The Maccabaean

APPEALS FOR NEUTRAL ATTITUDE

It is incomprehensible to me how so dangerous a pronouncement as the article entitled "The Jewish Interest in the War" could ever have been allowed by you to appear in THE MACCABAEAN. Its writer does not seem to understand the practical meaning of neutrality. The neutrality demanded of us does not mean refraining from having an opinion on the war. It means refraining from publicly expressing an opinion.

We Jews, individual or collectively, naturally have our sympathies on one side or the other. But the expression of such feeling at the present moment is a transcendent folly and an unforgivable offence against all Jewish interests. "The Jewish interest in the war" is to prepare quitely for the furthering of Jewish interests when the war is over, not to express irresponsible partisan opinions while the war is being waged. No good can possibly be done by the publication of any such opinions, especially in a Jewish paper. We do not thereby help one side against the other. Nor can any such expression of opinion by Jews alleviate the sufferings, present or future, of Russian Jewry.

On the contrary, the printed expression of such hostile feeling to Russia as that article breathed can result only in further embittering the cup of sorrow of Russian Jewry. Such an article as you printed stabs the millions of tortured, Jews of Russia and Poland in the back; for, when transmitted to the Russian government by any of its numerous agents in this country, it places in the hands of that government a triumphant justification for rejecting the passionate, agonized plea of Russian Jewry for the right to live as free men. Such an article as you permitted to be published furnished Russia with an instrument forged by Jews for the stirring up of yet further pogroms. Such an article means that it is Jews who are placing in Russian hands a sword to be used for shedding of rivers of Jewish blood.

I fervently hope, that your eyes may be opened to the exquisite dangers of allowing any further printed expression of sympathies or any partisan correspondence on this question. Remember that it is your own brethren who are held as hostages, and that it is they who will suffer reprisals for any indiscretion on your part. Your sympathies, my sympathies, the sympathies of any of us, may be what they will within us. But they become dangerous and charged with blood-guilt if we rush into print to babble away the lives of our sorrowing brethren.

DAVID DE SOLA POOL.

WHO HAS GIVEN UP THE NATIONAL HOPE

TO THE MACCABAEAN:

At the Convention of American Hebrew Congregations, Dr. David Philipson said: "We have given up all hope of the rebirth of Jewish nationalism and the restoration of a Jewish state," and the solemn conclave resolved to the same effect.

As well might the elements before Newton have resolved that they had given up all hope of the discovery of the law of gravitation, or science a decade ago that it had given up all expectation of conquering the air, or the anthropodean progenitors of mankind have resolved ever to remain mon- keys, or Charles the First that he had given up all hope of losing his head, or Congress that it had given up all expectation of governing the country, or hydrogen and oxygen, that they would refuse to be water. Only last year the

Carnegie Foundation published a thirty-page brochure by Dr. David Starr Jordan, proving beyond all doubt, on irrefutable economic grounds, that another great war between the European nations was impossible! So, gentlemen of the Convention, you have good company in your somewhat strange logic

At a time when the European press it filled with speculations of statesmen as to the ultimate disposal of Palestine, when the nationalist movement is being urged with a fervor, enthusiasm and logic that challenges respectful attention, when alone of all international movements it has calmly reorganized in the face of a catastrophe that has well nigh obliterated all other international movements when no brighter outlook in this country ever confronted the leader of Jewish nationalism—when, iu fact, it is the only vital, throbbing, pulsating force in American Jewry, this convention of rabbis has seen fit to “give up all hope.”

But perhaps, after all, gentlemen, you are right. Jewish nationalism cannot be "reborn," because it was never dead, and if in the remote past its comatose condition suggested the appearance of death, the last forty years stand in irrefutable evidence of its life, its rejuvenation, its wonderful compelling power over the Jewish masses of Eastern Europe.

That its logic is irresistible is proved by the resolution. Else why the need of waiting till January, 1915, to “give up hope?” Why wasn’t “hope” given up twenty, fifteen or ten years ago? It is because in its onrushing sweep over Jewry and its challenging of some of your tenets you are compelled to re-examine your position. To “give up hope” when a reawakening so widespread has taken possession of the Jewish communal life is to attempt to sweep back the tide with a broomstick.

A challenge to your Convention, gentlemen. Dare you submit your resolution to a referendum of the Jews of America? The very question is its own answer.

AARON PRUSSIAN.

Dr. Nordau’s Views Expressed at English Zionist Conference

At the conference of English Zionists held on Sunday, January 24th, a letter from Dr. Max Nordau was read, in which he is quoted as saying that the time has come for the Zionists to be prepared to take advantage of opportunities that will arise after the war is concluded. He believed that conditions were ripe for the realization of the plans of Zionism.

In the course of the deliberation of the conference, Joseph Cowen, president of the English Zionist Federation, reported that the Zionist leaders were engaged in diplomatic negotiations, and while nothing definite could be said at this time, he informed the conference that every thing possible was being done. He also proposed that the Inner Actions Comite should be reorganized and established in the Hague, with Jacobus Kann and Jean Fischer in charge of affairs. This committee should work hand in hand with the American Provisional Committee. All Zionist affairs could not be transferred to the Provisional Committee owing to the distance of America from the center of interest. Leopold Kessler proposed that instead of legislating the present members of the Inner Actions Comite out of that office, that Comite should be enlarged. Both proposals were defeated by the delegates to the Conference. Mr. Cowen was again elected president of the Federation.