Zionism and the Jewish Women of America

New York January 17, 1915

Dear Mrs. Julius Rosenwald,¹

Let me congratulate you and Palestine upon having secured as you tell me in your telegram, a “splendid response from a local” [Chicago Jewish Committee for Palestinian Welfare]. I wish there were a way for Hadassah being kept informed of all you do. . . . However, the paramount consideration is that you are advancing the cause of Palestine. From my point of view, as I need not tell you, that is the cause of the Jew and, most important of all, of Judaism. In many respects the war catastrophe has left me bewildered and uncertain. In one respect I see more clearly than ever—that is in respect to Zionism. The anomalous situation of the Jew everywhere—the distress, misery, and in part degradation (witness Poland) of seven million, more than half, of our race; the bravery of the Jews who are serving in all armies; the size of the contingent we [are] contributing to every front—means to me that the Jew and his Judaism must be perpetuated and can be perpetuated only by their repatriation in the land of their fathers.

It is a miracle that, though we Zionists were not hitherto able to bring many to our way of thinking, nevertheless many in these days of stress think with pity of our little sanctuary. They have come to us and said: “Even if we do not see eye to eye with you, we are going to help you save the sanctuary you have established.” Perhaps they feel that it will yield a sanctuary, refuge, and protection in the days of readjustment soon to dawn, we hope.

If you succeed, in your appeal to the Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, in conveying to the Jewish women of America the need of [a] sanctuary for the Jew, the need of a center from which Jewish culture and inspiration will flow, and if you can persuade them to set aside one day of the year as Palestine Day, on which thoughts and means are to [be] consecrated to a great Jewish world-organizing purpose, you will have accomplished a result that will bring immediate blessing to those now in distress and in terror of life, and a blessing for all future times redounding to the benefit not only of those who will make use of their sanctuary rights in Palestine, but also those who like ourselves, remaining in a happy, prosperous country, will be free to draw spiritual nourishment from a center dominated wholly by Jewish traditions and the Jewish ideals of universal peace and universal brotherhood.

If you and they do not follow us Zionists so far, at least they will respond to the appeal for material help—at least they will recognize that for the sake of Jewish dignity and self-respect, even the purely philanthropic work in Palestine, for which so large a part of Jewry has long felt a keen responsibility, may never again be allowed to relapse into a pauperizing chaos. They may refuse to accept the whole Zionist ideal. But the wonderful vitality shown by the Zionist settlement in the Holy Land—the resourcefulness of the [Zionist] colonists, who could supply the cities with grain and food for months, and the usefulness of the Zionist bank in averting panic and economic distress—they make of me a more confirmed and conscious Zionist than ever. I need not analyze the elements I have enumerated for you. You, who have been in the Holy Land, even if you do not—may I say, not yet?—agree with me, your mind will instinctively understand the leap mine makes in these troublous days to the Zionist conclusion.

Troublous days? I have often wondered during these months how many Jews in America realize that we are living through times comparable only to the destruction of the Second Temple and our commonwealth by the Romans, and exceeding by far the horrors of the exodus from Spain and Portugal, and the abject misery and suffering of the pogrom years 1881, and 1903, and 1905 in Russia.

The Jew speaks of the Hurban—the utter ruin of Salomon’s Temple. He speaks of the second Hurban, the ruin of the second Temple by Titus. I feel that a future Graetz will speak of this war as the Jews’ third Hurban.

There is only one hope in my heart—the effective aid being rendered to Palestine by all Jews without difference. In the first Hurban the Jews could not protect their sanctuary against the hordes of Nebuchadnezzar. In the second Hurban the Roman legions destroyed the Temple, leaving only the western wall, the last vestige of glory, now turned into a place of wailing. There is no third Temple on the hill of Zion to be destroyed in this third Hurban; but in Zion, nevertheless, there is a sanctuary, the refuge that has been established by Jewish pioneers, with the sweat, blood, and labor of those who believe. As American Jewesses they cannot possibly reject the centralized organization of Palestine, an endeavor for which Zionism stands first and last.

With cordial wishes for success, and may I add this only once only, with Zion’s greetings, Henriette Szold.