with the great task we have set before us —the regeneration of our land and the salvation of our people. And here I come to the real question: where can this co-operation of all Israel best begin? Surely in our cultural work, that work which has always made the strongest appeal to the hearts and the minds of thinking Jewry. Culture is the bridge which may, and ought to unite all sections. The question for all of us, even for those who cannot accept the full Basle Programme, is the securing of an "openly legally-assured home" for the Jewish spirit. Give to the Jews, said Rousseau, only a free country and a free Academy of their own, and we shall hear what they have to say to us.
Zionism which to some has appeared only as a policy of despair, to others as a policy of adventure, has always had its mind set on that goal. Already at the first Basle Congress Professor Shapira, the inventor of the idea of a National Fund for the acquisition of land, spoke for the establishment of a Jewish University to provide for the spirit. And five years later (1901) resolutions were passed approving an inquiry. The movement had already begun at that time for restricting the admission into the mid-European High Schools of the Russo-Jewish students, who were excluded from their native educational institutions. By gradual sharpenings the Jewish foreign student stands now, nearly everywhere abroad, before almost closed doors. We are in face, in Russia, of a massacre of the intellect of our growing generation comparable to the pogroms, and in the neighbouring countries to an extension, even to our best minds, ofthe exclusion, by administrative order, of all aliens. If Anti-Semitism in its cruder aspects had any part in reviving in the Jew the demand for a freer life in the land of his fathers, this new anti-cultural movement has sharpened his desire for the emancipation of the Jewish intellect. We cannot allow our Youth, the bearers of our future, to be treated as outcasts at the gates of Learning. Our people are being driven, as well as drawn , towards the realization of the traditional ideals.
What are we doing in Palestine to
cope with this problem? In truth there is no part of our work of national regen eration which is so well prepared or so solidly established. Every town has, beside the old Talmud Torahs or Rab binical Schools, its modern Kindergar tens and Public Elementary Schools; in Jaffa and Jerusalem there are three flourishing intermediate schools of Gym nasia, and large public libraries; in Jeru salem again we have our ever-growing School of Arts and Crafts—the Bezalel; at Jaffa a Seminary for teachers and a teachers' union; and at convenient cen tres in the country there are Agricul tural schools, a station for Research, a school of Gardening, a school of Plan tation, a school of Music, and a school of Commerce. Two years ago, at the Tenth Congres at Basle, a resolu tion was passed calling on the new ad ministration to apply itself to the regu lation and centralization of the cultural work in Palestine, and a commission was appointed to prepare a special or ganization for the purpose. The incor poration under English Law of the "Ke dem" as a cultural institution, parallel in its working to the land activities of the Jewish National Fund—also an English Company—is the result. If only it can achieve the same financial success —and why should it not?—the develop ment of our cultural work on an impos ing scale will be assured. The "Kedem" is a national institution; it comes not as the emissary of strange cultures, but as the ambassador of the Hebrew people, striving only for the promotion of our own spiritual wares and for the intellect ual values which we may ourselves cre ate. There has been no greater danger to our cultural development in the past in Palestine than the jealousy of rival nationalities among the immigrants. The people brought with them all the divi sions of exile, so that the pupils of the French "Alliance Schools" did not understand those of the German "Hilfs verein," and neither of these the pupils of the schools under English influ ence. That evil is being reduced and will disappear altogether with the more and more general acceptance of Hebrew as the language of instruction in all the educational institutions, as it is already in the homes of the people.