COMMUNICATIONS
TO THE MACCABEAN :
I have sent the following letter to the Agudath Zion of Alliance, N. J., and I request that you publish the same in THE MACCABEAN.
Yours very truly, B. G. RICHARDS
To THE OFFICERS OF THE AGUDATH ZION ALLIANCE
In accordance with the request sent by you to Mr. Jasin that he name a delegate for your Society, I had the privilege of representing the Agudath Zion of Alliance at the 12th annual convention of the Federation of American Zionists, held in this city from June 12 to 15 and I deem it my duty to explain to you my attitude in regard to a number of vital questions which came up for consideration.
While I am thoroughly in sympathy with the immediate work of practical colonization in Palestine, I do not believe that this work which requires the participation of all classes of Jews, is directly to be carried on by the organization as such, and I hold that primarily, the chief function of the movement is to propogate the Jewish national ideal and to advocate our cause in all parts of Jewry.
If the Zionists will bend all their energies towards emphasizing the abnormalityof the Jewish position and give all theirstrength towards arousing the Jewish consciousness, the Jewish people will do therest in creating the center toward whichwe are striving. Believing in the basicprinciples of Zionism, I voted for resolutions reaffirming the Basle programand favoring a concentration of Zionisteffort, to the end that we may devote allour strength to the support of existingZionist institutions, and to the spread offavorable sentiment for the movement.Holding the view that the chief businessof the Zionist movement is to preach and
hold up its ideal, I opposed any official action, identifying it with a scheme of purchasing land in Palestine. I am interested in these schemes, and hope that hundreds of them will spring up among Jews in different countries and believe that Zionists, as individuals, should be first to support any industrial or agricultural undertakings, as will, in conformity with our basic principles, advance our cause.
But it is not the function of the organization as such, to engage in such enterprises, nor will it be able to cope with, nor keep itself accountable for, the various and many projects that, it is to be hoped, within the near future, will spring up among the people everywhere in the course of building the new land. From this point of view, also, I voted for the recommendation to the Congress calling upon the Actions Committee that it "be moderate in its efforts to make the Zionist organization responsible for a number of Palestinian enterprises that are not specifically national in their scope, and that it devote itself to the upbuilding of the National Fund, of the capital of the Jewish Colonial Trust, and to those investigations of Palestine that are essential to a large occupation of the land." I voted together with most of the other delegates for a resolution favoring the collection of money for cultural enterprise in Palestine through the general agency of the culture fund and also supported measures pertaining to Jewish education and to Zionist propaganda that I believe will tend to further the movement during the present year.
Whilt holding Dr. Magnes in the highest esteem and admiring his zeal and efforts for Zionism, I joined those delegates who voted against him as vice-president as a protest against views, expressed in an official manner, which, we believed, involved a departure from the basic principles of the movement, and I feel that this stand for a principle, entirely divorced from personalities and the emphas-