Part 3

Perhaps nothing testifies so clearly to the intellectual and spiritual energy of the Italian Jews as the promptness with which they adopted the art of printing and the vast number of Hebrew books they issued soon after the invention of the art. The first Hebrew printed works appeared in 1475-76, and in the sixteenth century Ferrara, Bologna, Naples, Cremona, Mantua, became veritable centres for the publication of Hebrew Bibles, the Talmud, the Zohar, and other rabbinic works. It is interesting to note that the first Spanish translation of the Old Testament appeared in Ferrara, and was the work of a Jewish exile, who by the maltreatment of Spain was not estranged from the love of her language.

Moreover, the culture of the Jews of Italy even centuries ago had something that was lacking among their contemporaries elsewhere--it had breadth, resulting from contact with a cultivated and enlightened people. Some of the foremost rabbis were also physicians, and were sought as such by popes, princes, cardinals, and other men of distinction.

Frequently, we find Jewish scholars acting as teachers and translators for eminent Christian scholars and patrons of learning, as, for instance, Jacob Anatoli, Leo Modena, Elijah Levita, and others.

This breadth of culture is the reason why some of their finest works were written in Italian, such as _The Dialogues of Love_ by Leo Hebreo, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and several of the religious and ethical treatises of such celebrated scholars as Leo Modena, Samuel David Luzzatto, and Elia Benamozegh. For breadth, as well as versatility, the products of Israel's spiritual genius in Italy have never been excelled.

Finally, one cannot study the history of the Jew in Italy without realizing the depth and ardor of his patriotism. "From the lowest to the highest," an Italian writer has said, "the Italian is always a patriot." This certainly may be affirmed of the Italian Jew. He has always stood for Italy, and been ready to defend her with his blood.

When in the year 536, Belizar, the commander of Justinian I, besieged Naples, it was the Jews who opposed the surrender of the city, and offered not only to participate in the defense, but to support the population with money during the siege. To them was assigned the defense of the most dangerous section of the city, facing the sea, and when the city was captured they were made to pay most severely for their patriotism. And the example of those heroic patriots was followed repeatedly by the Jews of Italy. It is such patriotism that made them defenders of Rome when Louis Napoleon sent an army corps against it in behalf of the Pope, and such patriotism that made them take such a prominent part, under Cavour and Mazzini and Garibaldi, in the days of the Risorgimento, in the struggle that led finally to the emancipation and unification of Italy.

No wonder, then, that Italy had no sooner won her liberty and unity than she paid due tribute to the patriotism of her Jewish citizens and gave them that complete emancipation to which their whole history had entitled them and for which even some of the most eminent non-Jews had pleaded for many a day--non-Jews whose spirit of justice and freedom was sublimely symbolized by that noble priest, Father Ambrosoli, who, in the Passover night of 1848, when the walls of the ghetto were demolished, was seen amid the crowd, holding under his cloak a crucifix, which he was ready to uplift as an emblem of love and brotherhood in case of any hostile demonstration against the Jews.

What good use the Jew of Italy has made of his new-found liberty, the record of the years since 1870 tells eloquently! In the sciences, in the arts, in philosophy, in public service--as diplomats and ministers of State--in every sphere, the Jews of Italy have become an honor to themselves as well as to their country.

In Rome you may see today a beautiful new Temple erected on the ruins of the old ghetto. In the vestibule there is a tablet commemorating its dedication, in the presence of the King of Italy, and reciting the fact of its erection on the spot where formerly stood the walls of the ghetto. When I saw it several years ago, I was deeply impressed with the beauty of the structure and the loyalty that reared it among those squalid but historic surroundings.

This Temple is a symbol. It is a symbol of the ancient character of the Italian Jewry. It is a symbol of its loyalty. But above all, it is a symbol of the liberty and happiness that the advance of democracy has brought to the Jew of Italy, as well as of other lands. It inspires us with the hope that so long as Italy remains true to the cause of democracy, which is the cause of justice and enlightenment, so long will the Jew be free and safe and happy within her borders!

V

PALESTINE AND THE JEWS

One could not read without a thrill the news of the recent advance of the British army in Palestine. The Holy Land thus is gradually passing under the control of the Allies, and its destiny is growing of particular moment to everybody interested in the outcome of the War. To the Jew, however, this becomes a particular occasion for a consideration of the relation of Palestine to the Jews.

In the study of the past of the Jewish people, we come across different countries that have played an important part in Jewish history. In France, in England, in Russia, in Italy, in Spain--in all these countries are imbedded important parts and periods of Jewish history. But no country can compare to Palestine in this respect.

In a way, Israel and Palestine are inseparable. They are synonymous. In the Hebrew tongue, Palestine is called the Land of Israel, the name Palestine having been first used by Philo and Josephus, and by the Romans, and really being derived from the Philistines, who, in ancient times, fought against the Jews for the possession of this fertile and beautiful country.

It is true that after the destruction of the Jewish State by the Romans, in the year 70, and especially after the failure of the last struggle for independence under Rabbi Akiba and Bar Kochba, the number of Jews in Palestine decreased, and their part in it grew less and less significant.

It is true that for centuries Palestine was almost emptied of Jewish inhabitants, and such as were left were reduced to a life of penury and desolation. It is also true that in the course of history Palestine has changed masters frequently, having been in the possession of the various Canaanite tribes before the coming of Israel, and since the fall of the Jewish State passing through the hands of Romans, Christians, and Turks. Yet, on the other hand, it is no less true that the classic period of Jewish history is associated with the name of Palestine, just as the classic period of Palestine is indissolubly bound up with the name of Israel.

Archeologists may unearth in Palestine remnants of a civilization that antedated by centuries, perhaps by thousands of years, the coming of the Hebrews, and historians may trace the fate of Palestine since the banishment of the Jews, from Titus to the Turks; but the most glorious and most important section of the story of Palestine is the period of its occupation by Israel. Similarly, we may relate and rejoice in Israel's achievements the world over, and in the wonderful capacity the Jew has shown in all countries for growth and grandeur; yet none can deny that the paramount period of Jewish history coincides with the Jew's life in Palestine--where his character developed, where his prophets taught, and where the consciousness of his unity and eternal purpose took possession of his soul.

"Is there not something," asks Mr. Watts-Dunton, "in the very soil upon which we are born, in the very atmosphere above it, that aids in molding our characters, if not our destinies?" In the case of Israel this question must be answered in the affirmative. Historians agree that the character of Palestine had much to do with the molding of the character of the Jewish people and directing its destiny. Such diverse scholars as Solomon Judah Rapoport, the celebrated rabbi of Prague, and Miss Ellen Churchill Semple, the eminent American representative of Anthropologic geography, agree in this view. It is for this reason that we have a right to say, with the ancient rabbis, that Palestine and Israel are inseparable.

Moreover, it is an error to assume that when the Jews were forced to leave Palestine, first by the Romans, and then by the various foes of Israel who seized it, it ceased to play a part in their lives. There are those who believe that in the life of human beings two sentiments, or forces, mean a great deal more than the actualities of the moment, namely, memory and hope. How often do not these two--memory and hope--mean more to us than the experience of the present?

This is what happened to the Jew in regard to Palestine after he was driven from its purlieus. He kept on clinging to it, as both his most cherished memory and most precious hope. It was the favorite theme of his meditations. It was the central subject of his prayers. It was the inspiration of his Muse. Never poet wrote more fervid poems of love than those the medieval poets of Israel addressed to Zion.

Throughout the ages Palestine continued to form the heart of Jewish theology and optimism. Time and again Rabbis of piety and prominence sought to make it anew the centre of religious scholarship and spiritual authority, as did Rabbi Joseph Caro in the sixteenth century, and though they failed, they personified the Jews undying love for the Holy Land.

It is this profound and indestructible love that Judah Halevi voiced in that elegy of wondrous beauty and pathos, which burst from his soul when, as an aged man, having left behind him all that was dear to him in his native Spain, he journeyed, in the year 1140, to Zion, to behold her desolated beauty and to kiss the dust of her stones. And this love has been shared by Jews everywhere throughout the ages.

"The cradle of our lives," says Mr. Watts-Dunton, "draws us to itself wherever we go." This has certainly been true of Israel. The cradle of his history, Palestine, has drawn him to itself, wherever he went. It remained his dream, the land of mystic love and longing, and as such it was even more beautiful, more precious in his eyes than when his in reality.

It is remarkable, however, that in recent years the dream again has begun to turn into a reality. After a forsaking of hundreds of years, with but scant interruption, Palestine again has become a centre of Jewish habitation and happiness. The story of this renewal is one of the most stirring, and most romantic, in the variegated history of the Jew.

For these many centuries the Jew had dreamed and prayed for Palestine. It had been the theme of his reveries. But it was forty years ago that men arose and decided that the time had come for making the dream come true. In different quarters the plan was advanced for settling Jews on the soil of Palestine, in order thus to restore the ancient land and also to help solve the problem of Jewish persecution and distress. It is noteworthy that among the pioneers of this plan were not only Jews, but also Christians, such as Warder Cresson, the first American consul in Jerusalem, who became a convert to Judaism, and Laurence Oliphant, the English philanthropist, who was unofficially supported by Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury.

The persecutions in Russia and Rumania emphasized the need of some radical measure for the improvement of the Jewish situation. Thus, in 1870, we see the beginning of a new Jewish colonization in Palestine by the founding of an agricultural school, Mikweh Israel, which is followed in 1878 by the founding of the colony Petah Tikwa, and in 1882 by the colony Rishon Le-Zion.

The men who founded these colonies were real pioneers; they had the ideals and the courage and the self-sacrifice of real pioneers, and no one can read their story without marveling at their endurance and achievements. It was their valiant struggle that led to the organization of the Hoveve Zion Societies in Russia and England and other countries. It also gained for them the support of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, and particularly the devoted and generous assistance of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, whose munificence saved the movement in its most critical period. As a result, numerous sections of the Holy Land have been reclaimed from the waste of centuries, and there were before the War prosperous Jewish colonies in Judea, in Galilee, and beyond the Jordan, noted for the bounty and variety of their products, as well as for the health and happiness of their inhabitants.

It is customary nowadays to give credit for all this renewal of Palestine to the Zionists. Nor does it matter particularly as to who gets the credit. But it is an historic fact that Dr. Herzl conceived the idea of a Jewish State some twenty-five years after the first Jewish Agricultural School had been founded in Palestine and Jewish colonization had begun. And it is further an historic fact that Dr. Herzl and his followers for years opposed the continuation of the colonizing activity, seeing that their plan was political and they insisted that unless the Jews first got a Charter to Palestine, they must not go on with the reclamation and improvement of the land.

However, it would lead us too far afield to pursue this phase of the subject. Suffice to say that it was the political emphasis of the Zionists, coupled with the anti-religious attitude of some of their leaders, that served to create friction in Israel and to alienate for the time being from the movement for the reclamation of Palestine some of the most devoted lovers of the Holy Land.

Latterly, however, the practical work was taken up anew, and it is thanks to this work, promoted partly by some prominent men both here and in Europe who are not at all votaries of political Zionism, that Palestine has witnessed such a physical and spiritual renewal at the hands of the Jewish people.

What the War, with its ravages, has done to the new life of Palestine, we do not know as yet. But it is natural to ask what the future of Palestine shall be. The British army is now going forward in Palestine, thus bringing to an end the Turkish rule which began just four hundred years ago, when Selim I conquered Egypt and Syria. It is impossible to ignore the important role that Palestine is destined to play in the future. Its industrial and commercial possibilities are enormous. Now, as ever, it is on the highway connecting Europe with Asia and Africa. With the increasing importance of the East, the value of Palestine is bound to grow.

But there is one essential condition: Palestine needs a population. And there can be no doubt that none would form so fitting a population for Palestine as Jews eager to go there and eager to restore the sacred soil.

It is in this light that we ought to view Mr. Balfour's recent declaration. If it proves possible, under solemn guarantees of the nations, to permit Jews to settle in Palestine, and to live there in security, we may be sure that many Jews will flock thither, and that they will consecrate all their energies to the restoration of the land so dear to every true Jewish heart. And thus Palestine would not only become again an important factor in Jewish life; it would become again a centre of material and spiritual riches, a land flowing as of old with milk and honey, and a stronghold of Justice and Righteousness, which are the core of Democracy.

For that end, however, we ought to put a stop to disputes about Zionism and anti-Zionism. Particularly, ought we to put a stop to such controversies carried on in the name of Reform Judaism. Reform Judaism is not bound up with anti-Zionism, or anti-Palestinism. Certainly Reform Judaism is not, and never can be, opposed to the restoration of Palestine. Some prominent Reform rabbis have been sincere believers in even the restoration of the Jewish State in Palestine, as, for instance, Samuel Hirsch, one of the most radical of Reform rabbis, who as far back as 1842, in his addresses on "The Messianic Doctrine of the Jews," dwelt on that belief as an essential part of Jewish conviction and hope.

Some others have refrained from engaging in controversy with the Zionists, though whenever necessary they have not failed to maintain against them these three essential propositions: first, that we dare not mortgage the Jewish future to a Jewish State in Palestine; secondly, that there is no such thing possible as a Jewish people without Judaism; and, thirdly, that it is wrong to assume that Judaism cannot flourish outside of Palestine. But all this has nothing to do with the restoration of Palestine and making it a centre for Israel and humanity, if we can do it.

Let us, therefore, for once realize that Israel is greater than Zionism, and Palestine more important than parties. Let us unite for the common good! It is because of divisions and disputations, the rabbis tell us, Jerusalem was lost; let us not permit a similar cause to keep us from restoring it--I don't mean as the capital of a Jewish State, but as a centre of Jewish energy and revival. Let us work toward Jewish unification, which, the rabbis believe, must precede redemption. And thus let us help secure for Palestine also the benefits of that democracy, that rule of liberty and justice, that cause of human liberation and opportunity, to the triumph of which America has pledged so nobly her life and her strength.

VI

AMERICA AND THE JEWS

America has often been described as the land of opportunity and of unlimited possibilities. This is one reason why since our entry into the War, the eyes of the whole world have been fixed upon us. It is certainly true that to no group of people has America proved more truly a land of opportunity than to the Jews. A mere survey of the American period of Jewish history is sufficient to convince us of this, and such a survey is especially appropriate at present when the history of the world is being recast and remade, and the future destiny of both America and the Jew is a subject of frequent discussion.

In no other country do we find the strands of Jewish history so intimately and continually interwoven with the general fabric as here in America. This is due partly to the newness of the country and the early arrival of Jewish settlers. Even in the study of Palestine, we find that there was a time when it contained no Jewish inhabitants, and various strata of civilization already had disappeared when the Jews took possession. As for America, however, the Jew's activity is co-extensive with the history of her civilization.

I shall not dwell here on the well-known fact that Jews were associated with Columbus in his voyage of discovery, that Jews supported his enterprise financially and scientifically, and that a Marrano Jew is said to have been the first member of Columbus's crew to step on the soil of the New World. But it is certain that from the very days of the discovery, Jews became frequent on the American continent, first in South and Central America, and later on in North America.

The finding of the New World offered timely compensation for the expulsion from Spain, and Israel lost no time in transferring his genius for enterprise and continuity, both material and spiritual, to the new field so providentially opened.

By the middle of the seventeenth century, we see the beginnings of Jewish migration to North America, owing primarily to vicissitudes of war in South America, and as that was the time when English civilization began to establish itself here, the form of civilization destined to remain permanent, we can see with what right we may speak of the continuity of Jewish history in our Republic.

It is true that the number of Jews at first was small, but before long their influence and service transcended their proportions. During the Revolution, there were only about two thousand Jews in the Colonies; yet, some of them had become so prominent, that their help was not inconsiderable, and in several instances of conspicuous and unforgettable merit. We know, for example, that Washington had an aide who was a Jew, Isaac Franks, that one of the earliest officers of our Navy was a Jew, Uriah Levy, and that a Jew, Haym Salomon, an immigrant from Poland, helped the Revolution financially, aside from what similar help he extended to some of the heroes of the Revolution individually, thus rendering it easier for them to do their share of the common task. Aside from what these instances may mean in themselves, they are important for the light they throw on the rapidity with which Jewish settlers made their way in this country, on the completeness of their civil and political assimilation, and on their public prominence in the early days of American history.

What progress the Jew has made in America since those days, he who runs may read. On the material side, she certainly has become a land of promise to millions of Jews. Gradually the Jewish population has grown to its present dimensions. During the nineteenth century the original immigration from mainly Sephardic sources, with an admixture from Poland, was supplemented by a wave of migration from German provinces. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, finally, the intense persecutions in Eastern Europe poured enormous waves of migration onto these shores. As a result of these successive movements of people, unprecedented in some respects in human history, millions of Jews have settled in our Republic, and, on the material side at least, it has become to them a veritable land of promise.

In all departments of life the Jew has prospered. It may be questioned whether ever in the past he has been blessed with such success. While it is erroneous to assume, as some people do, that all Jews are rich, or that the richest men are Jews (assumptions which are contradicted by facts), it is true that nowhere else have the Jewish people been given such an unhampered opportunity for advancement and such an unrestricted field of work and usefulness.

As a result, Jews are found in every sphere of work, in every honorable and useful occupation. In commerce, in the liberal and practical professions, in all the various forms of industry, the American Jew is found, and many have achieved eminent success. No longer can it be said, as they were wont to say of old, that the Jew is nothing but a usurer or a trader. In America hundreds of thousands of Jews work with their hands, there are numerous trade unions entirely composed of Jews, and nothing is more significant in this regard than that the President of the American Federation of Labor for years has been a Jew (at least, a man born a Jew).

It used to be said that the Jew will not be a farmer. Even if elsewhere the Jew had not disproved this assertion, he has done so on American soil, where numerous Jewish families have settled on farms and demonstrated their fitness to succeed even under adverse conditions.

What America has done for the material progress of millions of Jews is one of the marvels of history--a marvel augmented by the moral transformation which has accompanied the process. Men, who for generations had been hounded and haunted by persecution, who had been engrafted with all the moral evils of persecution, who had been humiliated and all but crushed--millions of such men by the liberty and humanity of America have been freed from the old chains, purged of the old stains, turned into free, strong, courageous, self-reliant, and self-respecting human beings. For this transformation we can never be sufficiently thankful, as it must ever continue to excite the admiration and the wonder of the world.

But the spiritual achievements of the Jew in America have been no less significant.