Sejarah Zionisme, 1600-1918/Volume 1/Bab 38

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE RUSSIAN POGROMS OF 1881 AND 1882

The new period of Jewish martyrdom—Public opinion in England—Mass meetings, questions in Parliament and collections—Protests from France, Holland, America and other countries—An instructive lesson—Emigration of Jewish masses—The problem—The “Lovers of Zion.”

The year 1882 was a turning-point in the history of the colonization of Palestine by the Jews.

The anti-Jewish riots and massacres which broke out in Russia in the spring of 1881 had attracted attention to the position of the Jewish people, but not to a degree commensurate with the importance of the subject. Just when it seemed probable that the martyrs of 1881 would leave no record behind them, new massacres occurred in 1882 and again drew attention to the subject. All the English newspapers dealt sympathetically with the position of the persecuted Jews, and gave full accounts of the atrocities. These articles caused an outburst of pity and sympathy throughout England. Several mass meetings were held and funds were started. Questions were addressed in both Houses to the Secretary and Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. This spontaneous outcry in England soon spread to all the countries of Europe. In Paris the veteran poet novelist Victor Hugo (1802‒1885) headed the appeal for justice and pity. In Holland the University of Utrecht rivalled that of Oxford in its protests. Across the Atlantic the Government of the United States went further than any other Government, and entered a powerful protest in the President’s Message to Congress. All these movements took their origin from the first emphatic outburst of pity in England.

The racial and national instincts which in times of prosperity often lie dormant in the hearts of the Jews were thoroughly aroused and stimulated by the cruel persecutions to which their brethren were subjected. It was a terribly instructive lesson for those Jews who believed in the progress of humanity as a solution of the problem of the Jewish tragedy. They had a sudden and rude awakening. More and more the conviction gained ground among the people that the helplessness of the Jew in his trials, his utter inability to stem the tide of abuse and oppression, was chiefly due to the fact that he had no land which he could call a Jewish land par excellence. The best treatment that he received in free countries was only toleration. He was always supposed to have the right of existence and of equality with those among whom he lived, but in no case could he enforce it by stronger measures than an appeal to the goodwill and kindness of those who could either give or withhold it. Appeals to the sacred principles of humanity and justice, beautiful and inspiring as they were, were practically futile. Renewed persecution brought these facts once again to the cognizance of the Jews.

Besides, there was the visible fact of an enormous number of homeless Jews who had no place of refuge anywhere in the wide world. For the great exodus had begun. The necessity of providing the homeless wanderers with shelter was most pressing, the more so as it had to be done without much delay. The persecutions grew in intensity, and emigration increased by leaps and bounds. The sufferers attempted to settle in almost every part of the world. Every country objected to the influx of so many immigrants, and more than one country prohibited their entry altogether.

While most of the poor wanderers themselves struggled manfully to brave the tide of poverty and of exile, the bulk of their brethren who dwelt under more favourable conditions in other countries made it their business to devise plans for the succour of the exiled. Fortunately for the immigrants, and to the credit of human nature, there were noble-minded men in America who saw that there was work to be done, and undertook it without hesitation, sparing neither expense nor trouble in devising measures for the alleviation of the misery of the immigrants and for safeguarding them against the temptations and evils of a new country.

The immediate help which America gave was very important, but the question of the future still remained unsolved. The problem created by Jewish emigration presents many difficulties. The tie that binds the heart of the emigrant to the soil of his birth is gradually weakened. The attachment of the parents to the traditions of their native land slowly weakens. The children find new ties. The new surroundings claim their attention. The distant land of their infancy appears to them only dimly on the horizon. A few years pass, and the old Ghetto has become to them a mythical vision. Nothing, indeed, is so remarkable as the rapid absorption of English, Irish, Scotch, German, and even French immigrants, not to speak of some half a dozen smaller nationalities, by the ordinary American type. One would have expected to see citizens of the States learning to regard this continual fusion as a natural political condition, to reckon with it, to encourage it, to remove all difficulties out of the way of those who devoted themselves to the task of bringing new immigrants into the “land of unlimited possibilities,” and of reconciling and harmonizing the numerous heterogeneous elements. But there are men who do their best to hinder this great work, and thanks to their efforts, legislation is engaged in placing various restrictions upon free immigration. Jewish immigrants in particular are still looked upon in some quarters as intruders. They are received with frigid looks not only by non-Jews, but also by some of their own brethren, who have had the good fortune to settle in the country earlier, and have learnt to feel quite at home. And it is not only the economic question which makes Jewish immigration en masse difficult: it is still more the question of the national culture, religion and traditions of the Jews, which are endangered by assimilation. The question of bread, important as it is, is not the whole of the Jewish problem. The old Roman “panem et circenses” could never become a Jewish principle. The Jewish principle is expressed in the words:—

“... man doth not live by bread only, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deuteronomy viii. 3).

Now members of other nations can find a home in America while their nation remains and develops its own life in the mother-country. But where is the mother-country of the Jews, of Judaism?

Various schemes of Jewish colonisation were planned and partly carried out in America at the time of which we speak. Some of them met with some success, others proved utter failures. On the other hand, great masses of Jews were inspired by the conviction that good results could be expected only in Palestine from an effort to turn the exiled Jews into agriculturists. That view was strongly opposed by others who, living themselves in affluence, thought that they would always be secure against persecution in the countries in which they dwelt. They consequently thought that the Jewish problem could be solved only by a real union between the Jews and their non-Jewish neighbours, by a process in which the Jews would cast off all that separated them from non-Jews. They were blind to the fact, established by the whole of Jewish history, that the more the Jew denies his distinctiveness the more he is attacked and accused of it; and that whilst small groups of Jews may sometimes succeed in getting rid of their dissimilarity, the Jewish masses neither can nor will. They thought that Palestine should be the last place for the Jew of to-day to think of, being under the mistaken impression that the Holy Land was unsuitable for colonisation and agriculture on a large scale. They argued from a technical standpoint which had a bad foundation. They had no knowledge of the facts, and Palestine was for them really a terra incognita. But the masses turned with a unanimous impulse to Palestine. Everywhere societies of “Lovers of Zion” were founded for the realization of the cherished hope of making Jews once more owners of land in Palestine. Sometimes the idea was taken up with more enthusiasm than practical sense, and many hurried to Palestine in the belief that, once in the country, they would find it easy to make a living. Not unnaturally there was much disillusionment, and many a bitter lesson was learnt by sad experience. So it became incumbent upon the existing societies to keep the enthusiasm of their adherents within the bounds of sanity and practicability. The societies had to grope their way carefully. They had to find out suitable localities for establishing colonies, to direct the energies of those most fit to undertake colonising work into the proper channels, and to check the efforts of those who did not show the capacity for success and would only have proved a hindrance to the capable and the efficient.