From the Congress Addresses of Theodor Herzl
THE GHETTO
Death is the end of all suffering — whence comes it that we suffer? In us the words of the thinker are paraphrased: "I suffer, therefore I am!"
* * *
Neither bloodshed nor devastation nor insults are the worst. These disturbances do grave damage to the souls of our people.
Ever and again they undermine our sense of right and of honor, and they cause their victims to become enemies of a social system which permits such things. Let us not be surprised if these proletarians among proletarians, the most despairing of human kind, are to be found in all the extreme revolutionary factions. Let us not be surprised, but let us rather endeavor to bring about an improvement.
* * *
The bloody days of the Bessarabian city must not cause us to forget that there are yet other Kishinevs, not alone in Russia. Kishinev exists wherever Jews undergo bodily or spiritual tortures, wherever their self-respect is wounded and their possessions are damaged because they are Jews.
* * *
In the course of our prolonged sufferings we have been weaned from the habit of consistent volition, and we did not dare to give tongue to aspirations which every other nation not only does not hide but vaunts as its greatest glory.
* * *
RENAISSANCE
A people can be helped only by its own efforts, and if it cannot help itself it is beyond succor.
* * *
From time immemorial the world has been misinformed about us. The sentiment of solidarity with which we have been reproached so frequently and so acıi- moniously was in
Fifteen years have elapsed since the death of Theodor Herzl. The movement which his genius and self-sacrifice created has won the opportunity he so ardently hoped for and worked for. This anniversary of his death is a fitting occasion for pondering anew on some of the words of Theodor Herzl, which are impregnate with the tender strength and wisdom and beauty of his great soul. The following passages are taken from the opening speeches which Herzl delivered at the six Zionist Congresses over which he presided.
His faith in the Power of the good, his great-hearted soul, his peculiarly tender sensibilities and his marvelous selflessness irresistibly compelled the love of all who came to know this noble and mighty leader of his people. No great Jew can boast of having been more ardently loved than Herzl. And not only did his comrades revere him: all men with an instinct for what is good and noble and beautiful marvelled at his power to achieve, his self-sacrificing courage, his wisdom, and were stricken with sorrow when he was snatched from our midst.
In truth, a hero with the heart of a child was Herzl, and therefore the breath of the Spring and the sunbeams of May-time linger about his memory.
Nahum Sokolow in Die Welt, July 3, 1914, on the tenth anniversary of Herzl’s death.
process of disintegration at the period when we were attacked by anti-Semitism. And anti-Semitism served to strengthen it anew. We returned home, as it were. For Zionism is a home-coming to the Jewish fold even before it becomes a home-coming to the Jewish land
* * *
Zionism has already brought about something remarkable, heretofore regarded as impossible: a close union between the ultra-modern and the ultra-conservative elements of Jewry. The fact that this has come to pass without undignified concessions on the part of either side, without intellectual sacrifices, is further proof, if such proof be necessary, of the national entity of the Jews. A union of this kind is possible only on a national basis.
* * *
It is true that we aspire to our ancient land. But what we want in the ancient land is a new blossoming of the Jewish spirit.
* * *
There is no material power to lend weight to our words, consequently if they are to have any significance whatsoever it can proceed only from the spiritual power of the idea and from the nobility of the sentiments which we proclaim.
* * *
If the final victory takes its time in coming to us we shall at least be able to point to a moral gain growing out of the material need of our people. We shall have shown that Jewry is still capable of an idealism which defies danger, endures privation, and possesses the infnite patience through which ends are achieved.
* * *
You know that many have tried their hand at this task which confronts us, animated by good intentions and moreover with great