“Zionism alone offers the avenue of escape for millions of Jews who, even in these times of pretended civilization, democratic ideals and humanity, find themselves hounded and surrounded by hordes of bigotted and unrelenting foes whose only desire is to annihilate them,” Isidore Epstein, national president of the Mizrachi Youth of America, declared last night in an address over radio Station WARD.
Reminding his listeners that Zionism was called into being and draws its greatest strength from the historic yearning of the masses to return to their ancestral land where they could live a full Jewish life, Epstein emphasized that “this yearning is essentially religious.”
ZIONISM NEEDS RELIGION
“However, general Zionism,” he continued, “as popularly understood and commonly propagated, attempts to belittle, if not entirely ignore, this religious concept. The adherents of traditional Judaism cannot countenance this aspect, Without Judaism, Zionism is soulless and foreign to the observant Jew.”
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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.
