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The tea-merchant, who was a small stout man, with a black cap of dubious cut, protested vehemently against such materialistic measures. Let them put their trust in Cultur! To talk Hebrew therein lay Israel's real salvation. Let little children once again lisp in the language of Isaiah and Hosea that was true Zionism. 'Then don't you want the Holy Land? asked the astonished David.
Herzl himself, the founder of modern Zionism, dreamt of Jerusalem as the shrine of all religions and never looked forward to the day when it would be a purely Jewish city. Lastly, what is to be the fate of Asia Minor? There can be no question that the Russians must be allowed to occupy and retain the whole of Turkish Armenia.
It remains to be seen whether this is possible, and it is too early to predict the verdict of experience. The process is in active incubation in America as well as in Europe, but it cannot be claimed that the eggs are hatched yet. On the other hand, Zionism has so far had no effect in the opposite direction.
While Herzl was immersed in political action, visiting European capitals, carrying on correspondence with leading persons whose interest in Zionism he had engaged, and submitting reports to the Zionist Congress or to the Actions Committee, often facing critical situations in his struggle with growing Zionist parties, the Zionist Organization was gradually becoming an accepted institution in Jewish life.
Petersburg, was a staunch supporter of the movement, and a little later Ha-Zefirah, published in Warsaw, which was at first indifferent, if not antagonistic, joined the ranks. In Russian, too, the Razsvyet and especially the Buduchnost spread Zionism among their readers, while books, pamphlets, and poems were published in Yiddish for circulation among the masses.
But both these views are only versions of the same view of a great American: "God never made one people good enough to rule another." The primary point about Zionism is that, whether it is right or wrong, it does offer a real and reasonable answer both to Anti-Semitism and to the charge of Anti-Semitism.
But I think this unlikely; especially as it would have been pretty hard to take it away. It is more likely, I think, that the archaic Jews were really not unamused and perhaps not unsympathetic spectators; for the Zionist problem is complicated by a real quarrel in the Ghetto about Zionism.
I have tried to state fairly the case for Zionism, for the reason already stated; that I think it intellectually unjust that any attempt of the Jews to regularise their position should merely be rejected as one of their irregularities. But I do not disguise the enormous difficulties of doing it in the particular conditions Of Palestine.
Zionism, as I have always understood it, and indeed as I have always defended it, consists in maintaining that it would be better for all parties if Israel had the dignity and distinctive responsibility of a separate nation; and that this should be effected, if possible, or so far as possible, by giving the Jews a national home, preferably in Palestine.
In Russia, however, it became the catechism of the "Love of Zion" movement and eventually of Zionism and Territorialism. The theory expounded in Pinsker's pamphlet made a strong appeal to the Russian Jews, not only on account of its close reasoning but also because it gave powerful utterance to that pessimistic frame of mind which seemed to have seized upon them all.
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