The Maccabaean

THIS is the sublimest moment in the history of the world. Infinite æons of time and countless generations of men and women have contributed to the gigantic struggle of Europe which is but the birth-throes of a new era in which there shall be found room for that people whose birth is recorded with the creation of the world and whose death shall be written on the last page of recorded human history! Great and mighty as have been the contributions of Israel to the world's salvation they are all but as a shadow of what we shall yet bring forth as a nation for the salvation of man and the peace of humanity.

er ee ee a a et a NEN De ce In Israel there has always been, until recently, room for two opinions. Even the reformed rabbis have learnt about Hillel and Shammai, opposing schools of thought, both working for the sanctification of God’s name. The prophets were nationalists and universalists at the same time, just as we of to-day who understand not only Judaism but the Jews, are at one and the same time Zionists, American citizens, and Cosmopolitanists with equal faith and tremendous hope. Reform and Orthodoxy are still two parties in Israel with equal rights and equal sincerity of purpose. Not very long ago reform leaders had reason to complain bitterly that their voice was not heard, that Jews were prejudiced against their message, but in a few short years we too have learnt the lesson of prejudice and narrow-mindedness and we are pursuing the Zionists with a zeal worthy of a better cause.

O That a Wise and a Lilienthal were living here now! They were Men, men of broad vision and keen sympathy; in the presence of the unparalleled conditions of to-day they would certainly be large enough to write their theology in conformity with the problems of the Jews of to-day.

We left out the return to Zion from our prayer-books and now we dare not restore it. And yet Emerson says: "Each age, it is found, must write its own books, or rather each generation for each succeeding, the books of an older period will not fit this."

The late Dr. Solomon Schechter has well said: “The Zionists are no saints, but they may fairly claim that few movements are more free from the considerations of convenience and comfort, and less tainted with worldliness and other worldliness than the one which they serve. All the powers that be, were, and still are opposed to it, whether in their capacity of individuals or as wealthy corporations. The Zionists are just beginning to be tolerated, but I remember distinctly the time when adhesion to the cause Zionism might interfere with the prospects of a man’s career, the cry being: “No Zionists need apply.” The class from which the Zionists were recruited were mostly the poorest among the poor. College men and University men, more blessed with enthusiasm and idealism than with goods of this world, also furnished a fair quota. But this lack of means did not prevent them from responding most generously to every appeal made on behalf of the cause. They taxed themselves to the utmost of their cavacitv. and

beyond. I myself have witnessed cases in which men and women joyfully contribute their last earnings, foregoing their summer vacations, for which they had been saving a whole year."

"What will the nations say?"

You see and you hear what the nations are saying in their thunderous voices and with their loving cannons. I think it is time for nations to come and hear what I have to say, what the house of Israel has to say. I will listen to what God the Lord will say, and I feel the voice of God speaking unto me as unto Jeremiah.

"Unto whomsoever I will send thee, go, and whatsoever I command thee, speak. Be not afraid of them, for I am with thee to deliver thee.

If anti-Zionists would spend half the time in thinking what they spend in fearing, they would see that the aim of Zionists and Anti-Zionists is the same, little as they may think. The aim is: To preserve the Jews from physical extermination, and to keep alive in them, and for the world, the spiritual and religious life for which the Jew has a peculiar and superior genius,

Whatever the Jew touched was turned not into gold but into Religious, sanctifying life. The necessity of family life was sanctified into the Holy Bond of Matrimony, the birth was a religious joy to the family, the adolescent period was sanctified into a religious and holy rite, food became the sacred partaking of God's bounty, shelter became the Temple of God in the home. A Christian gentleman once said to me, "The Jew was permitted to enter into business activity only because it was a disgraceful occupation. With your religious genius you have raised business to the highest station of honor. If therefore the Jews were to take up farming, now that farming is not looked upon with as much favor as business, they would raise that too to the high and noble station to which they have raised business." That is saying, in other words, that whatever the Jew touches becomes a blessing and salvation to humanity.

As Zionism aims to gather a few Jews under their own laws and government to develop their genius and manhood, and the Jewish genius is religious, Zionism is and must always remain a religious movement more distinctly than anything else.

To belittle Zionism, which has brought new life and joy to millions of Jews, and has brought back to our ranks men whom neither reform nor orthodoxy could reach, is, to say the very least, not compatible with Judaism.

If there is to to be Union in Israel for the sake of Judaism, it must not be gained at the expense of Zionism. For the amount of Judaism in the so-called religious homes of our modern Jews could probably not be discovered with a microscope and is infinitesimal compared with the amount of Judaism and Jewishness in the hearts of Zionists.

Anti-Zionism is, to my mind, an attempt to cut out the Jewish heart from the Jewish people, or else it is mistaken conception of loyalty to the German, Jewish, Reform, American, Modern theology. The fact is that the men of the last generation. who out of gratitude