President of German Zionists Says Wassermann’s Opinion on Jewish National Home Based on Misconceptio

The opinion of Oscar Wassermann, German non-Zionist leader of the Jewish Agency, that Palestine can only be a National Home for those Jews who live there, is based on a misunderstanding of the real spirit behind the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, according to Kurt Blumenfeld, president of the German Zionist Federation, who replies to Wassermann’s recent article in the “Juedische Rundschau” of February 21.

“The value of the Balfour Declaration is recognized by Wassermann,” says Blumenfeld, “but the phrase ‘National Home,’ its most important phrase, which gives the Declaration its entire significance, is, from the non-Zionist standpoint, regarded as ‘unhappy,’ since it might lead to misinterpretations. ‘It’s a bad expression, which shouldn’t, however, affect good works,’ says Herr Wassermann, and then he goes on to say what he regards as good works and what must be rejected. We believe that Wassermann’s opinion that Palestine can only be a National Home for those Jews who live in Palestine is a misunderstanding of the real spirit behind this phrase. Only through its universal significance does the phrase ‘National Home’ receive its character, that is, through its ideational relationship to Jewry throughout the world. That differentiates the Jewish attitude towards Palestine, for example, from the Arab one. The Arab population in Palestine too has there its ‘Home,’ but it is not a center for the Arabic nation, while the Jewish Yishub in Palestine has a central function, and because of that it becomes the ‘National Home,’ which gives us a claim upon Palestine.

“It is not true that only a very few Zionists would like to establish the Homeland in the form of a Jewish State, if outside opportunities were given it. It is much more right to say that there is hardly a Zionist who will not joyfully and with all his heart hail the establishment of a Jewish State, if external conditions would allow it. Of course we know that Palestine is no empty country, and in the conviction that the full realization of our hopes is possible through a great, compact Jewish settlement with full, free national development in all phases of life, we consented to the interpretation of the Balfour Declaration. But we must insist on the full realization of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, both the words and the spirit, if the work of the Zionist movement is to have any meaning at all. The settlement of Palestine and the fulfillment of all hopes, which are also shared by the non-Zionist friends of Palestine, are only possible when millions of Jews outside of Palestine believe that their Jewish and individual fate will be decided in Palestine.

“Herr Wassermann not only denies that Palestine can become a cultural center for the rest of the Jewish world, but also believes that there is a possibility of implanting Jewish culture in the Galuth in such a form ‘as if Palestine didn’t exist.’ If there were a possibility for such a free and fruitful development in the Galuth, all efforts for a Jewish Palestine would be in vain. If one believes that the 15 or 16 million Jews are able to produce collectively something which is worthy to be called a continuation of the Jewish past, then the idea that these millions should consider themselves as belonging to a National Home is really absurd.”