The Maccabaean

BELIEVE in the right of nations to govern themselves.

I believe that the scattered Jews of the world constitute a nation to-day, if they constituted a nation at the moment of the Roman disruption; just as the people of Belgium, at present scattered among foreign countries, still constitute a nation in the judgment of all the world.

For the essence of nationality is not polity, but community of sentiment; the vehicle of nationality is not government, but culture; the stronghold of nationality is not a chain of fortresses, but a fund of memories. Belgium will be Belgium though King Albert is never restored, nor any of his line; though her cities fly a foreign flag to the end of history; though her exiled population never find their way back. As long as her people remember, Belgium will be Belgium. If it is not so, then let some one say at precisely what moment and by what act of external violence the nationality of Belgium will be expunged.

ie + 2} - a By a like token, Israel is still Israel. Though the agony of Israel is the agony of Belgium multiplied a thousand thousand times, the national memory of Israel has never dimmed. Through two thousand years of exile, her scattered millions have remembered their common origin, governed themselves by their national code; preserved their common language, drilled their children in their national classics, observed their national festivals, and consciously cherished a hope of national restoration. Not a credo, but a historic tradition has united the ghettos of the world; for even where entire communities of Jews have broken away from the synagogue, from philosophic or other promptings repudiating the faith of their fathers, they nevertheless continued to be classed as Jews in any analysis of the population.

I belive, therefore, in the national title of the Jews, and in their right to govern themselves accordingly.

I believe in national differentiation along cultural lines as the natural means of conserving and developing that group genius which is manifested in the normal life of nations as nations, and is not to be found in the works of unintegrated individuals. The creative spark in gifted individuals is kindled oftenest by the fires of national passion, That specialization and not uniformity enriches life we know from the evolution of the organic world. Splitting off from the undifferentiated primeval ooze, a million forms set out to follow each its own inner law of growth, and so the earth was peopled, and the sea, and the air, that had been empty realms of barren mechanical forces. So, too, the moral void has been gradually filled with unnumbered creative groups, each modifying the original blank aspect of life through the exercise of indefinable impulses varying from group to group. And as every organic species has some habitat of maximum advantage, so spiritual types have their natural habitats wherein they flourish best; the indispensable element being freedom to maintain native institutions and cultivate native traditions. If the Jews are to make any further contributions to civilization, there must be some place set apart where they may live their group life unmolested.

I believe that the interests of peace among nations also

require unhindered national specialization. Not nationality, but attempts to destroy nationality have bred wars and revolutions in the past. The war god of modern history is the conqueror seeking to impose his own brand of civilization on the conquered people. We are coming to understand that government is merely an association of men for the preservation of law and order, and that, accordingly, a number of nationalities may co-operate under a common government. But the groups affected must be free to embrace or reject such partnership. It is where co-operation on equal terms is denied that despotism sets in, bringing on its natural reaction, rebellion. The brotherhood of man that we are praying for will not come about through the suppression of national instincts. It will come rather through a free interchange of the fruits resulting from unhindered exercise of national impulses. Cultural tolerance is the gateway into the new world, and the Jew must be permitted to bring his stone also to the buildine of that cate

a kt a a ata aes hemi ll Sh es So lS eB ליה כ <n er דעיי aS של ליכ I believe in the individual freedom of choice that results in the assimilation of individuals of one nation by another. Assimilation of Jews is going on in every land where social equality is guaranteed by law and custom. It is a natural process, as natural as the opposite process of resistance of groups to elimination by force. Natural processes cannot be permanently blocked; they can only be temporarily diverted. The attempt to check the inevitable process of Jewish assimilation, especially in liberal societies, where freedom of intercourse opens up a thousand choices to the individual, is a cruel and unnecessary strain on the moral fibre of our people; but to this strain we must submit until we, too, like other migrant people, have the protection of a home center behind us. The outcry against assimilation is but another effort to maintain the Fence around the Law, to save Israel from being trampled down by the feet of the thronging nations. Release from the strain of preserving artificial barriers will only come when the precious seed of Jewish culture is safely embedded in a national core. Those who, so far from decrying the tendency to assimilation, are welcoming it as the retarded solution of the Jewish problem, should stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are laboring to establish a national home for the Jews. Neither the assimilationist nor the nationalist among us can ever be at peace until some fragment of the Jewish people is replanted in national Jewish soil.

I believe that spiritual affiliation with the Jewish nation is in no sense incompatible with complete civic devotion to the lands of our adoption. If it is not so, then should Irish national life, and Swedish national life, and Italian national life have to be wiped out in their home- lands as a guarantee of the civic faith of naturalized Irishmen, Swedes, or Italians abroad; or, at any rate, America should frown on the organized propaganda for Polish restoration and, latterly, for Belgian restoration, so active in this country. The uprooting of natural ties should no more be exacted from Jews than from other nationals, nor is it so exacted except by supersensitive Jews themselyes, who are never sure of their place in the community. As it is, spokesmen of the American people, to take our own case, have repeatedly testified to their confidence in the civic reliability of naturalized Jews, though these came from under every flag established among the nations. To urge that the existence of