Alexander Dumas Fils and Zionism
TO the Zionist public in America it will no doubt seem strange that the name of the author of “La Dame aux Camélias” and Zionism should be brought together as in this heading. Alexander Dumas fils, the son of the man who wrote the “Three Musketeers” and many other novels for the delectation of those fond of stories of adventures, the writer of plays involving psychological problems for which he presented solutions, did, for a moment at least, turn his attention to that great psychological problem, the Jewish question. And he suggested a solution for it ; he incorporated into one of his famous plays, “La Femme de Claude,” a full-fledged Zionist character, and a very noble one, by the way. His name is Daniel, like that of the hero of George Eliot’s novel; he is the friend of Claude, and is introduced to contrast the latter’s devotion to science with his own racial devotion. The playwright gives this account of Daniel’s purpose in his preface to the play: “It is natural that Daniel should think of seeking his lost fatherland, of renewing his broken tradition, of rebuilding his temple, of re-uniting into one group, into one people, into one nation, his brothers now disseminated over the globe.” And he adds this, which seems written expressly for the benefit of some modern anti-Zionists: “May he succeed, and may his co-religionists not need our hospitality any more, nor we their money which they lend us so generously in exchange, for the French people is their beloved brother, like Joseph of old. Join this to your prayer, my reader, and may the God of the Christians hear you! But I fear greatly that it should be the God of the Jews who was right when he promised to his children the kingdom of the earth, and I begin to think that soon there will be left us only heaven, about which they worry but little. I can well imagine how Daniel for them is but a dreamer, a blunderer whom they will be only too glad to send to Jericho, provided they are sure he will not return to tell them that he has found what he was seeking. What, indeed, is Daniel thinking of, that he should wish to rebuild a local, fixed, definite, limited home for these persecuted conquerors, who are bargaining at this hour for the purchase of the world!”
Now, anti-Zionists will have no difficulty in pointing out the fallacy of this attack upon the so-called "universal" Jew. What! he a material-
ist? not in the least! On the contrary, he rejects Zionism as a movement which has not for its object the welfare of sufficient people (only some seven million suffering wretches are sought to be helped) ; any movement which he will join must aim at benefiting the whole world! He insists upon extending his solicitude to humanity. He ends generally by aiding no one; but, as Mr. Kipling says, that is another story.
Speaking seriously, however, the attitude of the Zionists on one side and of the anti-Zionists on the other, toward the great Jewish national movement could hardly be pictured more forcibly than in these lines of Alexander Dumas fils; he undoubtedly has a fine insight into the conflicting tendencies of the "Jewish" Jew, who remembers his past and who looks into the future for the realization of his long-cherished hope of a renewed national existence, and of the so-called "universal" Jew, who has already turned from most that is essentially Jewish.
In the play, a character offers a mocking query in regard to Daniel's object; he replies: "We have come to an epoch when each race has resolved to claim and to have as its own its soil, its home, its language, its temple. It is long enough since we Jews have been dispossessed of all that — we have been forced to insinuate ourselves into the interstices of the nations, and there we have taken up the interests of governments, of societies, of individuals. This is a great deal, yet it is not enough. People still believe that persecution has dispersed us; it has merely spread us over the world.... We do not want to be a group any more, we want to be a people; more than a people, a nation. The ideal name does not suffice us; the fixed territorial fatherland is again necessary for us, and I go to seek it and to obtain there our legalized birth certificate."
This is the solution of Dumas, his “dénoue-ment” for the great problem play of history, the Tragedy of the Jew. Dumas uttered these words in 1873, they may be repeated today without the smallest fraction of their force having been lost in the meantime, for they express a hope which discouragement has not stifled, a truth which time cannot efface.