"Yes, yes, I'll see him, I'll hear him, now just sit down here, Davy, and be quiet."
Then, after a pause:
"Rebele, Reuby says he'll walk better on the iron bridge. Aint he a fool?"
"Yes, yes, he can't see, he can't feel as much as you, child. But tell me, when is he coming? It's getting late."
"Soon, soon, Rebele. You mustn't go away. You must see him."
"But suppose Davy, he is not the real Messiah?"
But Davy looked at his Rebi with wide open eyes and made no answer.
"You must know, child," continued the little Rebi, "that there have been lots of false Messiahs, who came only to do us harm."
"Ah! but wait till you see mine!"
“But even if yours should also turn out false, you must still promise to believe and hope that the true one will come. Do vou promise Davv?”
"Oh Rebele, I don't know, I don't know what you mean. Do you mean I must look for another one?"
“Yes, you must always believe that the right one will come.”
"Yes, yes Rebele, I believe, I believe. But wait till you see mine, wait till you see mine."
The sky was now thick-strewn with myriads of stars. In the distance moaned the sirens. In the various nooks of the wharf human shadows, silent and mysterious, became visible. The tones of a melody,
soft and sweet, chanted by one of Russia's exiled children, arose in the night.
"It is getting late, Davy."
"Oh Rebele, why don't they come? I am so afraid?"
"Oh they will come. Be sure Reuby will come."
And Reuby came. He came alone, breathless and excited.
"They took him away!" he panted, "The cops, they took him away. I was comin' along with him Davy, just like you said, an' all of a sudden he stops, and he looks at me fierce—my! but I was scared. And then he begins to speech, and to make wid his hands. An' all the people on the street, they come aroun' and they holler an' they laugh. An' he just goes on, Davy, louder and louder, and there was a big crowd. And then two cops came along and they took him to the station-house. I went along behind, and after a while, a minuscular from the hospital came, an' I saw they put him in. And the wagon went off. Davy, I guess he must have been a crazy, after all!"
But Davy made no answer. He stood listening to his friend, white and motionless. And when Reuby had finished, he turned suddenly to his Rebi, flung his arms about the little man's neck and hid his face on his bosom.
"Oh, Rebele, Rebele," he wept; and the cries of the anguished little soul mingled with the song of the Russian exiles, and the softened din of the teeming tenement-world behind them.
Shall We Have A Coalition Actions Committee?
In a very vigorous letter of protest to the press which we are printing herewith, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the well-known publicist and propagandist, who is said to be the foremost Jewish orator of Russia and an indomitable Zionist, critizes the Actions Committee for its alleged inactivity in the face of the pr&sent crisis and suggests a reorganization of that body along coalition lines. Despite his rather bitter statement of his position, we are giving the substance of Jabotinsky’s letter because of the interesting and suggestive ideas to which it gives expression.
Sir —I beg you to grant me the hospitality of your journal in order to make an appeal to the Zionist public and to formulate a practical proposition. The appeal is addressed to those in the Zionist party who, it may be, have not yet yielded completely to the apathy which appears to prevail in our ranks. The practical proposition I have to make is that we should imitate what the countries of Western Europe have done so as to solve the problems created by the war—viz., to replace the present small Actions Committee, by a “Coalition Ministry.”
It is useless to prophesy. But all must agree on one essential point: Whatever may be in prospect, we must be ready to face eventuality. We must prepare the political and diplomatic ground. We must find or create sympathy in influential quarters in Europe, we must consolidate and organize this sympathy ; we must prepare the necessary documents concerning our people, its emigration, its ideal, its colonizing work in Palestine, its value as an element of progress in the East, etc.,—documents carefully drawn up and printed in the principal languages of the West. We must also endeavor to arouse Jewish public opinion, so that at the moment when the need arises we may organize throughnut the world a great manifestation of the national will of Israel.
Nothing has, however, yet been done in this direction. During these fifteen months of the war I have
visited England, France, Italy, Holland, Egypt, the Scandinavian States and Russia, and I declare emphatically that nothing has been done. Only in England have efforts been made, but action in England is useless if it is not followed up by parallel action in the two other Mediterranean Powers, France and Italy. In those two countries absolutely nothing has been accomplished. Although we have friends among the Christian statesmen of France and Italy, no one has attempted to fix their attention to our interests, and the most sympathetic among them are persuaded that Zionism has nothing to ask.
Matters are still worse than this. Not only has nothing been done, but there is not even a plan of action or any intention to act. I had occasion to approach what remains of our Actions Committee, and I found with the deepest regret that it has been seized by the same marasmus, the same paralysis of thought and will. And I am absolutely certain that while the centre of our organization remains as it now is, the marasmus will continue, the necessary work will be neglected, and we shall lose the favorable occasions that may present themselves.
It must be admitted that this collapse of our Executive Centre is partly due to the great crisis which has affected the Jews more heavily than other peoples. But this course against which we are powerless is not the only one. There is also another which happily can be remedied. It is the unilateral character of the