raises issues, which do not exist in the Ottoman mind, and certainly have no place in any Zionist policy.
What then are we to say of a man who, at this critical juncture in Jewish affairs, when half the Jewish world is in despair, and when the rest of the world is suspicious, inflamed, sensitive with easily aroused prejudice, speaking as a representative of Jews, plays the part of an informer, thus giving credence and support to rumors and gossip that have no substantiality in fact, but which may be received and acted upon with all the rigor of warfare ?
With the Hilfsverein we have nothing to do. That organization showed its colors in the language controversy when this same Ephraim Cohn displayed his undoubtful talent as an intriquant. But the American Jewish Relief Committee is an American organization. On its executive committee are men of a number of parties. It is interested in relief, and not in partisan warfare. It is concerned with the unity of Israel, not with its destruction. How does it come about that such a contemptible character as Ephraim Cohn is enabled to speak as a representative of an American Jewish Relief Committee? And if he does speak without right, why does not the American Jewish Relief Committee deprive him of his credentials?
THE REVOLUTION IN RADICAL JEWISH CIRCLES.
The decision of the Jewish Workmen’s Convention to participate in a Jewish Congress, and to demand as part of the program equal civil, political and national rights for the Jews wherever such rights are denied to them, and to ask for free colonization and autonomy in Palestine for the Jews, is a historic decision, indicating as clearly as possible the radical alteration in sentiment among the Jewish workingmen’s organizations on Jewish questions. The radical Jewish organizations have stood for years as opponents of Jewish nationalism. They have fought not only Zionism, but every exhibition of national force in Jewish life. Their leaders, equipped with obsolete socialistic ideas about internationalism, have refused to budge, and remained firm in their adherence to ideals which the leading socialists of Europe had long ago repudiated. Dr. Syrkin’s address at the Beethoven Hall convention was spectacular in the enumeration of opinions expressed by leading European socialists opposed to the old idea of internationalism. The attention of the delegates to the convention was directed to these facts, with the result that there was not one speaker in the convention of two days who uttered one word in opposition to nationalism. The resolutions adopted indicate the patriotic temper of Jewish workmen facing the great catastrophe in Europe.
A great deal of credit for this revolution is due to the small committee known as the National Radical Jewish Agitations committee, which labored greatly to focus attention upon the Congress idea among the Jewish workmen. They have created a large minority favorable to Zionism, and stimulated a readjustment of views in harmony with nationalism among a still larger minority. We have no doubt that when the workmen come to the Jewish Congress, they will be found aligned with the democratic and revolutionary forces in Jewish life, and not with the reactionary and conservative views that have made up Jewish politics to date.
DEATH OF RABBI REINESS.
Rabbi Reiness, of Lydda, was one of the first orthodox rabbis who came to the support of the Zionist movement when Herzl issued his call for the first Zionist Congress. He was a man of staunch principles, with clear, enlightened views as to the place of orthodoxy in the Zionist organization. He was the founder of the Mizrachi party, and believed that the party was not so much necessary for the preservation of orthodoxy as it was needed for the strengthening of Zionism. He made of his party a respected force in the movement, and lent distinction to many a Congress which he attended by the calm, judicial manner of his thinking, and his tolerance of views not in agreement with his own. At the last Congress held in Vienna, he was still the leader of the party, although suffering from infirmities of age.
VIEWS OF A RESPECTABLE JOURNAL.
A number of the opponents of Zionism have had the good sense and the decency not to criticize the movement at this time, when it is a matter that is receiving the serious attention of men of affairs, and when the whole Jewish world is stirred by the possibilities that now confront our much-tried people. But the “American Hebrew” cannot be accused of possessing common sense or the sense of decency when the matter at issue involves precious prejudices, and when Zionism seems to have intruded rather rudely upon the smug complacency of pseudo rulers of American Jewish affairs. It proceeds to spill columns of ink against Zionism with the hope that the so-called arguments may stem the tide of Zionist progress. Before August. 1914, the “American Hebrew” was disposed to treat Zionism lightly, as a movement which deserves credit for its bye-products. Now we learn why this astute journal has been so lenient with us. While we were merely dreamers, and did not attempt to realize our plans, we were treated as negligible quantities, but when it appears that we mean business, and that Zionism is not merely a theory but a program, then it behooves the “American Hebrew” to treat us to a verbal onslaught commensurate with the importance of the thing we intend to accomplish. This same journal, however, passes by in silence the many columns of praise it has had to offer of the practical work of Zionists in Palestine, the practical work of Zionists in the direction of organizing the Jewish people, the practical work of Zionism in bringing back the Jewish youth to a sense of relationship to Jewish ideals and causes. But what the “American Hebrew” said yesterday does not interfere with the ill-temper of the “American Hebrew” to-day, especially when the Zionists have the temerity to challenge the American Jewish Committee’s pretensions to speak for American Jews, without the consent of the latter. One of its recent assertions was that Zionists were snobs unwilling to mingle with Jews, and that they should mend their manners, and thus the whole Jewish problem would be solved. Or that other foolish statement that Zionism is the product of journalists, who may suggest ideas, but that the execution of these ideas must be left to practical men, presumably to Dr. Cyrus Adler and to Mr. Louis Marshall. But in its spleen the “American Hebrew” may be expected to say anything, for when a smug “respectable” journal becomes angry, there is no telling how leerie it may become.