Zionism and Patriotism.
The following note for the first time made public was written by the late leader in answer to a question propounded to him on this side the Atlantic. Our readers will recall the fact that the same question was last year propounded to Mr. Zangwill, and that he obtained a definite answer to the problem from the late secretary of State, John Hay.—Ed. Mac.
PARTICIPATION in the Zionist movement means nothing which is not in the clearest and highest form in unison with the patriotism of a true American. He who labors for the creation of a home for the Jews in Palestine, a home assured by the public law and recognized by all the nations of the earth, will perform his duties as an American citizen with pleasure. And when Palestine will have again become the land of the Jews, those Jews who have assimilated in America will forever regard America as their fatherland. The existence of a Jewish home-state for the Jewish people would no more effect the citizen loyalty of individual Jews, than for instance, the existance of the German empire affects the loyalty of the individual Germans settled in America. And as little as these last mentioned separate themselves from the common life, separate themselves in peace or strife from their co-citizens of the Stars and Stripes, so little would Jews separate themselves from the common life.
On the contrary the Jews, even those not American citizens, will ever thankfully recall the noble spirit America has always manifested towards them, and but lately in
the splendid intervention of President Roosevelt to further the cause of the Russian Jews. And neither the American nor the non-American Jews will ever forget that the United States was an asylum for the persecuted. And if owing to regrettable circumstances a certain change in this attitude has manifested itself of late, the Jews will not complain, but will seek to lighten the burden for a government which heretofore has been so well disposed toward the Jews. The aid offered by Zionism is the diversion of the stream of persecuted immigrants. The American Jews are convinced that the Government can only decide with a heavy heart to regulate the movement of unfortunate people. Zionism is the only humane and at the same time the only practical end."
We recall the simile used by Dr. Herzl when he appeared before the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration in London: "You discover a pool of blood in your room. Whence did it come? At the door lies a wounded man. If you close the door the blood will flow under the service. That, therefore, is useless. But if you help the wounded man, if you cure him, you staunch the flow of blood, it will cease to flow. Then you can have a clean room, and leave your door open."
"The aid for the wounded man is Zionism, and the American Jews aid their beloved fatherland when they aid an unhappy people from whom they spring. That is not disloyalty, in no way, but a double measure of loyalty."