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No. 21. — Vienna, 25 May 1900. — 4th Year.

"With Satisfaction."

In Vienna the parties stand in the midst of the hottest electoral contest. It need not first be mentioned that the "Jewish point" forms the focal point of the entire electoral agitation. The candidate for the municipal council has, in the electors' meeting, chiefly to give information upon whether he be a friend or an enemy of the Jews. His chances depend exclusively upon the attitude which he assumes towards the Jews. That is assuredly an interesting phenomenon. A group of citizens acquires, by the mere circumstance that their forefathers were settled some years ago in Asia, the right powerfully to influence the communal politics of the imperial capital and residence city. Modern electoral principle: settlement decides the passive and active electoral capacity of the citizen — and that the possible settlement of his remotest ancestor.

The Zionist may regard the electoral hubbub, if not indeed with indifference, yet with tolerable dispassionateness. He is placed before the question: Shall I, by the exercise of my franchise, seek to bring about the defeat of antisemitic candidates, or not?

Frivolous observers have occasionally reproached Zionism with taking note of the progress of antisemitism "with satisfaction" and registering it in its organs. Nay, the critical observers not seldom let it shimmer through in a delicate manner that the Zionists were in truth hidden but glowing friends of the antisemitic deputies Schneider and Gregorig. Zionism has, it is alleged, an interest in the good thriving of antisemitism. Well, most Zionists will surely be able honestly to protest that they have never gone friendly-handed with the deputy Schneider in the construction of ritual fables; but apart from that too, the bridge between Zionism and antisemitism is a very problematical one.

Certainly, the Zionists follow with great attention the manifestations of the everywhere active Jew-hatred; and when a Zionist in Neu-Sandec has his house demolished, or when a Christian child's corpse is smuggled into the business premises of a Zionist in Podgorze, then the Zionists concerned are wont to communicate their experiences punctually to the Zionist organs in letters from Neu-Sandec or Podgorze; but it is not within our recollection that reports of that kind were ever couched in some such style as the following: "Highly esteemed Redaction! As I am in the happy position of informing you 'with satisfaction,' I was yesterday totally plundered. Thanks to antisemitism I am now, God be praised, a homeless beggar. With Zion's greeting and sincere Schadenfreude, yours, etc."

One may believe it upon the word: the Zionist is very little rejoiced over the misfortune which breaks in upon his own house or upon the houses of his brethren, and there will hardly be a Zionist who ever discussed over a bottle of Palestine wine with the deputy Schneider the plan of a ritual-murder agitation. And the rioters who for weeks together practised antisemitic excesses in the neighbourhood of Polna were surely likewise no disguised Zionists stuck into Czech national costume. The Zionist press notes punctually the excesses of antisemitism, because the mishaps of Jewry cannot be made undone by hushing them to death. The chronicle of antisemitic occurrences declares: daily, hourly, as is plain to see, antisemitic excesses occur; there is no prospect that the matter will become better within any foreseeable time: ergo you must draw the consequences therefrom. — The Zionist press does in fact publish, as it is reproached with doing, "systematically" the stirrings of antisemitism; — "systematically"! One may quietly let this reproach rest upon one. Yes indeed, it is a system. From incontestable premises a compelling conclusion is drawn. And the constant presence of the premises, of the anti-Jewish stirrings, is "systematically" published. The Zionist press does, to be sure, commit in the publication of the antisemitic occurrences a fault which is adroitly avoided by other Jewish papers. It whines less. The reports are not held in the requisite lamentable tone. It says only: ergo you must draw the con-