Nahum Sokolow

“ What was it other than the ever-present, ever life-inspiring spirit itself, which cannot die—the religious and ethical zeal which fills the whole history of the Jewish people, and of which she herself felt the living glow within her own soul? She had discovered the secret and the genius of Judaism—that complete transfusion of spirit with body and substance which, taken literally, often reduces itself to rites and ceremonies, but viewed in a proper light takes a nobler shape and form, and spreads its light over humanity in the prophets, teachers and saviours of mankind. ”

“ Why should so small a speck on the earth’s surface as England be able to control an enormous and populous-scattered Empire on which the sun never sets? Why should England be the terror of the oppressor and the asylum of the oppressed? It is by the spirit of God, by the great zeal and industry to be profitable and useful to the world, by readiness to take any pains, and give any assistance to the furthering of justice. ”

“ And if you say the Land of Israel is of no value to any one, then you are not speaking in our name! Speak for yourselves alone! For you the Land of Israel means perchance only a cemetery, a legend, an amulet, an archæological relic; for us its every pebble and grain of sand is beloved, not only in a spirit of worship and of inactive enthusiasm, but also as a necessity to our life labour. And if you believe that the Jewish people are of a similar species to the Mammoth and the Megatherium, which have been devoted to extinction, then please speak only for yourselves! ”

“ Of all the consequences of the Great War and the still greater Victory, none could be invested with so splendid a degree of romance as the re-establishment of Israel. Of all the small nations which shall spring full fledged from this world crisis, none will have so ancient a claim, so fascinating a history as the Hebrew people reinstalled among the consecrated hills of Judah and by the sacred waters of Galilee. This will be an everlasting memorial to the principle for which the free peoples of the earth have made the greatest sacrifice in the history of the human race. ”

“ The Greek spirit of freedom, and the order, discipline and law of Rome survive in Anglo-Saxon institutions, not by mere enforcement of victorious arms, but because men have recognized them as the happiest approximation to the independence of each and the subordination of all that has ever yet been conceived.
To Greece was entrusted the cultivation of reason and taste. Her gift to mankind has been science and art. To the Greeks we owe the science of logic, which has dominated the minds of all modern thinkers. Much of the spirit of modern politics, too, comes from Greece. ”

“ We were more faithful in guarding their property than dogs are. For the labour which we performed, for our hard and humble services, for the sacrifice of all our strength on their altars, for the resigned and patient suffering of all the tortures of exile, we did not receive even the reward of protection extended to the beast of burden, to the cow, or to the sheep for its wool. Deprived of all human rights, even stripped of the scantiest rags of toleration, we wandered and fell under the iron yoke of serfdom, like a weary and impotent herd of cattle driven over rocks and brambles. ”

“ The Holy Land is rich in vegetation, from the time-honoured ‘cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall.’ Groves of olive and mulberry trees, vineyards of grapes of extraordinary size and richness, interspersed with fields of golden grain, with magnificent hedges of the cactus almost reaching the height of trees; the sycamore with its thickness of foliage—these, and more can be enumerated in a brief outline, are there for the endowment and adornment of the Holy Land. Nevertheless, the wealth of nature is in a great measure of a passing character. ”

“ An utterly demoralized people will abandon itself in a moment to a dream of ambition, turn its ploughshares into swords, and break from its borders to conquer the world. A new field for cupidity or pleasure, the discovery of a continent, the sudden acquisition of a fertile territory or a mine of wealth, has ere now turned an ancient and noble race into a rabble of adventurers. But it is very rare, almost unparalleled, for a peaceful people to find a new opening all at once. There was doubt, then, about the Jewish desire for redemption. ”

“ Champion des grandes idées qu’il a, plus que tout autre, semées à travers le monde, notre pays a puisé dans la conscience d’être un vivant symbôle de justice, la force de terrasser son adversaire. Il a, du moins aujourd’hui, le droit de se dire, non sans fierté, qu’il n’est plus au monde une race ou une nation qui ne puisse faire entendre ses légitimes aspirations, et qui ne sache qu’en France il y aura toujours un cœur pour les adopter. ”

“ They failed to see that their people’s history abounded in events and incidents sufficient not only to stamp a nation as glorious, but to confer upon themselves, as men and as citizens in the countries of their birth, greater dignity, more native worth and integrity of purpose. They forgot that assimilation involved the sacrifice of a glorious historical tradition, of a living national sentiment, and, worst of all, of their national genius. ”

“ Judea it was which revealed to humanity the path of progress, it was Judea which taught the greatest and noblest lessons in the life of nations—the lessons of Freedom and Right—and it is Judea which will become a centre of liberty and a blessing for the nations. Palestine is not to be weighed down by military powers. She is a home for a small and free nation, and not for a troop of subjects. The glory of invaders is to be conquered by humanity. The glory of tyrants is to yield to civilization. ”

“ The individual is the outcome of a nation, its ultimate aim. The nation is the circuitous way of nature to produce an individual. A nation is great, not only when great creative minds arise from its midst, but also when the many live intensively, so that they receive impulses from the few, and return impulses to the few—and when the past lives on in the present. It is this idea of Jewish nationality which Manasseh had forefelt in spite of his mysticism. He was permeated with religious enthusiasm and, at the same time, all aglow with intense national feeling. ”

“ We wish to live and to live by our labour and untiring efforts. We want to be invigorated by that force which the children of the soil absorb from contact with it. We want to give form and visibility to our mental conceptions. We desire to perform Israel’s allotted part in the purpose of the eternal progress of humanity in all branches of life, in all human activities. The Jewish National Home will stand out in the world as an inspiring symbol of the triumph of justice over tyranny, as a proof of the right of nationality to be itself. ”

“ The more they respect themselves the more they will be respected. And what is the self-respect of an ancient nation? Self-respect is faithfulness to one’s own history and traditions. There is no duality and no alternative. There is only one Jewish problem that requires solution. There is only one Justice—to man and to nations. Justice will consider Jewish needs; injustice will be deaf to any demand. Weak-minded and nervous people feared that Zionism which recognizes the Jews as a nationality will allow the anti-Semites to reproach us triumphantly as having no native land. ”

“ What will the great victory bring to this people who have been so hard hit by this war? Hundreds of thousands of Jews have lost their lives, most of them in countries where they had no share in human rights, and nothing to fight for. Dying on the Carpathian mountains or in the plains of Moldavia, the last glance of their closing eyes was turned to the East, to the hills of Zion. Innumerable masses have been maimed, millions nerve-shattered and starved out, tens of thousands of Jewish homes, thousands of old Jewish communities wiped out, never to be reconstructed. ”

“ It is the keynote of all Hebrew poetry, old and new, from the holy Psalms to the inspired poems of Jehudah Ha’levi, and from Jehudah Ha’levi to the living Hebrew poets of our own day. This everlasting, all-absorbing and unconquerable idea of a national future is absolutely Jewish. It has accompanied the Jews from the cradle to the grave. It is the secret of their long existence, which has no parallel in history. It has nothing to do with nationalistic tendencies and currents among the Gentiles in modern times. It existed as well in times of distress and misfortune as in times of prosperity. ”

“ The blood which has been flowing for thousands of years from the ever-open wound of the creative genius and of the nation. He dreamt to base the future upon sacred ruins. He deemed as nothing the laurels of the Golus as compared with the feeble light which began to glow more and more vividly far away in the old country and in his bosom, which overflowed with sadness and longing. ”