An Appeal to American Jews
The Late Zionist Utterance of the Late Dr. L. N. Dembitz
[A FEw weeks before his death, Dr. Lewis N. Dembitz sent into the office of the Federation the subjoined appeal, which he wished to have circulated among the Jews of America. It was the expression of his firm belief in the possibility of reaching loyal American Jews upon the basis of helping in the development of Palestine. The Federation knew that Dr. Dembitz’s reputation in America warranted the publication of such an appeal. For years the illus- trıous scholar had worked in behalf of every good Jewish cause. His name had become a synonym for loyalty to Judaism, devotion to Jewish knowledge, and enthusiasm in old age. The Federation awalited, therefore, a favorable opportunity for the publication of his appeal. It waited a few weeks too long. and now, with the spirit of the genial scholar hushed in death, it presents to the Ameriran Jewish world the last word of Dr. Dembitz on a subject which made his last years beautiful in hopefulness and glowing with the enthusiasm of vouth.]
An opportunity has come for a man of wealth to link his name with a cause which, if successful, will rank high in the great events of history:
In 538 B. C. E. Judea, or Palestine, was a waste: Samaria, the strip of land to its north, was peopled by an Assyrian colony; Galilee partly by Canaanites, partly by weak remnants of the northern tribes having but a faint remembrance of Israel's law. Arabian nomads roamed east of the Jordan.
In that year Cyrus, King of Persia, conquered Babylon. Zerubbabel, great-grandson of an exiled King of Judah, found access to the King in whose dominions the exiles from Judah now lived, gained his ear and obtained permission for his brethren to return to their home. There was, it seems, some delay; but under King Darius some forty thousand Jews, men, women and children, assisted in money by their neighbors who stayed in Babylonia, crossed the Jordan and rebuilt Jerusalem.
They and their children carried on a new commonwealth and the services of a new temple for nearly six hundred years. The return of Zerubbabel and his host, the new temple and the new state, not only perpetuated the Jewish religion, but paved the way for Christianity and for Islam. None can conceive how mankind would have fared if Zerubbabel had not been a successful Zionist.
When Titus destroyed the Temple, Judea again became a howling wilderness. When, fifty years later, the Romans quelled the rebellion of Bar Kochba, Galilee also lost most of its Jews by death or exile. From that time to near the end of the 18th century, they have steadily prayed for a return to their old seat, but made no effort to carry out their wish. In the eighties of this century, by the aid of the Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Russian Jews fleeing from massacre, planted a few weak colonies of farmers and vintners, which for a long time were not self-supporting, and attracted verv little attention.
But in 1895, the Lovers of Zion found a leader in Dr. Theodore Herzl, of Vienna. With his book, "The Jewish State," he opened up to many Jews and to not a few thoughtful Gentiles the possibility of establishing an autonomous Jewish community in the Holy Land, and ushered in Zionism, properly so-called. In 1896 the first Congress of Zionists met at Basle in Switzerland; other congresses have followed it, each representing a wider constituency than its predecessor. In each land the Zionists have gathered in separate bodies; the Federation of American Zionists is one of the largest.
As of old, in the days of Zerubbabel, it is not said that all the Jews should go to Palestine; but those who by money or otherwise help their brethren to go, are good Zionists.
Theodore Herzl died of overwork in 1904. Like Moses and like Samuel, he refused all
1897