IN ANY CASE
WE do not know what is happening. Our dearest possession, our hope, the spot where our heart lives, is hidden from us and hidden in mists of terror. We hear rumors and forebodings,—worse, perhaps, we hear facts. Day by day the horror gathers.
We have a right to mourn. It is not faithless to mourn. Only the soft or cold philosophies that make their religion of health forbid to the human heart the privilege of sorrow.
None can say; "Now where is your faith?" None will accuse Jeremiah or Ezekiel of unfaith. Their faith grew and flourished on the full pouring forth of their sorrow and pain.
It is a third Churban. Another sanctuary has fallen. All about us the world crashes in ruins, and in the midst of all, at the center of the world, the Jewish hope, the Jewish heart, is broken.
The work of a generation, the homes built with tears and blood, the death of heroes, the life of visionaries, the pennies of sweated slaves, the whole and only possession of those who have given all they possess—it lies in ruins. To die for one's nation, that is nothing. A single life, yours or mine, melts into insignificance to the eyes that see a vision covering ages. Vision is immortality. But to tear up that vision, to shatter the dream, to nullify the sacrifice—that is to plow life into a valley of chaos, and to preserve sight for eyes that see only confusion.
The work of a generation. —One generation—and we have toiled thousands of years. One band of martyrs—and we have been martyred since the dawn of history. One disappointment—and we have hoped, and hoped in vain, since the day when we brought to mankind the vision of hope, the dream of a Messiah.
We are still the Jewish People. Palestine is still Palestine. God is still God.
In any case, our lot is not worse than it was forty years ago. Forty years—and we can remember four thousand.
In any case—
opinions against the Jews, who are considered both as a religious and as a national power in Palestine. Hence the European in Palestine trembles not alone for his native land, but also for his own colony.
To make the measure of confusion full, there now arises ominous political questions. What was the purpose of the long, secret preparations in all these convents and monasteries? What of the national rivalry in the schools and institutions? Which power did they fear, and which did they wish to strengthen? Against whom in reality is Turkey mobilizing? Against Russia? Then woe to the thousands of Russian priests and to the Russian Jews in Palestine!
Or does danger threaten from England? In that case the English battleships that now show themselves from time to time in the harbors of Palestine would no longer reassure the Europeans that any ’uprising within the country would immediately be met with resistance; on the contrary the ships themselves would then become a menace to the peace of the land. And if battle is actually to be waged between Turkish and England troops, what is to become of the unprotected Germans and their flourishing colonies, of the thousands and thousands of Jews who are subieets of Austria?
Does the Government perhaps fear an Arabian insurrection? Then in the impact between a half-civilized and
Let us call to mind the worst case that could be. Let us imagine it, let us endure the thought: Our settlements destroyed, our lands lost, the remnant of our settlers scattered again into the heartless Golus; let us picture even hitherto friendly Turkey as our foe, Palestine closed to the Jews.
Let us strip our passion bare of all that embellished it, let us make our love pure of all that profits it, and stand face to face with the naked life, the will, the purpose of the Jewish People.
Forty years ago the will of the Jewish People broke into the barren waste of Palestine. Twenty years ago the prophetic wisdom of the Jewish People lighted once more the lamp of national endeavor. The will of the Jewish People, the prophetic wisdom of the Jewish People, are as firm today as in that day. Prophesy did not die with the prophets, nor Zionism with Herzl.
If everything be destroyed to-day, to-morrow we shall gather up the fragments and begin to rebuild. If everything be lost—.
But nothing can be lost. Nothing that has once existed can ever be destroyed. We have demonstrated a possibility. Our settlements proved that the modern Jewish People is fit to be an agricultural people in its own land. Our schools and experiment stations and banks and committees and unions proved that the modern Jewish People in the Jewish Land is a progressive, democratic people. Our use and development of Hebrew language proved that our ancient dignified national tongue is a virile, modern tongue, beloved of a modern people. The foresight of our colonists, who had stored grain against the crisis, the efficiency of our Bank, that issued Jewish notes when all other moneys had failed, proved what had been proved so many times—that the Jews were a blessing in the midst of the land.
If our colonies are gone, if all the money gathered with so much toil and spent with so much love is now wasted, if the vines are destroyed, the groves are demolished—what then? What is money, the most perishable of all human
a wholly uncivilized oriental power the foreign colonies could only be crushed and shattered.
The battle smoke of Europe has been condensed to a heavy cloud that hangs like a black, menacing ghoul over the spires and sacred domes of Jerusalem. Her bewildered inhabitants wander about like sheep without a shepherd, not knowing what to expect, not knowing with whom to take sides, whom to fear, who is their friend and who is their foe. They do not know whether the victory of their own nation on the battlefield of Europe may not be the signal for the destruction of their own colony in Palestine, whether the defeat of their own people may not prove to be the ransom price necessary for Palestine peace. Hungry. without work, shuddering at the menace of pestilence, the violent measures of the Government and the political future, they lie prostrate upon their knees in their hundred churches, monasteries, temples, and mosques, and pray for deliverance from distress, for the conservation of their country, their religion, their sect, their dream of social salvation, or the preservation of their own petty existence.
Except only the Yemenite Jews of Jerusalem, who sit in the dark, stifling bedrooms and jubilate to heaven; "The great world war is here! All the enemies shall be destroyed! The Messiah comes!"