The Maccabaean

tion or corruption. In this broader conception the National Idea found many enemies in the ranks of the Socialists and Communists who maintained that this idea was narrow and detrimental to the perfection of humanity. This “perfection” consisted, according to them, in the complete assimilation of all peoples, races, and nations, so that no man would be different from his neighbor, and no nation distinct from another. “Nationalism will confine the emotions and the spirit,” says Proudhomme; “Mankind must throw off the yoke of this idea in order to attain the freedom of cosmopolitanism,” says Fichte.

Although these savants are prompted by worthy motives, for they are pleading in the name of brotherly love, nevertheless I make bold to assert that they are greatly mistaken. Their opinion is, in this case, a product of imagination and dreams, built on quicksands without any foundation to support it. Is Nationalism an empty bubble? Is it the creation of men who invented it to suit their fancies? Why does one people differ from another in temper, character, language, and customs? Evidently these differences spring from natural causes. The differences between countries, their varying panoramas and climates, mountains and valleys, seas and rivers, warmth and cold, humidity and aridity, all these affect man and stamp him with their seal. If that is so, can we alter these things to suit our tastes? Can we command nature to change? Can this whole earth be reduced to one flat plain? Will the palm tree flourish in the North land? As long as these miracles will not happen, just so long will mankind, ruled by the iron hand of nature, continue to be grouped as peoples and nationalities differing from each other in mental characteristics, capacities, inclinations, etc.

But even if the impossible became possible, if some mysterious force miraculously changed nature itself, would mankind then be happy? Would it attain its highest perfection by being reduced to one blurred composite picture instead of revealing itself, as it does now, in rich diversity of form and beautiful variety of color? Variations and contrasts, forming withal a harmonious whole—that constitutes the glory and splendor of nature—and of the human spirit as well! The human spirit, like the rest of nature, is subject to the play of two forces; attraction and repulsion. The former draws and attracts individuals of the human race toward each other because of a general homogeneity of character, while the latter repels and drives asunder because of the dissimilarity of individual differences.

So these two forces are forever in conflict, the relative strength of either one depending upon the degree of similarity or dissimilarity existing between individuals in any given case. Those persons whose spiritual cohesiveness is greater or stronger than the effect of their individual differences are drawn closely together and become one people, one nationality. The efforts of those who would reduce the spiritual life of all peoples to common formule are doomed to failure. Such a thing cannot come to pass. The mutual international animosities, the terrific wars, and’ the torrents of blood that flow now for no reason whatever—all that will disappear completely; all nations will join hands to march in company along the road which leads to the pinnacle of human perfection; but, fortunately for weal of mankind, variety of languages and diversity of spiritual traits will never cease. But if every people or nation is really justified in defending its nationality and preserving it from extinction, why, then, we Hebrews (so at least every rational being would con-

clude) possess the same right. For why should our lot be worse than that of other nations? In what way are we inferior to them? But, alas! not everything that is logical is pleasing in the sight of philosophy. In this instance (so our fate will have it) philosophy also stands opposed to common sense. “The Hebrew have long ceased to be a nation” its oracles proclaim. “The Hebrew nationality is extinct and only the Jewish religion and its adherents survive. Therefore, assimilation with their ‘fellow-countrymen’—that is the summun bonum of those who believe in the future of the Jewish religion.”

Against this pernicious and abominable doctrine Mr. Smolenskin has already fought in his valued works. In words burning with love for his people he has pointed out the havoc this theory has wrought in Germany (its native soil) and the injury it may still work us if we do not anticipate this evil. Neither did he mind the insults and abuse heaped upon him by the zealous disciples of Mendelssohn who assailed him on every side. He was followed by the scholar A. Schulman who in his valued work Mimekor Visrael reinforced Smolenskin’s arguments by drawing attention to unpardonable offense committed by all of Mendelssohn’s followers, who turned their backs upon Jews and Judaism. Let us, too, assay the truth of this philosophy, and if common sense is too feeble to take the field against philosophy, why then we, too, can indulge in all the dialectical ratiocination of the philosophers to prove that even their utterances want something of the infallibility of oracles.

What is Nationalism and how may it be defined? Shall we say that only those who speak a common tongue may be considered one nation? But what of the peoples of America, of Belgium, of Switzerland? Has any one of them a common language? And do all Germans speak one tongue? And as for the French, are not the Bretons, Provencals, and Alsatians Frenchmen despite the fact they do not speak French? Why, then, do some of our own people proclaim (as Mr. Philipson recently did in the press) that we are speak to lead a national existence because we do not all speak the same language? Have not we, the Hebrews, in fact the advantage in this respect in that we actually have a common language in which we could now put into writing any thought that we please and in which we could also speak if we only wished to do so. And if many of us forsake Hebrew completely, if large numbers of our people cannot even read Hebrew, whose fault is it? Who or what is responsible for this ignorance so rampant in our midst if not this self-same philosophy?

Or is it only those that dwell in one land, under one government, who may be considered as belonging to the same nationality? What, then, of the Greeks in Turkey, of the Bulgars in Eastern Romania, and of the Hebrews who lived in Alexandria, Rome, and Babylonia? Did they cease being Greeks, Bulgars, or Hebrews?

What, then, is the definition of nationality? Many men of letters have discussed this question, and the most distinguished among them have reached this conclusion: The consciousness and inner feeling that stir the hearts of a group of persons prompting them to live together, whether they be few or many, entitle them to independent national life, and this right must not be denied to them. John Stuart Mill says the following:

“Nationalism sprouts forth in the hearts of people who are united by a common feeling, a feeling which does not exist between them and other persons, a feeling which leads