ditions of the Ghetto and from the demoralising influences of assimilation—and it will not matter how the individual solves his problem. The important thing is that the genius of the people should have free scope for its development; that the "Jewish spirit" should live and should make itself felt in the world. So long as there is nothing for the Jew but either anti-semitism or toleration, this can never be. He must be put beyond the reach of either—put, that is, on his own land, where he can take up again the broken thread of his history. The problem which is insoluble in Europe can and must be solved in Palestine, the historic home of the Jews, to which they are still linked by a thousand hopes and recollections. Once let there be a free Jewish life in Palestine, where Judaism can develop healthily and normally, and neither anti-semitism nor toleration outside Palestine can prove fatal to the Jewish people or to the Jewish spirit. And the existence of a Jewish nation in Palestine, however weak it might be, would have a far-reaching effect on the position of the Jews in other countries. The excesses of assimilation amongst emancipated Jews would be checked
Homing
by the sense of self-respect and pride in their race which they would derive from the consciousness of belonging to a nation with a home of its own.
There are many other avenues of thought by way of which the Zionist conclusion may be reached. But the essential point is that the conditions of modern life have created a problem which cannot be solved by. palliatives administered in individual cases. It is the conditions, not their results, that require altering. Individual Jews may be persecuted or tolerated ; but unless the Jewish nation is placed beyond the reach of persecution and of toleration, there is no future for the Jews and Judaism except one of gradual decay. This is what is meant by the endeavor to secure a “Heimstätte” for the Jewish people in Palestine. Not that no Jew must be persecuted; not that no Jew must be assimilated; but that in the country where the Jewish nation had its birth and did its work in olden time, there it must again live its own organic life—a life in which Judaism will not need the artificial protection of the Ghetto walls, and will be strengthened, not disintegrated, by what is worth having in modern culture.
MY window faces on a little lake In Central Park. And now the gulls foregather, The sea-gulls on a shallow saltless pool. They hold conventions and committee meetings Poised on the brown still water. Then they rise Upon their massive and elastic wings And circle with the majesty of storms. Committees and conventions? Are they planning Some far and fearless drive across the seas, A homing and a nest among the cliffs?
The spring is imminent: "Tis February. And just beyond our vision and our sensing Of dusty streets and theatres, shops and markets, The sea—the surging rim of the wide ocean! I smell the salt air in our mundane life, The great adventure of the universe.
You sea-gulls, are you patient? For my soul Is crying for the sea, is salt-spray thirsty, Is yearning for its nest among the cliffs, Is sick for danger, pining for adventure. The ship that cleaves its way across the deep And splashes phosphorescence, calls to me.
My people is an old, adventurous people. My great-grandfather fought Napoleon And lost his sight—he did not lose his vision—And my grandfather sailed a merchant-man Around two continents to a wild coast Among wild men and mountains to dig gold, And spent the gold he toiled for, and died poor.
My wings are clipt. To the adventurous spirit Danger is meat, and safety abstinence.
There is a thin place somewhere in the shell That holds me in the cosey nest of life, And I see light, and flap my half-grown wings. I have not thought of immortality; I only know that life is more than life, That long ago I heard an urgent voice, Long, long before the incident of birth.
The only proof of faith is fearlessness; The only honest prayer is backed by action.
Are there not many—others—gathered here Upon the saltless pool to plan and dream? Is not the salt sea urgent? Not the cliff? The homing cry, the passion for our kind? I hear great wings that swish above my head, I hear the shriek and music of vast strings, The prophets’ wheels that whirl, the unturning eyes That search my soul. Is there not one to speak? Can there be eagle’s will and a bat’s wings? A sea-gull’s longing with a sparrow’s flight? O thou that hast with vision filled my soul And made my speech and deed inadequate, Forgive my crudeness, my unripe desires, Foolhardy courage, childish fearlessness. For he that guides the sea-gulls’ convocations To saltless pools, and later guides their flight Across the multitudinous waves, shall guide, Teach. lift, direct. make dumb and cause to speak.