has been invited by the officers and the executive committee to visit this country during the coming winter if financial conditions improve and with the stimulus of successful work begun, he will, we are sure, awaken much interest in the plans and secure the required aid.
We are obliged to report that the appeal of the A. C. in compliance with a resolution of Congress for the creation of a "Parteifond" has not met with response among our societies. This fund must be gathered if we desire the A. C., whom we helped to elect, to carry out the work imposed upon them. I trust that the effort will be made in every society to collect as large a sum as possible during the coming winter.
In the year that has passed, we have received our full measure of unfavorable criticism, hostility and abuse. It is still charged that we are looking backwards into the past. We admit that we place the highest value upon our history and the lessons it teaches for the future and we acknowledge that historical continuity is our greatest asset and the basis of our hopes, that our eyes are turned toward the backward Orient, and we answer that it is only there that the genius of our people will again reveal itself. We recognize that the Jews cannot live a normal Jewish life and develop along the lines of Jewish thought and ideals in a non-Jewish environment. Amid Christian surroundings the fountain of Judaism either becomes a stagnant pool or it runs dry. The Zionists are convinced that it is necessary to establish a Jewish center in Palestine, where the Jews will have the opportunity within the near future .of being in the majority. The historic asso- ‚ciations of the land will contribute greatly to a regeneration of the Jewish spirit and the development of a normal Jewish life. Among the Jews scattered throughout the world who will participate in the founding of this center, Jewish consciousness will increase and Jewish life will be quickened. With the center established, we shall have a strengthened spiritual bond, a bond of Jewish unity, cementing the Jews of the various lands. This center will be the anchor of all Jewish life. From it Jewish thought and inspiration will permeate all our scattered communities.
We are attacked because the Zionist program does not make any reference to our religion and because there are in our ranks not only those of all shades of religious belief from the most orthodox to the most reform, but even the non-religious. It is but natural that this attack should be made by those preachers who, having inherited the spirit of mediaeval inquisitors, should be ready to apply the ban of excommunication. The world has progressed and Zionists in the full spirit of modern tolerance ask but one question: "Are you a Jew?" One need sign no articles, need give no confession of faith. The mere declaration suffices: "I am and want to be a Jew." Only him do we exclude who through apostasy or without it separates himself from his people. For Zionism is broad, broad enough to include every Jew.
But let it not be said that Zionism stands for irreligion. We are convinced that the religious spirit which has dropped to so lamentable an ebb in western lands, will flourish anew in a Jewish center and yield abundant fruit. Its effects will be far reaching. The religious life of the majority of Jews who would continue to live in Christian countries will still suffer from the influence of Christian thought, but it will not suffer from stagnation or from dilution as at present, for there will be a strong force counteracting the anarchy of belief and practice growing greater every year. During the whole period of the second Temple, Palestine was not the numerical but the spiritual center of the Jewish nation; yet it was this center which cemented the Jews of the Diaspora into one strong unity; it stimulated and directed Jewish activities outside of Palestine, and on its own soil gave birth to the religion which later conquered the world.
In analyzing the reasons of many who oppose Zionism and many more who hesitate to join our ranks, we find that one of the chief motives lies in fear, in an undefined fear of anti-Semitism. This is unfortunately the Ghetto spirit which has been handed down to those who most decry the Ghetto life. Forever dodging and shirking, they seek subterfuges to prove that we are not what we are, what we know we are, what the world