The Maccabaean

“KNOWLEDGE is power.” Is this always true? I fear that it often causes weakness, for it disheartens. Who knows whether our ancestors, with the tenacious fidelity that made them renowned in history, would have remained loyal to their religion if they had been able to foresee the condition of their people ? But, happily, I must admit, they had no wide view. Behind them they saw a great past, which comforted them ; around them they saw only a very small portion of Jewish misery, which did not alarm them very much ; in front of them they saw a brilliant future of promise. Had they taken into account the condition of the entire Jewish people their confidence in the future would not have been able to stand in the face of their positive knowledge of the present, and they would have lost heart to continue their apparently endless struggle, and the hope for an eventual, though remote victory.

We unfortunately can no longer wrap ourselves up in the benevolent ignorance of our ancestors. We have undertaken to prepare the Jewish people for a new destiny; we must therefore obtain a close insight into the actual circumstances of our people, lest the truths we learn should paralyze us.

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A careful statistical investigation of the Jewish people is one of the foremost necessities for the Zionist movement. Such an inquiry will put it on a sound basis and remove it from the sphere of sentiment into that of sound, practical work. Hypocrites who prate about the "Mission of the Jews among the nations" need not trouble themselves about statistics. They know sufficient of Judaism when they know how many wealthy men they still have in their midst. But we must know more.

We must carefully learn how the material is constituted with which we have to deal. We require accurate anthropological, biographical, economical and intellectual statistics of the Jew-

ish people. We must have comprehensive answers to the question : How is the Jewish people physically constituted? What is its average number? What are its anatomical peculiarities? What are the figures of the sick and of mortality? How many days of illness has the Jew on an average every year? What is his longevity? What diseases does he die of? What is the number of marriages and of births? How many criminals, lunatics, deaf mutes, cripples, blind and epileptics does the Jewish people number? Has it crimes peculiar to it, and if so, what is their nature? How many Jews live in towns and how many in rural districts? What are the occupations of the Jews? How do the Jews work, what do they earn, how much do they possess? What do they eat and drink; how do they live; how do they dress? How much do they devote from their earnings for maintenance, clothing, rent, and for spiritual needs?

All these things must be known if one wishes to be thoroughly acquainted with a people. As long as this is not known, everything that one may desire to do for the people is a step in the dark. Everything that one may say about this people is at the best a lyric, and at the worst empty talk. Certainly, among the wealthiest and most civilized nations there are not yet many who have such complete knowledge about themselves as I desire to have about the Jews. But into nations who in normal conditions sit on the soil and allow themselves to live without troubling themselves about theoretical consequences of their existence, the clearest statistical light can more easily penetrate than into us, who desire to rear a new national edifice. Old buildings will continue to stand whether one does or does not know everything about the ground on which they stand and their construction. But if one wishes to build a new house, the preparation of plans and the testing of the firmness of the building materials is an absolute necessity.

To satisfy this demand, almost nothing has as