When I first heard Zionism talked about I felt a desire to laugh, nor did the smile give way when writings came to my notice that would have made everyone else wise, such as the fine articles of Nordau and Herzl.
CESARE LOMBROSO.
The first doubt as to the correctness of my view came to me on the journey between Moscow and Warsaw, in that stretch where every station is sown with a veritable multitude of poor Jews, who struggle for their livelihood, and to this end cling to the foremost modern implement of trade, the railroad. In one of the cars a young Polish physician, a Jew, addressed
me, and after he had questioned me in regard to my views on Zionism, after he had seen my scornful smile, his face clouded as though some one had given him a slap.
Translated from "Ost und West," by LEON A. KOHN
"You have not seen the thousands upon thousands of sacrificed victims, who struggle in vain for their living, who possess neither fatherland nor estates, nor the means wherewith to procure them, whose crime is their faith," he answered me. I grasped the hand of the young Jew. "I am accustomed to respect all opinions if they are noble," said I. "I respect yours, also, though I can not yet share it; but I shall reflect upon it later." And truly in a few days a young Jewish propagandist placed documents before me, which prove that that which had appeared to me as a tale for fanatics, had already made a good start toward accomplishment, that the prime difficulty, the finding of people who are accustomed to agricultural work and can therefore adapt themselves to it, had already been judiciously overcome, in that young people are being educated for this purpose, that at last colonies have come into existence in accordance with the most modern methods. The vigorous and early ripening vegetation of these colonies promises rich fruits, and education is arranged in such a way that the agricultural work does not exclude the literary and scientific. Thus Zionism promises to show the example of a new population that combines all modern resources with ancient traditions, a population that succeeds in causing all those hidden forces that have been developed through this era and the misfortune of the Hebrew race, to blend. Now that I comprehend the entire magnitude of my error. I could easily explain it to myself, though I could not justify it. The inhabitants of Western Europe, at least those of France and Italy, where the Jews constitute only a small element of the