starvation, having nothing more to sell with which to support our families; and on the other hand we are threatened with the danger of being turned out of our homes and cast upon the streets because we cannot pay the rental. Therefore we have to day to the number of two hundred families, comprising eight hundred persons, united ourselves and formed a group which on the 18th of May, will start wandering forth on foot. We can no longer bear the groaning of our children, who plead to us for bread. Jewish brothers, help us so that we can settle ourselves elsewhere, so that we shall not die of hunger."
This appeal is signed "A Group of Wanderers on Foot" Nothing could be more eloquent of the condition of affairs in Roumania, and this one appeal so full of the tragedy of human suffering is shadowed by the clouds of dark information that comes as we go to press from Crajova, Galatz. Braila and Berlad.
We have already pointed out that the Zionists are ready to do their utmost, but this question goes beyond and above all attitudes and policies. From England, we learn privately that the Jews are beginning to move. The English general press has been awakened to the cry of the afflicted in the modern Eygpt, and we have hopes of learning that not even the summer vocation will prevent concerted action in Europe in the interest of our brethren. To our co-religionists on this side, we beg for similar earnest and rapid consideration.
Protests have already been made by leading Jewish politcians on this side of the Atlantic to the Government, but the problem is not limited to protests. We would not disparage nor discourage political action; on the contrary, what we desire to see is that the action taken by individuals shall have active and serious support of the Jews throughout the whole of the States. There is need for money to help, for minds to direct affairs, and lastly, but not least, for an outburst on the part of the awakened conscience of Israel that shall help the bigoted and blinded government of Roumania to understand that the Jews it rules must be treated as human beings.
For twenty-four years, these Romanian politicians have been allowed to trick public opinion and persecute and degrade the Jews, but the moment has arrived that the burden of existence has become intolerable. We decline to belong to those who will be crushed beneath it, and if the whole of Jewry is equal to this summons
upon its sympathy, it will go very hard indeed with us if the Roumanian Government shall score an ultimate victory.
THE NATIONAL IDEAL.
TWO diverse views of the position of the Jews recently come under our notice. One was an utterance to the effect that there is no Jewish nation, no Jewish race. The other, also from a pulpit, acknowledges the existence of the Jewish nation, and believes in the strengthening of the Jewish national tie.
Will it surprise our readers to know that the denial of the Jewish national doctrine was expressed by a Rabbi in a temple and the belief in the national ideal fell from the lips of a Christian Establisher. We do not propose here to argue and establish the case for the national Jewish ideal; rather it is for the Rabbi of strenuous utterance to make out and give proof for his negation; but one word will be in place.
The denial of Jewish national existence not being based on fact, is often the result of a desire to be more chauvinistic than the best of jingoes. The effect is, that the non-Jewish world looks with doubt upon what it regards as flunkeyishness. As for the Bishop, he sets the matter clear; he is of English birth and of American residence; and in explaining how the Jew belonged to his nation and yet was a good American, how a Jew could love Zion and hold in good regard the American city of his birth, simply said :—"Do you think I love America a whit less because I refuse to forget England or disassociate myself with the nation from whose loins I sprung." But no one doubts him. How simple are the great truths, if one would only endeavor to understand them. Simplicity was once the keynote of Judaism.
FACTS SPEAK VOLUMES.
THE American Israelite of May 29th tells us "Zionism has seen its best days and is on its downward way." Our answer is the Convention report which shows that Zionist organizations throughout the States increased by sixty-four during the last year. If this is downward, we hope to descend the declivity at a still greater speed. Yet such comment is not a whit more amusing than the advice offered us by the Emanu-el, of San-Francisco. Dr. Voorsanger tells us "so long as the Zionists refuse to eli-"