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No. 20. Vienna, 13th May 1904 — 28th Ijar 5664. 8th Year.

Present-Day Work.

With the steady growth of our movement, the points of contact with the work of other groups of our people, who either stand aloof from our idea or are actually hostile to it, naturally multiply. Already in the first years of political Zionism there arose theoretical inquiries as to how far the Zionists could and should be active outside their proper field of work, and what position they ought to take towards the other groups within Jewry. Two sets of questions were distinguished: that of so-called present-day work and that of tactics. To a programmatic settlement of these questions matters have, properly speaking, not yet come. Present-day work has indeed been debated at several Congresses, and certain guiding principles have even been laid down, relating chiefly to the economic activity of the Zionists; but no further development followed, because so weighty a decision could be taken only on the basis of careful inquiries — inquiries extending over so vast a field that there can certainly be no talk of their final conclusion for a long while yet.

Nevertheless the deliberations of the Congresses referred to did at least create the framework within which any immediate action must move. It was left to the several national organisations to determine how they would act, in accordance with the views prevailing in their respective countries. This was carried out still more uniformly with regard to tactical procedure. Our leadership contented itself with defining, from time to time, the direction of our work. The carrying out of its agenda, and any joint activity with other great Jewish organisations, was left to the several national organisations. Each decided at its own discretion upon the tactics to be followed within its field of work. The condition, to be sure, was and is that the direction marked out by the leadership be adhered to. This has hitherto almost always been the case, and therefore tactical questions within the limits mentioned may continue to be settled by each national organisation within its own sphere.

The matter stands otherwise with regard to present-day work. The difficult situation in which the Jews of almost every country find themselves has often demanded intervention on the part of the Zionists, although they thereby saw their field of work considerably enlarged. One need only recall the Roumanian exodus and the sad events in Bessarabia. These were immediate relief actions, in which the Zionists not only took part with all their energy, but which they often had first to call into being with great self-sacrifice. Besides the catastrophes, however — and in the history of Jewry as a whole these form, alas, a fairly unbroken chain — there are, and have always been, lasting states of distress which have threatened our people most gravely. Here the Zionists often stepped in and did, quietly and with a clear aim, a work that had always been trumpeted abroad by quite other groups or corporations as their very own activity. In one place, for example, it was a matter of remedying intellectual neglect by means of schools. The bodies called upon to do so could not or would not help. So the Zionists helped, and help still. In another place it was a matter of working against rapid economic decay. The Zionists founded loan-banks, co-operative societies, information bureaus — not because this was in the Zionist programme, but because they wished, so far as possible, to prevent the impoverishment of their brethren. And without presumption we may say that all these labours, which are not our labours at all, have been carried out with entire conscientiousness and never-flagging zeal.

This, of course, often went beyond the competence and the strength of the individual national bodies. Then the leadership, and through it our entire organisation, had to intervene. This has hitherto always happened in all the large undertakings that Zionists have taken in hand, without the initiative of individuals — for which, naturally, the organisation as such is not responsible — being deprived of the opportunity for particular activity. At the same time the leadership was fully aware that it stood before the danger of a