BOOK REVIEWS
Zionism and the Jewish Future
A friend unconsciously spared me the bother of casting about for the opening sentence of this review by sending me this request: "Kindly advise me how I can become thoroughly proficient in my knowledge of Zionism. I am taking an active part in local Zionist affairs and it is essential that I become very familiar with the subject." He was promptly told to read Harry Sacher's stimulating compilation, "Zionism and the Jewish Future."* To this volume a dozen thinkers and essayists in Zionism have contributed articles upon some of the most important aspects of the Jewish problem and its Zionist solution—doorways, and inviting ones, to lead the beginner and the unacquainted (who include many veterans in the movement) into fundamental fields of study. A bibliography, divided into subjects closely following the order of the essays, so that it actually fits the needs of the book, will take the reader, once he is past the doorway, to authoritative sources of information and opinion. Accordingly, it is a book for the novice and for the man who wishes to organize his own scattered information, but it is not a book for the advanced student seeking exhaustive treatment of any of its many subjects. The book presents mainly expository rather than argumentative, "Zionism and the Jewish Future" should appeal to the non-Zionist—it is the succumb to oratory or to the bludgeonings of a special advocate, but who seek enlightenment from a calm display of things as they are, by men who know.
all, Uy LitiE Wil MEINT That the majority of the ills and the problems besetting our people come from their homelessness and that Zionism through its endeavors to reestablish a homeland strikes to the root of our miseries are the themes of a brief interlocutory note by Dr. Ch. Weizmann. This note is elaborated into one of the most brilliant essays of the book by H. Sacher, leader- writer on the Manchester Guardian, who sketches with a clear pen a history of the Jew in the past century. Almost to the moment of the French Revolution, the Jew of Europe lived an isolated, communal, and, in the phrase of Weizmann, “sub-national” life; then 18th century science and 18th century political ideals of the rights of the individual broke the intellectual and physical ghettos of the West. The liberated Jews sought individual and collective happiness by abandoning their Jewish life for a French, German or English life. Happiness, however, did not come. “18th century emphasis upon individual rights rapidly changed into 19th century emphasis upon national riehts. Consequently, the Jewish nation,
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without a home, found itself without a guarantee of rights. Anti-semitism attacked the well-meaning Jew, who happened to be a century behind the times without a national status or center, as an undesirable alien. This attack in all its political phases forms the matter of the next essay, written by Albert M. Hyamson, Jewish historian, and editor of the English-Jewish year book. Meanwhile, the nationalism of the Jew was not only accentuated by these blows from without. Within Jewry itself, the renaissance of Hebrew language and learning, as indicated in the next sketch by Leon Simon, further revived the national consciousness. This consciousness, Prof. Gottheil now shows, expresses itself in Zionism. The history of Zionism is the history of the efforts of the Jewish nation to secure the primary right of any nation—a homeland of its own. The practical results of these efforts are told with a glow of pride by the remaining contributors to the volume.
S. Tokolowsky, agricultural engineer of Jaffa, unfolds in plain words and pictures the economic development of Palestine to the outbreak of the war— particularly instructive is his exposition of the possibilities of the land for supporting millions of settlers. The cultural achievements in education, language, and art are outlined by Dr. Selig Brodetsky, one time “senior-wrangler” at Cambridge and now professor of astronomy in Bristol University. Pursuing the same general subject, Bertram B. Benas (barrister- at-law, Liverpool), discusses the proposed “Hebrew University” and its meaning for all Jewry. The sum of Zionism’s practical aspect is concluded with a survey of the future of Palestine by one who should know— Norman Bentwich, of the Anglo-Egyptian service and professor of law in the University of Cairo. The Jew there shall not be the hunted creature of the ghetto, or the discontented mimic of the West, but a “new Jew.” Nahum Sokolow has painted his portrait with prophetic fervor: “I live, I breathe, I speak once more. Here, I feel pure, I am lighthearted as a child, I walk in bright sunshine. Icry aloud, I resume my right to be what I reallyam. Here, I am no longer a doctrine, a piece of archaeology, a political figure, a quotation, a vain phantom of the brain. Here, in joyous industry, in struggle for life, I affırm myself among the sons of the earth.” The Goluth is over.
The book suffers from the inevitable faults of a compilation—repetitions, contradictions and some dis- continuity. In this last respect, Dr. M. Gaster, Chief Rabbi of the Spanish-Portugese congregations of England, is the particular vietim. His essay on “Judaism —.a National Religion”—nowhere fits snugly into the general argument. Nevertheless, he deals with an important phase—Judaism’s necd of Zionism and Zionism’s debt to Judaism. All in all, the contributors who have done best are Sacher, if discount is made for his exotic style, and Tokolowsky, who enjoys his statistics and makes the reader enjoy them too. M.L.