THE MACCABAEAN
Russia Free.
THE proclamation issued by Nicholas II. on Oct. 30th, is like a ray of light breaking into a gloomy dungeon. Whether it will really enfranchise the Russian people; whether the Jews in Russia, in whose fate we are most concerned, will be free and equal before the law:—these questions time alone can answer. The student of politics recognizes in this new bill of rights a gain for humanity and knows, moreover, that the application of the principles invoked in the Czar's ukase will occupy years. The extremists, who are theorists, acting on the idea that it is well to strike whilst the iron is hot, want more than what Witte thinks is enough. The appetite of the people is whetted—the season of struggle, of open struggle, of constitutional battle, and of possible riot, is about to begin; this struggle will endure for more than a generation.
The Manifesto.
THE manifesto is in some of its phrases so broad, that it implies that the Jews are to share in general measure of emancipation. But against that we read lines that suggest, and this is in conformity with Count Witte's views, that the bars will only be taken down one by one and that the liberation of the dwellers in the Pale will be even a slower and more painful process than that by which the Russian people generally will attain to the full measure of liberty. But even so we recognize the advance. The Russian, and that includes the Russian Jew, has become a human being, as civilization understands the term, and for that all the world will rejoice. Count Witte has enlarged the sphere of humanity and those who doubted his integrity are the first
to acknowledge that he has proved himself to be first man of the new hour in Russian history. But even he was still to prove whether his metal rings true through and through.
Effect on Zionism.
AND with the liberation of Russia there comes not unnaturally to Jews the thought that the Zionist movement has lost its motive power. Without the black picture of Russo-Jewish misery in the background—wherefore the Zionist foreground? We might answer truthfully that the black background of Jewish existence has not ceased, and will not cease. The Russo-Jewish question is a struggle of 5,000,000 to survive against 130,000,000; it is an attempt at the best of a small brain to maintain itself against an inordinate mass of muscle. Jewish political success will bring into Russia the Viennese form of anti-Semitism; failure upon the part of the Jews means disappearance, racial and religious catastrope. Economically the Jews will be at a discount in Russia; pitted against Russian brawn the little Jew will make little headway. The Russian Jew will starve just as the Galician Jew starves and his political compensation will not be greater than that which the Galician Jew possesses. Certainly the acute need of Zionism and its opportunist-child Territorialism may pass away. But if we understand our people aright the boon of freedom which is to be theirs will only serve to nerve them for the struggle which will bring them what Russia can never give them, independent national existence, a house with the Jew in the majority, a political condition which will safeguard the religious institutions and them oral and social ideals of the Jewish people.
Territorialistic Heresy.
THE relationship of Zionism to Territorialism is the pressing question of the hour. Mr. Zangwill has made further considerable headway with his causes, and "commonsense Zionism" as the New York Globe