The Maccabaean

ZIONISM in general and American Zionism in particular, has of late made little or no capital out of the Zionistic sentiments and plans of Christian sympathizers with Jewish hopes of national restoration. The developments in the Jewish question in recent years make this neglect a serious waste of power, and the time is fully ripe for us to correct this defect in our propaganda.

kedin ehe Abende Tale cn Zr a a a a a A a Ar a re - We Zionists seldom realize how much favorable Zionistic sentiment and Zionistic work have emanated from Christians. The history of the forerunners of Zionism must be written along two converging lines, the one tracing the course of Jewish Zionism through Bar Kochba, Jehuda Halevi, the Pseudo Messiahs, Joseph Nasi, Pinsker, Hess and Smolenskin, the other tracing the course of Christian sympathy with the return of the Jews to Palestine. Until the middle of the nineteenth century this latter expressed itself almost entirely in a religious belief in the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy. The curious exegesis of the various groups of millenarians, the pamphlet excitement created by Sabbatai Zevi, the recurrent hope for the restoration of the tribes of Israel and religious beliefs of all phases of sanity and eccentricity which look forward to the restoration of the Jews in Palestine, have powerfuly influenced very large numbers of Christians. In some forms these beliefs still constitute a potent auxiliary of public sentiment in favor of Zionism that has been barely noticed by us.

Since the middle of the nineteenth century there have been added to this sentiment the practical plans of Christian forerunners of Zionism. Sometimes these plans were political, such as that of the Englishman Hollings- worth (1852) or of the Italian Benedetto Musolino (1870), who advocated the recreation of a Jewish state in Palestine for the political advantage of the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain and the Jews. Sometimes it was rather a sense of reparation, justice or humanity which’ moved the non-Jewish sympathizer with Jewish national hopes. Thus the pamphlet with the characteristic title “The Duty of the Nations to give back to the Jewish People its Nationality”’ (1864), is probably from the pen of Abraham Petavel, a Christian clergyman and professor in Neuchatel. A little later, the Geneva philanthropist Henri Dunant, the founder of the Geneva Convention, was continually urging the same theme. His im- portuning such organizations as the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Anglo Jewish Association being of no effect, he founded the International Palestine Society in 1876. Others laid more stress on the economic and agricultural aspects of Jewish settlement in Palestine. Representative of these were Warden Cresson and Laurence Oliphant. Warden Cresson (c. 1850), a Philadelphian, at one time American Consul in Jerusalem and subsequently a convert to Judaism under the name of Michael C. Boaz Israel, actually established an agricultural colony in the valley of Rephaim, near Jerusalem. The writings and activities of this interesting personality should be written for Zionist interest.* The Palestinian work of Laurence Oliphant (c. 1879) is better known. But we Zionists have made no use of the

*The material has been fully indicated by Max J. Kohler, Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society viii, 1900, pp. 81-83.

noteworthy fact that his Jewish colonization plans had the unofficial support of the British government, through Lord Beconsfield and Lord Salisbury, just as we have entirely overlooked the significance of the fact that Hollingsworth's earlier plan aroused the interest of Lord Palmerston.

An early and powerful Zionist influence was exerted in another direction by George Eliot through her novel Daniel Deronda (1876). The widely extending influence of this memorable book is difhicult to estimate. Nor is it easy to say whether its clear vision and convincing thought exerted a stronger influence over Christians or over Jews. No history of Zionism may neglect this signal clarification of Zionist philosophy with its ramifying educative power. These men and women, and others such as Lord Shaftesbury or James Finn, the British Consul in Jerusalem, furnish us with a long list of Christian predecessors of spiritual Zionism, of political Zionism and of practical Zionism, all of whom, with the marked exception of George Eliot, we are apt to pass over in ungrateful silence.

Since the time of Herzl, the number of non-Jewish sympathizers with Zionism has increased enormously. A brilliant group of literati and prominent men and women including Bjornstjerne Björnsen, Maxim Gorki, Bertha von Suttner, Hall Caine, H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, Thomas Davidson, Prof. Masaryk, Holman Hunt and many another, have openly expressed themselves in favor of Jewish national ideals as expressed through Zionism. We have made no attempt to collect and use this weighty mass of opinion. We have allowed it to be scattered in ephemeral interviews and articles, so that the statement of Professor Gotthard Deutsch that "the attitude of the Christian world toward Zionism has been in nearly every case one of cordial attention, in some quarters even one of active furtherance," although unquestionably true, is one of the truth of which we have not made any attempt to prove. This is a state of unpreparedness in our Zionist armory that we must take speedy steps to correct. The immediate and salient advantages of arming ourselves with a panoply of Christian support of Zionism, are patent and beyond dispute.

-& Pu Ts =. A BE PT re MA Ma Dat Putd In the first place, it would furnish us with an irrefutable argument against those who still raise the cry that Zionism interferes in any way with the civic patriotism of the Jew in the diaspora. When logic and metaphysics fail to bring conviction to these belated advocates of emancipation and assimilation, the marshalling of some historical instances like Secretary Hay’s declaration in 1904, that he saw nothing in Zionism inconsistent with American patriotism, would necessarily silence the doubters, unless they were grotesque enough to lay claim to a stronger American patriotism than that of the Secretarv of State of the United States.