BIRTH OF ZIONISM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 December 1938, Page 5

BIRTH OF ZIONISM

« THEODOR HERZL AND HIS WORK POST-WAR ANTI-SEMITISM. THE YOUNG REFUGEES. In the last years of the Dreyfus affair Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, and I used to go in the early evening, at the end of the sittings of the French Chamber, along the Champs Elysees as far as the Place de I’Etoile in search of fresh air, writes Theodor Wolff in the “Manchester Guardian.” Gradually in these strolls we grew refreshed after the crippling heat and the excitements .of the Parliamentary warfare. On these days Theodor Herzl would have telegraphed a carefully-phrased account of the debate to the Vienna "Neue Freie Presse,” whose Paris correspondent, he was; Nordau would have sent his message to Berlin for the “Vossische Zeitung,” and I mine for the “Berlinei’ Tageblatt.” Max Nordau was already a famous figure; the very one-sided dogmas in his hooks had already been widely discussed. Theodor Herzl had achieved his first successes in Vienna as a writer flf witty but slightly precious causeries. Alongside these two masters I walked as an attentive scholar, listening to what they had to say. Their neverchanging desire was the creation of 3 Jewish State in Palestine, and the talk revolved round questions of the way to attain that goal and the best form in which to- set up the State.

DEVOTION TO THE CAUSE.

So the idea of Zionism took shape

in Paris, in the Champ Elysees, or rather took final shape. The building was entirely the work of Herzl’s imagination, for Nordau,' with his encyclopaedic general knowledge, did no more than cement here and there the gaps in the masonry of the ’ others broadly-planned construction. A little

later Herzl abandoned Paris and the newspaper correspondent’s career. He sloughed his delicate essayist’s finery, devoted himself entirely to the Zionist cause, and awakened the enthusiasm and the hopes of those to whose dreams he had thus given concrete shape.

The resuscitation of the old dream of a return to the Promised Land had been due to the events and the atmosphere of the Dreyfus affair. In retrospect, and in comparison with our own day, this drama of a single victim seems a slight story. The historic importance of the Dreyfus affair lies in the fact that it produced in France a great outburst of humane energies, brought critical common sense into action against authoritarianism, and produced a political and intellectual revulsion. Apart from the glamour of the struggle and of the stalwarts, Zola and Anatole France, Jaures and Clemenceau', in its forefront, the “Affaire” was a trivial one, an ordinary criminal story, compared with what is going on today. 'CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES. Today it is not a question of the fate of a single • individual, but often of the still worse fate of hundreds of thousands. Nobody could foresee' anything of this in those days, any more than Herzl could foresee that his friend Raoul Euernheimer, the Viennese playwright and the editor of Herzl’s own works, a man entirely immersed in literary interests, would end in a. concentration camp. All that is happening today is, indeed, oh an entirely ’ different plane from the attacks and persecutions suffered in the past by Jews or by other religious communities, such as the French Protestants. Jews, like Protestants, were persecuted on account of their religion, and after baptism they become respected fellow-citizens, often rising to exalted positions in State and church. Some of them even became members of the Spanish Courts concerned with the extermination of the Jews and all heretics, or distinguished themselves in the execution of this task as Grand Inquisitors. In Germany in the first half of the sixteenth century Johannes Pfefferkorn, a baptised Jew who became a Dominican friar, actually became the herald and supreme authority of anti-Semitism; he was opposed by the great humanist Reuchlin. All this is impossible today, now that the race theory has taken the place of religious hatred. Everyone is affected who has one little inherited drop of Jewish blood.

VICTIMS OF A TRAGEDY. The exiles, turned into penniless wanderers, come as trembling supplicants to all the frontiers, victims suddenly involved in a frightful tragedy. There is no need to dwell on their suffering; words could not adequately paint it. We know that the emigrants include many non-Jews, exiled for political reasons, but political exile is nothing new; the hardships are often no less, but they are not so novel and not of such special character as emigration on account of the race theory. Only in the case of the persecution of the Armenians did race passion play a somewhat similar part.

The utter perplexity of the exiles has been made worse by the lack of organised help; sometimes of readiness to lend help, over large parts of the earth; it may be hoped that the labours of the Evian Commission will bring a real improvement in this respect. Greece, a country with relatively small economic resources, did admirable work after the World War in admitting and settling hundreds of thousand of immigrants from the coast of Asia Minor; can it really be beyond the means of the civilised countries of all Europe and the world to admit 500,000 emigrants, women and children included, to grant them citizenship,

and to assimilate them without discomfort? Has not the only thing lacking been a reasonable plan of distribution? It is not unnatural that some professions should be concerned about the competition they may have to meet from the swelling of their ranks by many intelligent and competent persons; but should nbt the broad realisation prevail that any accretion of intelligence soon brings benefit to the whole community?

RECRUITS FOR COLONISTS.

If the problem were regarded merely as one of colonisation —for strong and weak, for suited and unsuited alike—it may well be doubted whether much 1 good could be done. Not everyone I who has lived all his life in Berlin or Vienna is suited for the life of a settler. An honestly thought-out scheme of assistance will not crowd shattered existences into lifeboats in which they will still be manifestly doomed. Among the Jewish exiles there are young, robust,courageous natures, full of energy and enterprise and optimism; there are others who are no less ill-adapted to colonial pioneering than the nonJewish business man of London, Paris, or Amsterdam. The Puritans who left England in 1620, fleeing from religious oppression, and landed from the Mayflower on the shore of Massachusetts'

came to build America. But there is no new America to be discovered. And those emigrants had not been living in urban civilisation such as that of our own day. Above all, they were not of heterogenous origin, training, and habits, but were a single community with identity of feelings and traditions, of spirit, and of type: They were thus fore-ordained founders and builders of a State.

This was, indeed, the internal difficulty which was recognised in Palestine before vindictive terrorism was launched from without against the Zionists’ successful enterprise. Weizmann, who worked out Theodor Herzl’s idea in the mandated territory, and Weizmann's colleagues showed statesmanlike ability in reconciling harmonising all sorts of different elements, and they were assisted by the courage and idealism and constructive enthusiasm of the younger elements.

MERELY A LIFEBOAT.

For many arrivals in Palestine Zionism was not Herzl’s ideal, but simply a lifeboat. And this lifeboat, now so inadequate, is battling with high and dangerous seas. Perhaps—since everything hangs together—peace will not return to Palestine until it has been restored to Europe and the world. It is obvious that the Zionist solution is easier for the compact masses of Eastern European Jews than for those

who have long lived with their fami- , lies in the Diaspora and whose families in most cases have been Western European for many generations. But it is these last who are of immediate J concern and they rest such hope as ‘ they dare to feel on the men who, thanks to Mr Roosevelt’s summons, ■ are endeavouring to afford them a measure of justice and practical help. We recognise the immense difficulty of the task, the economic, political, and psychological obstacles, well or illfounded, that have to be overcome, obstacles far more enduring and more obstinate than any of the transient prejudices of the Dreyfus period. Those who placed their faith at that time in the Promised Land could go forward with confidence, with fewer cares, and their path was plainer and unencum- i bered with the countless complications ■ ' of today. 1