THE ADVANCE OF ZIONISM.
THE recent controversy between Reform Judaism and Zionism was, indeed, a very unpleasant affair, and especially painful to one who professes both Zionism and Reform Judaism.
Balsill, But one cannot help feeling that some good has come out of it all. The worst thing for a movement is not opposition but indifference. Opposition never harms an honest and well-founded movement. On the contrary, it benefits it. That Zionism is to-day not farther than it is and is weaker in this country than it is abroad is mainly because it has not had enough interested opponents here. Disinterestedness and indifference have marked the attitude of the “antis” The movement has longed for honest reasoning and reasonable antagonists. It has yearned for thinking people who would make a thorough study of its aims and ideals and oppose these, if at all, on prin- eiple.
And this is what the recent controversy has accomplished. It has aroused the interest of the thinking public. It has pointed out our supposed weak points and has thus thrown the strong traits into bolder relief. It has given us the opportunity of correcting mistaken notions and has brought out the fact that the real strength of the project by far outweighs its ascribed weaknesses.
These facts were brought to bear upon me at the last Rabbinical conference, when I learned that about one third of the number of rabbis present had become favorably disposed to Zionism. The fact that twelve rabbis signed a message of greeting and good wishes to the convention at Tannersville (and I am in a position to know that as many more would have affixed their names to the message were it not for the apprehension that too much capital might be made of it at such a time), proves, I think, my contention. The fact also that "Hatikvoh," the national Zionist hymn, was sung several times at the conference hall, clearly shows the extent of our gain during the past few months.
Of course, it must not be supposed that
the central conference, as such, has become Zionistic, nor that those who have led in the attack on the movement have now come over into our camp. But it is safe to say that all those rabbis who had previously not given Zionism any time or thought and who had, therefore, formed no opinion, have lately become imbued with our hopes and aspirations.
It is true that it was mainly the younger men into whose ranks the movement has made many and great inroads. But an ideal always appeals more to the young than it does to the old, and this characteristic, even our bitterest opponents do not attempt to take from us, namely, that we strive for an ideal. After all, a people that has waited for eighteen hundred and thirty-seven years can afford to work and wait a little longer until Zionism will become a movement for all the Jews, of all the Jews, and by all the Jews.
MENDEL SILBER.
THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE.
We revert to this organization for the purpose of pointing out that it still owes American Jewry an explanation of its failure to adopt a democratic scheme of representation, which was unofficially promised last spring. If it has done any good work, the records are safely cold-storaged, and the Jewish people do not know of it. A reading of its minutes does not betray remarkable application to the problems it had undertaken to solve. The record shows, aside from appeals for the succor of distressed European Jews, a mass of unrequited endeavor decorated with graceful and entertaining reports.
But no amount of successful work will vitiate the evil in the undemocratic system of representation, which the Committee has seen fit to adopt. From our point of view the largest service the Committee may perform for American Jewry is that of establishing a democratic, responsible committee, delegated with power to apply itself to Jewish effort. No amount of secret, semi-diplomatic, “hush-and admire” work will do away with the radical objection Zionists must have to the Committee.