The Zionism of a Red
(A Confession)
AFTER all it isn't so easy to be concurrently an intense Zionist and an out and out revolutionary. You’re born a Zionist—usually ; only rarely one sucks rebellion from his mother's breast. The innate holds perpetual conflict with the acquired and is a victor to-day and a victim to-morrow. To some of us, dissatisfied souls, this combat has been closed by a patched-up truce, though the blue-and-white of Zionism appears at times more enticing than the red of Socialism.
It isn’t so easy to be a Socialist among Zionists but it's far less easy to have the tables turned. The “chaverim” often sympathize with your flings against the social order, even if they shrug their shoulders and think you silly for your party activity. The comrades —Gentiles, of course—start to doubt your rr-revolutionary tenets and end by picking you out as their representative to the party conferences.
Nevertheless you combine within you a nation-conscious Jew and a class-conscious radical. This can come about chiefly because you’re an American and have the good fortune to bear some sort of a university degree. Neither your Jewishness nor your modernity is labeled “made in Vilna.” You’re not a Poale Zion nor are you a Bundist. You’re just a Zionist almost like the average “chaver” of the Yiddish-speaking Hatchia, and you’re a Socialist almost like the general run of comrades of the branch. The extreme views you hold fade at your Zionist club. But here and there they crop up as you hack religion or doubt the sincerity of a local money-bags who allows he’s a Zionist. As a matter of record you’re prejudiced against men of wealth participating in the cause: one of your biased notions. On the other hand, your strong Jewish feelings aren’t evident at your party meetings, except when Jewish topics are under discussion.
And yet your Zionism is of a brand different from that, say, of a conservative Mizrachi, an indifferent shopkeeper, a progressive intellectual. You view the movement from an angle usually unknown to any of these, from the revolutionary Jewish angle.
A Zionist is a rebel. Here is another reason Zionism should be fought by our standpatters! To you Zionism is the finest expression of Jewish revolt against whatever is rotten in our warped life. This destructive phase is what gratifies you most. You believe in, you worship, dissatisfaction, open and active dissatisfaction which, you know, leads to betterment.
The sad anomaly of the Golus irks you; the over emphasis on the religious halter sickens you; the un- dervaluation of mass-efforts and accomplishments de- presses you; the self-imposed hegemony by deniers of Jewish solidarity sets your teeth on edge; the continuous prattle to reconcile our nationhood to so-called patriotism bores you; the frightful disregard of the pregnancy of Yiddish makes you mad clear through. For you squarely demur that religion has such a hold as fancied; that the Jewish democracy has not been and is not capable of mighty things; that happy philanthropists and fretting advisers can lead this democracy well: that it is polite to vindicate our loyalty:
that Yiddish is not of the greatest import in our group-life.
This matter of Yiddish explains in more than one way your position as a red toward Jewish affairs. You are unreservediy fond of Yiddish, though you, feel— shall I call it veneration —for Hebrew, you love the humbler language. A Hebrew recitation pleases you; you are thrilled at a rendition of Es shaint di levone, es finklen di shteren. Is it because you are a democrat and you accept the speech of the vast majority of your folk, or because you know Yiddish better than Hebrew? Both forces most likely cause you to heartily favor the advancement of Yiddish even to the point of claiming it as the Jewish language. You are a believer in immediate national work, and the promotion of the mother-tongue is in the forefront thereof.
Back of it all is your profound Jewish nationalism. You favor Yiddish because a real nation comes into being through its medium. Despite your radical materialism in non-Jewish matters, you are governed by sentiment relative to your own people. Your attitude toward Jewish subjects is tinged almost wholly with your nationalist principles—warm sentiment after all; while general ones are subjected to the close scrutiny of cold Socialist reason. This nationalism holds such sway over you that you acknowledge its greater significance, at least to you, revolutionist though you are, than your Americanism which is not to be tampered with by any means. Even your party interests, so much a constituent of your existence, often give way to the stress of your Jewishness. This does not hinder you, however, in choosing to go to a comrades’ meeting instead of to a “chaverim’s,” held at the same time. There is too much talk regarding funds, collections, money, and too little reference to the high points of the Cause among even active Zionists.
On account of your nationalist earnestness you are a Zionist, keen in your passion for a homeland and hankering after regular naturalness. You grasp the utter necessity of a politico-cultural focus and care not a whit if your "chaver" is conservative or an opponent of your dogmas. He and you often become friends. You maintain this amity until he runs for a political office and you refuse to support him and even race against him on your own ticket.
You do not project your radicalism in your Zionist zeal. The kind of social or economic system to be founded in Palestine at the start does not interest you much, so long the basis is laid for a genuinely democratic life. This does not mean you are indifferent to the lot of the working-people there or you do not further new ideas if consonant with the welfare of the new settlement there. Also, this does not prevent you from craving that the Jewish Commonwealth be established along lines you advocate at the sanest opportunity—the sooner the better. But you are not a Jewish Socialist; you are an American revolutionist, unless you pull up stakes and make your way to Eres Yisroel when you will earn the title of Jewish Socialist. Until then your concern outside of Jewish affiliation is to make Americans see the new light— and use it.
Your approval of the Zionist movement does not cover always an admiration of some of its methods.