The Maccabaean

IN the unparalleled crisis with which our country is wrestling, every American who feels the sacred obligations of that name is constantly overhauling his schedule of values to make sure that he is contributing his utmost to the national stock of means, energies, and inspirations. Above all things we are watching our time-schedules. Time is the raw stuff of service. We want to be sure that we are extracting from every day all that we can possibly contribute to the labors of America at war.

For all of us there is a supreme MUST: we must help our country and the Allies win the war. The only perplexity lies in the HOW, and to that how we have each to find an individual answer. Our goings and comings, our personal habits, our methods of work, our pastimes, our pet enthusiasms,—all are subject to revision as task after stupendous task is laid upon the people. Over and over each of us has to answer the question: Which end of the burden of war can I best help lift?

Zionists as a group are responsible for a special service, whatever other branches they may be working in side by side with the mass of patriotic citizens. The issues of the war have been so clearly defined by President Wilson, to the satisfaction of the liberal elements both here and among the Allies, that no intelligent person can fail to understand that a mere military victory might leave us as far as ever from enduring peace. The hope of democracy is about equally balanced between military strength and diplomatic strategy. American diplomacy, ably seconded by that of England, has projected across the crimson torrent of the world war a phantom bridge reaching into the era of world security, a bridge supported by the three majestic arches of universal disarmament, compulsory arbitration, and self-determination of nations. To transform this phantom bridge into a stout reality will require all the wisdom and devotion and endurance of the champions of world democracy. And whereas disarmament and arbitration are matters of statecraft, self-determination of nations is a matter of popular sentiment, and popular sentiment cannot express itself convincingly except through organized effort.

Here is where the Zionists have their special war task laid upon them. That the Jewish question may receive due attention along with all other questions of nationality which the peace conference will deal with, the Jews must be ready with convincing proofs, first, that the Jewish people aspire to an autonomous national existence; and, second, that they are ready and able to maintain themselves in an independent state.

Few of us possess the technical knowledge and judicial insight that might enable us to vote on the formule of disarmament and the processes of arbitration. Most of us know what yearnings lie stifled in our hearts, what chords set us vibrating most exquisitely. If the ghosts of entombed nationalities are to be laid forever, all dissatisfied nationals must answer from the promptings of their innermost souls when the roll of the races is presently called. And the Zionists have a labor to perform in preparation for -the roll-call that other national leaders are spared. All the world knows what Belgium wants, what Albania wants, what broken Poland wants. What the Jews want is a puzzle to

many and a non-existent problem to some; for while people everywhere know that there is a Jewish problem as wide as the earth, only a few realize that the root of the Jewish problem is the indestructibility of the Jewish national spirit.

Upon us, and upon us alone, will rest the blame for failure in political readjustments by default of the Jewish people. It is unreasonable to expect that the present war will be the very last, but it will carry us a great way toward the last war if we now make good the best portion of the program for the enforcement of peace through courts of arbitration and international police, and for the eradicating of a primary source of war by fixing the principle of the equality of nations.

No nation can be set on its feet by efforts from without. The greater impulse must come from within. To liberate the self-sustaining impulse in the Jewish people is the Zionists' immediate pressing duty. Labor as we may to push our country's military program,—be we ever so loyal to every government order or injunction,—we shall have done less than our utmost, we Jews of America, if we do not also exert ourselves to place on record the will of the Jewish masses as regards their national future, and prepare the means to make their will effective as fast as political opportunity develops.

All the political friction and social distress of the Alsace-Lorraine question constitute a negligible problem compared with the iniquities and horrors engendered by the hoary Jewish problem. And much as we were to be commiserated in the centuries of our cruel bondage, so much shall we be to blame if we do not now cease to be a thorn in the side of every nation, when opportunity is given us to heal and be healed.

No, it is not enough to volunteer or answer the draft for military duty, to serve in national councils, to subscribe liberally to patriotic funds, to equip hospital units, roll bandages, knit, save, and teach the children to love their country. In all these things we must bear our part, if only for the feeling of solidarity that springs from sharing the daily tasks of our fellow-citizens in this hour of our common peril. But these tasks shall not be credited to us as a full day’s work. In addition we must speed up the immense business of clarifying and recording the national aspirations of our scattered people, that there may be no confusion of counsels when the nations sit together to reorganize the world.

Side by side with our fellow-Americans we shall do our bit, as the order of the day demands, and still we shall plan our work and correct our schedule so as to leave a margin for our special contribution, for which we are fitted by birth, experience, and training. To omit that would be to give to our country with one hand while withholding with the other.

And let none of us complain that we are asked to do double duty. It is no more than our fair portion, since the victory of America and the Allies will bring us Jews the double measure of moral satisfaction, in the simultaneous triumph of modern democracy and Jewish idealism.