A Call to the Jewish Youth Whose Hearts Lie with Their People and with Zion

Brothers!

While our true Zionist goal is more or less clear—namely, our national and political revival in the Land of Zion—the ways that lead us to our goal are still clouded in fog. We have been going astray for more than twenty years, and as we went further, imagining that our (Zionist) goal would soon be achieved, so, without realizing it, we moved further away, so that a bit further and we would have been lost forever. . . .

The main reasons why we are lost are these: Our desire to take to take shortcuts, and our excessive belief in the proximity of our goal and the ease with which it can be secured; this belief led us to build castles in the sky. In our imagination we saw ourselves flying straight to our goal, almost without any labor and sacrifice on our part. Our desire for shortcuts led us to abandon and scorn the long, hard road that is perhaps also the safest, the most appropriate, and also the shortest. So we wander until now along the short roads we have chosen, without true patience, lacking energy, embarrassed and despairing at every postponement and delay, and retreating at the slightest obstacle and sacrifice.

Brothers! The war of individual life—this difficult and terrible war that begins in the cradle and ends in the grave; the war full of appalling cruelty and endless victims—is quite well known to us young Jews. . . . Who of us does not walk around beaten and half injured? We all know well the weak condition of the young man in this war, and how much work and energy he must give, how much strength and blood he must sacrifice if he too wishes to secure some position on this battlefield that is life. [ . . . ]

Look and see, brothers! How much the people who are only subjected politically—people who still live on their land and still speak their national languages—how much they sacrifice on the altar of their political liberty and their freedom of national development! They merely attempt to free themselves and their villages rise up in flames, their cities are destroyed by the storms of war and the enemy’s revenge, their heroes fall on the battlefields, are killed in places of slaughter, and are rotting in prisons. And in some cases they are not successful despite their self-sacrifice, and the enemy celebrates its victory on the graves of their vanquished heroes. Yet even then—are the hearts of these people discouraged, do they abandon their hope? Not at all! We have already seen such people recouping their strength and trying again for a second and a third time: Either victory or death . . . (our ancestors acted in the same way, for as long as the feelings of a living people had not been dulled among them). In the case of the Balkan people, who were saved and liberated with the help of their fellows of the same race and religion—who can count the sacrifices they made at the altar of their liberty? [ . . . ]

Our war is long and hard. It requires of its fighters not money, as we have hitherto foolishly assumed, but a boundless love for our nation and our Land, very great heroism and patience, and from among the capable, we will choose the true soldiers of the people. Among these capable individuals we must distinguish a number whose health, age, and family commitment will permit them to form an organization with strong discipline and to devote themselves to the people’s service. But what will these people do, how will they serve the people and fight its war?

These pioneers must form into divisions of one hundred or one hundred fifty people to come to the Land of Israel to work its land and later to settle the land, virtually without any help on the side, or with very little help to be repaid as soon as possible, and they must arrange their lives so as to flourish in substance and spirit.

This will be their duty and their goal, which they will achieve only after harsh labor, numerous sacrifices, and external and internal battles—conflicts against others and against themselves, fights against nature and against people, against the people who live in the land, against the administration; against deprivation, disease, and hunger. The harshest of all will be their war against the rotten surroundings enslaved to philanthropy. And this war must be not only a war of words, but also a war of actions. They will be required to face a test even on the worst day, without falling into the trap of philanthropy that suckles and sucks the human soul as a leech his blood. [ . . . ]

And now, dear brothers! There are many among you who have long aspired to serve the people, to give it their life and soul, and who are capable of doing this in terms of their physical vigor and family commitment. Only our mistaken attitudes about the settlement project have stopped you. Now listen to the voice calling to you from the hills of Israel: Awake, awake, O young of Israel. Rise up to help the people! Our people are dying, our land will shortly be lost to us forever. Hurry to its aid! Organize yourselves, accept strong discipline, discipline for life and death (this means founding the unity and concentration of forces without which there can be no victory). Arise, forget everything that was dear to you until now, leave them forever with no shadow of regret, and join in the service of the people! [ . . . ]

Know that you must create a new era in the Yishuv. You must restore to the Land the love of its children, and to its inhabitants, the honor and love of the people they have lost. All of this will come solely by you achieving your goal. But please prepare to fight nature, diseases, hunger, and people—enemies and friends, strangers and brothers, haters of Zion and Zionists. . . . Prepare for the hatred and cruelty of the surroundings, which will recognize you as a dangerous rival. Prepare for its scorn and contempt, for its despair that consumes flesh and soul, for its groundless reproofs and reckonings that can be refuted only with action and experimentation. Prepare for obstacles that will also be put in your way by friends and companions. Prepare for the hardest and the most terrible—and also for victory! And your victory is the people’s victory. Many of you may fall in your harsh war against disease and suffering, hunger and labor. But those who remain, and those who come after you, will stuff the ranks. And the war, this peaceful war, shall continue to victory! [ . . . ]

Those youngsters who wish to serve their people and who are not capable of joining the aforementioned organization for various reasons can organize in other ways in this spirit, in their respective places. And they can do much to help their brothers who will serve their people in the Land itself.

Hurry and come, heroes of Israel. Renew the days of the biluim¹ more forcefully and audaciously, for soon we will be lost!

Youth group from the Land of Israel
(Written and sent by Joseph Vitkin)
Adar I, 1,836 years since the Destruction (5665)