Sejarah Zionisme, 1600-1918/Volume 1/Bab 16
BAB XVI.
WACANA INGGRIS TERHADAP SANHEDRIN
Wacana Inggris pada Sanhedrin—F. D. Kirwan—Abraham Furtado—Rev. James Bicheno—Deklarasi Sanhedrin dan tanggapan Inggris—M. Diogène Tama—Pangeran de Ligne.
Coming back to English history, we now propose to trace the impression produced in this country by Bonaparte’s Palestine Appeal of 1798 and the Proclamation of a Sanhedrin in 1807.
English opinion on this point was quite clear. No objections were ever raised to the restoration of the Jewish nation to Palestine: this idea had been cherished in England for centuries. But English opinion was opposed to its becoming a strategic or political instrument in the hands of an ambitious conqueror. Moreover, that opinion was not inclined to separate the idea of the Restoration of Israel from that of the emancipation of the Jews. Thus the Sanhedrin was considered merely a tentative preliminary step towards Restoration, and the Declaration made by that body against Jewish national aspirations produced an impression of surprise and bewilderment. This Declaration was not, in fact, intended to be a denial of Jewish nationality in its ethical, historical, cultural or religious aspect: it was rather an avowal of political loyalty. Yet such a Declaration, expressed as it was in exaggerated terms, was calculated to surprise and puzzle the genuine friends of the Jews in England, and give rise to misunderstanding.
F. D. Kirwan, the English translator of the Parisian Sanhedrim, published in French by the French-Jewish editor, M. Diogène Tama (Appendix xlii), says, in his preface: “... The ultimate views which Bonaparte may have on the Jewish nation are, to this day, involved in obscurity; while the supposed advantages he so pompously conferred on them may reasonably be called in question. When we consider that the Jewish population of France and Italy is not calculated, by the deputies themselves, at more than one hundred thousand souls (a small number indeed when compared with the population of those countries), we are at a loss to see what great advantages could immediately result to Bonaparte from the Jews embracing zealously the profession of arms. We well know that his gigantic plans of ambition rest on the laws of conscription; but the Jews are already liable to them; they can hardly escape their excessive rigour; and even the whole of the Jewish youth, of the requisite age, would, in point of number, make but a contemptible reinforcement to the immense armies of France.
“These exhortations to embrace the profession of arms, so zealously repeated by the leading members of the French-Jews, are besides, always coupled with strong recommendations to follow mechanical trades and husbandry; in short, those professions without which a nation cannot exist by itself, but which are not more particularly useful than any others to a small given number of people, who consider as their country an Empire in which these professions abound.
“We find these same recommendations strongly inforced in the answer of M. Furtado to the commercial Jews of Frankfort, who hardly can have a choice of employment. ‘We have,’ says he, ‘too many merchants and bankers among us, and too few artificers and husbandmen,—and, above all, too few soldiers’: but if their countrymen thoroughly fill these branches of employment, what necessity is there for having husbandmen, artificers, and soldiers of their own?
“The Jewish deputies say that Bonaparte conceived the idea of their regeneration, or their political redemption, in the land of Egypt and on the banks of the Jordan. This we doubt not; and though we are almost ashamed to hazard the extravagant supposition, we feel a conviction that his gigantic mind entertains the idea of re-establishing them in Palestine, and that this forms a part of his plan respecting Egypt, which he is well known never to have abandoned.
“No one will contend that this idea is too wild for his conception; it is, on the contrary, perfectly consonant with his love for extraordinary, dazzling enterprises; he acts in this even with more than his usual foresight, by attempting to prepare the Jews for the new situation he intends for them. It is with this view that he encourages them to follow those professions which are necessary for men forming a distinct nation in a land of their own; for certainly, a body wholly composed of merchants and traders could never exist as such....
“The answer to the sixth question, by which the French Jews acknowledge France as their country, without any restriction whatever, is a still more heinous dereliction of the tenets of the Mosaic law; for they give up, by it, the hope of the expected Messiah, and of the everlasting possession of the promised land of Canaan, which they deem a part of the sacred covenant between God and His chosen people.
“While we thus inculpate the Jewish deputies, it cannot be expected that we shall lay too great a stress on the fulsome and frequently impious flattery which characterizes all their productions....
“But flattery is the opiate of the guilty conscience; it sooths the pangs of remorse;...”
A similar view was expressed with considerable eloquence by the Rev. James Bicheno (1751‒1831), of Newbury, an Anabaptist minister who attained some distinction in his day through his works on the Prophecies, and of others on various subjects (Appendix xliii). He was the author of The Restoration Of The Jews: The Crisis Of All Nations;... 1800¹ (Appendix xliv).
This book is a valuable contribution to Christian pro-Zionist literature. The author is a great believer in the future of Israel and of Palestine, but he looks upon the problem mainly from a religious point of view, though he does not demand any conversion of Jews prior to their Restoration. Many of his conclusions are unacceptable, and others are incapable of proof, but even these are useful in so far as they may “stimulate the minds of rulers to meditation, and thus suggest to them new aspects¹ and new ways of inquiry”; and although there is little thought in his book, and some of its main themes are not developed with completeness or accuracy, the ingenuity which leads to so many suggestions, and the elegance which groups them so artistically, give the book vivacity and diversity. The author refers to the Parisian Sanhedrim, and accepts the view of the English translator, F. D. Kirwan.
Une antique nation, autrefois l’unique dépositaire des volontés du Très haut, et gouvernée par la divine législation de Moïse, est dispersée depuis plus de dix-sept Siécles sur la surface du globe. En rapport avec tous les Peuples, elle ne se mêle avec aucun, et elle semble exister pour voir passer devant elle le torrent des siécles qui les entraîne. Un tel phénomene serait inexplicable, s’il ne tenait qu’à l’ordre politique, car il était moralement impossible que les Juifs pûssent longtems exister, malgré toutes les vicissitudes et les persecutions dont ils furent les victimes chez les différentes nations de la terre. Dans combien de proscriptions ne furent-ils pas envelloppés! Pour ne parler que de la France, qui ne sait les haines, les mépris, les outrages, les confiscations, les bannissemens, les supplices même qu’ils y ont endurés? rien de cruel, rien de deshonorant ne leur a été épargné; de sorte que l’on serait tenté de croire que nos aïeux ne les comptaient point au nombre des humains. En vain quelques orateurs éloquens s’élevèrent contre une si criante injustice, leur voix ne fut point entendue, et les infortunés Israelites paraissaient à jamais condamnés à l’avilissement et à l’opprobre. Un nouveau Cyrus a paru, mais il a fait pour eux plus que l’ancien. S’il n’a pas reconstruit leur temple, il leur a donné une patrie et des loix protectrices de leur culte et de leurs droits civils; en les rendant citoyens et membres de la grande nation, il leur a rendu l’honneur; en leur donnant des mœurs, il les a garantis pour jamais du mépris des ses peuples. Pénétrés de reconnaissance pour de si précieux bienfaits, les enfans d’Israel se sont prosternés au pied du trône du Grand Napoléon, et les filles de Sion ont fait retentir les voûtes des temples de ces cantiques célébres que répétaient les échos du Jourdain, lors qu’au retour de sa captivité le peuple Hébreu célébrait les miséricordes du Seigneur. La gratitude des Israëlites français ne s’est pas bornée à de simples démonstrations, ils prouvent chaque jour qu’ils sont dignes des faveurs du Souverain par leur attachement à son auguste personne et par leur soumission à ses loix.
A Paris, au Bureau de l’Auteur des Fastes de la Nation Française, M. Ternisien d’Haudricourt, Rue de Seine N.º 27 F. Sᵗ. Germain.
“... If the Sanhedrim were to consult only on what was domestic, why invite the co-operation of all the Jews in Europe? The time was not come for the design to be exposed at full length. What grand scheme is developing, and whether Napoleon is devising the commercial aggrandizement of France, and the ruin of the English interest in the East, by the re-settlement of the Jews in their own land, time will discover. But it needs but little discernment, when, besides all this, the state of things both in Europe and in the East, and the character of the extraordinary man who has taken this people under his protection, are taken into consideration, to perceive, that something is intended more characteristic of the vast grasp of Napoleon’s ambition than that of squeezing out of the Jews a few millions of livres....”
Bicheno concludes thus: “... it must be allowed by all serious minds, ... that the great question relative to the future fortunes of the Jews, who, for so many ages, have been preserved as by a continued miracle, possesses considerable interest: ... that the Jews, after their present long captivity, will be gathered from all nations, and be again restored to their own country, and be made a holy and happy people. That their restoration will be effected at a time of great and general calamities.... That it is most likely they will be first put in motion by some foreign power, and that this power is some maritime one in these western parts of the world.... How long it is to the time when ‘the dry bones of the House of Israel’ will begin to move, it is impossible to say;... But although no one can say how near, or how distant, the time may be, when God will fulfil his promises to the Jewish nation; yet it is certain there never were so many reasons for concluding it not to be very far off, as at present. We live in awful times. We and our fathers have seen wars, but, since man learnt to shed blood, there never was one similar to the present, in which the nations are dashing each other to pieces.... Events the most alarming follow each other in quick succession.... Palestine itself is becoming the scene of contest; and that ferment, which has been productive of such unexpected and awful catastrophes in Europe, has reached the shores of Egypt and Syria.”¹
In conclusion, it may be pointed out that Bonaparte’s idea of the restoration of the Jews was not quite new in France. Some suggestions of the kind had been made in French literature before. Thus the Prince de Ligne¹ wrote, in his Memoirs upon the Jews, in 1797:
“After having traced to the Christian states their duties and their interests in regard to the amelioration of the condition of the Jews of Europe, we may prophesy what will happen in case they ignore this counsel.... If the Turks have a little common sense they will try and attract the Jews to them in order to make them their political, military and financial advisers, their police agents, their merchants, in short to become initiated by their advisers into all wherein lies the strength and weakness of the Christian states. Finally, the Sultan will sell to them the Kingdom of Judah, where they would act better than aforetimes.... The Jews who would have found again their country would be compelled to make therein flourish the arts, industry, agriculture and the commerce of Europe. Jerusalem, a horrible nest at present (this was written in 1797), giving a heartache to the pilgrims who come there now, would become a splendid capital. They would rebuild the Temple of Solomon upon its ruins. They would fix the waters of the torrents of Kidron, which would supply canals for circulation and exportation.”