THE WAR AND THE JEWS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 87, 24 September 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE WAR AND THE JEWS.

THE PROSPECT OE EMA

Bv ISKAEL ZANGWILL,

Neither of the two great Jewish issues —tlie abolition or the Pab in Russia, ond the return to Palestine—can fail to be profound y affected by the war. To follow the movement of opinion iu Russia on the Jewish question has ■been like watching the swaying of the battle-line in Fti.nders. It is clear that the good and evil spirits, that Orniuzd and Ahriinan, are at tug oif war. And the vacillations are reflected in the utterance- of Russian politicians. Professor jlilj ukof. the Liberal leader, who at the outset of the war saw freedom ton; ng to the .lews, now sees it hopeIts I,■ receding. A hundred circum. staiires justify either vie»y. On the one hand the passionate fidelity of the Jew js seen to touch the Russian heart; on the other hand the forces of reaction still lurk, and are intensified by the chauvinism engendered by war. One ■day we hear that the diabolical education system is to ha swept away, the next the Black Hundreds who were .ready to embrace the Jews are demandin" that in conquered Galic.a the Austrian Jews should be hampered by the same educational restrictions as in Russia proper, and that even their lands should be confiscated—and this though the shrewder Germany lias been introducing equal rights for the Jews in the parts of Po! Hid just conquered by her, and has actually appointed a Jewish Governor' One day the very dock labourers of X.eolaycff send a thousand roubles to help the Polish Jews the ■next the Tsr.r assents to the new Local ■Covernimnt Bill for Poand, lot biddin" Jews to be even mayors or town -clerks. Now the Jew Kai.z becomes <1 national hero for keeping back with -only eight men a whole German toree, •anon the same wounded warrior is expelled from a hospital in Petrograd and A section of the Pi o-:s clamours for the exclusion of Jews tiom t.ie Arm}.

RUSSIAN SYMPATHY.

But the brain and heart of Russia .ure sound. It is from her own groat writer, Andreyev, that lias come the touching picture of the wounded Jewish soldier slinking into the hospit.il which his companions enter as heroes and hardly daring to groan in the wards fc fear of drawing attention to the tact fhat he is outside the Pale. And into this wavering battle-line of good and „vil of Russia agamst Russia, comes Jike'a cavalry charge the gorious Manifesto of the Intellectuals, signed by over two hundred notables, including Senators, members of botn Houses, professors, academicians, and, above a Hie creatost writers of Runsia. Hit -noble document, which inter aha testiSV how abominably the ant.-Jewish esti ietions have been main Famed even through the war (wives and child en, tor example, being unable to visit then for Russia), pays tribute to t u sou iv-trird Jewish nation which ha., gnen to the world many sublime contmutions in the spheres of re igton. philoso'l.v and poetry . • • which is now again submitted to triads and insulted hv false charge*. ' Russians !l clch.de,, "lei US bear in ,11, nd that the Russian Jew has no othci fatlie - land than dearer to a man thinthesoilon wh. i he is born. Let us »"' erstand that tlu welfare and power of Russa ate >.eparably bound up with the welfare and liberties of a\l the nationalities Chat constitute the Let us conceive this truth, let us act in . cordance with our intelligence 'ind oui conscience, and then that the disappearance of all kinds of persecution of the Jews and their comp.ete emancipation, so as to be our equals ,n all rights of citizenship, w.H form one of the conditions of a really constructive Imperinl policy." Nor is this inner travail for righteousness. though bv far the most important force making for Jewish emancipiation, ihe only force at work. The assurance ( had the privilege to receive from S;i Edward Grey, that lie would neglect no step to encourage it. has been widely published. But this does not carry us far, for Russia resents interference in her internal affairs. "Russia, is not on trial in this war," said the "Novoye Vrcmya" haughtily, and even Lord Reading has reminded us that, at the Peace Settlement we shall rot be making terms with Russia. The real importance belongs therefore to Sir Eclwnrd Grey's further assurance to me that at the end of the war no transferred population shall be deprived of its status. Hence should Russia retain anv portion of Galicia she will have to leave the Jews their pre-existing equal rights, and lhe.se rights will then become the leverage for raising the Jewish status throughout the rest of Russia. For it is impossible that Russia will be able to allow her new subjects an equality which she refuses to the old.

THE ABOLITION OK THE PALE

In any event, and whatever the result oF the war, irresistible economic considerations in favour of Jewish emancipation are working with the higher forces. It has at last been perceived by Russians that the Jews are necessary to Russia, that without them she cannot no forward on the new path of industrial and commercial development, and that if she is not to be expoitcd by the all-penetrating Germans, she must be taken in hand by her own subjects. To capture German trade the Pale of Jewish settlement must he abolished. And from every Christian quarter, from towns and _ conferences, from the Imperial Economic Council of Petrograd itself, come petitions for its abolition. The loyal response of the Jews to the recent call for the mobilisation af trade and commerce has made the need of them even plainer. And the very hatred of the Poles for the Jews is curiously working in the same direction. For the Poles al ege that it is not so much their own old-estahlish-od Jews they object to as frhe immigrants who pour in from Russia. Rus--iani-ing everything, and undermining Polish nationality, and the Poles have gone so far as to prevent the native lews co-operating with Jews Ironi Ihis■*ia proper even upon war-relief committees. And this unwelcome westward stream of immigration they trace to the economic effects of the existence or the Pale. The Orient is pre-eminently the region of rumour and fantasy, and the repot Is , that have penetrated to us from the bazaars of Palestine or beet) carried bv ;i myriad reiiugees are more cotitiathetorv even than the war reports of Europe. The Zionist, bank has been officially closed and officially forced to open. Locusts have eaten the harvest, and it will be more abundant than ev-T. In iJ'irt these contradictions mere v mirror the over-changing polity of the Porte. Wo may distinguish three stagts, the first beftii" I urkov had joined in the war, the second when tie behaved tifwdinu to Tnrk.«!t notions, and the. f!>i>-d and still ruling phase in which "erTtany stepped in to undo Ihe "harm to the general cause doi" r.v Ti.r-

CIPATIOX IX KI'SSIA

!r. London "Daily Chronicle.

key's own methods. To the first phase belongs the economic damage to Palestine wrought by the general Euro') Mil situation, for the trade of Palestine depends almost entirely on the distant world—and ships were few. The great majority of the Jews in particular live on sums sent from Europe, and the mails had practically ceased to run. To the second phase belong the seizure of food-supplies and munitions of war, the Ottomanisation or expulsion of the Palestine Jews, their enrolment in the army, unless they paid the necessary baksheesh, the attempt to uproot Zionism, destroy the Jewish colonies, and settle Circassians on the Jewish land. To the third, or German, phase belong bettor economic conditions, the more favourable treatment of the Jews, and the explanation that only Zionism with its stamps, flags, and symbols, was and is to be the object of attack; also the foregathering of Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem. There is still, however, a policy of ruthlessness, so far as French or English property is concerned, and unfortunately the Im'k of the Jewish colonies belong to Baron Edmond de Rothschild, of Paris, or to the lea, an •association which controls the legacy of Baron de Hirsch.

HELP FROM THE UNITED STATES

It has been a blessing for the Jens of Palestine that, through all this time of turmoil, the United States have been represented at the Sublime Porte by Mr. Morgenthau, who combines th-_> ln.manitarianism of the American with the special solicitude of the Jew. When Mr. Morgenthau paused through London, on his way to his post, he was a prey to modest shrinking; had he known he would have to represent half the world in war-time he wou'd psobably have drawn back. Yet no veteran diplomatist could have done better. It is owing to him that speedy help for Palestine was forthcoming from the Jews of the United States, and it was hi 6 son-in-!a\v. Mr. Maurice Wertheim. who carried the gold on ail American battleship, supervised its distribution on scientific principles, and supplied history with the one reliable account oi the situation. By gracious direction of the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Josephus Daniels, a further supply of food was sent on the U.S. collier, ulcan, while the U.S. cruiser, Tennessee, transported thousands of refugees gratuitously from Jaffa to Alexandria. For expulsion was the fate of all Jews who would not take on Ottoman nationality (at a fee), and it would appear that only the Jews of Galileo consented to nnv extent to become Turks, the Jews oi Judea preferring exile. But if the causa of Zionism has thus received a serious set-back, if the heroic work of the colonists for a whole generation seems undone, if the old Jewish exodus from Egypt to Palestine lias bi en reversed after three thousand yeans by this great exodus from Palestine to Egypt, the new exodus has produced a strange dramatic episode, which may bring Zionism nearei than ever to its hope. For among the refugees at Alexandria were a number of young Zionist colonists, trade-men and students. wishful neither to turn Turk nor to resume the Russian. For the suzerain of Pa'estine tliey might have been ready to fight, had not the Turks declared a "Holy" war. which these voung Jews felt was as little their business as to fight for the Ru-sia they had long since quitted. But Egypt had been proclaimed English, and inasmuch as Russian law allowed absent subjects to fight in an allied army, they would light with English—for Palestine!

A BRITISH PALESTINE BATTALION

The idea of fighting for Palestine was not. indeed, new. It had more thin once been brought to me by the despairing younger generation. But now it had come in a practicable form. Through their spokesman, a Russo-Jewish journalist, the young Zionists begged to be enlisted as a British-Palestine battalion. To the British military mind, nursed on the Bible, the idea did not lack fascination, and General Maxwell, the Grand Commander of Egypt, appointed Colonel J. H. Patterson, the distinguished Irish soldier and sportsman, to ory inii'e the corps. The Colonel cabled to me, asking for a message of encouragement, and 1 cabled back my welcome of the incident as an omen for the establishment of a. British Protectorate in Palestine. This message, toned down by the local military censorship into a Wish for the men'» "happy return'' to Palestine, was rdad to them, and the Colonel made a speech that .was translated into Hebrew, and ended with the words: " Pray with me that I should not only, as Moses, behold Canaan fro n afar, but be divinely permitted to lend you into the Promised Land." The troops were then solemnly sworn in 1 y the Chief Rabbi of Alexandria, who gave a stirring address, and then, wit>~ '•Hedads" for King George, the Colon I, and the cabler, the young Zionists, live hundred strong, marched off singiag their national hymn. Hurriedly equipped. mainly with Turkish rifles, and wearing a small brass disc with •he "Sh:e;d otf David" ov-or tlioir black Turkish greatcoats—or a red shield instead of a cross for the Medical Corps —they pitched their tents in the old Biblical fashion, and the word of command rang through the air in Hebrew. After only six weeks' training they, with their thousand mules, were transferred to the Dardanelles as the "Zion Mule Transport Corps," whose perilous function is to bring ammunition and stores up to the trenches. Already they have been publicly thanked by the General, while one for gallantry in operations near Krithia has received the D.S.M. But. as one of the wounded said, "Proud as I am of my wound. 1 should be the happiest man a'ive had I received it on the soil of Palestine." Palestine alone cannot solve the Jewish problem, and "equal rights everywhere" remains an imperative necessity. But only Jewish nationalism can ever write a new chapter of Josephus. " They may hang us. violate our women, drag us through the seven hells.'' wrote some Russo-Jewish volunteers from the French trenches, enclosing their pitifully few francs for Jewish relief funds, "but we will remain Jews." (Copyright "Metropolitan Magazine," I'.S.A.)