thusiasm, such an ambition has been developed among our constituents. We should rather compromise with our fellow-soldiers than with our opponents.
Had the East African scheme been presented to the Zionist Congress with notice to all, had the discussion been held by men prepared and with mandates on the subject, and had the Zionists agreed with convictions on the proposition, then there would have been no question as to the wisdom of the detour. Unfortunately other methods were used, and the whole question was put to the Jewish people as an imperative measure to safeguard other interests. Such an issue could not be decided in that fashion.
The mischief has been done, and it is a difficult matter now to persuade those who already have a feeling against such experiments. They will not be persuaded. It is repugnant to them. But good will come out of this even as out of other unwise steps. Should East Africa be rejected, the people will know how to meet such questions when they appear again. The leaders will be in a position to ascertain the temper of the people, to ask their support to such an enterprise as a necessary auxiliary work, and then, with the whole Zionist force behind it, regardless of the effect on the well-to-do, we shall be able to make a detour with safety.
Zangwill's Zionism
“We, Jehovah His people, are dual and so undone.” So in one phrase Zangwill has portrayed the Jew; and to-day\ not a few Jews and Zionists are ready, not without warrant, to fling the phrase back at the author as a picture of himself. The Zionism of Zangwill, however, merits a study. To Herzl it was an idea, an inspiration, and in a measure became a personal cause. To Nordau it is the prevention of degeneration, and if he knew he did not feel the objections with which Zionism met and still meets. Zangwill, one of the Children of the Ghetto, knew of the objections, and was able to depict the idea even before the name of Herz! had been mentioned in Jewish circles. He saw the movement in its childhood, and did not offer to support it until it had reached some maturity.
Fourteen years ago, Israel Zangwill was, as the Marshallik of the defunct
London "Jewish Standard," the humoristic and sarcastic champion of orthodox Judaism. Then Zangwill became the observer and the photographer of Jewry.
He saw the life around him and he set it down with an incisive pen. His championship of orthodoxy was not serious—it was not a pro-ritualism, but an anti-assimilation attitude; he hated the shams of the typical paradoxical Jewish life. He observed it, and set it forth as one should say: "I know all these things and so much more, that I can smile at all your petty ways." His "Children of the Ghetto" is perhaps the most passionless picture of the Jew that ever came from a Jewish pen. He met passion with a quip, and enthusiasm with a cynical êt apres. Heine might have been so had he lived Zangwill's life, lived in his period.
Observers of the observer, however, never associated him with Heine except