Zionist Internationalism
The author of this article is a Gentile Zionist, and is a speaker on the staff of the Joseph Fels Commission for Promotion of Democracy. He was formerly on the faculty of the Ohio State University, and was a speaker for the United States Department of Labor during the war. His writings on Hebrew history and religion are issued by the publishing department of the University of Chicago, under the title "Sociological Study of the Bible," etc., and are widely used in colleges and theological schools and for private reading and study.
Mr. Wallis believes that the world is on the eve of a great revival of Hebrew cultural studies, and that this movement should take definite institutional form, so organized as to be international in scope, with provision for scientific investigation and teaching of Hebrew history, language, and literature, comparative oriental culture, Jewish life and achievements among Gentile nations down to the present time, correspondence courses, lectures, publication of maps and text-books, and news service to the press.—THE EDITOR.
THE only kind of Zionism which can permanently enlist Jewish enthusiasm, and also be of interest to the Gentile world, is one which is founded on the bed-rock of social justice foreshadowed by the Hebrew prophets. This kind of Zionism alone is harmonious with the religious
history of the Hebrew people as narrated in the Bible. The prophets of God looked forward to a time when the restoration of Israel should set up a standard of justice which would be a light to the whole world. Through Israel, the suffering Servant of God, will all the families of the earth be blessed. Thus we read in the noble and inspired words of the prophet Isaiah:
"Behold My
Servant, whom I uphold—My Chosen, in whom My Soul delighteth! I have put My spirit upon him. He will bring forth JUSTICE to the GOYIM. . . . He will bring forth justice in truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged till he have set justice IN THE EARTH; and the isles shall wait for his teaching" (Is. 42:1-4).
The Zionism of the prophets is based on two principles which are linked in close connection, namely, Social Justice and World Peace. Modern Zionism, therefore, if it acknowledge its ultimate spiritual origin in the glorious Hebrew past, will be international in substance and essence, even though it be nationalistic in its outward form.
This paradox of a nationalistic movement which is really international and of world-significance, is what stands at the root of the main Zionist difficulty today. Too many Gentiles and too many Jews look at the movement merely as
a racial and provincial thing, when, as a matter of fact, it is, of necessity, an element in the evolution of World Culture, whether the world realizes it or not. The mere physical return of the Jews to the Holy Land, while it has a sentimental appeal to a certain type of Jewish mind, would have no interest to the world at large and no more excuse or reason than a settlement of Jews in the north pole or in China. A provincial, nationalistic Zionism, which looks forward merely to the resettlement of Palestine without the establishment of social justice, is open to assault both by Jew and Gentile. But international Zionism, founded on the logic of Hebrew history and moral culture, is impregnable to attack from any quarter.
Social justice, then, furnishes the key which solves the Zionist problem. If we try to argue the case for Zionism without appealing to the principle of justice, our case falls to the ground. For instance, the experiment of Zionism would be a failure if the new Jewish commonwealth were to be set up on the principle of private monopoly in the land and natural resources of Palestine. Private traffic and speculation in Palestinian real estate would run the price of land upward through continually rising levels which would soon carry it beyond the reach of the Jewish common people, suffocating the re-established nation in the land of its fathers. A Zionist community based on the same principles of private land-holding which prevail today in the United States, England, France, or Germany, would be tormented by the same social problems which now press upon these capitalistic nations and which destroyed the people of ancient Israel. Such a community would offer no permanent relief to its Jewish inhabitants; and since it would have no fundamental economic difference from the Gentile nations, it would have no particular interest or significance for the world at large. Zionist propaganda which does not emphasize social justice can have little or no interest for progressive Jews, since it is open to the charge of being standpatism dressed in Jewish clothes. The fact that many Jews are innocently enthusiastic for a narrow, provincial Zionism does not relieve such Zionism from being unprogressive and out of harmony with the new social vision of our times.
Reluctance to grasp the principle of social justice in connection with Zionism goes along with slowness on the part of both Gentiles and Jews to understand the real meaning of the Bible. Although Christianity is based on the religious tradition of the Hebrew people, the history of the Hebrews