New Movements among the Jewish Proletariat

The newest stream of Jewish immigration, driven to these shores by the waves of the Russian Revolution, and its counterpart, the atrocious massacres of Jews, has brought in its wake an undercurrent of new ideas and ideals which of late has excited the interest of the Jews in their old homes.

As a result the little world in the so-called Ghetto is teeming with new life, new aspirations, new problems and new hopes.

Until recently the intellectual life of the great East Side of New York was absorbed mainly in social questions of a general nature, or, to be more correct, in Socialism. [ . . . ]

With the newest immigration these theories have now been transplanted to our shores and the little Jewish world was beset by a host of new parties of different descriptions and denominations: we have now Zionists and Territorialists, Zionist-Socialists and Socialists-Territorialists, Poalei Zion, (Workingmen-Zionist) Socialist Revolutionary Territorialists, etc. And it goes without saying that each has its own theory, which is of course the only true one, with its own newspaper and party organization; and it also goes without saying that everlasting discussions, squabbles, quarrels and all sorts of friction is the order of the day.

Upon a close examination we find that these theories and movements, notwithstanding their high-sounding and unpronounceable names, all emanate from, and are very much connected with, the old-fashioned Zionism, are indeed only variations of the same. [ . . . ]

In the last twenty years of the past century new life has been blown into the movement of Zionism. Under the stress of the Anti-Jewish riots in Russia in the year 1881, and the special laws enacted against them the following year (which laws were, by the way, the result of rather different origin than hatred to Jews by the Russian people) the “Jewish question” assumed a new aspect. The Jew, perforce, asked himself: What is the cause of this persecution? And he came to the conclusion that he is being persecuted, not because he is a Jew, but because he is a foreigner—a foreigner who nowhere has a country of his own, and that his suffering, his misery and persecution will cease only with the acquisition of a country. [ . . . ]

It is therefore pure nonsense to speak of a Jewish “spirit” that can thrive on the soil of Palestine only. Furthermore, there are many arguments in support of the theory that the Jewish nation, such as it is, is a “nation” in exile only. There are probabilities that the Jews would not have retained their religion and the purity of the race, a thing the Zionist puts much stock in, had they remained in their land. No ruling nation preserved its purity in the same degree as the Jews. The ruling nations usually assimilate with others, either through conquest or immigration. The Jews in their own land were not exempt from such influences. Their language they had lost long before their independence, so much did they mix with the heathen by intermarriage, their very religion was much neglected.

The exile alone united them; in exile the form of their religion developed and crystallized; in exile they stopped intermarriages. The exile then developed the peculiarities of Jewism. If we are therefore to speak of a Jewish nation as an intellectual unity we cannot separate it from the exile spirit. It is utterly incomprehensible how this evolution of twenty centuries can be done away with.

Add to this that the Zionists of all shades admit that the great majority of the Jews will remain where they are at present and the whole proposition of an “intellectual center” becomes ridiculous. A million, at the best two millions, of the poorest and humblest Jews will emigrate to a semi-savage country. At the best it will take tens or even hundreds of years until they will be able to procure a decent livelihood by tilling the soil and doing all kind of manual labor. And this handful of Jews somewhere in Asia or Africa is to become the intellectual and spiritual guides of the ten or more millions that remained under the intellectual influence of European and American civilization, with its famous universities and libraries, museums and laboratories, literature and theatres; with its highly developed art and technic, with its newspapers, etc. Is this not puerile? Is this not ridiculous? Jerusalem in intellectual competition with Paris, London, New York, or even Warsaw. Uganda, or another wilderness somewhere in Africa to compete with Heidelberg, Oxford, Yale or Columbia as teachers. Jaffa racing with the British Museum, or the Paris, or even the New York Library.

It is only to laugh!

Turn Zionism or Territorialism as you may, the whole thing is ridiculous.

But the worst was yet to come.

Before Zionism had time to stand firmly on its feet, before it was able to make the first step, it was already clear to every observer that besides its external deformities it is subject to an incurable, chronic, internal sickness.

At the time when Zionism made its great efforts social life in Russia took its usual course. Industry, with the aid of foreign capital, had been greatly developed, and along with it grew the proletariat and its class consciousness.

The Revolutionary movement progressed immensely, and the Jew did not only not keep aloof from it, he, on the contrary, was found in the front line, and these circumstances helped to tear asunder the Zionist movement. The proletarian Zionist opened his eyes; the working man and his exploiter met face to face and the sweet dream of united nation was at once scattered to the winds. The united and undivided Jewish “nation” was divided into two hostile camps.

The proletarian Zionists did not, however, awake altogether; they only awoke for a minute, turned on the other side and began to dream again.

Would they dream quietly to themselves we could leave them alone. The trouble with them is that they speak out in their dreams and produce much noise.

We must, therefore, disturb them from their pleasant dream.