LETTERS TO THE CONVENTION FROM ZIONIST
FROM DAVID WOLFFSOHN, PRESIDENT.
It is with feelings of deepest satisfaction and pleasure that I congratulate you on your eleventh annual convention. I trust that your deliberations will be highly interesting and that there will be resolutions on your agenda dealing with all the details of our many-sided Zionist work. Every speaker will undoubtedly show himself in strong sympathy with immediate action, and I trust that you will succeed in giving a fresh impetus to our propaganda.
In testifying my appreciation of your noble and untiring efforts in behalf of our movement, I beg to call your attention to the principal duty of Zionists at the present time: to supply the necessary means. We must keep in mind that the object we have in view and our means for attaining it are still singularly out of proportion. Lack of means will deprive your leaders of all power of initiative and of the possibility of action to overcome the difficulties confronting us. This root-evil is the real center of our problem. Our prospects are really better than ever. New chances are being offered us, and new possibilities have been created. A Palestine Bureau in Palestine, a banking branch at Constantinople, a new bureau at Berlin, have been established during the last year. Zionism, removed from cloudland, has been brought into the domain of facts, and facts require means.
By no one will this be better understood than by you, my Zionist brethren in America. The characteristic feature of the great country in which you live and which commands the esteem of all practical men is the realism of life. Yours is a century where the development of civilization and of Zionist work may proceed hand in hand. You will agree
with me that platform effects and rhetoric and theories, as impressive and as edifying and necessary as they may be for the moment, are not sufficient for practical work. All of us are anxious for something real and tangible. And as to enthusiasm, the supply of means would afford the most striking evidence of it.
In conclusion, let me say that I hope that your eleventh convention will be a practical one, and that my appeal will not be disregarded, and that you will devote every energy towards making the Zionism of your great country a source of real strength to our holy cause.
I believe that Jewish history will say that our American brethren were not only faithful sons of Jerusalem, but also active builders of it; that they have helped in laying deep the foundations of our future national life in Palestine.
With heartfelt Zionist greetings,DAVID WOLFFSOHN,President.
FROM DR. MAX NORDAU.
There are comforting symptoms appearing that the cultivated, influential and wealthy Jews of America begin at last to grasp the whole seriousness of the Jewish question, and have a mind to grapple with it with their characteristic energy, practical sense and consciousness of responsibility. It will be your merit to recruit these invaluable forces for Zionism, the only scheme of salvation for our people, and their honor to join our organization. May your eleventh annual convention achieve this consummation, so ardently to be wished for.
With Zion's greetings,Yours very truly,DR. M. NORDAU.