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No. 45. Vienna, 11 November 1898. Second Year.

The Deputation of the Zionists before the German Emperor.

On the 2nd of November the Zionist deputation was received by His Majesty the German Emperor in Jerusalem. The deputation consisted of: Dr. Theodor Herzl, the leader of the Zionists; Dr. M. T. Schnirer, the reporter of the Actions Committee; D. Wolffsohn, the chairman of the Bank Committee of the Jewish Colonial Bank; Dr. J. Bodenheimer, the President of the Zionists of Germany; and the engineer Seidener, the technical adviser of the Committee. Minister of State von Bülow was present at the audience. Dr. Herzl delivered an address to the Emperor. His Majesty answered at length in the friendliest manner.

Homecoming.

By O. Erter.

It is quiet again in Jerusalem. The mighty guest from the Occident, whose visit filled the holiest and most venerable of all the places inhabited by men with a rushing life, is upon his homeward way. Yet this time, unlike what followed the princely visits of recent decades, it is not mere remembrance that will remain behind, to pale away in the flight of the times to come. New germs of hopeful development have been sunk into the holy soil, upon which an inscrutable destiny seemed to have laid an eternal sterility, and these germs will spring up beneath the mild sunbeam of modern civilisation.

We spare ourselves the recapitulation of what came to pass in Jerusalem during the Emperor's week. Were it merely a question of a chronicler's enumeration of the occurrences, of a commentary upon the speeches which William II. delivered, and of a register of the places upon which he set foot, then Protestants and Catholics would have occasion for greater satisfaction than the Jews, who form the third part of the population of Jerusalem and may claim historical priority before all others. Yet against so narrow a conception of the Imperial visit, as though its meaning and its scope were to be measured by the race between the confessions, we have guarded ourselves from the first, and not a trace of envy or of ill-will did we feel when William II. gave encouragement to the Protestants and made the Catholics a present of the "Dormition de la Sainte-Vierge." He is supreme bishop of the Prussian Church and German Emperor; these two attributes had necessarily to find expression in his conduct. Yet they have not overgrown the third attribute in which he came to Jerusalem, that of the apostle of modern culture, further than the particular occasions required.

When William II. made his entry through the Jaffa Gate, there was among the deputations which greeted him a Jewish one also, and before he left Jerusalem he again received a Jewish deputation. Blessed the coming in, blessed the going out!

The Jewish deputation which was received on the day before the departure presented an album with views of the Jewish colonies in Palestine. After looking the album through, the Emperor promised his benevolent interest to all endeavours directed to the raising of the agriculture of Palestine for the good of the welfare of the Turkish Empire. More than this could not be hoped for from the visit of William II. What we need in order to attain our ideal is, beside our own strength, nothing else than the "benevolent interest" of the mighty, which William II. has for his part solemnly declared to us. We believe we can also prove that we deserve this benevolence. It is not as idlers lounging in the sun that we purpose to return to the old soil of our homeland; almost two thousand years of merciless history have taught us not only to suffer and to want, but also to work. Nor do we conceal from ourselves what labour awaits us. Yes indeed, the soil that has so long lain fallow we must loosen, that it may become receptive of the seed-corn and bear luxuriant fruit again. We love this soil and will tend it as our forefathers once loved and tended it. Men shall see us behind the plough and shall unlearn the prejudice that we are unfit or indisposed for the tillage of the land. We know that Jerusalem out of the twilight slumber of remembrance