The Maccabaean

I SHOULD like to say a few words to you about our opponents. I think it is necessary sometimes to deal with them. We have always had opponents. From the first moment when Dr. Herzl called us together, before even the first Congress had met, we had opponents who fought us. There were Jews who feared Zionism might harm them, who were afraid of public discussion about Jewish affairs. This was in days gone by. To-day the opposition seems gradually to have subsided.

At the last Congress we had the pleasure of seeing the great Hamburg community as well as the neighboring communities of Wandsbeck, Altona, Lubeck, and Kiel send their presidents to the Congress in order to extend greetings and hold out prospects of their co-operation. To-day we have really few opponents who cross swords with us. Among non-Jews, as a matter of fact, we never had any opponents. On the contrary, we met with sympathy everywhere, especially in England, where the greatest, oldest and best Zionist work, the best Zionist book, is read and studied, the Bible, which has found a home among the English people. This people from the earliest has showed us the greatest sympathy, and we shall never forget that it was the English government which first offered us a piece of

Address delivered by Herr David Wolffshon, at the Pavilion Theatre, in London, on Sunday evening, April 17th.

land —in East Africa if not in Palestine— that it was the English Government which, in a statesmanlike way, gave practical recognition to the Zionist idea.

ZANGWILL AGAINST ZIONISM BEFORE THE GENERAL PUBLIC.

But here in England, and out of our own ranks, has proceeded the sharpest criticism of our movement—I mean that of Mr. Israel Zangwill. This is the first time that I have publicly, and at a Zionist gathering, occupied myself with Mr. Zangwill. I have never entered into discussions of that sort, and should not have spoken on the subject now if Mr. Zangwill had not broken bounds and sought publicity. Previously he has fought with us and among us in Jewish journals. Now he appeals to the general public. You are all aware that he has written an article on Zionism in the Fortnightly Review, which, in my opinion, could only have been written by a renegade. Zangwill waited a long time before he joined us. He considered the matter for four or five years, and then he became an enthusiastic Zionist. After four more years had elapsed, after Herzl had died and the Seventh Congress had rejected East Africa, Zangwill founded the Ito and began to fight against Zionism. It might have been thought that the Ito was founded for the purpose of combating Zionism. We kept silence, as I have said, because we wanted to keep the matter to ourselves.

Now Mr. Zangwill appeals to the general public and writes against Zionism as