Nahum Sokolow

“ 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. ”

“ Let humanity do for Palestine only a small part of what has been done so liberally for the most exotic colony—nay, less than that, because Zionists ask for no material support, and for no embarrassing responsibility. They ask only for sympathetic consideration and help, for recognition and protection. And let humanity be sure of the loyalty of a people which, although sorely tried, has never grown cold in its affections, a people which by its resurrection will become again what it was in very ancient times, not a military power but a spiritual and peaceful power. ”

“ 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 Jew has not dreamed of Israel again as a nation? It can be confidently asserted that among the sons and daughters of the Covenant it is an exceptional one who has not at some time dwelt upon such a possibility. Who has not given the loose rein to fancy and indulged in visions of Judah re-born, free, great and glorious, one of the Sister States in a modern federation of nations? ... has not had visions of ourselves as patriotic Jews, proudly pointing to the Eagle of Judah, the emblem of a free and happy people? ”

“ In fact, the favourite idea of Modern Zionism, the idea of a spiritual centre in Zion for the whole Diaspora, the focussing of a pure Jewish life in Palestine, the creation of an intellectual and moral reservoir, from which a stream of influence should flow all over the scattered nation, and waves of Jewish inspiration and knowledge should spread in all directions, making the little land a metropolis of Judaism in religion and life—was not this Zionist programme laid down and carried out in the intentions and achievements of Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Although he was educated in the bosom of the Christian Church, his heart never ceased to beat for the greatness and to feel for the sufferings of the Jewish nation, to which he belonged by the blood in his veins and the honoured name he bore. Wherever there was a struggle for the rights of Jews in matters that concerned their honour and well-being, wherever there was a fight for truth and uprightness, there we see him stand—a conqueror. ”

“ If any one idea running through all the teachings of the Jewish prophets, and embodied likewise in the teachings of Christianity, is needed nowadays, it is the doctrine of Love and Justice and Truth.
Where are these ideals? We have seen all the Demons of Earth, all the Powers of Darkness let loose. The signs on Belshazzar’s wall appear again on the wall of modern civilization: Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. Never at any time has a crisis more momentous impended over humanity. Never at any time has a gloom more heavy darkened the world. ”

“ No Zionist has exercised a stronger or a loftier influence by sheer strength of character and sound judgment. No orator or writer in modern times has so forcibly portrayed the great tragedy of his people as he has done in his memorable speeches at the Zionist Congresses, and none has voiced so eloquently the claims and hopes of his nation. He had always a message to deliver, and delivered it always effectively. He helped to make Zionism a world-wide movement, with an appeal not only to the Jewish people but also to other nations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They always considered it their duty to be members of one great family, bound together not alone by a common past, but by a community of undying ideas, aspirations, and hopes for a national future. They remained unmistakably true to their duty. This strong conviction is deeply rooted in the hearts of millions of Jews. It is an unbroken chain stretching from the dawn of Jewish history through all generations from Abraham to our own times. ”

“ The most superficial acquaintance with Jews is sufficient to reveal the fact that there is no Jewish trait more distinctive than this unconquerable determination. It is a heritage bequeathed to them by their ancestors. With the many different experiences of a race dispersed in every corner of the globe, without a home for nearly twenty centuries, hunted from country to country, carrying their lives in their hands, and bound to be on the alert for every emergency, it is not strange that the Jews display great resourcefulness. ”

“ Every nation which possesses a country of its own will be restored. They will make a slow or rapid recovery from the ills and losses of the war. Finally, the shattered agricultural, domestic, industrial and spiritual lives of the people will be re-established.
Now, among all the battlefields and graveyards of the war, there is not one to be compared with the battlefield of the Jewish Ghetto in Eastern Europe. Millions of Jews have waded through seas of blood and tears. Towns and villages have been dyed with their blood. The Jews have sacrificed their trade, their fortunes and themselves. ”

“ His leading idea was not to combat the persecutors of the Jews, but to emancipate the Jews themselves—to extricate them from their mediæval life, to revitalize them with the breath of “Western culture,” to give them a wider range of occupations, to transform the pedlar into an artisan and the shopkeeper into an agriculturist, in short, to render their political emancipation a necessity by convincing their oppressors of their sound economic worth. ”

“ Surely it is within the realm of probability that those who regard the idea as the ridiculous notion of a mad enthusiast, or at least their children after them, may find it to their interest to labour for the restoration of Palestine as the surest method of placing their worldly possessions in safety, even without taking into consideration the benefits which would accrue to the Jews as a religious community, through their obtaining once more a home for the practice of their laws, a spot where the ark of the covenant may rest without being exposed to malevolence and prejudice. ”

“ More and more the conviction gained ground among the people that the helplessness of the Jew in his trials, his utter inability to stem the tide of abuse and oppression, was chiefly due to the fact that he had no land which he could call a Jewish land par excellence. The best treatment that he received in free countries was only toleration. He was always supposed to have the right of existence and of equality with those among whom he lived, but in no case could he enforce it by stronger measures than an appeal to the goodwill and kindness of those who could either give or withhold it. ”

“ Of course the national force of present-day Judaism is in a latent state, and it can only become manifest when Judaism resumes its history. The Jewish nation has the cultural power to attain that goal, to form a national community, to maintain it and to make it prosper. Its intellectual and ethical aptitudes are denied by none but the malevolent and the envious. One cannot glance into the history of civilized nations, and of civilization itself, without meeting at every point with men of Jewish race who have achieved great things in poetry and science, in economics and politics. ”

“ Pinsker, like many others after him, had not yet realized at that time that one’s country is not merely a territory. Territory is only its basis; country is the idea that rises on that basis, the thought of a common history that draws together all the sons of that territory. But in spite of all these imperfections, Pinsker’s pamphlet necessarily led to faith in a national revival and to Palestine—not because of its arguments, but because it was a wonderful human document. ”

“ He brought freedom to the Jewish soul and kindled Jewish enthusiasm to a flame. He reminded the Jews that they were still unalterably attached to the old centre of Jewish national life, that Zionism remained the ultimate aim of their aspirations, and that the old prophecies were still a living force. He devoted all his determination and skill to his people, and his endurance and ability to the work of organizing the masses. It was the influence of his personality over men that made him a great leader. ”

“ Let the world give the Jews their home. Palestine was the cradle of their race, its ancient and proper home, the centre of its great and glorious history, and it was the outpourings of sorrow for it that has rendered the literature of the Jews the most precious and beautiful one extant. ”

“ At the height of his literary popularity in the gay Austrian capital, in the prime of youth and success, he put aside everything else to champion the cause of his people. He created the politics of a state unborn. He began his Jewish career with almost the whole of official Jewry in Western Europe opposed to him and intent on silencing him, until he succeeded in outshining his adversaries. Then the public conscience awakened, the force of truth prevailed, and he found adherents. He imparted to the Jews the greatest national impulse that they have had since the Galuth began. ”

“ What Manasseh understood under “Character of Ancestors” pertains as little to atavism as the modern Jewish national idea. Atavism is something unconscious, it is found even among the dejudaized Jews. But what with the dejudaized is atavism becomes with nationalist Jews the historic basis of their whole life tendency. The comprehension of the past wafts the first breath of life into the present, upon the wreckage of bygone times dawns the premonition of the greatness of each lived moment—and new life blossoms upon the ruins. ”

“ He realized the distinctiveness of the Jew. He said that Jews and Germans were as the poles asunder in thought and conceptions of life, and the logic of history and the necessities of humanity made him plead for Zion to be restored. Nature’s economy, he said, demands that the Jew should lead his own life, in his own fashion, and in his own country. He pleaded in the first place for a reaction against Hellenistic theories of life: to him family life was sacred; the mother’s love was the real sacred source of Jewish persistence, because it was spiritual yet not unreal. ”

“ The Hebrew language, mysteriously preserved like Israel, the people after whom it is called, through the tempests of many centuries, politically annihilated, but spiritually full of vigour, has never ceased to be a vehicle for the expression of sublime thoughts and sentiments. Not only in the brilliant epoch of Hebrew literature in Spain, from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, but since then, Hebrew has been written in prose and in poetry with power and effect unattainable in any of the languages that have ceased to live. It is entirely wrong to consider Hebrew a dead language. ”

“ The latter was a necessity, and it was indeed a great honour for any man to be entrusted with the perilous mission of defending these innocent martyrs. But unquestionably noble and necessary as it was to struggle against those shamelessly fabricated charges which have unfortunately been brought against the Jews again and again, and to protest against that gross libel upon the honour and humanity of Judaism, a libel that accused the Jews of being murderers and cannibals, can such a struggle be compared for dignity and greatness with the stimulating effort for national regeneration? ”

“ That is a natural consequence of the place which Palestine has held for centuries in the Jewish scheme of things. Opponents of Zionism have sometimes tried to reconcile conflicting points of view by admitting that “Palestine is not worse than any other country,” and that, therefore, “Jews should not be oppressed there,” and that “if there is a chance for colonization it should be taken.” But this is like telling a man that his mother is no worse than any other woman, or that his language is no worse than any other language. Such compromises cannot be seriously discussed. ”

“ The greatest achievement of the new Zionism was the Jewish Congress—the supreme authority in the movement based upon democratic principles—and the creation of a world-wide organization for the resuscitation of the Jewish nationality and for the regaining of Palestine, not by brute force or political adventure, and not by any act against the government or the population of the country or any other government or nation, but by force of conviction, enthusiasm, devotion and self-sacrifice. ”

“ He no longer struggles alone through life, he is sensible of connections between himself and millions who have been and of whose spirit and soul he has received a share in life. The most glorious, invigorating feeling which an old race can offer; the consciousness of individual transitoriness and universal constancy, begins only then to be of value for him because the easily intelligible national future has made comprehensible his own infinite one. ”

“ It is strange how obstinately some Jewish opponents of the colonization of Palestine strained against believing in the future of Palestine. To the past they paid in icy discomfort the tribute of their remembrance, for this past imposes no duties upon those who are already quite detached from it in spirit. But the future! By denying the possibility of a future one beguiles an elastic conscience, which longs to evade the apparent conflict between duty to humanity and national instinct. ”

“ In his public conduct and pronouncements he proved undeniably that an Englishman, by birth a Jew, can be as much an Englishman as any descendant of Saxon, Norman, or Dane living in these islands, and can share with as warm a glow the common sentiment of patriotism that unites Englishmen round their ancient throne and institutions.
Disraeli was a living monument of the greatness of the Jewish race, of its capacity to produce individuals equal in mental stature to the loftiest among mankind. ”

“ The Jewish agriculturists, working-men, artisans, teachers and artists who have gone to Palestine to settle there, and those who are still to go, know better than all the preachers of Jewish spirituality what the essence of the Jewish character and aspirations should be and is: they not only know it, they help to make it, in the highest sense of the word. They are Jews, idealists, the People of the Book; all they seek for is life in peace. ”

“ Generations pass by. New institutions take root: new feelings prevail, they ripen and burst into fruit. There is no revolution more complete and more enduring than that caused by the transplanting of a nation. But with the Jews and the land of their lost glory the case is wholly different. Elements of a higher character than those of an ordinary historical nature enter into consideration. The Holy Land is the country of their past greatness, present longings and future hopes. ”