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No. 40. | Vienna, 4 October 1901. | Vol. V.

The Limits of Zionism. *)

By Berthold Feiwel. II.

Before a discussion can be opened of the several groups of subject-matter in the scheme **) which was proposed for a scientific treatment, a curious preliminary question must be disposed of with regard to one of those matters — likewise a determination of limits, though of another character. It concerns that complex of problems which we are accustomed to comprehend under the collective title of the "questions of the physical, intellectual and economic elevation of the Jews."

Before we consider this matter from the standpoint of a detailed scientific treatment, we are compelled to inquire whether the "questions of elevation" are to be drawn into the domain of Zionist theory and practice at all. For there are political Zionists who see a contradiction in principle in the linking of the homestead movement with an activity that serves "present-day purposes." They maintain this opinion even now, when the questions in hand have stepped out of the frame of theoretical consideration and have in detail been more than once translated into practice. It is known that the London Congress impressed upon the matter, so to speak, the official Zionist stamp, and that conferences of the territorial federations, such as the First Austrian Zionist Day at Olmütz, devoted a considerable part of the working programme they drew up to the questions of elevation. All the more right have those who — in spite of everything — dissent, to be heard.

Let it be permitted, as an expression of this dissent, to choose the utterance of a single man, a

*) Cf. Number 37. **) With regard to the scheme — which, as was expressly remarked, sought to give no more than an unauthoritative proposal, capable of extension, for subsequent scientific labours — several suggestions have reached the writer of these lines. Two matters appear especially worthy of note which in the scheme as drafted were subsumed under a higher head, and whose separate treatment is in fact desirable. They are these: 1. The vernacular tongue; 2. Zionism in its relation to the education of children, to the Jewish woman, to the Jewish family.

work by J. Klausner, which he published some time ago in the Hebrew periodical "Haschiloah."

The course of thought of Klausner's article is the following:

"The third point of the Basle Programme (the elevation of the national self-consciousness) has hitherto been neglected at the Congresses. "Cultural" activity was renounced out of regard for religious susceptibilities. At the fourth Congress the cultural question was even passed over to the order of the day by a majority of votes. In contrast to this self-limitation, a strong inclination toward an extension of the programme was to be perceived at the latest Congress, an inclination which is to be regarded as harmful.

Zionism is distinguished from the other Jewish endeavours at relief in this, that it seeks to create a lasting work for the nation as a whole. In the institutions of "elevation" there lies, no doubt, a means also toward the attainment of our goal. But an increased prosperity of the Jews may likewise make them apostates from Zionism.

Then, too, the forces of the Zionists are too slight and Zionism is not yet rooted deeply enough in men's hearts. In place of a broadening, one ought to strive to preserve the "extreme force" of Zionism and to restrict it to its fundamental constituents: the political hope and the cultural work…"

"At the fourth Congress a void was sought to be filled by an extension of the Zionist programme. But by what right were the questions of elevation taken up into Zionism? To occupy oneself with them is surely the duty of every Jew. In truth the proposals concerning economic elevation relate to actions which are already practised to-day by the most various Jewish charitable institutions. What the Congress began, Max Nordau then carried further in his articles "The Political Equality of the Jews." In Nordau's view the Zionists in the lands of the Golus must create a Jewish organisation which shall embrace the whole physical and intellectual life of the Jews. By such an endeavour, however, the endeavour after Zion is more and more restricted, and it is to be assumed that under Nordau's programme men would attach themselves to Zionism only for the sake of the subordinate labours, and that the Congress would become, from a Zionist one, a Jewish one. (There follow examples of two particular actions which are to prove this, but which both rest upon false assumptions, for which the author's want of information may serve as justification.)

The author then emphasises once more that the Zionists "at all events, if their forces were more numerous, everything