The Maccabaean

"Lilienbloom the Zionist" is the title of a pamphlet of some sixty pages written by Mr. A. L. Bisco, and just issued by the "Jewish Renaissance Publishers," Edinburgh. A word of welcome is due first of all to this new publishing enterprise. The Edinburgh Young Men's Zionist Culture Association evidently takes its Zionism seriously, and aims at doing Zionist work of a permanent character. Practically no Zionist literature in the English language has hitherto been published in England, and consequently the Anglo-Jewish community is ignorant of the aims and character of Zionism. The task of dispelling that ignorance has never been attacked by any organized body of Zionists, though it is by no means the least important of our tasks. The Edinburgh Zionists have therefore set a useful example, and it is to be hoped that the success of their efforts to create a Zionist literature in English will be such as to stimulate other Societies to follow in their footsteps.

Moses Leib Lilienblum is one of the most interesting figures in the history of Zionism. His is a personality worth studying, and we have fortunately a vivid record of it in his own writings, which are largely autobiographical. His career on the face of it presents a series of contradictions. In his early youth he was the typical ghetto student, learned in Bible and Talmud, and performing all the rites and ceremonies of Judaism with the scrupulousness of sincere conviction. Yet his genuine religious feeling was qualified by a bent towards rationalism, which threw him into revolt against the superstitious element in Judaism as he knew it. The influence of the early Haskalah widened the breach, and Lilienblum stood forth at an early age as a religious reformer, pleading for some minor adaptations of the framework of Judaism to the changed conditions of modern life, so that its spirit might be enabled to resist the influences of an alien

environment. This relatively mild attempt at reform naturally brought him hatred and persecution from his orthodox neighbours. Certain Maskilim who were his friends helped him to Odessa: and almost at once the new atmosphere brought about a complete change in his outlook. He ceased to care about religious reform, and indeed about religion altogether. For years his energies were concentrated on the task of winning for himself a secure material position, the way to which lay through a a university education. So, in the direst poverty, he struggled to master the elements of Western culture —until suddenly another revolution in his mind was produced by the outbreak of persecution in Russia in 1880. In a moment he abandoned his ideal, and took up with a new one—that of the restoration of the Jewish people to Palestine. As Chovev Zion, and afterwards as Zionist, he worked steadfastly for this end till the very last day of his life (February, 1910). Thus his career falls into three sharply divided periods—one of religious zeal, one of assimilation, and one of Zionism.

The characteristic which shines through all of Lilienblum's violent changes of front is his thoroughness. For him there was no such thing as a half-way house; an idea once adopted was carried to its logical conclusion. This explains the character of his Zionism. The one object for him was the placing of the Jews on the soil of Palestine; and consequently he had no patience with Zionism of a "spiritual" kind. It was not that he approached the problem from a purely economic point of view. He emphasized the essential difference between the Jewish outlook and that of the European world, and made it clear that in his view Palestine was to be once more the home of a type of life based on Jewish ideals. But the essential thing for him was to put Jews into Palestine: good, bad or indifferent Jews, it did not matter; every Jew in Palestine was another step towards the goal.