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No. 8.

Vienna, 20 February 1903 — 23 Shebat 5663.

7th Year

Philanthropy and Zionism.

In St. Petersburg last week Baron Horace Günzburg celebrated his seventieth birthday. It was a day of honour for the great philanthropist, who was congratulated by numerous deputations from all parts of Russia. The honours bestowed upon him on that day were assuredly the expression of the gratitude due for the long years of this man's labours. Yet precisely such a celebration also invites comparisons. Comparisons between the endeavours, carried on before a great public, of the rich Jewish friend of humanity and Maecenas, who may very well be taken as the type of a certain stratum within Jewry, and the less regarded, quiet labours of the men who, living among the people and with the people, carry on their altruistic activity.

We have in our people, and we may say so without presumption, a great number of rich men and women who contribute considerable sums to charitable purposes and often take part in humanitarian institutions with the full exertion of their abilities. Baron Hirsch, for example, was assuredly a great benefactor of the poor and especially of his unhappy co-religionists, and he, like others, showed in this the decided will to provide, so far as possible, for the cheerless future of the Jewish masses as well. They were truly royal acts of charity that these men performed, and their patronage towards non-Jews too, and towards non-Jews in particular, their liberality towards the claims of the society in which they moved, the outward esteem they were able to enjoy, and even the affection to which they had a claim — all this is too well known for us to need to relate it at length.

What traces, then, did this activity of theirs leave in public life, what influence did they have upon shaping a happier existence for their fellow Jews? These are the questions that at once press upon us when we consider the lives of these Jewish patrons. The first question is easily answered. The State, which availed itself of their rich financial means, which turned to account their skill in the field of finance and financial policy, and which could not easily decline their great acts of charity — mostly moving within the intentions of the Government — for the relief of various distresses in the country, whether in particular branches of industry or in particular classes (though such cases, by the way, have occurred too) — the State was not sparing towards the individuals in outward honours and privileges. But that was all. Outwardly they had risen into the ruling upper strata. They did not lack parasites and toadies, servile souls from those circles. But otherwise they were for the most part separated from those circles by invisible yet insurmountable barriers. Even the golden ass of the proverb could not scale these fortresses of prejudice of every kind, of hatred, of envy and of inherited arrogance. Except where the purchasing power of these rich Jews, or the fear of some possible reticence on their part towards the demands of the State or of society, came into question, they were as good as without influence. Whether they did not themselves bear a good share of the blame for this shall not be further discussed here, for despite their vaunted influence upon the mighty of this earth, which allegedly was always working on in silence, what they meant in the life of their own people is for our consideration the more important, the decisive thing.

Here, first of all, a striking phenomenon must be noted, one that repeats itself with the regularity of a law. A rich Jew — exceptions shall gladly be granted — usually spends incomparably less on Jewish purposes than on non-Jewish ones. Four thousand Kronen for Jewish religious purposes; forty thousand or four hundred thousand, a million for the building of a church, for a workmen's home or an officers' foundation and the like — that is usually the proportion. One need by no means believe that this happens only in order to secure some mark of State recognition, an order or a title. Such motives may indeed be decisive with some individuals. With the great ones this comes less into consideration. Rather, perhaps, the calculation upon a friendly attitude on the part of the society in which they