"If I do not help myself, who will help me? and if not now, when?" HILLEL.
THE misery caused by bloody deeds of violence has been followed by a moment of repose, and baiter and baited can breathe easier for a time. Meanwhile the Jewish fugitives are being “repatriated” with the very money that was collected to assist emigration. The Jews in the Occident have again learned to endure the cry of “Hep, hep!” as their fathers did in days gone by. The flaming outburst of indignation at the disgrace endured has turned into a rain of ashes which is gradually covering the glowing soil. Close your eyes and hide your heads in ostrich-fashion as you will, if you do not take advantage of the fleeting moment of repose, and devise remedies more radical than those palliatives with which incompetents have for centuries vainly tried to relieve our unhappy people, lasting peace is impossible for you.
THE eternal problem presented by the Jewish Question stirs men to-day, as it did ages ago. It remains unsolved, like the squaring of the circle, unlike which, however, it is still a burning question. This is due to the fact that it is not merely a problem of theoretic interest, but one of practical interest, which renews its youth from day to day, as it were, and presses more and more imperiously for a solution.
The essence of the problem, as we see it, consists in the fact that, in the midst of the nations among whom the Jews reside, they form a heterogeneous element which cannot be assimilated, which cannot be
readily digested by any nation. Hence the problem is to find means of so adjusting the relations of this exclusive element to the whole body of the nations that there shall never be any further basis for the Jewish Question.
We cannot, of course, think of establishing absolute harmony. Such harmony has probably never existed, even among the other peoples. The millennium in which the “International” will disappear, and the nations will merge into humanity, is still invisible in the distance. Until it is realized, the desires and ideals of the nations must be limited to establishing a tolerable modus vivendi.
The world will have to wait long for universal peace; but meantime the relations of the nations to one another may be adjusted fairly well by an explicit mutual understanding, an understanding based upon international law, treaties, and especially upon a certain equality in rank and mutually conceded rights, as well as upon mutual esteem.
No such equality in rank appears in the intercourse of the nations with the Jews. In the latter case the basis is lacking for that mutual esteem which is generally regulated and secured by international law or by treaties. Only when this basis is established, when the equality of the Jews and the other nations becomes a fact, can the problem presented by the Jewish Question be considered solved. Unfortunately, although such equality existed in reality in days long since forgotten, under present conditions we can hope to see it restored