The Economic Basis of Zionism
ZIONISM, viewed from the standpoint of a strict materialist, seeks to solve the Jewish problem. Moreover, it is the only solution of this problem.
That we have a Jewish problem he who will read the news of the world for a day must admit. England is trying to exclude the Jew, because forsooth he lowers the English standard of life and decency. America is working toward the same end; its reasons for excluding Jews must of necessity be slightly different. Riots, blood-accusations, boycotts—any pretense to rid the face of the earth of the Jew—our cup runneth over verily!
Zionism in the primary and the final analyses bears an economic imprint. Just as sentimentalism is leavened with realism, so economics is fused with ideal theories; standards of life combine with life as it is lived. If Zionism is at all worthy our adherence it is because it is the modus vivendi to the Jew. With Zionism as an ideal, the Jewish life in the exile is enhaled by golden visions and the real man with the hoe of modern industrialism lifts up his head and feels himself a worthier part of the social fabric. It is an elementary principle in economic theory that the higher the mode of life, the higher are the earning power and the wages received.
With Zionism an assured fact, strenuous efforts indeed would the Jew make to improve his economic position, to add to the sum-total of his nation's capital, for he would live better, free from care.
Our thesis outlined after this fashion, let us retrace our steps and examine the first premise: Zionism, the solution of the Jewish problem. We must accept without reserve the present seriousness of this problem, for, while the problem, like the poor, has always been with us, it has never assumed to terrifying an aspect, so gigantic an aspect, as at this day. Zionism, then, is to be viewed as the solution of this problem, because it stands for the last resort and because it is that solution which will maintain our economic, and therefore our religious and social integrity and supremacy unharmed. Zionism, moreover, looks at the Jewish problem much as the anti-Semites do, but from a distinctly Jewish viewpoint, and for that reason alone must meet, and has met, with anti-Semitic approbation. The anti-Semites declare that the Jews must be rendered impotent as an influence in the economic life, say of France or Germany: the Jews say that France and Germany are not congenial places of refuge for themselves in the exile, and that life will be realized economically to the full only in a publicly legally assured home of their own.
There remain to be considered two other solutions of the Jewish problem, which, to continue looking at the matter through the spectacles of a materialist, are inconsequent, unsatisfactory and beside the mark. The assimilation theory is almost exploded by this time in the light of experience. Its answer to the question is that of the Zionist theory, but with what a difference? To conceal the amounts of Jewish capital beneath the surface of cosmopolitan, or of chauvinistic, society, as if French history in our own day does not reveal the futility of this procedure? This assimilation theory presupposes that the corpus of Jewish capital will continue as it has been continuing, disregardful of attack, conserved to bolster up the Jewish position, but unfortunately such a Jewish position as would put the right-minded, high-thinking Jew to shame. Zionism shares this view, but it proposes to present Jewish capital in a light that will redound to the eternal credit of the Jewish name and to utilize the forces of Jewish capital as want-satisfiers, as producers for the Jewish people.
As for the conversionist theory, it is insincere and not above reproach. The proper office of Jewish capital is to bring out the supply to answer the demand of the Jews. This theory would force Jewish capital into Christian channels without diverting enough of the baptismal