Indian Jews Form Zionist Brotherhood

A Zionist Brotherhood, consisting of Indian Jews who will undertake to live on bare necessities and devote their lives to working for the Jewish National Home and the uplift of the local community has been founded here under the leadership of an English Jew, Adolphe Meyers, who was previously a delegate of the Keren Hayesod.

The Jewish National Movement, the program declares, is making slower progress than it should, not because it is not possessed of truth and justice, but because it has not succeeded in convincing more than a small section of the Jewish people that it is worthy of complete self-sacrifice. If only the virtue of the complete abandonment of self could have been brought home to the Jews their success in Palestine would have been assured. So far, the program declares, there is no one in the Diaspora who has set an example of self-sacrifice by living for others and forgetting himself in order to serve the nation. They claim that there has been no Jewish missionary working for Zion.

The Zionist Brotherhood intends that its members should retire from all material things and give up all thought of their personal future. They will devote their lives to Zionist work, educational and practical. Instead of ploughing the soil, members of the community will indulge in manual work of a suitable nature in order to provide for the necessities of life. All their spare time will be devoted to the welfare of the community and the establishment of the National Home. The motto of the organization is to be “Man only believes as deeply as he lives.” There can be no compromise between real beliefs and the conduct of life itself. Only in such a way, they declare, can we make ourselves of any value to the life and progress of the community.