Die Welt

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No. 52. Vienna, 28 December 1900. Fourth Year

To Our Readers!

With the next number "Die Welt" enters upon its fifth year. Soon it will be four years since we stepped forth to stand up, in the public press, for the cause of the Jewish people, for Zionism. We will sing ourselves no hymn of praise, mindful of the old Jewish saying: "Let a stranger praise thee, and not thine own mouth." But this we may say without boastfulness: "Die Welt" has at all times remained true to itself. Friend and foe alike will be unable to deny us this testimony. Friend and foe will also confirm to us that we have always, even in the heat of the battle, worthily represented the idea which we serve. And thus we have brought Jewish journalism too into honour. What we had set ourselves to prove — that a Jewish paper can be thoroughly decided and vigorous in its convictions and thoroughly distinguished in its form — we believe we have proved it in the four years of our existence. And yet another modest merit we claim for ourselves. Men have hitherto been accustomed to understand, under the collective name "Jewish press", a number of periodical publications in which the various elevations of rank and the decorations of individual persons of the Jewish confession are chronologically and faithfully recorded. "Die Welt" has never carried on this kind of button-hole cultus. It is known now that there are Jewish papers which cherish the interests of Judaism in a higher form.

To the Zionists "Die Welt" has always been a faithful counsellor, and perhaps at times a leader also. We believe we may say that our paper has an eminent share in the spread of the Zionist idea, but also in its inner shaping and deepening. That, to be sure, is not our merit alone. For a number of the best literary forces have rendered us valuable help therein. Of the extraordinary recruiting power of the good cause whose word we speak, the fact also bears witness that hitherto no Jewish paper has succeeded in gathering about itself so choice a guard of contributors as that of which we can boast.

In giving the assurance that we shall strive to preserve henceforward also the spirit in which "Die Welt" has hitherto been conducted, we beg all friends and comrades in conviction to maintain their goodwill towards our paper and to lend our endeavour their active assistance.

Vienna, 28 December 1900.

The Editors.

Religion and Assimilation.

By Moriz Zobel.

Our comrades in conviction at Cologne have gone into the electoral struggle with a community programme which well deserves a detailed discussion. They have joined themselves with the men who desire to preserve the religious institutions of the Jewish community in the anciently transmitted form, hallowed by statute and by usage; who combat with all their strength the mania for making the Jewish divine service resemble alien cults, for giving it a Protestant-pastoral, un-Jewish stamp. These are the Conservatives, united with whom the Zionists in Cologne have won a great electoral victory. Our Cologne comrades in conviction have, as it seems to me, made a happy stroke with this electoral alliance and have drawn a right conclusion.

At the second Congress the watchword was given out: the Jewish communities must be conquered by the adherents of the cause of Zion. Now the Jewish community of our time is, as matters once stand, preponderantly a community of worship — in other words, a religious-administrative body. It is true that it is to be desired that it should be much more than