It was not in existence when we formulated that position; it would have had absolutely no influence upon that formulationif it had been in existence. For these reasons, and because we had hoped not onlyto declare ourselves on this question whichhas for several years occupied us, but alsobecause we ventured to believe that wemight awaken our fellow Zionists to itsimminence and gravity, we issued our protocol.
It was distinctly and decidedly not our purpose to criticize our group, official or lay, of Zionists. It distinctly and decidedly was our purpose to indicate our anxiety with respect to the fundamental ideals of Zionism. It distinctly and decidedly was our purpose to declare unmistakably our allegiance to the Basle program, allegiance to which tests the loyalty of all Zionists. And it was our hope that many other groups would follow our example.
The extraordinary misrepresentation of this purpose and this hope is most discouraging.
With Zion's greetings,Very truly yours,H. M. KALLEN.
I want to thank you for publishing (in the September MACCABAEAN, page 75, (under the caption, "A Declaration from Political Zionists") the statement issued, on the 1st September, by Messrs Kallen, Sheffer, Silverman, Speare, and myself, in which we say (to quote one sentence):
"It is in response to the highest call of loyalty to our international organization and our cause that we emphatically reaffirm our allegiance to the total program of the first Basle Congress."
On page 71 of the same number of THE MACCABAEAN, you print an editorial comment, headed "Premature Criticism," at which I am bound to express my amazement. Whether our statement was "premature and uncalled for at the present time" is, indeed, a matter of opinion, and your editorialist had a right to his own, though it might have been better considered (as I shall take pains to show, before I am through); but when, in the guise of expositor, he speaks of us as offering "criticism of the Zionist administration,"
that is, of the new Actions Comité, I can only beg him to re-read, or rather to read, our statement. The spirit he imputes to us was a million miles from our minds and pens. Surely, your editorialist might have allowed a little sense of propriety, even to “academic Zionists ”
So much for that. I am writing now in response to your courteous request that the signers of the statement should send you “a more extended presentation” of their “views as to political Zionism.” My colleagues are now scattered over the continent at their respective universities, and I have apprised each of you request In what follows, I speak only for myself, though I dare say that, in the main, my friends will not be found in disagreement.
I am, I suppose, what is called a “political” Zionist (as well as an “academic” one.) A “political” Zionist is generally cited in contradistinction to a “practical” Zionist. To tell you the truth, I abhor this antinomy. It is false and misleading. It takes its issue not from the living Zionism of our day, but from two outlived and incongruous stages of our movement in the past. I refer to the Chovevei-Zion activity on the one hand, and to the idea of a charter for Palestine, on the other hand. Let me touch upon each in turn.
The Chovevei-Zionists of a generation ago were moved, as are their followers to-day, by an overmastering love for Zion, the Jand of our fathers. No man who feels in his veins the blood of David, of Isaiah, of Judas the Maccabee, but is stirred, in some measure, at least, by this same sentiment. Yet, to be so passionately enamored of the land of our ancient past as to be ready to sacrifice one’s all, if only to tread upon its soil, ay, to plant vineyards in its waste places, and, when the angel calls, to be gathered in its bosom unto one’s fathers, is, after all, given to few, even among a sentimental folk like the Jews. To be sure, this personal longing of the Chovevists was invigorated by an ages- hallowed vision—the vision of Palestine Jewish once more. Meanwhile, in the wake of the massacres of the eighties and their mournful sucessors, came also the philanthropic impulse to transfer numbers of Jews from Russia to—why not Palestine? So. by a coincidence of the sentimental and philanthropic cravings, Jewish colonists were planted in the Holy Land;