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No. 20. — Vienna, 20 May 1898. — Second Year.

Zionism and Its Opponents.

By Dr. Max Nordau. (Lecture delivered in Berlin.) (Conclusion.)

I will not raise the preliminary question whether those who set these objections against us are of good faith. I take pains to assume it of all our opponents, even of the Protest Rabbis, however hard they make it for us. Let it be granted, then, that the Jewish anti-Zionists do in fact wish to remain Jews and to preserve Judaism; that they do not secretly desire and hope for the gradual seeping away of Judaism into European and American soil, and that they rise up against Zionism only because it interrupts the process of absorption which, in their opinion, is proceeding most favourably. I turn now to these opponents of good faith, and consider first their third objection, which appears to be the most dispassionate and is in fact the most important. It runs: Judaism does not require Zionism for its continued existence. The Jews have lived for two thousand years in dispersion; they will go on doing so. For twenty centuries they have withstood persecution; this is guarantee enough for us that persecution will do them no harm in the future either, the more so as, thanks to the higher moral development of the nations, it will no longer be able to assume the cruel forms which it so often had in the past. Let us therefore let Zion be Zion, and remain, with a good heart, where we are.

Those who so speak are pitiable, short-sighted, or wilfully close their eyes to the most palpable facts. They believe that persecutions will no longer assume the same cruel forms in future as they did in the past? I should not advise you to build too much upon that. I come from a city where, a few weeks ago, the cry "Death to the Jews!" rang through the streets. "A mere cry," you say? In Algiers a Jew was actually cut down in the open street in broad daylight — poor Dr. Schebat, whom several of my friends knew personally. Some thousands of peaceable citizens stood by and looked on smiling while a murderous mob killed the defenceless man with torments. "What concern is it of ours what happens in distant Algiers, or even in nearer Paris!" Do not lull yourselves into security. The example set by a great nation is easily imitated by other nations, and political frontiers have never served as a bulwark against the incursion of epidemics. On the journey hither I travelled part of the way in company with a Jewish gentleman who knew me and my endeavours. He remarked with a smile: "You will find no answering affection in Berlin for your Zionism. You come some years too late. For a time things were uncomfortable enough for the Jews with us also. But it has grown very much better. Anti-Semitism has greatly diminished, and in Germany we scarcely feel it any longer."

Quite right. Anti-Semitism has greatly diminished. Calmly, methodically, politely, yet irresistibly, government and society have put the Jew back in the place which in their view belongs to him, and now they have no further cause to grow heated against him. In a well-ordered, vigorously governed, highly civilised State of law such as Germany, decent and reasonable people have never wished the Jews to be robbed and beaten to death. One gladly grants them their bit of life if they will only keep humbly in their corner, and has nothing against their acquiring even a competence in the trade in old trousers. When equality of rights had gone to the Jews' heads like sweet wine, they raised, in drunken presumption, the most inadmissible claims. Did they not press into science, into poetry, into art? Did they not lay hands upon the universities, the press, the theatres? Did they not demand judgeships and posts in the public service? Did they not soar to the incredible audacity of wishing to become officers? Such arrogance had to be met with all emphasis. A brief but sharp exertion, and good order was restored. The Jews awoke from their intoxication to their accustomed and laudable sobriety, and soon got over even the slight headache that troubled them for a little while longer. They no longer demanded what does not belong to them. They perceived that a Jew has no claim to a sword-knot, a judge's robe, a privy councillor's dress-coat. They no longer attempted to force their way into masonic lodges, into student unions, into societies where Christian Germans wish to be among themselves, and were already grateful when Aryan patrons permitted some Concessions-Moses to figure as treasurer in societies of public utility. And when in this way every man had found his right place again