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No. 25. / Vienna, 24 June 1898. / Year II.

As a considerable number of subscriptions expire at the end of this month, those concerned are reminded to effect their renewal in good time, so that no interruption may occur in the delivery of the paper.

The Administration.

Fire in Galicia.

By Benjamin Seff.

Father Stojalowski has instructed his people badly. In a modern State of law it is not permitted to burn, to murder and to plunder. The District Captain of Jaslo, in an official circular, describes the rumours as "ridiculous and fantastical" — the "rumours that it were permitted to commit punishable acts, such as robbery, deeds of violence &c., upon whomsoever."

This report had, in fact, gone forth from a circle of agitators, whose head and centre public opinion with fair unanimity declares Father Stojalowski to be. An election is impending in the Sanok district, and in order to tune men's minds rightly for the candidature of Stojalowski's partisan, to intimidate the Jews, to win over the peasants, this agitation was artfully got up. It was represented to the simple-minded and cruel peasants that the Government had permitted the Jews to be plundered and massacred now and then. Some would have it that a term of fourteen days had been allowed for this merriment. Others maintained that it was an intermittent festival: three times a week for the space of a month. In the end fairly strong military detachments had to be sent to the blood-soaked scene of these rumours, rightly described by the District Captain of Jaslo as ridiculous and fantastical, in order to restore quiet. It cannot indeed be permitted to commit robbery, deeds of violence and the like upon whomsoever. Not even upon Jews.

We never doubted from the outset that the adventure, not merely ridiculous but also horrible, would come to such an end. That the old spirit of rebellion of these Slavonic peasants, who now and again stagger up out of their dull brooding into brutish acts of violence, would be curbed was to be foreseen. Humane considerations and the necessity of the State command it alike. For politicians who live short-sightedly from day to day the incident is thereby settled. At most some triumph in the fact that on this occasion the danger to public order slumbering within anti-Semitism has once again shown itself. For the fire only begins at the Jewish huts and taverns, in order then to fly across to the roofs of the castles. The nobles and the lords must therefore beware lest they be visited by the peasant run wild, who first whets his scythe upon the Jew, in order afterwards to mow down the lords as well. Thus it comes about that certain Jewish politicians, at some distance from the scene of the deed, positively draw security from such outrages. Whoever would maintain the State and preserve order must sooner or later take up a position against Jew-hatred. Israel may sleep in peace. If a fire breaks out, the fire-brigade will turn out soon enough. One will see the heads and the hoses of the authorities at the place of the fire until the last smoke has vanished from the blackened ruins.

But what would one think of a man or of a community that sought its whole security, in the case of an object exposed to the danger of fire, in the arrival of the fire-brigade. The brigade may one day come too late; it may be called upon in several places at once and, with the best will, not arrive in time. What then? Annihilation.

We in our solid houses, in the midst of civilisation, carefully guard, as the night-watchman's rhyme has it, "the fire and the light, that no harm come to anyone!" Moreover we pay our contributions to the fire-insurance punctually. That, surely, is the least precaution that a sensible householder can muster. Little more is needed for it than the wisdom of a night-watchman. And Israel, the people that has brought forth so many thinkers in the course of a long history full of glory and of torment, Israel has not even the wisdom of a night-watchman. We do not think beforehand of averting the danger of fire, and once the damage is done nobody knows to whom he should turn for compensation of what has been lost. And whoever admonishes the unthinking beforehand to institute a mutual fire-insurance is laughed at and opposed.

But we do not wish now to speak only of this material side of our Zionism. The fire in Galicia, already quenched again, affords us much other matter for reflection. Above all: whom has this