Spain to make cloth, and thus to give the people work before they were able to settle on the land. History repeats itself, each time, let us hope, with greater success. But I am not here to discuss the future, I am merely discussing the past, which is sufficiently instructive and sufficiently encouraging for the future. The continuity has never been broken. Palestine has never been estranged from the Jewish mind and heart, and the rôle which Palestine has played during 1,800 years almost surpasses, if it does not equal, in importance, the period before the destruction of the Temple. We are no longer Biblical Jews in the narrower sense of the word, we are not Karaites, but rabbinical Jews, the outcome of a constant development, based upon and nurtured by that Oral Law which found the greatest exponents in the Holy Land. Palestine has been our spiritual centre during the last 1,800 years. Take away what Palestine has given us, and we can neither conceive our Judaism as possible, nor ourselves representing the Faith of Israel.
This very brief sketch has. I think, sufficed to show the place Palestine holds in Jewish life. When the waves rise and the storms howl, and the ship is turned off its course, and the compass boxes the four corners of the wind, the magnetic needle, after a short disturbance, yet keeps steadily to the mysterious pole, and the captain, after weathering the storm, guides his ship in the way in which the needle points; he can only find safety in studying closely the change of position and always keeping in view that immutable centre to which the needle points. He may
not, he dare not, supply another attraction that would cause the needle to deflect from its proper orientation, no other magnet ought to be brought near the compass lest it disturb the steadiness and the accuracy of the pointing. And so with us.. Our magnetic centre has been Palestine, with its indefinable charm and mystical attraction. The needle of our compass has always pointed to that pole, and weather-beaten and storm-tossed, as our ship has often been, amidst the raging billows. of human passion and national persecution, riding sometimes on a sea of blood, those who stood at the helm of our ship have always guided it in the direction in which the magnetic needle of our compass has pointed. They have not allowed other attractions, other magnets to be brought near it, lest they disturb it, for they knew, as we know, that safety lies only and solely in following the immutable direction of our magnetic needle. Thither we have now to direct the ship that carries the precious cargo, the remnants of the Jewish nation, and the remnants of the Jewish hope. Palestine has been so much to us and to the world during the last 1,800 years, in spite of persecution and devastation and ruin; how much more is it sure to be for us and for mankind when the thread is again taken up and the work carried on by the sons of Israel again settled in their old heritage, to begin a new life, higher, nobler, greater, because freed from the thraldom of their captivity, and inspired by the Shekinah which will return to a revived Jewish nation.