The Maccabaean

trouble of this kind came to the surface in Saratoga, these symptoms have both multiplied steadily in instances, expanded in geographical area, infected ever new kinds of circles, gatherings and enterprises of a social or semi-social character, until, of late, new complaints have come to the surface indicating that there are even avenues of employment, such as hospital-practice or university teaching where opportunities seem to be closing against the Jew.

It is a shallow, ridiculous fallacy, as against these phenomena, to quote how much better off we are in Western countries than we were, say a hundred years ago; it is the trend of movement in the decades since emancipation that matters, rather than the revolutions which came in with the reign of political liberalism. Nor is it rational to lay stress on paper constitutions and equality before the law, when we ought to be abundantly aware, from Jewish experience in Germany and Austria, how much more administrative policy, public feeling, social atmosphere matter, than the mere formal letter of the law. We know that in England Anti-semitism has made palpable progress at a time when liberalism as a general policy has been in the ascendant; it must be admitted that in this country our oldest and most cultured communities are the seats of the most outspoken anti-Jewish prejudice. To all of which must be added the historic fact, to antiphrase a well-known Bible-word, that Israel has never grown fat in any land without being kicked; whoever derives a sense of safety from the faith in liberal policies ought to study again the world’s experience with real and pretended liberalisms the world over. In countries like Austria even socialist and radical have not been above entering into bargains at the expense of the Jew.

Most essential, however, to the perfect tranquility of utter-home-feeling must be the assurance that our individuality is respected and afforded untrammelled scope, so long as it does not infringe upon the equal sovereign-

HERZL

ties of other clear and free individualities. When we are ashamed of our ingrained peculiarities, while we are trying to suppress and hide the outward tokens of our identity, whether these consist of family names and given names, of gestures and accents, of customs and traditions, of memories and associations, while we are awkwardly conscious and painfully sensitive, while we are undergoing the unhappy experience of emasculating our individuality and toilsomely aping the ways of others, we cannot rise to the calm spontaneities and the free manhood that issue from the inward peace of being oneself.

Some years ago Dr. Schechter declared, with psychological penetration, out of great depths of personal feeling, that we are in a spiritual Golus. The real secret of our homelessness is in our moral and religious status; in a spiritual sense we are homeless, so long as our Sabbath and holidays clash with the laws and the practical exigencies of the average life in this country, so long as our ways seem exotic and alien, so long as public school, business, press, fashion, public opinion make the Jew appear eccentric, of alien ways, so long as all these subtly foster Christian observance and Christian viewpoint, while they outlaw Jewish ways and Jewish tendencies. The very fact that Americanization is equivalent with de-Judaization, that progressive assimilation means a steady fading out of religious fealty, a steady loosening of Jewish habits and Jewish solidarity, all this creates an insoluble antagonism which is, in all countries where the Ghetto has disappeared, the most deep-seated and delicate of Jewish problems.

ee a ee, rete SNe! ee a Se ae ae eee At the root of a nation’s spiritual self lies its health, its sturdy consciousness as a self-respecting, untrammelled nation; the cure for our spiritual homelessness is to be found in our restoration to our historic soil.

For recompense thou hast a stranger's grave,And we must temper happiness with grief:The trees around thee alien meadows gave;Some chill north wind will sear their autumn leaf.

Not yet, it seems, enough our hearts have bled;In sight of victory we mourn our dead.

Herzl, alas! thou art not here to seeThe coming triumph of thy deathless dream.Conquered thou hast, though vanquished thou did'st seem;Leader thou art, though few then followed thee;In thee breathed Israel's ancient majesty.O'ercome are those that scoffed, as they that deemThy plans that flashed like some wild mountain stream,The idle fancies of a vision'ry.