The Significance of the Jewish National Fund
WHEN I consider the aim of Zionism, the concentration of the Jewish nation in Palestine, and the main instrument by which it is to be brought to a practical realization, the National Fund, I see that neither the present activities in behalf of the Fund nor the accumulated strength of the instrument itself are adequate to affect this result.
I recall conversations with Professor Schapiro, who founded this institution, and what he meant by the organization of the National Fund.
He formulated it as the insurance policy of future generations of the Jewish nation. Although he gave due consideration to the temporary forms necessary to assure Zionist growth, his great faith was in the National Fund. With the growth of the Fund, or rather with the accumulation and concentration of the energy of the Jewish nation in the form of money, desire, courage and activity were to grow automatically; in other words; the number of Zionists must grow with the increased possibilities of attaining the Zionist aim. The growth of these possibilities may be due either to the lessening of the resistance offered or to the augmentation of strength in the assailing power until it equals, at least, the power of the opposition.
Professor Schapiro based his plan for the acquisition of Palestine on the automatic power of action and reaction, or the mutual interchange of influence between Zionist numbers and their stored up strength as represented by the National Fund. To Professor Schapiro the influencing of time and psychology were not important.
It does not matter with how much we start. Time will multiply money-energy by the laws of compound interest up to the precise moment when it can be used by the nation as a defensive or offensive arm for the existence and furtherance of its aims. Thus the National Fund will stand
in Jewish life for the element of organization which it lacks.
To the average Jew, the realization of the Zionist aim seems remote when compared to the resistance offered from all quarters, especially from the Turkish government. So great and so impregnable seems the position of the resisting power that there seems to be no real importance in more or less activity. The task is so great that individual effort cannot be of any use, and history in general is so slow in its steps that is not worth while to warm up too much to the task. This is a fair analysis of the attitude of the individual who, with the best intentions, is unattached to any organization and feels himself one against many.
The growth of energy and numbers in any fight is in proportion to the chance of success. Even though many scattered individuals may feel themselves on the right side, they will not begin the fight against an organized opposition. And the greater the opposition, the less the chance of ever beginning the fight.
This rule, which can be safely followed by the average individual, does not apply to the Jewish nation or to a cause like Zionism. The individual Jew has a bad habit of looking upon himself as the sole embodiment of his nation, and ascribes his own feebleness to his people as such. His individual pyschology, mistaken for the national psychology, paralyzes his activity as a member of the nation that needs him. Being lonely and socially unorganized, he thinks loneliness and disorganization to be the eternal fate of the Jew. Frightened by the organized resistance which he does not feel strong enough to break, he either weakly submits to the foe, or else he runs for his life to some other country, where he begins over again the endless battle for the mere right to exist.