg Brandes. 
 
 It is true that the first developments of modern Hebrew had 
 their home in Russia and Germany. Extraordinary efforts were 
 there made to make it the medium of Jewish literature. Books, 
 magazines and newspapers appeared in Hebrew. But so long 
 as it developed in those lands, it was exotic and the literary tongue 
 of only the learned few. It could not become the vernacular. In 
 Palestine, through Zionist perseverance and faith in an ideal, 
 Hebrew has become the daily and the official language of the col- 
 onies. The children in the streets play in Hebrew, for it is their 
 mother tongue. There our language has lost the stiffness and 
 artificiality which were inseparable from it so long as it was a lit- 
 erary hobby, and it has developed a vocabulary and power of 
 expression which fit it for all the needs of daily life. To-day, it 
 is no longer the Jews of Russia who are teaching Hebrew to the 
 world, but it is the Zionists in Palestine. To Zionistic Palestine 
 we must turn for Ben Jehuda's great dictionary of the Hebrew of 
 all ages. To the Zionists of Palestine we turn for the Va'ad Ha- 
 lashon, the academy formed to standardize the language. To Pales- 
 tine we turn for the Jewish National Library, founded and sup- 
 ported in Jerusalem by Zionist enthusiasm and vision. May we not 
 see in these revivals of true Jewish culture a fulfillment of the 
 Biblical word Ki mitsiyon tetze torah truly from Zion is going 
 forth instruction? 
 
 80
 
 JEWISH LIFE. 
 
 Yet more. Art, music and literature cannot alone constitute 
 the culture of a nation. In a broader sense, the national culture 
 includes every act and attitude which gives character to a people. 
 Have we Jews outside of Palestine a Jewish culture in this sense? 
 
 To a certain extent we seem to possess it. The Jewish culture 
 of the masses is expressed partially by religious celebrations, the 
 Yiddish language, traditional Jewish dishes, Jewish humor, and the 
 other characteristics which are typical of our thickly settled Jewish 
 districts. But a moment's reflection shows how little these are 
 purely Jewish. In every detail of this life, we see the unfortunate 
 results of a too rapid superimposing of American culture, sadly 
 misinterpreted, upon an abnormal form of Jewish culture. Col- 
 loquially, we talk of the East Side, Williamsburg or Brownsville, 
 as Jewish centres. But did Jews form one hundred per cent, of 
 the population of such districts, these districts could never be any- 
 thing else than American. The elements of general culture in 
 them are all American. The language, the streets with their crowded 
 tenements, gaudy stores, screaming newspapers, thundering elevated 
 trains, garish and aggressive advertisements, the games of the 
 children, the popular interests, political discussions, all these and a 
 thousand other elements of the general culture, are copies of 
 American life, tinged with a slight, and usually objectionable, so- 
 called Jewish coloring. 
 
 It is no less true that were Jews to form one hundred per 
 cent, of the population of New York City instead of twenty per 
 cent., a truly Jewish life based on a truly Jewish culture would be 
 just as hopeless of realization in New York City as it is in any 
 city of the Diaspora where the Jews form a tenth of one per 
 cent, of the general population. Even the Jewish agricultural col- 
 onies in America are not truly Jewish; they are American farm- 
 ing colonies, Judaized. 
 
 The creative source of national Jewish culture was destroyed 
 at the breakdown of the Jewish State nineteen hundred years ago. 
 In all the subsequent centuries of life outside of Palestine, we have 
 not been able to create a culture in its broader sense which we may 
 call truly Jewish. Where then are we to look for these characteristics 
 of national Jewish life which together comprise Jewish culture in the 
 wider sense of the term? The weakness of Jewish culture in a foreign 
 environment, even under favorable circumstances, gives us as the 
 only possible answer, our Jewish settlement in Palestine. 
 
 For it is in the Jewish colonies of Palestine alone that there is 
 the possibility of developing a completely Jewish life, freed from 
 the cramping and unbeautiful influences of the Ghetto, and freed 
 also from the overwhelming non-Jewish influences of an alien 
 environment. In the Palestinian colonies founded by Zionists the 
 chief problems of the Diaspora do not exist. There is no Sabbath 
 problem, for the recognized day of rest is the Jewish Sabbath. 
 There is no difficulty in observing the Jewish dietary laws, for no 
 others are recognized. In those colonies there is no soul-deaden- 
 
 81
 
 ing routine in teaching Hebrew as a dead and not-understood 
 tongue, for the language of our religion is absorbed with the 
 mother's milk. 
 
 What Jew would not be thrilled at seeing in our land this 
 beautiful, free, normal Jewish life from which the Ghetto look of 
 fear and the Ghetto bend have disappeared? We have known of 
 Jews who had been proud of their almost complete assimilation in 
 our exile, turn to Zion as the hope of Jewry, after one visit to 
 the Jewish colonies in Palestine. What converted them was not 
 historical sentiment, nor Biblical tradition, nor sacred names and 
 shrines; it was the discovery of something unseen in any land of 
 our dispersion the true type of Jew living a free Jewish life. 
 
 This that we see to-day in Palestine in being, was twenty-five 
 years ago the vision and the dream of Achad Ha'am, a pioneer 
 thinker of our national revival. He foresaw that our Zionist col- 
 onies would become: "A national spiritual centre of Judaism, to 
 which all Jews will turn with affection, and which will bind all 
 Jews together; a centre of study and learning, of language and 
 literature, of bodily work and spiritual fortification; a true minia- 
 ture of the people of Israel as it ought to be so that every 
 
 Hebrew in the Diaspora will think it a privilege to behold just 
 once the 'centre of Judaism,' and when he returns home will say 
 to his friends: 'If you wish to see the genuine type of Jew, 
 whether it be a Rabbi or a scholar or a writer, a farmer or an 
 artist or a business man then go to Palestine and you will see it.' " 
 We are living this dream to-day ; for this is what is happening 
 with growing frequency, as the Jewish type now in the making in 
 the Zionist colonies of Palestine becomes more numerously repre- 
 sented and more clearly defined. 
 
 JEWISH EDUCATION. 
 
 The influence of this new wholly Jewish type is growing more 
 and more potent in radiating general Jewish culture throughout 
 the world, and in giving to the Jew of the Diaspora the long looked 
 for standard of what constitutes a Jew. The most important factor 
 in this influence is Jewish education. The Zionist schools and col- 
 leges in Palestine, such as the Tachkemoni School in Jaffa, the Gym- 
 nasium in Jaffa, or the Teachers' College in Jerusalem, are creat- 
 ing a standard of truly Jewish education. The Hebrew Bible and 
 the Talmud are the foundations of the whole course of study. The 
 teaching of history culminates in an appreciation of our Jewish 
 heroes and the meaning of our survival. The teaching of geog- 
 raphy leads to a familiarity with the heights of Carmel and Hermon, 
 the glories of Galilee, the hills, valleys and streets of the Holy City. 
 Even such unsectarian subjects as mathematics, Latin or Greek are 
 there taught through the Hebrew medium, which gives to them a 
 Jewish atmosphere. The field of education is universal, but its spirit 
 and its aspiration are Jewish. The influence of these schools is 
 penetrating the Jewries of the world, and revealing to them a new 
 
 82
 
 conception of Jewishness in education, possible of realization in its 
 completeness only in Palestine, but inspirational to the Jewries of 
 the Diaspora. Our Galuth religious schools have been given new 
 life through the Zionist schools of Palestine. Men of Palestinian 
 birth, such as Dr. Benderly in the United States or I. W. Slotki in 
 England, have introduced into them the methods of teaching Hebrew 
 as a living language developed by a Yellin in Jerusalem. The 
 Zionists have brought to our shores the songs and the living spirit of 
 our promised land, and have made our schools attractively Jewish 
 and nationally inspiring. If Zionist work in Palestine had done 
 nothing else than reinforce the failing religious teaching of the 
 Diaspora and render it able permanently to influence the young 
 and train an effectively Jewish generation, our debt to that work 
 could never be overestimated. 
 
 JEWISH UNITY. 
 
 We must pass over many other phases of the regenerating 
 influence of modern Zionist Palestine on our life in the exile. But 
 there is one other influence which must receive brief mention. In 
 the Diaspora, the Spanish Jew tends to look down upon the German 
 Jew, and the German Jew upon the Russian Jew, thus weakening 
 the sense of unity and brotherhood of our people. The Jew in 
 America, France or Germany or similar lands who does not speak 
 the language of the country without a foreign accent is regarded by 
 his brother Jews of those lands as a foreigner. Even in pre-Zion- 
 istic Jerusalem, the Jews are divided up according to the lands of 
 their nativity and their varying vernaculars. Alone in the Zionist 
 colonies of Palestine are these disorganizing, local prejudices broken 
 down. There one finds Jews from Persia and St. Louis, Jews 
 from Turkestan and Poland, Jews from Yemen and from Berlin, in 
 the Jewish melting pot, living together in brotherhood and unity, 
 speaking the unifying Hebrew language and bound together on 
 the common synthetic basis of Jewishness and Judaism. 
 
 We in the Diaspora are beginning to feel a sense of closer cohe- 
 sion through the common interest in the Jew and his Jewish cul- 
 ture in the land of Israel. Unlike the work of associations such as 
 the Alliance Israelite Universelle which appeals to the French Jew, 
 or that of the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden which appeals to 
 the Jews of Germany and which serves German interests, Zionist 
 work in Palestine transcends all local patriotism and makes its uni- 
 versal appeal directly to the Jewish heart of the Jew everywhere. 
 The problems of Palestine concern equally the Jew in South Africa, 
 Belgium, Hong-Kong or Buenos Ayres. When before the war an 
 effort was made to divert the migration of the Yemenite Jews into 
 Palestine, and to provide them there with work and with homes, 
 no Zionist stood aside on the ground of narrow, non-Jewish, local 
 interests. This effort to settle the Yemenites in Palestine was epoch- 
 making, not only in being the first organized attempt ever made, 
 during all our hapless centuries of exile, consciously and with set
 
 purpose to guide the steps of the wandering Jew homeward, but 
 also in being the co-operative work of Jews of all lands. The magic 
 of Palestine is wiping out lines of local prejudice, and is aligning all 
 Jews for the common ideal. This reawakening of the sense of the 
 universality and oneness of Jewry is being effected by Zionist work 
 in Palestine. 
 
 Wheresoever we turn, we find that the work of the Zionists in 
 Palestine is strengthening and enriching Jewish life in the exile. 
 We in the Diaspora have had no national Jewish art ; the Zionists in 
 Palestine are developing one for us. We have had no national Jew- 
 ish music; they are creating it for us. We have had no national 
 Hebraic literature; they are producing it for us. We have had 
 no living national language ; they are reviving it for us. We have 
 had no successful system of Jewish education for the young; they 
 are building one for us. We have had no standard of what con- 
 stitutes a completely Jewish life ; they are creating this for us. We 
 have had little sense of the solidarity and oneness of Israel. They 
 are instilling into us this consciousness of Jewish brotherhood and 
 unity. 
 
 These are some of the concrete gifts which Palestine brings 
 to us. There are others, less tangible perhaps, but no less quicken- 
 ing. Zionist work in Palestine is teaching us no longer to weep for 
 Zion, but to work for Zion. It is teaching us that the true con- 
 quest of a land by the Jew is not by spear and sword, but by plough- 
 share and pruning hook. The concrete achievements there attained 
 and the translation of ideals into reality have been more eloquent in 
 preachment to the assimilated Jew than all oratory of words. Enough 
 if it has been shown that the tree of Jewish culture must be rooted 
 in Jewish soil and its leaves bathed in Jewish atmosphere if it is to 
 produce true Jewish fruit. The Zionists in Palestine are creating a 
 Jewish spirit which is breathing upon the dry bones of Galuth Jewish 
 life and making them live again. Verily the Zionist centres in Pal- 
 estine are becoming what Achad Ha'am calls "a home of healing for 
 our national spirit and culture, which will be a new spiritual bond 
 between the scattered sections of the people, and which by its spir- 
 itual influence will stimulate them all to a national life." 
 
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