The Jewish State
Der Judenstaat
Theodor Herzl
1896
Translated from the German by Sylvie D'Avigdor
Adapted from the edition published in 1946 by the American Zionist Emergency
Council
Proofread and corrected by MidEastWeb, with a preface by Ami Isseroff.
PDF e-book compiled by MidEastWeb http://www.MidEastweb.org for distribution
free of charge.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Jewish State: MidEastWeb Preface............................................................... 1
I n t r o d u c t i o n ............................................................................................... 4
T h e .. J e w i s h. Q u e s t i o n ........................................................................ 10
T h e .. J e w i s h .. C o m p a n y ...................................................................... 17
L o c a l G r o u p s ............................................................................................ 30
Society of Jews and Jewish State ...................................................................... 37
Conclusion __________..................................................................................... 47
The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
The Jewish State: MidEastWeb Preface
Theodore Herzl's pamphlet Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State, was published in
1896. It heralded the coming of age of Zionism. Several articles and books
advocating the Zionist idea had appeared beginning in the 1840s, and small
Zionist groups such as Hovevei Tsion (Lovers of Zion) had begun recruiting
immigrants to Palestine, but no group had a coherent plan or modern ideology.
Herzl's plan for creating a Jewish State, arrived at after contemplating other
solutions as well, provided the practical program of Zionism, and led to the first
Zionist congress in Basle, Switzerland, in August, 1897.
Born in Budapest, Hungary, on May 2, 1860, Herzl was educated in the spirit of
the German-Jewish "Enlightenment." His family moved to Vienna in 1878 after
the death of his sister. He became a doctor of law in 1884 and worked for a short
while in courts in Vienna and Salzburg. However, he soon left law and devoted
himself to writing.
In 1891 Herzl became Paris correspondent for the liberal Vienna newspaper New
Free Press. Herzl was in Paris when a wave of anti-Semitism broke out over the
court martial of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer. Dreyfus, falsely accused of
espionage and banished to an island prison, was divested of his rank in a
humiliating public ceremony in January 1895, as a mob shouted "Death to the
Jews.
The Dreyfus case motivated Herzl to devote thought and effort to the Jewish
problem. He formalized the concept of emergence from the Diaspora (the
dispersion of the Jews) and return to Zion in The Jewish State. In The Jewish
State, he proposed, for the first time, a program for immediate political action.
Herzl appealed in vain to wealthy Jews such as Baron Hirsch and Baron
Rothschild, to join the national Zionist movement. He found allies however, in
impoverished Eastern European socialists and Zionists who had already formed
Zionist groups. The result was the First Zionist Congress in Basle, which
established the World Zionist Organization and adopted the program of attaining
a Jewish State to be provided by "public law." Herzl convened six Zionist
Congresses between 1897 and 1902. The Congresses created the instruments of
Zionist action for implementing the settlement plan, including The Jewish Colonial
Trust, the Jewish National Fund and the movement's newspaper Die Welt.
After the first Basle Congress, Herzl wrote in his diary, “Were I to sum up the
Basle Congress in a word- which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly- it
would be this: ‘At Basle, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I
would be answered by universal laughter. If not in 5 years, certainly in 50,
everyone will know it.’”
Herzl attempted to gain a Charter from the Sultan of Turkey for the establishment
of a Jewish state in Palestine, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. To this end he
met in 1898 with the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, in Istanbul and Palestine, as well
as the Sultan, but these meetings did not bear fruit.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
In 1902, he published a utopian novel about the Jewish state, Altneuland (old-
new land) a vision complete with monorails and modern industry. , Altneuland
envisioned a multipluralistic Democracy in which Arabs and Jews had equal
rights. The novel concludes, "If you will, it is no legend."
Herzl then negotiated with the British regarding the possibility of settling the
Jews on the island of Cyprus, the Sinai Peninsula, the El Arish region and
Uganda. After the Kishinev pogroms, Herzl visited Russia in July 1903. He tried
unsuccessfully to persuade the Russian government to help the Zionist
Movement transfer Jews from Russia to Palestine. At the Sixth Zionist Congress
Herzl proposed settlement in Uganda, on offer from the British, as a temporary
"night refuge." The idea met with sharp opposition, especially from the same
Russian Jews that Herzl had thought to help. Though the Congress passed the
plan as a gesture of esteem for Herzl, it was not pursued seriously, and the
initiative died after the plan was withdrawn. Herzl met with the king of Italy, who
was encouraging, and with the Pope, who expressed opposition.
Herzl died in 1904 and was buried in Vienna. After the establishment of the State
of Israel his remains were reburied on Mt. Herzl, Jerusalem in the summer of
1949.
The title "Der Judenstaat" was probably meant as an ironic play on words, since it
literally means "The Jews'-State," a derogatory construction like the
"Judenstrasse" (Jews' Street) of the medieval ghetto. In The Jewish State, Herzl
proposed a modern solution to the Jewish question. He believed that attempts at
assimilation of Jews into European society were in vain, as the majority in each
country decided who was a native and who an alien. The persistence of anti-
Semitism determined that the Jew would always be an outsider and only the
creation of a Jewish state, a matter of interest to both Jews and non-Jews would
put an end to the Jewish problem.
The Jewish State proposed that diplomacy would be the primary way of attaining
the Jewish State. Herzl called for the organized transfer of Jewish communities to
the new state. Of the location of the state, Herzl said, "We shall take what is
given us, and what is selected by public opinion."
Herzl's The Jewish State included social innovations such as the seven-hour
working day. He was interested in an economy where free enterprise and state
involvement went hand-in-hand. It was to be a modern, sophisticated and
technologically advanced and Europeanized society.
The Jewish State established Herzl as the leader of Zionism, and the "father of
the Zionist Idea." Zionist also provoked considerable opposition, in particular from
the assimilationist Jews of Central and Western Europe. The book became
required reading for all Zionists and was taken as the basic platform of political
Zionism.
In the Jewish State, Herzl anticipated some of the antagonism that the Zionist
idea would provoke:
" To the first class of objections belongs the remark that the Jews are not the only
people in the world who are in a condition of distress. Here I would reply that we
may as well begin by removing a little of this misery, even if it should at first be no
more than our own.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
It might further be said that we ought not to create new distinctions between
people; we ought not to raise fresh barriers, we should rather make the old
disappear. But men who think in this way are amiable visionaries; and the idea of
a native land will still flourish when the dust of their bones will have vanished
tracelessly in the winds. Universal brotherhood is not even a beautiful dream."
In conclusion, he wrote:
" And what glory awaits those who fight unselfishly for the cause!
Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence.
The Maccabeans will rise again.
Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will
have it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our
own homes.
The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our
greatness.
And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react
powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity. "
(The Jewish State, Chapter 6).
Herzl largely ignored the presence of Arabs or other minorities in the prospective
Jewish State. He wrote in his diary however, that the natives of whatever land
was allotted to the Jews would be gently persuaded to move to other countries.
At that time, the Zionist movement was considering British offers for settlement in
Africa and Cyprus. As noted, by 1902 Herzl had a different perspective and
included Arab citizens in his vision of the Jewish State.
Der Judenstaat and Altneuland were visions of a Jewish state to be populated by
European Jewry, who in 1900 were far more numerous than the tiny remnant of
oriental and Sephardic Jews in Muslim lands and the Balkans. However, the
Jewish State of Israel was only established after the Holocaust had resulted in
the murder of about 40% of European Jewry, For most of the first fifty years of its
existence, Israel had an oriental, Sephardic majority. Nonetheless, Herzl's vision
dominated many aspects of the Zionist program for better or worse. Like Herzl,
Zionists ignored the presence of Arabs in Palestine. Like Herzl, they became
committed to the premise that Jews must return to performing productive work.
As in Herzl's utopian vision, Israel evolved, through conscious effort to an
advanced technological society. Herzl's vision of a secular, liberal democracy
inspired the Israeli Declaration of Independence, but the more enlightened
aspects of his program have not as yet found full expression in Israeli society.
Israel continues to discriminate against Arab citizens, and is increasingly
dominated by religious and chauvinistic tendencies.
Ami Isseroff
This preface is copyright by MidEastWeb and Ami Isseroff, 2002-2007.
This version corrected and proofread, 2007.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
Introduction
__________
It is astonishing how little insight into the science of economics many of the men
who move in the midst of active life possess. Hence it is that even Jews faithfully
repeat the cry of the Anti-Semites: "We depend for sustenance on the nations who
are our hosts, and if we had no hosts to support us we should die of starvation." This
is a point that shows how unjust accusations may weaken our self-knowledge. But
what are the true grounds for this statement concerning the nations that act as
"hosts"? Where it is not based on limited physiocratic views it is founded on the
childish error that commodities pass from hand to hand in continuous rotation. We
need not wake from long slumber, like Rip van Winkle, to realize that the world is
considerably altered by the production of new commodities. The technical progress
made during this wonderful era enables even a man of most limited intelligence to
note with his short-sighted eyes the appearance of new commodities all around him.
The spirit of enterprise has created them.
Labor without enterprise is the stationary labor of ancient days; and typical of it is
the work of the husbandman, who stands now just where his progenitors stood a
thousand years ago. All our material welfare has been brought about by men of
enterprise. I feel almost ashamed of writing down so trite a remark. Even if we were a
nation of entrepreneurs--such as absurdly exaggerated accounts make us out to be--
we should not require another nation to live on. We do not depend on the circulation
of old commodities, because we produce new ones.
The world possesses slaves of extraordinary capacity for work, whose appearance
has been fatal to the production of handmade goods: these slaves are the machines.
It is true that workmen are required to set machinery in motion; but for this we have
men in plenty, in super-abundance. Only those who are ignorant of the conditions of
Jews in many countries of Eastern Europe would venture to assert that Jews are
either unfit or unwilling to perform manual labor.
But I do not wish to take up the cudgels for the Jews in this pamphlet. It would be
useless. Everything rational and everything sentimental that can possibly be said in
their defense has been said already. If one's hearers are incapable of comprehending
them; one is a preacher in a desert. And if one's hearers are broad and high-minded
enough to have grasped them already, then the sermon Is superfluous. I believe in
the ascent of man to higher and yet higher grades of civilization; but I consider this
ascent to be desperately slow. Were we to wait till aver age humanity 'had become
as charitably inclined as was Lessing when he wrote "Nathan the Wise," we should
wait beyond our day, beyond the days of our children, of our grandchildren, and of
our great-grandchildren. But the world's spirit comes to our aid in another way.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
This century has given the world a wonderful renaissance by means of its technical
achievements; but at the same time its miraculous improvements have not been
employed in the service of humanity. Distance has ceased to be an obstacle, vet we
complain of insufficient space. Our great steamships carry us swiftly and surely over
hitherto unvisited seas. Our railways carry us safely into a mountain-world hitherto
tremblingly scaled on foot. Events occurring in countries undiscovered when Europe
confined the Jews in Ghettos are known to us in the course of an hour. Hence the
misery of the Jews is an anachronism -- not because there was a period of
enlightenment one hundred years ago, for that enlightenment reached in reality only
the choicest spirits.
I believe that electric light was not invented for the purpose of illuminating the
drawing-rooms of a few snobs, but rather for the purpose of throwing light on some
of the dark problems of humanity. One of these problems, and not the least of them,
is the Jewish question. In solving it we are working not only for ourselves, but also for
many other over-burdened and oppressed beings.
The Jewish question still exists. It would be foolish to deny it. It is a remnant of the
Middle Ages, which civilized nations do not: even yet seem able to shake off, try as
they will. They certainly showed a generous desire to do so when they emancipated
us. The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers. Where it
does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally
move to those places where we are not persecuted, and there our presence produces
persecution. This is the case in every country, and will remain so, even in those highly
civilized--for instance, France--until the Jewish question finds a solution on a political
basis. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of Anti-Semitism into
England; they have already introduced it into America.
I believe that I understand Anti-Semitism, which is really a highly complex movement.
I consider it from a Jewish standpoint, yet without fear or hatred. I believe that I can
see what elements there are in it of vulgar sport, of common trade jealousy, of
inherited prejudice, of religious intolerance, and also of pretended self-defense. I
think the Jewish question is no more a social than a religious one, notwithstanding
that it sometimes takes these and other forms. It is a national question, which can
only be solved by making it a political world-question to be discussed and settled by
the civilized nations of the world in council.
We are a people--one people.
We have honestly endeavored everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of
surrounding communities and to preserve the faith of our fathers. We are not
permitted to do so. In vain are we loyal patriots, our loyalty in some places running to
extremes; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow-
citizens; in vain do we strive to increase the fame of our native land in science and
art, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In countries where we have lived for
centuries we are still cried down as strangers. and often by those whose ancestors
were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already had experience of
suffering. The majority may decide which are the strangers; for this, as indeed every
point which arises in the relations between nations, is a question of might. I do not
here surrender any portion of our prescriptive right, when I make this statement
merely in my own name as an individual. In the world as it now is and for an indefinite
period wilt probably remain, might precedes right. It is useless, therefore, for us to be
loyal patriots, as were the Huguenots who were forced to emigrate. If we could only
be left in peace. . . .
But I think we shall not be left in peace.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
Oppression and persecution cannot exterminate us. No nation on earth has survived
such struggles and sufferings as we have gone through. Jew-baiting has merely
stripped off our weaklings; the strong among us were invariably true to their race
when persecution broke out against them. This attitude was most clearly apparent in
the period immediately following the emancipation of the Jews. Those Jews who were
advanced intellectually and materially entirely lost the feeling of belonging to their
race. Wherever our political well-being has lasted for any length of time, we have
assimilated with our surroundings. I think this is not discreditable. Hence, the
statesman who would wish to see a Jewish strain in his nation would have to provide
for the duration of our political well-being; and even a Bismarck could not do that.
For old prejudices against us still lie deep in the hearts of the people. He who would
have proofs of this need only listen to the people where they speak with frankness
and simplicity: proverb and fairy-tale are both Anti-Semitic. A nation is everywhere a
great child, which can certainly be educated; but its education would, even in most
favorable circumstances, occupy such a vast amount of time that we could, as
already mentioned, remove our own difficulties by other means long before the
process was accomplished.
Assimilation, by which I understood not only external conformity in dress, habits,
customs, and language, but also identity of feeling and manner--assimilation of Jews
could be effected only by intermarriage. But the need for mixed marriages would
have to be felt by the majority; their mere recognition by law would certainly not
suffice.
The Hungarian Liberals, who have just given legal sanction to mixed marriages, have
made a remarkable mistake which one of the earliest cases clearly illustrates; a
baptized Jew married a Jewess. At the same time the struggle to obtain the present
form of marriage accentuated distinctions between Jews and Christians, thus
hindering rather than aiding the fusion of races.
Those who really wished to see the Jews disappear through intermixture with other
nations, can only hope to see it come about in one way. The Jews must previously
acquire economic power sufficiently great to overcome the old social prejudice
against them. An example is provided by the aristocracy, among which the greatest
proportion of intermarriage occurs. The old nobility has itself refurbished with Jewish
money, and in the process Jewish families are absorbed. But what form would this
phenomenon assume in the middle classes, where (the Jews being a bourgeois
people) the Jewish question is mainly concentrated? A previous acquisition of power
could be synonymous with that economic supremacy which Jews are already
erroneously declared to possess. And if the power they now possess creates rage
and indignation among the Anti-Semites, what outbreaks would such an increase of
power create? Hence the first step towards absorption will never be taken, because
this step would involve the subjection of the majority to a hitherto scorned minority,
possessing neither military nor administrative power of its own. I think, therefore,
that the absorption of Jews by means of their prosperity is unlikely to occur. In
countries which now are Anti-Semitic my view will be approved. In others, where Jews
now feel comfortable, it will probably be violently disputed by them. My happier
coreligionists will not believe me till Jew-baiting teaches them the truth; for the
longer Anti-Semitism lies in abeyance the more fiercely will it break out. The
infiltration of immigrating Jews, attracted to a land by apparent security, and the
ascent in the social scale of native Jews, combine powerfully to bring about a
revolution. Nothing is plainer than this rational conclusion.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
Because I have drawn this conclusion with complete indifference to everything but
the quest of truth, I shall probably be contradicted and opposed by Jews who are in
easy circumstances. Insofar as private interests alone are held by their anxious or
timid possessors to be in danger, they can safely be ignored, for the concerns of the
poor and oppressed are of greater importance than theirs. But I wish from the outset
to prevent any misconception from arising, particularly the mistaken notion that my
project, if realized, would in the least degree injure property now held by Jews. I shall
therefore explain everything connected with rights of property very fully. Whereas, if
my plan never becomes anything more than a piece of literature, things will merely
remain as they are. It might more reasonably be objected that I am giving a handle to
anti-Semitism when I say we are a people--one people; that I am hindering the
assimilation of Jews where it is about to be consummated, and endangering it where
it is an accomplished fact, insofar as it is possible for a solitary writer to hinder, or
endanger anything. This objection will be especially brought forward in France. It will
probably also be made in other countries, but I shall answer only the French Jews
beforehand, because these afford the most striking example of my point.
However much I may worship personality-powerful individual personality in statesmen,
inventors, artists, philosophers, or leaders, as well as the collective personality of a
historic group of human beings, which we call a nation--however much I may worship
personality, I do not regret its disappearance. Whoever can, will, and must perish, let
him perish. But the distinctive nationality of Jews neither can, will, nor must be
destroyed. It cannot be destroyed, because external enemies consolidate it. It will
not be destroyed; this is shown during two thousand years of appalling suffering. It
must not be destroyed, and that, as a descendant of numberless Jews who refused
to despair, I am trying once more to prove in this pamphlet. Whole branches of
Judaism may wither and fall, but the trunk will remain.
Hence, if all or any of the French Jews protest against this scheme on account of
their own "assimilation," my answer is simple: The whole thing does not concern
them at all. They are Jewish Frenchmen, well and good! This is a private affair for the
Jews alone. The movement towards the organization of the State I am proposing
would, of course, harm Jewish Frenchmen no more than it would harm the
"assimilated" of other countries. It would, on the contrary, be distinctly to their
advantage. For they would no longer be disturbed in their "chromatic function," as
Darwin puts it, but would be able to assimilate in peace, because the present Anti-
Semitism would have been stopped for ever. They would certainly be credited with
being assimilated to the very depths of their souls, if they stayed where they were
after the new Jewish State, with its superior institutions, had become a reality. The
"assimilated" would profit even more than Christian citizens by the departure of
faithful Jews; for they would be rid of the disquieting, incalculable, and unavoidable
rivalry of a Jewish proletariat, driven by poverty and political pressure from place to
place, from land to land. This floating proletariat would become stationary. Many
Christian citizens--whom we call Anti-Semites -n now offer determined resistance to
the immigration of foreign Jews. Jewish citizens cannot do this, although it affects
them far more directly; for on them they feel first of all the keen competition of
individuals carrying on similar branches of industry, who, in addition, either introduce
Anti-Semitism where it does not exist, or intensify it where it does. The "assimilated"
give expression to this secret grievance in "philanthropic" undertakings. They
organize emigration societies for wandering Jews. There is a reverse to the picture
which would be comic, if it did not deal with human beings. For some of these
charitable institutions are created not for, but against, persecuted Jews; they are
created to dispatch these poor creatures just as fast and far as possible. And thus,
many an apparent friend of the Jews turns out, on careful inspection, to be nothing
more than an Anti-Semite of Jewish origin, disguised as a philanthropist.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
But the attempts at colonization made even by really benevolent men, interesting
attempts though they were, have so far been unsuccessful. I do not think that this or
that man took up the matter merely as an amusement, that they engaged in the
emigration of poor Jews as one indulges in the racing of horses. The matter was too
grave and tragic for such treatment. These attempts were interesting, in that they
represented on a small scale the practical fore-runners of the idea of a Jewish State.
They were even useful, for out of their mistakes may be gathered experience for
carrying the idea out successfully on a larger scale. They have, of course, done harm
also. The transportation of Anti-Semitism to new districts, which is the inevitable
consequence of such artificial infiltration, seems to me to be the least of these evils.
Far worse is the circumstance that unsatisfactory results tend to cast doubts on
intelligent men. What is impractical or impossible to simple argument will remove this
doubt from the minds of intelligent men. What is unpractical or impossible to
accomplish on a small scale, need not necessarily be so on a larger one. A small
enterprise may result in loss under the same conditions which would make a large one
pay. A rivulet cannot even be navigated by boats, the river into which it flows carries
stately iron vessels.
No human being is wealthy or powerful enough to transplant a nation from one
habitation to another. An idea alone can achieve that and this idea of a State may
have the requisite power to do so. The Jews have dreamt this kingly dream all
through the long nights of their history. "Next year in Jerusalem" is our old phrase. It
is now a question of showing that the dream can be converted into a living reality.
For this, many old, outgrown, confused and limited notions must first be entirely
erased from the minds of men. Dull brains might, for instance, imagine that this
exodus would be from civilized regions into the desert. That is not the case. It will be
carried out in the midst of civilization. We shall not revert to a lower stage, we shall
rise to a higher one. We shall not dwell in mud huts; we shall build new more beautiful
and more modern houses, and possess them in safety. We shall not lose our acquired
possessions we shall realize them. We shall surrender our well earned rights only for
better ones. We shall not sacrifice our be loved customs; we shall find them again.
We shall nor leave our old home before the new one is prepared for us Those only will
depart who are sure thereby to improve their position; those who are now desperate
will go first after them the poor; next the prosperous, and, last of all the wealthy.
Those who go in advance will raise themselves to a higher grade, equal to those
whose representatives will shortly follow. Thus the exodus will be at the same time
an ascent of the class.
The departure of the Jews will involve no economic disturbances, no crises, no
persecutions; in fact, the countries they abandon will revive to a new period of
prosperity. There will be an inner migration of Christian citizens into the positions
evacuated by Jews. The outgoing current will be gradual, without any disturbance,
and its initial movement will put an end to Anti-Semitism. The Jews will leave as
honored friends, and if some of them return, they will receive the same favorable
welcome and treatment at the hands of civilized nations as is accorded to all foreign
visitors. Their exodus will have no resemblance to a flight, for it will be a well-
regulated movement under control of public opinion. The movement will not only be
inaugurated with absolute conformity to law, but it cannot even be carried out
without the friendly cooperation of interested Governments, who would derive
considerable benefits from it.
Security for the integrity of the idea and the vigor of its execution will be found in
the creation of a body corporate, or corporation. This corporation will be called "The
Society of Jews." In addition to it there will be a Jewish company, an economically
productive body.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
An individual who attempted even to undertake this huge task alone would be either
an impostor or a madman. The personal character of the members of the corporation
will guarantee its integrity, and the adequate capital of the Company will prove its
stability.
These prefatory remarks are merely intended as a hasty reply to the mass of
objections which the very words "Jewish State" are certain to arouse. Henceforth we
shall proceed more slowly to meet further objections and to explain in detail what has
been as yet only indicated; and we shall try in the interests of this pamphlet to avoid
making it a dull exposition. Short aphoristic chapters will therefore best answer the
purpose.
If I wish to substitute a new building for an old one, I must demolish before I
construct. I shall therefore keep to this natural sequence. In the first and general part
1 shall explain my ideas, remove all prejudices, determine essential political and
economic conditions, and develop the plan.
In the special part, which is divided into three principal sections, I shall describe its
execution. These three sections are: The Jewish Company, Local Groups, and the
Society of Jews. The Society is to be created first, the Company last; but in this
exposition the reverse order is preferable, because it is the financial soundness of the
enterprise which will chiefly be called into question, and doubts on this score must be
removed first.
In the conclusion, I shall try to meet every further objection that could possibly be
made. My Jewish readers will, I hope, follow me patiently to the end. Some will
naturally make their objections in an order of succession other than that chosen for
their refutation. But whoever finds his doubts dispelled should give allegiance to the
cause.
Although I speak of reason, I am fully aware that reason alone will not suffice. Old
prisoners do not willingly leave their cells. We shall see whether the youth whom we
need are at our command--the youth, who irresistibly draw on the old, carry them
forward on strong arms, and transform rational motives into enthusiasm.
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The Jewish State - Theodore Herzl - 1896
T h e .. J e w i s h. Q u e s t i o n
__________
No one can deny the gravity of the situation of the Jews. Wherever they live in
perceptible numbers, they are more or less persecuted. Their equality before the law,
granted by statute, has become practically a dead letter. They are debarred from
filling even moderately high positions, either in the army, or in any public or private
capacity. And attempts are made to thrust them out of business also: "Don't buy
from Jews!"
Attacks in Parliaments, in assemblies, in the press, in the pulpit, in the street, on
journeys--for example, their exclusion from certain hotels--even in places of
recreation, become daily more numerous. The forms of persecution varying according
to the countries and social circles in which they occur. In Russia, imposts are levied
on Jewish villages; in Rumania, a few persons are put to death; in Germany, they get
a good beating occasionally; in Austria, Anti-Semites exercise terrorism over all public
life; in Algeria, there are traveling agitators; in Paris, the Jews are shut out of the so-
called best social circles and excluded from clubs. Shades of anti-Jewish feeling are
innumerable. But this is not to be an attempt to make out a doleful category of
Jewish hardships.
I do not intend to arouse sympathetic emotions on our behalf. That would be foolish,
futile, and undignified proceeding. I shall content myself with putting the following
questions to the Jews: Is it not true that, in countries where we live in perceptible
numbers, the position of Jewish lawyers, doctors, technicians, teachers, and
employees of all descriptions becomes daily more intolerable? Is it not true, that the
Jewish middle classes are seriously threatened? Is it not true, that the passions of
the mob are incited against our wealthy people? Is it not true, that our poor endure
greater sufferings than any other proletariat? I think that this external pressure
makes itself felt everywhere. In our economically upper classes it causes discomfort,
in our middle classes continual and grave anxieties, in our lower classes absolute
despair.
Everything tends, in fact, to one and the same conclusion, which is clearly enunciated
in that classic Berlin phrase: "Juden Raus" (Out with the Jews !)
shall now put the Question in the briefest possible form: Are we to "get out" now
and where to?
Or, may we yet remain? And, how long?
Let us first settle the point of staying where we are. Can we hope for better days,
can we possess our souls in patience, can we wait in pious resignation till the princes
and peoples of this earth are more mercifully disposed towards us? I say that we
cannot hope for a change in the current of feeling. And why not? Even if we were as
near to the hearts of princes as are their other subjects, they could not protect us.
They would only feel popular hatred by showing us too much favor. By "too much," I
really mean less than is claimed as a right by every ordinary citizen, or by every race.
The nations in whose midst Jews live are all either covertly or openly Anti-Semitic.
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The common people have not, and indeed cannot have, any historic comprehension.
They do not know that the sins of the Middle Ages are now being visited on the
nations of Europe. We are what the Ghetto made us. We have attained pre-eminence
in finance, because mediaeval conditions drove us to it. The same process is now
being repeated. We are again being forced into finance, now it is the stock exchange,
by being kept out of other branches of economic activity. Being on the stock
exchange, we are consequently exposed afresh to contempt. At the same time we
continue to produce an abundance of mediocre intellects who find no outlet, and this
endangers our social position as much as does our increasing wealth. Educated Jews
without means are now rapidly becoming Socialists. Hence we are certain to suffer
very severely in the struggle between classes, because we stand in the most
exposed position in the camps of both Socialists and capitalists.
PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION
The artificial means heretofore employed to overcome the troubles of Jews have
been either too petty -- such as attempts at colonization -- or attempts to convert
the Jews into peasants in their present homes. What is achieved by transporting a
few thousand Jews to another country? Either they come to grief at once, or
prosper, and then their prosperity creates Anti-Semitism. We have already discussed
these attempts to divert poor Jews to fresh districts. This diversion is clearly
inadequate and futile, if it does not actually defeat its own ends; for it merely
protracts and postpones a solution, and perhaps even aggravates difficulties.
Whoever would attempt to convert the Jew into a husbandman would be making an
extraordinary mistake. For a peasant is in a historical category, as proved by his
costume which in some countries he has worn for centuries; and by his tools, which
are identical with those used by his earliest forefathers. His plough is unchanged; he
carries the seed in his apron; mows with the historical scythe, and threshes with the
time-honored flail. But we know that all this can be done by machinery. The agrarian
question is only a question of machinery. America must conquer Europe, in the same
way as large landed possessions absorb small ones. The peasant is consequently a
type which is in course of extinction. Whenever he is artificially preserved, it is done
on account of the political interests which he is intended to serve. It is absurd, and
indeed impossible, to make modern peasants on the old pattern. No one is wealthy or
powerful enough to make civilization take a single retrograde step. The mere
preservation of obsolete institutions is a task severe enough to require the
enforcement of all the despotic measures of an autocratically governed State.
Are we, therefore, to credit Jews who are intelligent with a desire to become
peasants of the old type? One might just as well say to them: "Here is a cross-bow:
now go to war!" What? With a cross-bow, while the others have rifles and long range
guns? Under these circumstances the Jews' are perfectly justified in refusing to stir
when people try to make peasants of them. A cross-bow is a beautiful weapon, which
inspires me with mournful feelings when I have time to devote to them. But it
belongs by rights to a museum. Now, there certainly are districts to which desperate
Jews go out, or at any rate, are willing to go out and till the soil. And a little
observation shows that these districts -- such as the enclave of Hesse in Germany,
and some provinces in Russia -- these very districts are the principal seats of Anti-
Semitism.
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For the world's reformers, who send the Jews to the plough, forget a very important
person, who has a great deal to say on the matter. This person is the agriculturist,
and the agriculturist is also perfectly justified. For the tax on land, the risks attached
to crops, the pressure of large proprietors who cheapen labor, and American
competition in particular, combine to make his life hard enough. Besides, the duties
on corn cannot go on increasing indefinitely. Nor can the manufacturer be allowed to
starve; his political influence is, in fact, in the ascendant, and he must therefore be
treated with additional consideration.
All these difficulties are well known, therefore I refer to them only cursorily. I merely
wanted to indicate clearly how futile had been past attempts -- most of them well
intentioned -- to solve the Jewish Question. Neither a diversion of the stream, nor an
artificial depression of the intellectual level of our proletariat, will overcome the
difficulty. The supposed infallible expedient of assimilation has already been dealt
with. We cannot get the better of Anti-Semitism by any of these methods. It cannot
die out so long as its causes are not removed. Are they removable?
CAUSES OF ANTI-SEMITISM
We shall not again touch on those causes which are a result of temperament,
prejudice and narrow views, but shall here restrict ourselves to political and
economical causes alone. Modern Anti-Semitism is not to be confounded with the
religious persecution of the Jews of former times. It does occasionally take a religious
bias in some countries, but the main current of the aggressive movement has now
changed. In the principal countries where Anti-Semitism prevails, it does so as a
result of the emancipation of the Jews. When civilized nations awoke to the
inhumanity of discriminatory legislation and enfranchised us, our enfranchisement
came too late. It was no longer possible to remove our disabilities in our old homes.
For we had, curiously enough, developed while in the Ghetto into a bourgeois people,
and we stepped out of it only to enter into fierce competition with the middle
classes. Hence, our emancipation set us suddenly within this middle-class circle,
where we have a double pressure to sustain, from within and from without. The
Christian bourgeoisie would not be unwilling to cast us as a sacrifice to Socialism,
though that would not greatly improve matters.
At the same time, the equal rights of Jews before the law cannot be withdrawn
where they have once been conceded. Not only because their withdrawal would be
opposed to the spirit of our age, but also because it would immediately drive all
Jews, rich and poor alike, into the ranks of subversive parties. Nothing effectual can
really be done to our injury. In olden days our jewels were seized. How is our movable
property to be got hold of now? It consists of printed papers which are locked up
somewhere or other in the world, perhaps in the coffers of Christians. It is, of course,
possible to get at shares and debentures in railways, banks and industrial
undertakings of all descriptions by taxation, and where the progressive income-tax is
in force all our movable property can eventually be laid hold of. But all these efforts
cannot be directed against Jews alone, and wherever they might nevertheless be
made, severe economic crises would be their immediate consequences, which would
be by no means confined to the Jews who would be the first affected. The very
impossibility of getting at the Jews nourishes and embitters hatred of them. Anti-
Semitism increases day by day and hour by hour among the nations; indeed, it is
bound to increase, because the causes of its growth continue to exist and cannot be
removed. Its remote cause is our loss of the power of assimilation during the Middle
Ages; its immediate cause is our excessive production of mediocre intellects, who
cannot find an outlet downwards or upwards -- that is to say, no wholesome outlet in
either direction. When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the
subordinate officers of all revolutionary parties; and at the same time, when we rise,
there rises also our terrible power of the purse.
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EFFECTS OF ANTI-SEMITISM
The oppression we endure does not improve us, for we are not a whit better than
ordinary people. It is true that we do not love our enemies; but he alone who can
conquer himself dare reproach us with that fault. Oppression naturally creates
hostility against oppressors, and our hostility aggravates the pressure. It is
impossible to escape from this eternal circle.
"No!" Some soft-hearted visionaries will say: "No, it is possible! Possible by means of
the ultimate perfection of humanity."
s it necessary to point to the sentimental folly of this view? He who would found his
hope for improved conditions on the ultimate perfection of humanity would indeed be
relying upon a Utopia ! referred previously to our "assimilation". I do not for a
moment wish to imply that I desire such an end. Our national character is too
historically famous, and, in spite of every degradation, too fine to make its
annihilation desirable. We might perhaps be able to merge ourselves entirely into
surrounding races, if these were to leave us in peace for a period of two generations.
But they will not leave us in peace. For a little period they manage to tolerate us, and
then their hostility breaks out again and again. The world is provoked somehow by
our prosperity, because it has for many centuries been accustomed to consider us as
the most contemptible among the poverty-stricken. In its ignorance and narrowness
of heart, it fails to observe that prosperity weakens our Judaism and extinguishes our
peculiarities. It is only pressure that forces us back to the parent stem; it is only
hatred encompassing us that makes us strangers once more. Thus, whether we like it
or not, we are now, and shall henceforth remain, a historic group with unmistakable
characteristics common to us all.
We are one people--our enemies have made us one without our consent, as
repeatedly happens in history. Distress binds us together, and, thus united, we
suddenly discover our strength. Yes, we are strong enough to form a State, and,
indeed, a model State. We possess all human and material resources necessary for
the purpose.
This is therefore the appropriate place to give an account of what has been
somewhat roughly termed our "human material." But it would not be appreciated till
the broad lines of the plan, on which everything depends, has first been marked out.
THE PLAN
The whole plan is in its essence perfectly simple, as it must necessarily be if it is to
come within the comprehension of all.
Let the sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy
the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest we shall manage for ourselves.
The creation of a new State is neither ridiculous nor impossible. We have in our day
witnessed the process in connection with nations which were not largely members of
the middle class, but poorer, less educated, and consequently weaker than ourselves.
The Governments of all countries scourged by Anti-Semitism will be keenly interested
in assisting us to obtain the sovereignty we want.
The plan, simple in design, but complicated in execution, will be carried out by two
agencies: The Society of Jews and the Jewish Company.
The Society of Jews will do the preparatory work in the domains of science and
politics, which the Jewish Company will afterwards apply practically.
The Jewish Company will be the liquidating agent of the business interests of
departing Jews, and will organize commerce and trade in the new country.
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We must not imagine the departure of the Jews to be a sudden one. It will be
gradual, continuous, and will cover many decades. The poorest will go first to
cultivate the soil. In accordance with a preconceived plan, they will construct roads,
bridges, railways and telegraph installations; regulate rivers; and build their own
dwellings; their labor will create trade, trade will create markets and markets will
attract new settlers, for every man will go voluntarily, at his own expense and his
own risk. The labor expended on the land will enhance its value, and the Jews will
soon perceive that a new and permanent sphere of operation is opening here for that
spirit of enterprise which has heretofore met only with hatred and obloquy.
If we wish to found a State today, we shall not do it in the way which would have
been the only possible one a thousand years ago. It is foolish to revert to old stages
of civilization, as many Zionists would like to do. Supposing, for example, we were
obliged to clear a country of wild beasts, we should not set about the task in the
fashion of Europeans of the fifth century. We should not take spear and lance and go
out singly in pursuit of bears; we would organize a large and active hunting party,
drive the animals together, and throw a gelignite bomb into their midst.
If we wish to conduct building operations, we shall not plant a mass of stakes and
piles on the shore of a lake, but we shall build as men build now. Indeed, we shall
build in a bolder and more stately style than was ever adopted before, for we now
possess means which men never yet possessed.
The emigrants standing lowest in the economic scale will be slowly followed by those
of a higher grade. Those who at this moment are living in despair will go first. They
will be led by the mediocre intellects which we produce so superabundantly and which
are persecuted everywhere.
This pamphlet will open a general discussion on the Jewish Question, but that does
not mean that there will be any voting on it. Such a result would ruin the cause from
the outset, and dissidents must remember that allegiance or opposition is entirely
voluntary. He who will not come with us should remain behind.
Let all who are willing to join us, fall in behind our banner and fight for our cause with
voice and pen and deed.
Those Jews who agree with our idea of a State will attach themselves to the Society,
which will thereby be authorized to confer and treat with Governments in the name
of our people. The Society will thus be acknowledged in its relations with
Governments as a State-creating power. This acknowledgment will practically create
the State.
Should the Powers declare themselves willing to admit our sovereignty over a neutral
piece of land, then the Society will enter into negotiations for the possession of this
land. Here two territories come under consideration, Palestine and Argentine. In both
countries important experiments in colonization have been made, though on the
mistaken principle of a gradual infiltration of Jews. An infiltration is bound to end
badly. It continues till the inevitable moment when the native population feels itself
threatened, and forces the Government to stop a further influx of Jews. Immigration
is consequently futile unless we have the sovereign right to continue such
immigration.
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The Society of Jews will treat with the present masters of the land, putting itself
under the protectorate of the European Powers, if they prove friendly to the plan. We
could offer the present possessors of the land enormous advantages, assume part of
the public debt, build new roads for traffic, which our presence in the country would
render necessary, and do many other things. The creation of our State would be
beneficial to adjacent countries, because the cultivation of a strip of land increases
the value of its surrounding districts in innumerable ways.
PALESTINE OR ARGENTINE?
Shall we choose Palestine or Argentine? We shall take what is given us, and what is
selected by Jewish public opinion. The Society will determine both these points.
Argentine is one of the most fertile countries in the world, extends over a vast area,
has a sparse population and a mild climate. The Argentine Republic would derive
considerable profit from the cession of a portion of its territory to us. The present
infiltration of Jews has certainly produced some discontent, and it would be
necessary to enlighten the Republic on the intrinsic difference of our new movement.
Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would
attract our people with a force of marvelous potency. If His Majesty the Sultan were
to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of
Turkey. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an
outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain
in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence. The
sanctuaries of Christendom would be safeguarded by assigning to them an extra-
territorial status such as is well-known to the law of nations. We should form a guard
of honor about these sanctuaries, answering for the fulfillment of this duty with our
existence. This guard of honor would be the great symbol of the solution of the
Jewish question after eighteen centuries of Jewish suffering.
DEMAND, MEDIUM, TRADE
I said in the last chapter, "The Jewish Company will organize trade and commerce in
the new country." I shall here insert a few remarks on that point.
A scheme such as mine is gravely imperiled if it is opposed by "practical" people.
Now "practical" people are as a rule nothing more than men sunk into the groove of
daily routine, unable to emerge from a narrow circle of antiquated ideas. At the same
time, their adverse opinion carries great weight, and can do considerable harm to a
new project, at any rate until this new thing is sufficiently strong to throw the
"practical" people and their moldy notions to the winds.
In the earliest period of European railway construction some "practical" people were
of the opinion that it was foolish to build certain lines "because there were not even
sufficient passengers to fill the mail-coaches." They did not realize the truth -- which
now seems obvious to us -- that travelers do not produce railways, but, conversely,
railways produce travelers, the latent demand, of course, is taken for granted.
The impossibility of comprehending how trade and commerce are to be created in a
new country which has yet to be acquired and cultivated, may be classed with those
doubts of "practical" persons concerning the need of railways. A "practical" person
would express himself somewhat in this fashion:
"Granted that the present situation of the Jews is in many plates unendurable, and
aggravated day by day; granted that there exists a desire to emigrate; granted even
that the Jews do emigrate to the new country; how will they earn their living there,
and what will they earn? What are they to live on when there! The business of many
people cannot be artificially organized in a day.
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To this I should reply: We have not the slightest intention of organizing trade
artificially, and we should certainly not attempt to do it in a day. But, though the
organization of it may be impossible, the promotion of it is not. And how is
commerce to be encouraged? Through the medium of a demand. The demand
recognized, the medium created, it will establish itself.
If there is a real earnest demand among Jews for an improvement of their status; if
the medium to be created -- the Jewish Company -- is sufficiently powerful, then
commerce will extend itself freely in the new country.
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T h e .. J e w i s h .. C o m p a n y
__________
OUTLINES
The Jewish Company is partly modeled on the lines of a great land-acquisition
company. It might be called a Jewish Chartered Company, though it cannot exercise
sovereign power, and has other than purely colonial tasks.
The Jewish Company will be founded as a joint stock company subject to English
jurisdiction, framed according to English laws, and under the protection of England.
Its principal center will be London. I cannot tell yet how large the Company's capital
should be; I shall leave that calculation to our numerous financiers. But to avoid
ambiguity, I shall put it at a thousand million marks (about £50,000,000 or
$200,000,000); it may be either more or less than that sum. The form of
subscription, which will be further elucidated, will determine what fraction of the
whole amount must be paid in at once.
The Jewish Company is an organization with a transitional character. It is strictly a
business undertaking, and must be carefully distinguished from the Society of Jews.
The Jewish Company will first of all convert into cash all vested interests left by
departing Jews. The method adopted will prevent the occurrences of crises, secure
every man's property, and facilitate that inner migration of Christian citizens which
has already been indicated.
NON-TRANSFERABLE GOODS
The non-transferable goods which come under consideration are buildings, land, and
local business connections. The Jewish Company will at first take upon itself no more
than the necessary negotiations for effecting the sale of these goods. These Jewish
sales will take place freely and without any serious fall in prices. The Company's
branch establishments in various towns will become the central offices for the sale of
Jewish estates, and will charge only so much commission on transactions as will
ensure their financial stability.
The development of this movement may cause a considerable fall in the prices of
landed property, and may eventually make it impossible to find a market for it. At
this juncture the Company will enter upon another branch of its functions. It will take
over the management of abandoned estates till such time as it can dispose of them
to the greatest advantage. It will collect house rents, let out land on lease, and install
business managers -- these, on account of the required supervision, being, if possible,
tenants also. The Company will endeavor everywhere to facilitate the acquisition of
land by its tenants, who are Christians. It win, indeed, gradually replace its own
officials in the European branches by Christian substitutes (lawyers, etc.); and these
are not by any means to become servants of the Jews; they are intended to be free
agents to the Christian population, so that everything may be carried through in
equity, fairness and justice, and without imperiling the internal welfare of the people.
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At the same time the Company will sell estates, or, rather, exchange them. For a
house it will offer a house in the new country; and for land, land in the new country;
everything being, if possible, transferred to the new soil in the same state as it was
in the old. And this transfer will be a great and recognized source of profit to the
Company. "Over there" the houses offered in exchange will be newer, more beautiful,
and more comfortably fitted, and the landed estates of greater value than those
abandoned; but they will cost the Company comparatively little, because it will have
bought the ground very cheaply.
PURCHASE OF LAND
The land which the Society of Jews will have secured by international law must, of
course, be privately acquired. Provisions made by individuals for their own settlement
do not come within the province of this general account. But the Company will
require large areas for its own needs and ours, and these it must secure by
centralized purchase. It will negotiate principally for the acquisition of fiscal domains,
with the great object of taking possession of this land "over there" without paying a
price too high, in the same way as it sells here without accepting one too low. A
forcing of prices is not to be considered, because the value of the land will be
created by the Company through its organizing the settlement in conjunction with
the supervising Society of Jews. The latter will see to it that the enterprise does not
become a Panama, but a Suez.
The Company will sell building sites at reasonable rates to its officials, and will allow
them to mortgage these for the building of their homes, deducting the amount due
from their salaries, or putting it down to their account as increased emolument. This
will, in addition to the honors they expect, will be additional pay for their services.
All the immense profits of this speculation in land will go to the Company, which is
bound to receive this indefinite premium in return for having borne the risk of the
undertaking. When the undertaking involves any risk, the profits must be freely given
to those who have borne it. But under no other circumstances will profits be
permitted. Financial morality consists in the correlation of risk and profit. BUILDINGS
The Company will thus barter houses and estates. It must be plain to any one who
has observed the rise in the value of land through its cultivation that the Company
will be bound to gain on its landed property. This can best be seen in the case of
enclosed pieces of land in town and country. Areas not built over increase in value
through surrounding cultivation. The men who carried out the extension of Paris
made a successful speculation in land which was ingenious in its simplicity; instead of
erecting new buildings in the immediate vicinity of the last houses of the town, they
bought up adjacent pieces of land, and began to build on the outskirts of these. This
inverse order of construction raised the value of building sites with extraordinary
rapidity, and, after having completed the outer ring, they built in the middle of the
town on these highly valuable sites, instead of continually erecting houses at the
extremity.
Will the Company do its own building, or employ independent architects! It can, and
will, do both. It has, as will be shown shortly, an immense reserve of working power,
which will not be sweated by the Company, but, transported into brighter and happier
conditions of life, will nevertheless not be expensive. Our geologists will have looked
to the provision of building materials when they selected the sites of the towns.
What is to be the principle of construction?
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WORKMEN'S DWELLINGS
The workmen's dwellings (which include the dwellings of all operatives) will be
erected at the Company's own risk and expense. They will resemble neither those
melancholy workmen's barracks of European towns, nor those miserable rows of
shanties which surround factories; they will certainly present a uniform appearance,
because the Company must build cheaply where it provides the building materials to
a great extent; but the detached houses in little gardens will be united into attractive
groups in each locality. The natural conformation of the land will rouse the ingenuity
of our young architects, whose ideas have not yet been cramped by routine; and
even ii the people do not grasp the whole import of the plan, they will at any rate
feel at ease in their loose clusters. The Temple will be visible from long distances, for
it is only our ancient faith that has kept us together. There will be light, attractive,
healthy schools for children, conducted on the most approved modern systems.
There will be continuation-schools for workmen, which will educate them in greater
technical knowledge and enable them to be come intimate with the working of
machinery. There will be places of amusement for the proper conduct of which the
Society of Jews will be responsible.
We are, however, speaking merely of the buildings at present, and not of what may
take place inside of them.
I said that the Company would build workmen's dwellings cheaply. And cheaply, not
only because of the proximity of abundant building materials, not only because of the
Company's proprietorship of the sites, but also because of the non-payment of
workmen.
American farmers work on the system of mutual assistance in the construction of
houses. This childishly amicable system, which is as clumsy as the block-houses
erected, can be developed on much finer lines.
UNSKILLED LABORERS
Our unskilled laborers, who will come at first from the great reservoirs of Russia and
Rumania, must, of course, render each other assistance, in the construction of
houses. They will be obliged to build with wood in the beginning, because iron will not
be immediately available. Later on the original, inadequate, makeshift buildings will be
replaced by superior dwellings.
Our unskilled laborers will first mutually erect these shelters; and then they will earn
their houses as permanent possessions by means of their work -- not immediately,
but after three years of good conduct. In this way we shall secure energetic and able
men, and these men will be practically trained for life by three years of labor under
good discipline. I said before that the Company would not have to pay these unskilled
laborers. What will they live on?
On the whole, I am opposed to the Truck system,[the practice of paying the
workman's wages in goods instead of money.] but it will have to be applied in the
case of these first settlers. The Company provides for them in so many ways, that it
may take charge of their maintenance. In any case the Truck system will be enforced
only during the first few years, and it will benefit the workmen by preventing their
being exploited by small traders, landlords, etc. The Company will thus make it
impossible from the outset for those of our people, who are perforce hawkers and
peddlers here, to reestablish themselves in the same trades over there. And the
Company will also keep back drunkards and dissolute men. Then will there be no
payment of wages at all during the first period of settlement. Certainly, there will be
wages for overtime.
THE SEVEN-HOUR DAY
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The seven-hour day is the regular working day.
This does not imply that wood-cutting, digging, stone breaking, and a hundred other
daily tasks should only t performed during seven hours. Indeed not. There will t
fourteen hours of labor, work being done in shifts of three and a half hours. The
organization of all this will be military in character; there will be commands,
promotions and pensions, the means by which these pensions are provided being
explained further on.
A sound man can do a great deal of concentrated work in three and a half hours.
After an interval of the same length of time -- which he will devote to rest, to his
family and to his education under guidance -- he will be quite fresh for work again.
Such labor can do wonders. The seven-hour day thus implies fourteen hours of joint
labor -- more than that cannot be put into a day.
I am convinced that it is quite possible to introduce the seven-hour day with success.
The attempts to do so in Belgium and England are well known. Some advanced
political economists who have studied the subject, declare that a five-hour day would
suffice. The Society of Jew and the Jewish Company will, in any case, make net and
extensive experiments which will benefit the other nations of the world; and if the
seven-hour day prove itself practicable, it will be introduced in our future State as
the legal and regular working day.
Meantime, the Company will always allow its employees the seven-hour day; and it
will always be in a position to do so.
The seven-hour day will be the call to summon our people in every part of the world.
All must come voluntarily, for ours must indeed be the Promised Land.
Whoever works longer than seven hours receives his additional pay for overtime in
cash. Seeing that all his needs are supplied, and that those members of his family
who are unable to work are provided for by transplanted and centralized philanthropic
institutions, he can save a little money. Thrift, which is already a characteristic of our
people, should be greatly encouraged, because it will, in the first place, facilitate the
rise of individuals to higher grades; and secondly, the money saved will provide an
immense reserve fund for future loans. Overtime will only be permitted on a doctor's
certificate, and must not exceed three hours. For our men will crowd to work in the
new country, and the world will see then what an industrious people we are.
I shall not describe the mode of carrying out the Truck system, nor, in fact, the
innumerable details of any process, for fear of confusing my readers. Women will not
be allowed to perform any arduous labor, nor to work overtime.
Pregnant women will be relieved of all work, and will be supplied with nourishing food
by the Truck. We want our future generations to be strong men and women.
We shall educate children as we wish from the commencement; but this I shall not
elaborate either.
My remarks on workmen's dwellings, and on unskilled laborers and their mode of life,
are no more Utopian than the rest of my scheme. Everything I have spoken of is
already being put into practice, only on an utterly small scale, neither noticed nor
understood. The "Assistance par le Travail," which I learned to know and understand
in Paris, was of great service to me in the solution of the Jewish question.
RELIEF BY LABOR
The system of relief by labor which is now applied in Paris, in many other French
towns, in England, in Switzerland, and in America, is a very small thing, but capable of
the greatest expansion.
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What is the principle of relief by labor?
The principle is: to furnish every needy man with easy, unskilled work, such as
chopping wood, or cutting faggots used for lighting stoves in Paris households. This
is a kind of prison-work before the crime, done without loss of character. It is meant
to prevent men from taking to crime out of want, by providing them with work and
testing their willingness to do it. Starvation must never be allowed to drive men to
suicide; for such suicides are the deepest disgrace to a civilization which allows rich
men to throw tidbits to their dogs.
Relief by labor thus provides every one with work. But the system has a great defect;
there is not a sufficiently large demand for the production of the unskilled workers
employed, hence there is a loss to those who employ them; though it is true that the
organization is philanthropic, and therefore prepared for loss. But here the
benefaction lies only in the difference between the price paid for the work and its
actual value: Instead of giving the beggar two sous, the institution supplies him with
work on which it loses two sous. But at the same time it converts the good-for-
nothing beggar into an honest breadwinner, who has earned perhaps 1 franc 50
centimes. 150 centimes for 10! That is to say, the receiver of a benefaction in which
there is nothing humiliating has increased it fifteenfold! That is to say, fifteen
thousand millions for one thousand millions !
The institution certainly loses 10 centimes. But the Jewish Company will not lose one
thousand millions; it will draw enormous profits from this expenditure .
There is a moral side also. The small system of relief by labor which exists now
preserves rectitude through industry till such time as the man who is out of work
finds a post suitable to his capacities, either in his old calling or in a new one. He is
allowed a few hours daily for the purpose of looking for a place, in which task the
institutions assist him.
The defect of these small organizations, so far, has be that they have been
prohibited from entering into competition with timber merchants, etc. Timber
merchants are electors; they would protest, and would be justified in protesting.
Competition with State prison-labor has all been forbidden, for the State must
occupy and feed criminals.
In fact, there is very little room in an old-establish society for the successful
application of the system "Assistance par le Travail." But there is room in a new
society.
For, above all we require enormous numbers of unskilled laborers to do the first
rough work of settlement, to lay down roads, plant trees, level the ground, construct
railroads, telegraph installations, etc. All this will be carried out in accordance with a
large and previously settled plan.
COMMERCE
The labor carried to the new country will naturally create trade. The first markets will
supply only the absolute necessities of life; cattle, grain, working clothes, tools, arms
-- to mention just a few things. These we shall obliged at first to procure from
neighboring States, or from Europe; but we shall make ourselves independent as soon
as possible. The Jewish entrepreneurs will soon realize the business prospects that
the new country offers.
The army of the Company's officials will gradually introduce more refined
requirements of life. (Officials include officers of our defensive forces, who will always
form about a tenth part of our male colonists. They will be sufficiently numerous to
quell mutinies, for the majority of our colonists will be peaceably inclined.)
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The refined requirements of life introduced by our officials in good positions will
create a correspondingly improved market, which will continue to better itself. The
married man will send for wife and children, and the single for parents and relatives,
as soon as a new home is established "over there." The Jews who emigrate to the
United States always proceed in this fashion. As soon as one of them has daily bread
and a roof over his head, he sends for his people; for family ties are strong among us.
The Society of Jews and the Jewish Company will unite in caring for and
strengthening the family still more, not only morally, but materially also. The officials
will receive additional pay on marriage and on the birth of children, for we need all
who are there, and all who will follow.
OTHER CLASSES OF DWELLINGS
I described before only workmen's dwellings built by themselves, and omitted all
mention of other classes of dwellings. These I shall now touch upon. The Company's
architects will build for the poorer classes of citizens also, being paid in kind or cash;
about a hundred different types of houses will be erected, and, of course, repeated.
These beautiful types will form part of our propaganda. The soundness of their
construction will be guaranteed by the Company, which will, indeed, gain nothing by
selling them to settlers at a fixed sum. And where will these houses be situated?
That will be shown in the section dealing with Local Groups.
Seeing that the Company does not wish to earn anything on the building works but
only on the land, it will desire as many architects as possible to build by private
contract. This system will increase the value of landed property, and it will introduce
luxury, which serves many purposes. Luxury encourages arts and industries, paving
the way to a future subdivision of large properties
Rich Jews who are now obliged carefully to secrete their valuables, and to hold their
dreary banquets behind lowered curtains, will be able to enjoy their possessions in
peace "over there." If they cooperate in carrying out this emigration scheme, their
capital will be rehabilitated and will have served to promote an unexampled
undertaking. If in the new settlement rich Jews begin to rebuild their mansions which
are stared at in Europe with such envious eyes, it will soon become fashionable to live
over there in beautiful modern houses.
SOME FORMS OF LIQUIDATION
The Jewish Company is intended to be the receiver and administrator of the non-
transferable goods of the Jews.
Its methods of procedure can be easily imagined in the case of houses and estates,
but what methods will it adopt in the transfer of businesses?
Here numberless processes may be found practicable, which cannot all be enlarged
on in this outline. But none of them will present any great difficulties, for in each case
the business proprietor, when he voluntarily decides to emigrate, will settle with the
Company's officers in his district on the most advantageous form of liquidation.
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This will most easily be arranged in the case of small employers, in whose trades the
personal activity of the proprietor is of chief importance, while goods and
organization are a secondary consideration. The Company will provide a certain field
of operation for the emigrant's personal activity, and will substitute a piece of
ground, with loan of machinery, for his goods. Jews are known to adapt themselves
with remarkable ease to any form of earning a livelihood, and they will quickly learn to
carry on a new industry. In this way a number of small traders will become small
landholders. The Company will, in fact, be prepared to sustain what appears to be a
loss in taking over the non-transferable property of the poorest emigrants; for it will
thereby induce the free cultivation of tracts of land, which raises the value of
adjacent tracts.
In medium-sized businesses, where goods and organization equal, or even exceed, in
importance, the personal activity of the manager, whose larger connection is also
non-transferable, various forms of liquidation are possible. Here comes an
opportunity for that inner migration of Christian citizens into positions evacuated by
Jews. The departing Jew will not lose his personal business credit, but will carry it
with him, and make good use of it in a new country to establish himself. The Jewish
Company will open a current bank account for him. And he can sell the goodwill of his
original business, or hand it over to the control of managers under supervision of the
Company's officials. The managers may rent the business or buy it, paying for it by
installments. But the Company acts temporarily as curator for the emigrants, in
superintending, through its officers and lawyers, the administration of their affairs,
and seeing to the proper collection of all payments.
If a Jew cannot sell his business, or entrust it to a proxy or wish to give up its
personal management, he may stay where he is. The Jews who stay will be none the
worse off, for they will be relieved of the competition of those who leave, and will no
longer hear the Anti-Semitic cry: "Don't buy from Jews!"
If the emigrating business proprietor wishes to carry on his old business in the new
country, he can make his arrangements for it from the very commencement. An
example will best illustrate my meaning. The film X carries on a large business in dry
goods. The head of the firm wishes to emigrate. He begins by setting up a branch
establishment in his future place of residence, and sending out samples of his stock.
The first poor settlers will be his first customers; these will be followed by emigrants
of a higher class, who require superior goods. X then sends out newer goods, and
eventually ships his newest. The branch establishment begins to pay while the
principal one is still in existence, so that X ends by having two paying business-
houses. He sells his original business or hands it over to his Christian representative
to manage, and goes off to take charge of the new one.
Another and greater example: Y and Son are large coal-traders, with mines and
factories of their own. How is so huge and complex a property to be liquidated' The
mines and everything connected with them might, in the first place, be bought up by
the State, in which they are situated. In the second place, the Jewish Company might
take them over, paying for them partly in land, partly in cash. A third method might
be the conversion of "Y and Son" into a limited company. A fourth method might be
the continued working of the business under the original proprietors, who would
return at intervals to inspect their property, as foreigners, and as such, under the
protection of law in every civilized State. All these suggestions are carried out daily.
A fifth and excellent method, and one which might be particularly profitable, I shall
merely indicate, because the existing examples of its working are at present few,
however ready the modern consciousness may be to adopt them. Y and Son might
sell their enterprise to the collective body of their employees, who would form a
cooperative society, with Limited liability, and might perhaps pay the requisite sum
with the help of the State Treasury, which does not charge high interest.
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The employees would then gradually pay off the loan, which either the Government
or the Jewish Company, or even Y and Son, would have advanced to them.
The Jewish Company will be prepared to conduct the transfer of the smallest affairs
equally with the largest. And whilst the Jews quietly emigrate and establish their new
homes, the Company acts as the great controlling body, which organizes the
departure, takes charge of deserted possessions, guarantees the proper conduct of
the movement with its own visible and tangible property, and provides permanent
security for those who have already settled.
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SECURITIES OF THE COMPANY
What assurance will the Company offer that the abandonment of countries will not
cause their impoverishment and produce economic crises?
I have already mentioned that honest Anti-Semites, whilst preserving their
independence, will combine with our officials in controlling the transfer of our
estates. But the State revenues might suffer by the loss of a body of taxpayers,
who, though little appreciated as citizens, are highly valued in finance. The State
should, therefore, receive compensation for this loss. This we offer indirectly by
leaving in the country businesses which we have built up by means of Jewish acumen
and Jewish industry, by letting our Christian fellow-citizens move into our evacuated
positions, and by this facilitating the rise of numbers of people to greater prosperity
so peaceably and in so unparalleled a manner. The French Revolution had a somewhat
similar result, on a small scale, but it was brought about by bloodshed on the
guillotine in every province of France, and on the battlefields of Europe. Moreover,
inherited and acquired rights were destroyed, and only cunning buyers enriched
themselves by the purchase of State properties.
The Jewish Company will offer to the States that come within its sphere of activity
direct as well as indirect advantages. It will give Governments the first offer of
abandoned Jewish property, and allow buyers most favorable conditions.
Governments, again, will be able to make use of this friendly appropriation of land for
the purpose of certain social improvements.
The Jewish Company will give every assistance to Governments and Parliaments in
their efforts to direct the inner migration of Christian citizens.
The Jewish Company will also pay heavy taxes. Its central office will be in London, so
as to be under the legal protection of a power which is not at present Anti-Semitic.
But the Company, if it is supported officially and semi-officially, will everywhere
provide a broad basis of taxation. To this end, it will establish taxable branch offices
everywhere. Further, it will pay double duties on the two-fold transfer of goods which
it accomplishes. Even in transactions where the Company is really nothing more than
a real estate agency, it will temporarily appear as a purchaser, and will be set down
as the momentary possessor in the register of landed property.
These are, of course, purely calculable matters. It will have to be considered and
decided in each place how far the Company can go without running any risks of
failure. And the Company itself will confer freely with Finance ministers on the various
points at issue. Ministers will recognize the friendly spirit of our enterprise, and will
consequently offer every facility in their power necessary for the successful
achievement of the great undertaking.
Further and direct profit will accrue to Governments from the transport of
passengers and goods, and where railways are State property the returns will be
immediately recognizable. Where they are held by private companies, the Jewish
Company will receive favorable terms for transport, in the same way as does every
transmitter of goods on a large scale. Freight and carriage must be made as cheap as
possible for our people, because every traveler will pay his own expenses. The middle
classes will travel with Cook's tickets, the poorer classes in emigrant trains. The
Company might make a good deal by reductions on passengers and goods; but here,
as elsewhere, it must adhere to its principle of not trying to raise its receipts to a
greater sum than will cover its working expenses.
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In many places Jews have control of the transport; and the transport businesses will
be the first needed by the Company and the first to be liquidated by it. The original
owners of these concerns will either enter the Company's service, or establish
themselves independently "over there." The new arrivals will certainly require their
assistance, and theirs being a paying profession, which they may and indeed must
exercise there to earn a living, numbers of these enterprising spirits will depart. It is
unnecessary to describe all the business details of this monster expedition. They
must be judiciously evolved out of the original plan by many able men, who must
apply their minds to achieving the best system.
SOME OF THE COMPANY'S ACTIVITIES
Many activities will be interconnected. For example: the Company will gradually
introduce the manufacture of goods into the settlements which will, of course, be
extremely primitive at their inception. Clothing, linens, and shoes will first of all be
manufactured for our own poor emigrants, who will be provided with new suits of
clothing at the various European emigration centers. They will not receive these
clothes as alms, which might hurt their pride, but in exchange for old garments: any
loss the Company sustains by this transaction will be booked as a business loss.
Those who are absolutely without means will pay off their debt to the Company by
working over-time at a fair rate of wage.
Existing emigration societies will be able to give valuable assistance here, for they will
do for the Company's colonists what they did before for departing Jews. The forms
of such cooperation will easily be found.
Even the new clothing of the poor settlers will have the symbolic meaning. "You are
now entering on a new life." The Society of Jews will see to it that long before the
departure and also during the journey a serious yet festive spirit is fostered by
means of prayers, popular lectures, instruction on the object of the expedition,
instruction on hygienic matters for their new places of residence, and guidance in
regard to their future work. For the Promised Land is the land of work. On their
arrival, the emigrants will be welcomed by our chief officials with due solemnity, but
without foolish exultation, for the Promised Land will not yet have been conquered.
But these poor people should already see that they are at home.
The clothing industries of the Company will, of course, not produce their goods
without proper organization. The Society of Jews will obtain from the local branches
information about the number, requirements and date of arrival of the settlers, and
will communicate all such information in good time to the Jewish Company. In this
way it will be possible to provide for them with every precaution.
PROMOTION OF INDUSTRIES
The duties of the Jewish Company and the Society of Jews cannot be kept strictly
apart in this outline. These two great bodies will have to work constantly in unison,
the Company depending on the moral authority and support of the Society, just as
the Society cannot dispense with the material assistance of the Company. For
example, in the organizing of the clothing industry, the quantity produced will at first
be kept down so as to preserve an equilibrium between supply and demand; and
wherever the Company undertakes the organization of new industries the same
precaution must be exercised.
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But individual enterprise must never be checked by the Company with its superior
force. We shall only work collectively when the immense difficulties of the task
demand common action; we shall, wherever possible, scrupulously respect the rights
of the individual. Private property, which is the economic basis of independence, shall
be developed freely and be respected by us. Our first unskilled laborers will at once
have the opportunity to work their way up to private proprietorship.
The spirit of enterprise must, indeed, be encouraged in every possible way.
Organization of industries will be promoted by a judicious system of duties, by the
employment of cheap raw material, and by the institution of a board to collect and
publish industrial statistics.
But this spirit of enterprise must be wisely encouraged, and risky speculation must
be avoided. Every new industry must be advertised for a long period before
establishment, so as to prevent failure on the part of those who might wish to start
a similar business six months later. Whenever a new industrial establishment is
founded, the Company should be informed, so that all those interested may obtain
information from it.
Industrialists will be able to make use of centralized labor agencies, which will only
receive a commission large enough to ensure their continuance. The industrialists
might, for example, telegraph for 500 unskilled laborers for three days, three weeks,
or three months. The labor agency would then collect these 500 unskilled laborers
from every possible source, and dispatch them at once to carry out the agricultural
or industrial enterprise. Parties of work-men will thus be systematically drafted from
place to place like a body of troops. These men will, of course, not be sweated, but
will work only a seven-hour day; and, in spite of their change of locality, they will
preserve their organization, work out their term of service, and receive commands,
promotions, and pensions. Some establishments may, of course, be able to obtain
their wiorkmen from other sources, if they wish, but they will not find it easy to do
so. The Society will be able to prevent the introduction of non-Jewish work-slaves by
boycotting obstinate employers, by obstructing traffic, and by various other
methods. The seven-hour workers will therefore have to be taken, and we shall thus
bring our people gradually, and without coercion, to adopt the normal seven-hour
day.
SETTLEMENT OF SKILLED LABORERS
It is clear that what can be done for unskilled workers can be even more easily done
for skilled laborers. These will work under similar regulations in the factories, and the
central labor agency will provide them when required.
Independent operatives and small employers, must be carefully taught on account of
the rapid progress of scientific improvements, must acquire technical knowledge
even if no longer very young men, must study the power of water, and appreciate
the forces of electricity. Independent workers must also be discovered and supplied
by the Society's agency. The local branch will apply, for example, to the central
office: "We want so many carpenters, locksmiths, glaziers, etc." The central office
will publish this demand, and the proper men will apply there for the work. These
would then travel with their families to the place where they were wanted, and would
remain there without feeling the pressure of undue competition. A permanent and
comfortable home would thus be provided for them.
METHOD OF RAISING CAPITAL
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The capital required for establishing the Company was previously put at what seemed
an absurdly high figure. The amount actually necessary will be fixed by financiers, and
will in any case be a very considerable sum. There are three ways of raising this sum,
all of which the Society will take under consideration. This Society, the great
"Gestor" of the Jews, will be formed by our best and most upright men, who must
not derive any material advantage from their membership. Although the Society
cannot at the outset possess any but moral authority, this authority will suffice to
establish the credit of the Jewish Company in the nation's eyes. The Jewish Company
will be unable to succeed in its enterprise unless it has received the Society's
sanction; it will thus not be formed of any mere indiscriminate group of financiers.
For the Society will weigh, Select and decide, and will not give its approbation till it is
sure of the existence of a sound basis for the conscientious carrying out of the
scheme. It will not permit experiments with insufficient means, for this undertaking
must succeed at the first attempt. Any initial failure would compromise the whole
idea for many decades to come, or might even make its realization permanently
impossible.
The three methods of raising capital are: (1) Through big banks; (2) Through small
and private banks; (3) Through public subscription.
The first method of raising capital is: Through big banks. The required sum could then
be raised in the shortest possible time among the large financial groups, after they
had discussed the advisability of the course. The great advantage of this method
would be that it would avoid the necessity of paying in the thousand millions (to
keep to the original figure), immediately in its entirety. A further advantage would be
that the credit of these powerful financiers would also be of service to the
enterprise. Many latent political forces lie in our financial power, that power which our
enemies assert to be so effective. It might be so, but actually it is not. Poor Jews
feel only the hatred which this financial power provokes; its use in alleviating their lot
as a body, they have not yet felt. The credit of our great Jewish financiers would
have to be placed at the service of the National Idea. But should these gentlemen,
who are quite satisfied with their lot, feel indisposed to do anything for their fellow-
Jews who re unjustly held responsible for the large possessions of certain individuals,
then the realization of this plan will afford an opportunity for drawing a clear line of
distinction between them and the rest of Jewry.
The great financiers, moreover, will certainly not be asked to raise an amount so
enormous out of pure philanthropic motives; that would be expecting too much. The
promoters and stock holders of the Jewish Company are, on the contrary, expected
to do a good piece of business, and they will be able to calculate beforehand what
their chances of success are likely to be. For the Society of Jews will be in possession
of all documents and references which may serve to define the prospects of the
Jewish Company. The Society will in particular have investigated with exactitude the
extent of the new Jewish movement, so as to provide the Company promoters with
thoroughly reliable information on the amount of support they may expect. The
Society will also supply the Jewish Company with comprehensive modern Jewish
statistics, thus doing the work of what is called in France a "societé d'études," which
undertakes all preliminary research previous to the financing of a great undertaking.
Even so, the enterprise may not receive the valuable assistance of our moneyed
magnates. These might, perhaps, even try to oppose the Jewish movement by
means of their secret agents. Such opposition we shall meet with relentless
determination.
Supposing that these magnates are content simply to turn this scheme down with a
smile:
Is it, therefore, done for?
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No.
For then the money will be raised in another way -- by an appeal to moderately rich
Jews. The smaller Jewish banks would have to be united in the name of the National
Idea against the big banks till they were gathered into a second and formidable
financial force. But, unfortunately, this would require a great deal of financing at first
-- for the £50,000,000 would have to be subscribed in full before starting work; and,
as this sum could only be raised very slowly, all sorts of banking business would have
to be done and loans made during the first few years. It might even occur that, in the
course of all these transactions, their original object would be forgotten; the
moderately rich Jews would have created a new and large business, and Jewish
emigration would be forgotten.
The notion of raising money in this way is not by any means impracticable. The
experiment of collecting Christian money to form an opposing force to the big banks
has already been tried; that one could also oppose them with Jewish money has not
been thought of until now. But these financial conflicts would bring about all sorts of
crises; the countries in which they occurred would suffer, and Anti-Semitism would
become rampant.
This method is therefore not to be recommended. I have merely suggested it,
because it comes up in the course of the logical development of the idea.
I also do not know whether smaller private banks would be willing to adopt it.
In any case, even the refusal of moderately rich Jews would not put an end to the
scheme. On the contrary, it would then have to be taken up in real earnest.
The Society of Jews, whose members are not business men, might try to found the
Company on a national subscription.
The Company's capital might be raised, without the intermediary of a syndicate, by
means of direct subscription on the part of the public. Not only poor Jews, but also
Christians who wanted to get rid of them, would subscribe a small amount to this
fund. A new and peculiar form of the plebiscite would thus be established, whereby
each man who voted for this solution of the Jewish Question would express his
opinion by subscribing a stipulated amount. This stipulation would produce security.
The funds subscribed would only be paid in if their sum total reached the required
amount, otherwise the initial payments would be returned.
But if the whole of the required sum is raised by popular subscription, then each little
amount would be secured by the great numbers of other small amounts.
All this would, of course, need the express and definite assistance of interested
Governments.
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Local Groups
__________
OUR TRANSMIGRATION
Previous chapters explained only how the emigration scheme might be carried out
without creating any economic disturbance. But so great a movement cannot take
place without inevitably rousing many deep and powerful feelings. There are old
customs, old memories that attach us to our homes. We have cradles, we have
graves, and we alone know how Jewish hearts cling to the graves. Our cradles we
shall carry with us -- they bold our future, rosy and smiling. Our beloved graves we
must abandon -- and I think this abandonment will cost us more than any other
sacrifice. But it must be so.
Economic distress, political pressure, and social obloquy have already driven us from
our homes and from our graves. We' Jews are even now constantly shifting from
place to place, a strong current actually carrying us westward over the sea to the
United States, where our presence is also not desired. And where will our presence be
desired, so long as we are a homeless nation?
But we shall give a home to our people. And we shall give it, not by dragging them
ruthlessly out of their sustaining soil, but rather by transplanting them Carefully to a
better ground. Just as we wish to create new political and economic relations, so we
shall preserve as sacred all of the past that is dear to our people's hearts.
Hence a few suggestions must suffice, as this part of my scheme will most probably
be condemned as visionary. Yet even this is possible and real, though it now appears
to be something vague and aimless. Organization will make of it something rational.
EMIGRATION IN GROUPS
Our people should emigrate in groups of families and friends. But no man will be
forced to join the particular group belonging to his former place of residence. Each
will be able to journey in his chosen fashion as soon as he has settled his affairs.
Seeing that each man will pay his own expenses by rail and boat, he will naturally
travel by whatever class suits him best. Possibly there will even be no subdivision for
classes on board train and boat, so as to avoid making the poor feel their position
too keenly during their long journey. Though we are not exactly organizing a pleasure
trip, it is as well to keep them in good humor on the way.
None will travel in penury; on the other hand, all who desire to travel in luxurious ease
will be able to follow their bent. Even under favorable circumstances, the movement
may not touch certain classes of Jews for several years to come; the intervening
period can therefore be employed in selecting the best modes of organizing the
journeys. Those who are, well off can travel in parties if they wish, taking their
personal friends and connections with them. Jews, with the exception of the richest,
have, after all, very little intercourse with Christians. In some countries their
acquaintance with them is confined to a few spongers, borrowers, and dependents;
of a better class of Christian they know nothing. The Ghetto continues though its
walls are broken down.
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The middle classes will therefore make elaborate and careful preparations for
departure. A group of travelers will be formed in each locality, large towns being
divided into districts with a group in each district, who will communicate by means of
representatives elected for the purpose. This division into districts need not be
strictly adhered to; it is merely intended to alleviate the discomfort and home-
sickness of the poor during their journey out- wards. Everybody is free to travel
either alone or attached to any local group he prefers. The conditions of travel --
regulated according to classes -- will apply to all alike. Any sufficiently numerous
travelling party can charter a special train and special boat from the Company.
The Company's housing agency will provide quarters for the poorest on their arrival.
Later on, when more prosperous emigrants follow, their obvious need for lodgings on
first landing will have to be supplied by hotels built by private enterprise. Some of
these more prosperous colonists will, indeed, have built their houses before becoming
permanent settlers, so that they will merely move from an old home into a new one.
It would be an affront to our intelligent elements to point out everything that they
have to do. Every man who attaches himself to the National Idea will know how to
spread it, and how to make it real within his sphere of influence. We shall first of all
ask for the cooperation of our Rabbis.
OUR RABBIS
Every group will have its Rabbi, travelling with his congregation. Local groups will
afterwards form voluntarily about their Rabbi, and each locality will have its spiritual
leader. Our Rabbis, on whom we especially call, will devote their energies to the
service of our idea, and will inspire their congregations by preaching it from the
pulpit. They will not need to address special meetings for the purpose; an appeal
such as this may be uttered in the synagogue. And thus it must be done. For we feel
our historic affinity only through the faith of our fathers as we have long ago
absorbed the languages of different nations to an ineradicable degree.
The Rabbis will receive communications regularly from both Society and Company,
and will announce and explain these to their congregations. Israel will pray for us and
for itself.
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE LOCAL GROUPS
The local groups will appoint small committees of representative men under the
Rabbi's presidency, for discussion and settlement of local affairs.
Philanthropic institutions will be transferred by their local groups, each institution
remaining "over there" the property of the same set of people for whom it was
originally founded. I think the old buildings should not be sold, but rather devoted to
the assistance of indigent Christians in the forsaken towns. The local groups will
receive compensation by obtaining free building sites and every facility for
reconstruction in the new country.
This transfer of philanthropic institutions will give another of those opportunities,
which occur at different points of my scheme, for making an experiment in the
service of humanity. Our present unsystematic private philanthropy does little good
in proportion to the great expenditure it involves. But these institutions can and
must form part of a system by which they will eventually supplement one another. In
a new society these organizations can be evolved out of our modern consciousness,
and may be based on all previous social experiments. This matter is of great
importance to us, on account of our large number of paupers. The weaker characters
among us, discouraged by external pressure, spoilt by the soft-hearted charity of our
rich men, easily sink until they take to begging.
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The Society, supported by the local groups, will give greatest attention to popular
education with regard to this particular. It will create a fruitful soil for many powers
which now wither uselessly away. Whoever shows a genuine desire to work will be
suitably employed. Beggars will not be endured. Whoever refuses to do anything as a
free man will be sent to the workhouse.
On the other hand, we shall not relegate the old to an almshouse. An almshouse is
one of the cruelest charities which our stupid good nature ever invented. There our
old people die out of pure shame and mortification. There they are already buried.
But we will leave even to those who stand on the lowest grade of intelligence the
consoling illusion of their utility in the world. We will provide easy tasks for those who
are incapable of physical labor; for we must allow for diminished vitality in the poor of
an already enfeebled generation. But future generations shall be dealt with otherwise;
they shall be brought up in liberty for a life of liberty.
We will seek to bestow the moral salvation of work on men of every age and of every
class; and thus our people will find their strength again in the land of the seven-hour
day.
PLANS OF THE TOWNS
The local groups will delegate their authorized representatives to select sites for
towns. In the distribution of land every precaution will be taken to effect a careful
transfer with due consideration for acquired rights.
The local groups will have plans of the towns, so that our people may know
beforehand where they are to go, in which towns and in which houses they are to
live. Comprehensive drafts of the building plans previously referred to will be
distributed among the local groups.
The principle of our administration will be strict centralization of our local groups'
autonomy. In this way the transfer will be accomplished with the minimum of pain.
I do not imagine all this to be easier than it actually is; on the other hand, people
must not imagine it to be more difficult than it is in reality.
THE DEPARTURE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES
The middle classes will involuntarily be drawn into the outgoing current, for their sons
will be officials of the Society or employees of the Company "over there." Lawyers,
doctors, technicians of every description, young business people -- in fact, all Jews
who are in search of opportunities, who now escape from oppression in their native
country to earn a living in foreign lands -- will assemble on a soil so full of fair
promise. The daughters of the middle classes will marry these ambitious men. One of
them will send for his wife or fiancee to come out to him, another for his parents,
brothers and sisters. Members of a new civilization marry young. This will promote
general morality and ensure sturdiness in the new generation; and thus we shall have
no delicate offspring of late marriages, children of fathers who spent their strength in
the struggle for life.
Every middle-class emigrant will draw more of his kind after him.
The bravest will naturally get the best out of the new world.
But there we seem undoubtedly to have touched on the crucial difficulty of my plan.
Even if we succeeded in opening a world discussion on the Jewish Question in a
serious manner --
Even if this debate led us to a positive conclusion that the Jewish State were
necessary to the world --
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Even if the Powers assisted us in acquiring the sovereignty over a strip of territory --
How are we to transport masses of Jews without undue compulsion from their
present homes to this new country?
Their emigration is surely intended to be voluntary.
THE PHENOMENON OF MULTITUDES
Great exertions will hardly be necessary to spur on the movement. Anti-Semites
provide the requisite impetus. They need only do what they did before, and then
they will create a desire to emigrate where it did not previously exist, and strengthen
it where it existed before. Jews who now remain in Anti-Semitic countries do so
chiefly because even those among them who are most ignorant of history know that
numerous changes of residence in bygone centuries never brought them any
permanent good. Any land which welcomed the Jews today, and offered them even
fewer advantages than that which the Jewish State would guarantee them, would
immediately attract a great influx of our people. The poorest, who have nothing to
lose would drag themselves there. But I maintain, and every man may ask himself
whether I am not right, that the pressure weighing on us arouses a desire to emigrate
even among prosperous strata of society. Now our poorest strata alone would suffice
to found a State; these form the strongest human material for acquiring a land,
because a little despair is indispensable to the formation of a great undertaking.
But when our "desperados" increase the value of the land by their presence and by
the labor they expend on it, they make it at the same time increasingly attractive as
a place of settlement to people who are better off.
Higher and yet higher strata will feel tempted to go over. The expedition of the first
and poorest settlers will be conducted by Company and Society conjointly, and will
probably be additionally supported by existing emigration and Zionist societies.
How may a number of people be directed to a particular spot without being given
express orders to go there! There are certain Jewish benefactors on a large scale
who try to alleviate the sufferings of the Jews by Zionist experiments. To them this
problem also presented itself, and they thought to solve it by giving the emigrants
money or means of employment. Thus the philanthropists said: "We pay these people
to go there."
Such a procedure is utterly wrong, and all the money in the world will not achieve its
purpose.
On the other hand, the Company will say: "We shall not pay them, we shall let them
pay us. We shall merely offer them some inducements to go."
A fanciful illustration will make my meaning more explicit: One of those
philanthropists (whom we will call "The Baron") and myself both wish to get a crowd
of people on to the plain of Longchamps near Paris, on a hot Sunday afternoon. The
Baron, by promising them 10 francs each, will, for 200,000 francs, bring out 20,000
perspiring and miserable people, who will curse him for having given them so much
annoyance. Whereas I will offer these 200,000 francs as a prize for the swiftest
racehorse -- and then I shall have to put up barriers to keep the people off
Longchamps. They will pay to go in: 1 franc, 5 francs, 20 francs.
The consequence will be that I shall get the half-a-million of people out there; the
President of the Republic will drive up "a la Daumont"; and the crowds will enjoy and
amuse themselves. Most of them will think it an agreeable walk in the open air in
spite of heat and dust; and I shall have made by my 200,000 francs about a million in
entrance money and taxes on gaming. I shall get the same people out there
whenever I like but the Baron will not -- not on any account.
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I will give a more serious illustration of the phenomenon of multitudes where they are
earning a livelihood. Let any man attempt to cry through the streets of a town:
"Whoever is willing to stand all day long through a winter's terrible cold, through a
summer's tormenting heat, in an iron hall exposed on all sides, there to address every
passer-by, and to offer him fancy wares, or fish, or fruit, will receive two florins, or
four francs or something similar."
How many people would go to the hall? How many days would they hold out when
hunger drove them there? And if they held out, what energy would they display in
trying to persuade passers-by to buy fish, fruit and fancy wares?
We shall set about it in a different way. In places where trade is active, and these
places we shall the more easily discover, since we ourselves direct trade withersoever
we wish, in these places we shall build large halls, and call them markets. These halls
might be worse built and more unwholesome than those above mentioned, and yet
people would stream towards them. But we shall use our best efforts, and we shall
build them better, and make them more beautiful than the first. And the people, to
whom we had promised nothing, because we cannot promise anything without
deceiving them, these excellent, keen business men will gaily create most active
commercial intercourse. They will harangue the buyers unweariedly; they will stand on
their feet, and scarcely think of fatigue. They will hurry off at dawn, so as to be first
on the spot; they will form unions, cartels, anything to continue bread-winning
undisturbed. And ii they find at the end of the day that all their hard work has
produced only 1 florin, 50 kreutzer, or 3 francs, or something similar, they will yet
look forward hopefully to the next day, which may, perhaps, bring them better luck.
We have given them hope.
Would any one ask whence the demand comes which creates the market? Is it really
necessary to tell them again?
I pointed out that by means of the system "Assistance par le Travail" the return
could be increased fifteenfold. One million would produce fifteen millions; and one
thousand millions, fifteen thousand millions.
This may be the case on a small scale; is it so on a large one? Capital surely yields a
return diminishing in inverse ratio to its own growth. Inactive and inert capital yields
this diminishing return, but active capital brings in a marvelously increasing return.
Herein lies the social question.
Am I stating a fact? I call on the richest Jews as witnesses of my veracity. Why do
they carry on so many different industries! Why do they send men to work
underground and to raise coal amid terrible dangers for meager pay? I cannot imagine
this to be pleasant, even for the owners of the mines. For I do not believe that
capitalists are heartless, and I do not pretend that I believe it. My desire is not to
accentuate, but to smooth differences.
Is it necessary to illustrate the phenomenon of multitudes, and their concentration on
a particular spot by references to pious pilgrimages?
I do not want to hurt anyone's religious sensibility by words which might be wrongly
interpreted.
I shall merely refer quite briefly to the Mohammedan pilgrimages to Mecca, the
Catholic pilgrimages to Lourdes, and to many other spots whence men return
comforted by their faith, and to the holy Hock at Trier. Thus we shall also create a
center for the deep religious needs of our people. Our ministers will understand us
first, and will be with us in this.
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We shall let every man find salvation "over there" in his own particular way. Above
and before all we shall make room for the immortal band of our Freethinkers, who are
continually making new conquests for humanity.
No more force will. be exercised on any one than is necessary for the preservation of
the State and order; and the requisite force will not be arbitrarily defined by one or
more shifting authorities; it will be fixed by iron laws.
Now, if the illustrations I gave make people draw the inference that a multitude can
be only temporarily attracted to centers of faith, of business, or of amusement, the
reply to their objection is simple. Whereas one of these objects by itself would
certainly only attract the masses, all these centers of attraction combined would be
calculated permanently to hold and satisfy them. For all these centers together form
a single, great, long-sought object, which our people has always longed to attain, for
which it has kept itself alive, for which it has been kept alive by external pressure -- a
free home! When the movement commences, we shall draw some men after us and
let others follow; others again will be swept into the current, and the last will be
thrust after us.
These last hesitating settlers will be the worst off, both here and there.
But the first, who go over with faith, enthusiasm, and courage will have the best
positions.
OUR HUMAN MATERIAL
There are more mistaken notions abroad concerning Jews than concerning any other
people. And we have become so depressed and discouraged by our historic sufferings
that we ourselves repeat and believe these mistakes. One of these is that we have an
immoderate love of business. Now it is well known that wherever we are permitted to
take part in the rising of classes, we give up our business as soon as possible. The
great majority of Jewish business men give their sons a superior education. Hence,
the so-called "Judaizing" of all intellectual professions. But even in economically
feebler grades of society, our love of trade is not so predominant as is generally
supposed. In the Eastern countries of Europe there are great numbers of Jews who
are not traders, and who are not afraid of hard work either. The Society of Jews will
be in a position to prepare scientifically accurate statistics of our human forces. The
new tasks and prospects that await our people in the new country will satisfy our
present handicraftsmen, and will transform many present small traders into manual
workers.
A peddler who travels about the country with a heavy pack on his back is not so
contented as his persecutors imagine. The seven-hour day will convert all of his kind
into workmen. They are good, misunderstood people, who now suffer perhaps more
severely than any others. The Society of Jews will, moreover, busy itself from the
outset with their training as artisans. Their love of gain will be encouraged in a
healthy manner. Jews are of a thrifty and adaptable disposition, and are qualified for
any means of earning a living, and it will therefore suffice to make small trading
unremunerative, to cause even present peddlers to give it up altogether. This could
be brought about, for example, by encouraging large department stores which
provide all necessaries of life. These general stores are already crushing small trading
in large cities. In a land of new civilization they will absolutely prevent its existence.
The establishment of these stores is further advantageous, because it makes the
country immediately habitable for people who require more refined necessaries of
life.
HABITS
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Is a reference to the little habits and comforts of the ordinary man in keeping with
the serious nature of this pamphlet?
I think it is in keeping, and, moreover, very important. For these little habits are the
thousand and one fine delicate threads which together go to make up an unbreakable
rope.
Here certain limited notions must be set aside. Whoever has seen anything of the
world knows that just these little daily customs can easily be transplanted
everywhere. The technical contrivances of our day, which this scheme intends to
employ in the service of humanity, have heretofore been principally used for our little
habits. There are English hotels in Egypt and on the mountain-crest in Switzerland,
Vienna cafes in South Africa, French theatres in Russia, German operas in America,
and best Bavarian beer in Paris.
When we journey out of Egypt again we shall not leave the fleshpots behind.
Every man will find his customs again in the local groups, but the; will be better, more
beautiful, and more agreeable than before.
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Society of Jews and Jewish State
NEGOTIORUM GESTIO
This pamphlet is not intended for lawyers. I can therefore touch only cursorily, as on
so many other things, upon my theory of the legal basis of a State.
I must, nevertheless, lay some stress on my new theory, which could be maintained, I
believe, even in discussion with men well versed in jurisprudence.
According to Rousseau's now antiquated view, a State is formed by a social contract.
Rousseau held that: "The conditions of this contract are so precisely defined by the
nature of the agreement that the slightest alteration would make them null and void.
The consequence is that, even where they are not expressly stated, they are
everywhere identical, and everywhere tacitly accepted and recognized," etc.
A logical and historic refutation of Rousseau's theory was never, nor is now, difficult,
however terrible and far-reaching its effects may have been. The question whether a
social contract with "conditions not expressly stated, yet unalterable," existed before
the framing of a constitution, is of no practical interest to States under modern
forms of government. The legal relationship between government and citizen is in
any case clearly established now.
But previous to the framing of a constitution, and during the creation of a new State,
these principles assume great practical importance. We know and see for ourselves
that States still continue to be created. Colonies secede from the mother country.
Vassals fall away from their suzerain; newly opened territories are immediately
formed into free States. It is true that the Jewish State is conceived as a peculiarly
modern structure on unspecified territory. But a State is formed, not by pieces of
land, but rather by a number of men united under sovereign rule.
The people is the subjective, land the objective foundation of a State, and the
subjective basis is the more important of the two. One sovereignty, for example,
which has no objective basis at all, is perhaps the most respected one in the world. I
refer to the sovereignty of the Pope.
The theory of rationality is the one at present accepted in political science. This
theory suffices to justify the creation of a State, and cannot be historically refuted in
the same way as the theory of a contract. Insofar as I am concerned only with the
creation of a Jewish State, I am well within the limits of the theory of rationality. But
when I touch upon the legal basis of the State, I have exceeded them. The theories
of a divine institution, or of superior power, or of a contract, and the patriarchal and
patrimonial theories do not accord with modern views. The legal basis of a State is
sought either too much within men (patriarchal theory, and theories of superior force
and contract), or too far above them (divine institution), or too far below them
(objective patrimonial theory). The theory of rationality leaves this question
conveniently and carefully unanswered. But a question which has seriously occupied
doctors of jurisprudence in every age cannot be an absolutely idle one. As a matter
of fact, a mixture of human and superhuman goes to the making of a State. Some
legal basis is indispensable to explain the somewhat oppressive relationship in which
subjects occasionally stand to rulers. I believe it is to be found it; the negotiorum
gestio, wherein the body of citizens represents the dominus negotiorum, and the
government represents the gestor.
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The Romans, with their marvelous sense of justice, produced that noble masterpiece,
the negotiorum gestio. When the property of an oppressed person is in danger, any
man may step forward to save it. This man is the gestor, the director of affairs not
strictly his own. He has received no warrant -- that is, no human warrant; higher
obligations authorize him to act. The higher obligations may be formulated in
different ways for the State, and so as to respond to individual degrees of culture
attained by a growing general power of comprehension. The gestio . is intended to
work for the good of thedominus -- the people, to whom the gestor . himself
belongs.
The gestor administers property of which he is joint-owner. His joint proprietorship
teaches him what urgency would warrant his intervention, and would demand his
leadership in peace or war; but under no circumstances is his authority valid qua joint
proprietorship. The consent of the numerous joint-owners is even under most
favorable conditions a matter of conjecture.
A State is created by a nation's struggle for existence. In any such struggle it is
impossible to obtain proper authority in circumstantial fashion beforehand. In fact,
any previous attempt to obtain a regular decision from the majority would probably
ruin the undertaking from the outset. For internal schisms would make the people
defenseless against external dangers. We cannot all be of one mind; the gestor will
therefore simply take the leadership into his hands and march in the van.
The action of the gestor . of the State is sufficiently warranted if the common cause
is in danger, and the dominus . is prevented, either by want of will or by some other
reason, from helping itself.
But the gestor becomes similar to the dominus by his intervention, and is bound by
the agreement quasi ex contractu. This is the legal relationship existing before, or,
more correctly, created simultaneously with the State.
The gestor .. thus becomes answerable far every form of negligence, even for the
failure of business undertakings, and the neglect of such affairs as are intimately
connected with them, etc. I shall not further enlarge on the negotiorum gestio, but
rather leave it to the State, else it would take us too far from the main subject. One
remark only: "Business management, if it is approved by the owner, is just as
effectual as if it had originally been carried on by his authority."
And how does all this affect our case?
The Jewish people are at present prevented by the Diaspora from conducting their
political affairs themselves. Besides, they are in a condition of more or less severe
distress in many parts of the world. They need, above all things a gestor . This gestor
. cannot, of course, be a single individual. Such a one would either make himself
ridiculous, or -- seeing that he would appear to be working for his own interests --
contemptible.
The gestor . of the Jews must therefore be a body corporate.
And that is the Society of Jews.
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THE GESTOR OF THE JEWS
This organ of the national movement, the nature and functions of which we are at
last dealing with, will, in fact, be created before everything else. Its formation is
perfectly simple. It will take shape among those energetic Jews to whom I imparted
my scheme in London [Dr. Herzl addressed a meeting of the Maccabean Club, at
which Israel Zangwill presided, on November 24th, 1895].
The Society will have scientific and political tasks, for the founding of a Jewish State,
as I conceive it, presupposes the application of scientific methods. We cannot
journey out of Egypt today in the primitive fashion of ancient times. We shall
previously obtain an accurate account of our number and strength. The undertaking
of that great and ancient gestar of the Jews in primitive days bears much the same
relation to ours that some wonderful melody bears to a modern opera. We are
playing the same melody with many more violins, flutes, harps, violoncellos, and bass
viols; with electric light, decorations, choirs, beautiful costumes, and with the first
singers of their day.
This pamphlet is intended to open a general discussion on the Jewish Question.
Friends and foes will take part in it; but it will no longer, I hope, take the form of
violent abuse or of sentimental vindication, but of a debate, practical, large, earnest,
and political.
The Society of Jews will gather all available declarations of statesmen, parliaments,
Jewish communities, societies, whether expressed in speeches or writings, in
meetings, newspapers or books.
Thus the Society will find out for the first time whether the Jews really wish to go to
the Promised Land, and whether they must go there. Every Jewish community in the
world will send contributions to the Society towards a comprehensive collection of
Jewish statistics.
Further tasks, such as investigation by experts of the new country and its natural
resources, the uniform planning of migration and settlement, preliminary work for
legislation and administration, etc., must be rationally evolved out of the original
scheme.
Externally, the Society will attempt, as I explained before in the general part, to be
acknowledged as a State-forming power. The free assent of many Jews will confer on
it the requisite authority in its relations with Governments.
Internally, that is to say, in its relation with the Jewish people, the Society will create
all the first indispensable institutions; it will be the nucleus out of which the public
institutions of the Jewish State will later on be developed.
Our first object is, as I said before, supremacy, assured to us by international law,
over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to satisfy our just requirements.
What is the next step?
THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND
When nations wandered in historic times, they let chance carry them, draw them,
fling them hither and thither, and like swarms of locusts they settled down
indifferently anywhere. For in historic times the earth was not known to man. But this
modern Jewish migration must proceed in accordance with scientific principles.
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Not more than forty years ago gold-digging was carried on in an extraordinarily
primitive fashion. What adventurous days were those in California! A report brought
desperados together from every quarter of the earth; they stole pieces of land,
robbed each other of gold, and finally gambled it away, as robbers do.
But today! What is gold-digging like in the Transvaal today? Adventurous vagabonds
are not there; sedate geologists and engineers alone are on the spot to regulate its
gold industry, and to employ ingenious machinery in separating the ore from
surrounding rock. Little is left to chance now.
Thus we must investigate and take possession of the new Jewish country by means
of every modern expedient.
As soon as we have secured the land, we shall send over a ship, having on board the
representatives of the Society, of the Company, and of the local groups, who will
enter into possession at once.
These men will have three tasks to perform: (1) An accurate, scientific investigation
of all natural resources of the country; (2) the organization of a strictly centralized
administration; (3) the distribution of land. These tasks intersect one another, and
will all be carried out in conformity with the now familiar object in view.
One thing remains to be explained -- namely, how the occupation of land according to
local groups is to take place.
In America the occupation of newly opened territory is set about in naive fashion.
The settlers assemble on the frontier, and at the appointed time make a
simultaneous and violent rush for their portions.
We shall not proceed thus to the new land of the Jews. The lots in provinces and
towns will be sold by auction, and paid for, not in money, but in work. The general
plan will have settled on streets, bridges, waterworks, etc., necessary for traffic.
These will be united into provinces. With- in these provinces sites for towns will be
similarly sold by auction. The local groups will pledge themselves to carry the
business property through, and will cover the cost by means of self-imposed
assessments. The Society will be in a position to judge whether the local groups are
not venturing on sacrifices too great for their means. The large communities will
receive large sites for their activity. Great sacrifices will thus be rewarded by the
establishment of universities, technical schools, academies, research institutes, etc.,
and these Government institutes, which do not have to be concentrated in the
capital, will be distributed over the country.
The personal interest of the buyers, and, if necessary, the local assessment, will
guarantee the proper working of what has been taken over. In the same way, as we
cannot, and indeed do not wish to obliterate distinctions between single individuals,
so the differences between local groups will also continue. Everything will shape itself
quite naturally. All acquired rights will be protected, and every new development will
be given sufficient scope.
Our people will be made thoroughly acquainted with all these matters.
We shall not take others unawares or mislead them, any more than we shall deceive
ourselves.
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Everything must be systematically settled beforehand. I merely indicate this scheme:
our keenest thinkers will combine in elaborating it. Every social and technical
achievement of our age and of the more advanced age which will be reached before
the slow execution of my plan is accomplished must be employed for this object.
Every valuable invention which exists now, or lies in the future, must be used. By
these means a country can be occupied and a State founded in a manner as yet
unknown to history, and with possibilities of success such as never occurred before.
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CONSTITUTION
One of the great commissions which the Society will have to appoint will be the
council of State jurists. These must formulate the best, that is, the best modern
constitution possible. I believe that a good constitution should be of moderately
elastic nature. In another work I have explained in detail what forms of government I
hold to be the best. I think a democratic monarchy and an aristocratic republic are
the finest forms of a State, because in them the form of State and the principle of
government are opposed to each other, and thus preserve a true balance of power. I
am a staunch supporter of monarchial institutions, because these allow of a
continuous policy, and represent the interests of a historically famous family born
and educated to rule, whose desires are bound up with the preservation of the State.
But our history has been too long interrupted for us to attempt direct continuity of
ancient constitutional forms, without exposing ourselves to the charge of absurdity.
A democracy without a sovereign's useful counterpoise is extreme in appreciation
and condemnation, tends to idle discussion in Parliaments, and produces that
objectionable class of men -- professional politicians. Nations are also really not fit for
unlimited democracy at present, and will become less and less fitted for it in the
future. For a pure democracy presupposes a predominance of simple customs, and
our customs become daily more complex with the growth of commerce and increase
of culture. "Le ressort d'une democracie est la vertu," said wise Montesquieu. And
where is this virtue, that is to say, this political virtue, to be met with? I do not
believe in our political virtue; first, because we are no better than the rest of modern
humanity; and, secondly, because freedom will make us show our fighting qualities at
first. I also hold a settling of questions by the referendum to be an unsatisfactory
procedure, because there are no simple political questions which can be answered
merely by Yes and No. The masses are also more prone even than Parliaments to be
led away by heterodox opinions, and to be swayed by vigorous ranting. It is
impossible to formulate a wise internal or external policy in a popular assembly.
Politics must take shape in the upper strata and work downwards. But no member of
the Jewish State will be oppressed, every man will be able and will wish to rise in it.
Thus a great upward tendency will pass through our people; every individual by trying
to raise himself, raising also the whole body of citizens. The ascent will take a normal
form, useful to the State and serviceable to the National Idea.
Hence I incline to an aristocratic republic. This would satisfy the ambitious spirit in
our people, which has now degenerated into petty vanity. Many of the institutions of
Venice pass through my mind; but all that which caused the ruin of Venice must be
carefully avoided. We shall learn from the historic mistakes of others, in the same
way as we learn from our own; for we are a modern nation, and wish to be the most
modern in the world. Our people, who are receiving the new country from the
Society, will also thankfully accept the new constitution it offers them. Should any
opposition manifest itself, the Society will suppress it. The Society cannot permit the
exercise of its functions to be interpreted by short-sighted or ill-disposed individuals.
LANGUAGE
It might be suggested that our want of a common current language would present
difficulties. We cannot converse with one another in Hebrew. Who amongst us has a
sufficient acquaintance with Hebrew to ask for a railway ticket in that language! Such
a thing cannot be done. Yet the difficulty is very easily circumvented. Every man can
preserve the language in which his thoughts are at home. Switzerland affords a
conclusive proof of the possibility of a federation of tongues. We shall remain in the
new country what we now are here, and we shall never cease to cherish with sadness
the memory of the native land out of which we have been driven.
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We shall give up using those miserable stunted jargons, those Ghetto languages
which we still employ, for these were the stealthy tongues of prisoners. Our national
teachers will give due attention to this matter; and the language which proves itself
to be of greatest utility for general intercourse will be adopted without compulsion as
our national tongue. Our community of race is peculiar and unique, for we are bound
together only by the faith of our fathers.
THEOCRACY
Shall we end by having a theocracy? No, indeed. Faith unites us, knowledge gives us
freedom. We shall therefore prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the
fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests within the confines of
their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the
confines of their barracks. Army and priesthood shall receive honors high as their
valuable functions deserve. But they must not interfere in the administration of the
State which confers distinction upon them, else they will conjure up difficulties
without and within.
Every man will be as free and undisturbed in his faith or his disbelief as he is in his
nationality. And if it should occur that men of other creeds and different nationalities
come to live amongst us, we should accord them honorable protection and equality
before the law. We have learnt toleration in Europe. This is not sarcastically said; for
the Anti-Semitism of today could only in a very few places be taken for old religious
intolerance. It is for the most part a movement among civilized nations by which they
try to chase away the specters of their own past.
LAWS
When the idea of a State begins to approach realization, the Society of Jews will
appoint a council of jurists to do the preparatory work of legislation. During the
transition period these must act on the principle that every emigrant Jew is to be
judged according to the laws of the country which he has left. But they must try to
bring about a unification of these various laws to form a modern system of legislation
based on the best portions of previous systems. This might become a typical
codification, embodying all the just social claims of the present day.
THE ARMY
The Jewish State is conceived as a neutral one. It will therefore require only a
professional army, equipped, of course, with every requisite of modern warfare, to
preserve order internally and externally.
THE FLAG
We have no flag, and we need one. If we desire to lead many men, we must raise a
symbol above their heads.
I would suggest a white flag, with seven golden stars. The white field symbolizes our
pure new life; the stars are the seven golden hours of our working-day. For we shall
march into the Promised Land carrying the badge of honor.
RECIPROCITY AND EXTRADITION TREATIES
The new Jewish State must be properly founded, with due regard to our future
honorable position in the world. Therefore every obligation in the old country must be
scrupulously fulfilled before leaving. The Society of Jews and the Jewish Company will
grant cheap passage and certain advantages in settlement to those only who can
present an official testimonial from the local authorities, certifying that they have left
their affairs in good order.
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Every just private claim originating in the abandoned countries will be heard more
readily in the Jewish State than anywhere else. We shall not wait for reciprocity; we
shall act purely for the sake of our own honor. We shall thus perhaps find, later on,
that law courts will be more willing to hear our claims than now seems to be the case
in some places.
It will be inferred, as a matter of course, from previous remarks, that we shall deliver
up Jewish criminals more readily than any other State would do, till the time comes
when we can enforce our penal code on the same principle as every other civilized
nation does. There will therefore be a period of transition, during which we shall
receive our criminals only after they have suffered due penalties. But, having made
amends, they will be received without any restrictions whatever, for our criminals
also must enter upon a new life.
Thus emigration may become to many Jews a crisis with a happy issue. Bad external
circumstances, which ruin many a character, will be removed, and this change may
mean salvation to many who are lost.
Here I should like briefly to relate a story I came across in an account of the gold
mines of Witwatersrand. One day a man came to the Rand, settled there, tried his
hand at various things, with the exception of gold mining, till he founded an ice
factory, which did well. He soon won universal esteem by his respectability, but after
some years he was suddenly arrested. He had committed some defalcations as
banker in Frankfort, had fled from there, and had begun a new life under an assumed
name. But when he was led away as prisoner, the most respected people in the place
appeared at the station, bade him a cordial farewell and au revoir -- for he was
certain to return.
How much this story reveals! A new life can regenerate even criminals, and we have a
proportionately small number of these. Some interesting statistics on this point are
worth reading, entitled "The Criminality of Jews in Germany," by Dr. P. Nathan, of
Berlin, who was commissioned by the "Society for Defense against Anti-Semitism" to
make a collection of statistics based on official returns. It is true that this pamphlet,
which teems with figures, has been prompted, as many another "defense," by the
error that Anti-Semitism can be refuted by reasonable arguments. We are probably
disliked as much for our gifts as we are for our faults.
BENEFITS OF THE EMIGRATION OF THE JEWS
I imagine that Governments will, either voluntarily or under pressure from the Anti-
Semites, pay certain attention to this scheme, and they may perhaps actually receive
it here and there with a sympathy which they will also show to the Society of Jews.
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For the emigration which I suggest will not create any economic crises. Such crises as
would follow everywhere in consequence of Jew-baiting would rather be prevented by
the carrying out of my plan. A great period of prosperity would commence in
countries which are now Anti- Semitic. For there will be, as I have repeatedly said, an
internal migration of Christian citizens into the positions slowly and systematically
evacuated by the Jews. If we are not merely suffered, but actually assisted to do
this, the movement will have a generally beneficial effect. That is a narrow view, from
which one should free oneself, which sees in the departure of many Jews a
consequent impoverishment of countries. It is different from a departure which is a
result of persecution, for then property is indeed destroyed, as it is ruined in the
confusion of war. Different again is the peaceable voluntary departure of colonists,
wherein everything is carried out with due consideration for acquired rights, and with
absolute conformity to law, openly and by light of day, under the eyes of the
authorities and the control of public opinion. The emigration of Christian proletarians
to different parts of the world would be brought to a standstill by the Jewish
movement.
The States would have a further advantage in the enormous increase of their export
trade; for, since the emigrant Jews "over there" would depend for a long time to
come on European productions, they would necessarily have to import them. The
local groups would keep up a just balance, and the customary needs would have to
be supplied for a long time at the accustomed places.
Another, and perhaps one of the greatest advantages, would be the ensuing social
relief. Social dissatisfaction would be appeased during the twenty or more years
which the emigration of the Jews would occupy, and would in any case be set at rest
during the whole transition period.
The shape which the social question may take depends entirely on the development
of our technical resources. Steam power concentrated men in factories about
machinery where they were overcrowded, and where they made one another
miserable by overcrowding. Our present enormous, injudicious, and unsystematic rate
of production is the cause of continual severe crises which ruin both employers and
employees. Steam crowded men together; electricity will probably scatter them
again, and may perhaps bring about a more prosperous condition of the labor market.
In any case our technical inventors, who are the true benefactors of humanity, will
continue their labors after the commencement of the emigration of the Jews, and
they will discover things as marvelous as those we have already seen, or indeed more
wonderful even than these.
The word "impossible" has ceased to exist in the vocabulary of technical science.
Were a man who lived in the last century to return to the earth, he would find the life
of today full of incomprehensible magic. Wherever the moderns appear with our
inventions, we transform the desert into a garden. To build a city takes in our time as
many years as it formerly required centuries; America offers endless examples of
this. Distance has ceased to be an obstacle. The spirit of our age has gathered
fabulous treasures into its storehouse. Every day this wealth increases. A hundred
thousand heads are occupied with speculations and research at every point of the
globe, and what any one discovers belongs the next moment to the whole world. We
ourselves will use and carry on every new attempt in our Jewish land; and just as we
shall introduce the seven-hour day as an experiment for the good of humanity, so we
shall proceed in everything else in the same humane spirit, making of the new land a
land of experiments and a model State.
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After the departure of the Jews the undertakings which they have created will remain
where they originally were found. And the Jewish spirit of enterprise will not even fail
where people welcome it. For Jewish capitalists will be glad to invest their funds
where they are familiar with surrounding conditions. And whereas Jewish money is
now sent out of countries on account of existing persecution and is sunk in most
distant foreign undertakings, it will flow back again in consequence of this peaceable
solution, and will contribute to the further progress of the countries which the Jews
have left.
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Conclusion
__________
OUTLINES
How much has been left unexplained, how many defects, how many harmful
superficialities, and how many useless repetitions in this pamphlet, which I have
thought over so long and so often revised!
But a fair-minded reader, who has sufficient understanding to grasp the spirit of my
words, will not be repelled by these defects. He will rather be roused thereby to
cooperate with his intelligence and energy in a work which is not one man's task
alone, and to improve it.
Have I not explained obvious things and overlooked important objections?
I have tried to meet certain objections; but I know that many more will be made,
based on high grounds and low.
To the first class of objections belongs the remark that the Jews are not the only
people in the world who are in a condition of distress. Here I would reply that we may
as well begin by removing a little of this misery, even if it should at first be no more
than our own.
It might further be said that we ought not to create new distinctions between
people; we ought not to raise fresh barriers, we should rather make the old
disappear. But men who think in this way are amiable visionaries; and the idea of a
native land will still flourish when the dust of their bones will have vanished
tracelessly in the winds. Universal brotherhood is not even a beautiful dream.
Antagonism is essential to man's greatest efforts. But the Jews, once settled in their
own State, would probably have no more enemies. As for those who remain behind,
since prosperity enfeebles and causes them to diminish, they would soon disappear
altogether. I think the Jews will always have sufficient enemies, such as every nation
has. But once fixed in their own land, it will no longer be possible for them to scatter
all over the world. The Diaspora cannot be reborn, unless the civilization of the whole
Earth should collapse; and such a consummation could be feared by none but foolish
men. Our present civilization possesses weapons powerful enough for its self-
defense.
Innumerable objections will be based on low grounds, for there are more low men
than noble in this world. I have tried to remove some of these narrow-minded
notions; and whoever is willing to fall in behind our white flag with its seven stars,
must assist in this campaign of enlightenment. Perhaps we shall have to fight first of
all against many an evil-disposed, narrow-hearted, short-sighted member of our own
race.
Again, people will say that I am furnishing the Anti-Semites with weapons. Why so?
Because I admit the truth? Because I do not maintain that there are none but
excellent men amongst us?
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Will not people say that I am showing our enemies the way to injure us? This I
absolutely dispute. My proposal could only be carried out with the free consent of a
majority of Jews. Action may be taken against individuals or even against groups of
the most powerful Jews, but Governments will never take action against all Jews. The
equal rights of the Jew before the law cannot be withdrawn where they have once
been conceded; for the first attempt at withdrawal would immediately drive all Jews,
rich and poor alike, into the ranks of revolutionary parties. The beginning of any
official acts of injustice against the Jews invariably brings about economic crises.
Therefore, no weapons can be effectively used against us, because these injure the
hands that wield them. Meantime hatred grows apace. The rich do not feel it much,
but our poor do. Let us ask our poor, who have been more severely proletarized since
the last removal of Anti-Semitism than ever before.
Some of our prosperous men may say that the pressure is not yet severe enough to
justify emigration, and that every forcible expulsion shows how unwilling our people
are to depart. True, because they do not know where to go; because they only pass
from one trouble into another. But we are showing them the way to the Promised
Land; and the splendid force of enthusiasm must fight against the terrible force of
habit.
Persecutions are no longer so malignant as they were in the Middle Ages? True, but
our sensitiveness has increased, so that we feel no diminution in our sufferings;
prolonged persecution has overstrained our nerves.
Will people say, again, that our enterprise is hopeless, because even if we obtained
the land with supremacy over it, the poor only would go with us? It is precisely the
poorest whom we need at first. Only the desperate make good conquerors.
Will some one say: Were it feasible it would have been done long ago?
It has never yet been possible; now it is possible. A hundred -- or even fifty years ago
it would have been nothing more than a dream. Today it may become a reality. Our
rich, who have a pleasurable acquaintance with all our technical achievements, know
full well how much money can do. And thus it will be: just the poor and simple, who
do nor know what power man already exercises over the forces of Nature, just these
will have the firmest faith in the new message. For these have never lost their hope
of the Promised Land.
Here it is, fellow Jews! Neither fable nor deception! Every man may test its reality for
himself, for every man will carry over with him a portion of the Promised Land -- one
in his head, another in his arms, another in his acquired possessions.
Now, ail this may appear to be an interminably long affair. Even in the most favorable
circumstances, many years might elapse before the commencement of the
foundation of the State. In the meantime, Jews in a thousand different places would
suffer insults, mortifications, abuse, blows, depredation, and death. No; if we only
begin to carry out the plans, Anti-Semitism would stop at once and for ever. For it is
the conclusion of peace.
The news of the formation of our Jewish Company will be carried in a single day to
the remotest ends of the earth by the lightning speed of our telegraph wires.
And immediate relief will ensue. The intellects which we produce so superabundantly
in our middle classes will find an outlet in our first organizations, as our first
technicians, officers, professors, officials, lawyers, and doctors; and thus the
movement will continue in swift but smooth progression.
Prayers will be offered up for the success of our work in temples and in churches
also; for it will bring relief from an old burden, which all have suffered.
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But we must first bring enlightenment to men's minds. The idea must make its way
into the mast distant, miserable holes where our people dwell. They will awaken from
gloomy brooding, for into their lives will come a new significance. Every man need
think only of himself, and the movement will assume vast proportions.
And what glory awaits those who fight unselfishly for the cause!
Therefore I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The
Maccabeans will rise again.
Let me repeat once more my opening words: The Jews who wish for a State will have
it. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own
homes.
The world will be freed by our liberty, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our
greatness.
And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react
powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.
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