There are still a group of rabbit-hearted Jews who regard cringing and anonymity as the best policy. They feel that courage and dignity are direct liabilities. They seem to believe that this might actually cause anti-Semitism.
They do not seem to realize that a man is what he is—not what he s## says. If he lacks self-respect no amount of whining and baksheesh will gain him the respect of others. I have mentioned this so often that it makes me ill to have to allude to it again, yet there are Jews who are fundamentally incapable of conceiving a self-sufficient courageous action which in itself is one of life’s objectives.
GHETTO MINDS
These Jews possess Ghetto minds, even if they have learned the graces and have acquired money. They are the Jews whom I have called the believers in bogey-men.
There is another class whom I call the believers in Santa Claus. They are always howling for social justice and look upon Palestine as a great experimental station in which the rest of the world can operate to evolve a new social scheme of things. They mean to be the little white laboratory mice of the world. That while all this evolving is going on they are liable to die in the process, either never occurs to them or means nothing to them.
They regard Jewish nationalism as being merely a perpetuation of the present economic evils of the world.
WOULD SWAP THEM ALL
I will admit that there is much about this world that might be improved. However, the search for Utopia is always fraught with perils on its own account, and I would trade any day a hard-bitten Jewish nationalism in the Near East for the degraded, nerve-rendering, anti-Semitism of Germany, Austria, Rumania and Poland. In fact, were I a denizen of these barbaric places, I would regard a crust of bread in a nationalistic Jewish State as a fair swap for all the economic liberation they could give me.
Of course, many people cannot understand why I place so much stress on the mere ability to be spiritually free and to walk around with one’s head erect. However, I do not regard this particularly as being my fault.
PATHOS IN DREAMS
My feeling is that something has died within the breasts of these people, like a sense of hearing, or a taste for sweetness. Their grovelling sense of realism, and hazy messianic dreams of world brotherhood strike me as being full of pathos. I pity them from the bottom of my heart, since I love them for what they should be. I do not expect them to suddenly burst into manhood, like the rose in bloom. That great spark of dignity, resolution, and courage has died unrecognized in their souls long back. I can only expect of them that they look in amazement at what I am saying and to evilly resent it as something they can never comprehend.
In our people as an entity, I believe that the out-thrust chin and bold, fearless eye are still characteristic. I feel that we are not only a great people historically, but that we are a great people today; that we are great in that inner stature which gives substance and virility to a people.
LOVES RACE’S TRADITIONS
I speak, therefore, not because I am afraid individual Jews will die, be persecuted, waylaid, and torn, but because I believe the Jewish people represent a high-water mark in human values, because they and their consciousness must be perpetuated. I do not speak only because of fear of what the future will bring but because I am in love with this people, with its traditions, and with what I believe will spring forth from it when allowed to develop on a free soil.
Only a fierce, aggressive nationalism, unhappy as this may appear to international-minded philosophers, can bring the Jewish genius into bloom. The believers in Santa Claus and the believers in bogeymen must, with their ideas, be dropped off at the wayside.
BELIEVE IN BLOOD-STREAM
Those of us who love this cause, believe in the strength, endurance, and greatness of the Jewish bloodstream.
We believe in the nobility of the Jewish character, in the power of the Jewish soul. We believe in the development as soon as possible of an independent, self-sustaining Jewish State. In this State we hope the hush-hush boys will be just a memory of an old nightmare. And perhaps social justice will be given to all as a matter of normal adjustment independent of the ideological howling of the followers of Santa Claus.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
