INTRODUCTION
to "The History of Zionism" by Nahum Sokolow
Longmans, By the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, M. P.
Whether it be helpful for one who is not a Jew, either by
race or religion, to say even the briefest word by way of introduction
to a book on Zionism is, in my own opinion, doubtful. But my friend, M. Nahum Sokolow, tells me that I long ago gave him reason to expect
that, when the time came, I would render him this small measure of
assistance; and if he attaches value to it, I cannot allow my personal
doubts as to its value to stand in his way.
The only qualification I possess is that I have always been
greatly interested in the Jewish question, and that in the early years
of this century, when anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe was in an active
stage, I did my best to support a scheme devised by Mr. Chamberlain,
then Colonial Secretary, for creating a Jewish settlement in East
Africa, under the British flag. There it was hoped that Jews fleeing
from persecution might found a community where, in harmony with their
own religion, development on traditional lines might (we thought)
peacefully proceed without external interruption, and free from any
fears of violence.
The scheme was certainly well-intentioned, and had, I think,
many merits. But it had one serious defect. It was not Zionism. It
attempted to find a home for men of Jewish religion and Jewish race in
a region far removed from the country where that race was nurtured and
that religion came into being. Conversations I held with Mr. Weizmann in January, 1906, convinced me that history could not thus be ignored,
and that if a home was to be found for the Jewish people, homeless now
for nearly nineteen hundred years, it was vain to seek it anywhere but
in Palestine.
But why, it may be asked, is local sentiment to be more
considered in the case of the Jew than (say) in that of the Christian
or the Buddhist? All historic religions rouse feelings which cluster
round the places made memorable by the words and deeds, the lives and
deaths, of those who brought them into being.
Doubtless these feelings should always be treated with
respect; but no one suggests that the regions where these venerable
sites are to be found should, of set purpose and with much anxious
contrivance, be colonized by the spiritual descendants of those who
originally made them famous. If the centuries have brought no change
of ownership or occupancy we are well content. But if it be otherwise,
we make no effort to reverse the course of history. None suggest that
we should plant Buddhist colonies in India, the ancient home of
Buddhism, or renew in favor of Christendom the crusading adventures of
our medieval ancestors. Yet, if this be wisdom when we are dealing
with Buddhism and Christianity, why, it may be asked, is it not also
wisdom when we are dealing with Judaism and the Jews?
The answer is, that the cases are not parallel. The position
of the Jews is unique. For them race, religion and country are inter-
related, as they are inter-related in the case of no other race, no
other religion, and no other country on earth. In no other case are
the believers in one of the greatest religions of the world to be
found (speaking broadly) only among the members of a single small
people; in the case of no other religion is its past development so
intimately bound up with the long political history of a petty territory
wedged in between States more powerful far than it could ever be; in
the case of no other religion are its aspirations and hopes expressed
in language and imagery so utterly dependent for their meaning on the
conviction that only from this one land, only through this one history,
only by this one people, is full religious knowledge to spread through
all the world. By a strange and most unhappy fate it is this people
of all others which, retaining the full its racial self-consciousness,
has been severed from its home, has wandered into all lands, and has
nowhere been able to create for itself an organized social commonwealth.
Only Zionism, so at least Zionists believe, can provide some
mitigation of this great tragedy.
Doubtless there are difficulties, doubtless there are objections --
great difficulties, very real objections. And it is, I suspect, among
the Jews themselves that these are most acutely felt. Yet no one can
reasonably doubt that if, as I believe, Zionism can be developed into
a working scheme, the benefit it would bring to the Jewish people,
especially perhaps to that section of it which most deserves our pity,
would be great and lasting. It is not merely that large numbers of
them would thus find a refuge from religious and social persecution;
but that they would bear corporate responsibilities, and enjoy
corporate opportunities of a kind which, from the nature of the case,
they can never possess as citizens of any non-Jewish state. It is
charged against them by their critics that they now employ their great
gifts to exploit for personal ends a civilization which they have not
created, in communities they do little to maintain. The accusation
thus formulated is manifestly false. But it is no doubt true that in
large parts of Europe their loyalty to the State in which they dwell
is (to put it mildly) feeble compared with their loyalty to their
religion and their race. How indeed could it be otherwise? In none
of the regions of which I speak have they been given the advantage of
equal citizenship, in some they have been given no right of citizenship
at all. Great suffering is the inevitable result; but not suffering
alone. Other evils follow which aggravate the original mischief.
Constant oppression with occasional outbursts of violent persecution,
are apt either to crush their victims, or to develop in them
self-protecting qualities which do not always assume an attractive
shape. The Jews have never been crushed. Neither cruelty nor
contempt, neither unequal laws nor illegal oppression, have ever
broken their spirit, or shattered their unconquerable hopes. But it
may well be true that, where they have been compelled to live
among their neighbors as if these were their enemies, they have obtain
obtained, and sometimes deserved, the reputation of being undesirable
citizens. Nor is this surprising. If you oblige many men to be
money-lenders, some will assuredly be usurers. If you treat an
important section of the community as outcasts, they will hardly shine
as patriots. Thus does intolerance blindly labor to create the
justification for its own excesses.
It seems evident that, for these and other reasons, Zionism will mitigate the lot and elevate the status of no negligible fraction of the Jewish race. Those who go to Palestine will not be like those who now migrate to London or New York. They will not be animated merely by the desire to lead in happier surroundings the kind of life they formerly led in Eastern Europe. They will go in order to join a civil community which completely harmonizes with their historical and religious sentiments; a community bound to be land it inhabits by something deeper even than custom; a community, whose members will suffer from no divided loyalty, nor any temptation to hate the laws under which they are forced to live. To them the material gain should be great; but surely the spiritual gain will be greater still.
But these, it will be said, are not the only Jews whose welfare we have to consider. Granting, if only for argument’s sake, that Zionism will confer a benefit on them, will it not inflict an injury upon others who, though Jews by descent, and often by religion, desire wholly to identify themselves with the life of the country wherein they have made their home. Among these are to be found some of the most gifted members of a gifted race. Their ranks contain (at least, so I think) more than their proportionate share of the world’s supply of men distinguished in science and philosophy, literature and art, medicine, politics and laws. (Of finance and business I need say nothing.)
Now there is no doubt that many of this class look with a certain measure of suspicion and even dislike upon the Zionist movement. They fear that it will adversely affect their position in the country of their adoption. The great majority of them have no desire to settle in Palestine. Even supposing a Zionist community were established, they would not join it. But they seem to think (if I understand them rightly) that so soon as such a community came into being, men of Jewish blood, still more men of Jewish religion, would be regarded by unkindly critics as out of place elsewhere. Their ancient hoe having been restored to them, they would be expected to reside there.
I cannot share these fears. I do not deny that, in some countries where legal equality is firmly established, Jews may still be regarded with a certain measure of prejudice. But this prejudice, where it exists, is not due to Zionism, nor will Zionism embitter it. The tendency should surely be the other way. Everything which assimilates the national and international status of the Jews to that of other races ought to mitigate what remains of ancient antipathies; and evidently this assimilation would be promoted by giving them that which all other nations possess: a local habitation and a national home.
On this aspect of the subject I need perhaps say no more. The future of Zionism depends on deeper causes than these. That it will settle the “Jewish questions” I dare not hope. But that it will tend to promote that mutual sympathy and comprehension which is the only sure basis of toleration I firmly believe. Few, I think, of M. Sokolow’s readers, be they Jew or be they Christian, will rise from the perusal of the impressive story which he has told so fully and so well, without feeling that Zionism differs in kind from ordinary philanthropic efforts and that it appeals to different motives. If it succeeds, it will do a great spiritual and material work for the Jews, but not for them alone. For as I read its meaning it is, among other things, a serious endeavor to mitigate the age-long miseries created for Western civilization by the presence in its midst of a body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or to
absorb. Surely, for this if for no other reason, it should receive our support