they would be instrumental in the performance of the religious commands attached to the sacred soil just as if they themselves had been performing it. To enable members in more humble circumstances to contribute, quarterly payments might be received. But he whom the Almighty has blessed with earthly fortunes and who has the heart for the sufferings of his coreligionists anywhere in the Universe-he should not fail to join the "Alliance Israélite" of Paris, as a member with a yearly contribution of 1 Thaler 10 Sgr. (4 Shillings), and thus further the great aim. Two treasurers have been appointed by us to receive contributions. The well-known Banker, Mr. Seegall, in Posen, is Chief Treasurer, and Mr. S. Fuerst, in Schmiegel, Special Treasurer for amounts up to 100 Thalers (15). The latter Gentleman has offered to pay all postages out of his own private pocket, and is resolved to go at his own expense to Palestine and to make a beginning with the colonization; perhaps the undersigned Mr. Hirsch Kalischer may take upon himself the expense and hardships of such a voyage, to see there after the strict observance of the religious commands connected with agriculture in Palestine. Were there one at least in every congregation that would zealously take the matter in hand; we would willingly confer upon him the diploma of a Governor of the society and give him the necessary instructions. We are also ready to purchase a priceworthy piece of land in Palestine on account and in the name of any of our wealthier brethren in faith that would remit to us a sum for the purpose, and to have it administered according to their instructions. We hope that with the proper assistance from the congregations of Israel and by the aid of the Omnipotent we shall in a very short time be able to give effect to the idea of Colonization. Thorn in the month of Marcheshvan 5627. "Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people and for the cities of our God" (2 Samuel x. 12). ELIAS GUTMACHER, Rabbi in Graetz. LXX Alexandre Dumas (fils) and Zionism IN La Femme de Claude, pp. 50-51, Daniel says: "Nous sommes dans une époque où chaque race a résolu de revendiquer et d'avoir bien à elle son sol, son foyer, sa langue et son temple. Il y a assez longtemps que nous autres Israélites, nous sommes dépossédés de tout cela. Nous avons été forcés de nous glisser dans les interstices des nations, d'où nous avons 1 n?? The Hebrew National, vol. i., No. i., Feb. 15th, 1867, pénétré dans les intérêts des gouvernements, des sociétés, des individus. C'est beaucoup, ce n'est pas assez. On croit encore que la persécution nous a dispersés, elle nous a répandus; et nous tenant par la main, nous formons aujourd'hui un filet dans lequel le monde pourrait bien se trouver pris le jour où il lui viendrait à l'idée de nous redevenir hostile ou de se déclarer ingrat. En attendant nous ne voulons plus être un groupe, nous voulons être un peuple, plus qu'un peuple, une nation. La patrie idéale ne nous suffit plus, la patrie fixe et territoriale nous est redevenue nécessaire, et je pars pour chercher et lever notre acte de naissance légalisé." " Isidore Cahen writes, Le Daniel de la Femme du Claude ... prévoit et prédit une restauration matérielle de la grandeur de Juda, la reconstitution d'un Etat politique juif! M. Dumas va jusqu'à citer le vœu célébre de la Hagadah: L'année prochaine à Jerusalem. . . .' "Dans ces vœux qui contiennent nos livres traditionelles il n'y a qu'une espérance allégorique un vœu mystique : c'est une Jérusalem idéale,... et non pas une Jérusalem politique...." ... Il faut que je sois bien maladroit et que je dise bien mal ce que je veux dire pour qu'il y ait erreur sur mon appréciation des Israélites. Le jour où j'ai écrit la Femme de Claude, j'ai cru les glorifier. Je ne vois pas que Daniel et Rebecca ne représentent pas un idéal supérieur et si Daniel menace un moment ceux qui pourraient se montrer hostiles ou ingrats de la puissance que ses coreligionnaires ont acquise, il a parfaitement raison. Ce n'est pas quand depuis près de deux mille ans une race subit l'injustice et la persécution comme l'a fait votre race, qu'elle va, après de grands services rendus, supporter l'ingratitude et l'hostilité de ceux qu'elle a tirés d'affaire. Il n'en est pas moins vrai que lors de l'apparition de la Femme de Claude, beaucoup de vos coreligionnaires se sont trompés sur mes intentions et que quelquesuns ont organisé une cabale contre la pièce. Je ne leur en veux pas. Je ne ferai jamais entrer une question personnelle dans ce jugement que je puis avoir à porter historiquement et philosophiquement sur toute une Nation. ... Comme j'assiste pendant le temps que je passe sur la terre aux évolutions de l'humanité à laquelle j'appartiens, je m'amuse quelquefois à essayer de prévoir et même de prédire la direction qu'elles peuvent prendre. Comme j'ai bien étudié celles de votre race, que je l'ai vue asservie et persécutée de tous temps et en ces mêmes temps toujours patiente et laborieuse, je me suis, dans mon intérieur, pris de sympathie pour elle, et si j'avais été capable de pratiquer une religion c'est à celle de ces persécutés et de ces laborieux que je serais allé. Quand un peuple a établi toute la morale humaine sur dix petits versets, il peut vraiment se dire le peuple de Dieu, étant donné la conception que les hommes les plus éclairés peuvent se faire, derrière Moise 1 Archives Israelites, 1er Fevrier, 1873, p. 86. d'un Dieu personnel. Seulement j'ai le tort d'appliquer à ceux que j'étudie et qui m'intéressent les idées que j'aurais si j'étais à leur place . . ., quand j'ai vu les évènements politiques nous apporter en 1870, en établissant la République et en nous retirant de Rome, vous apporter la revanche de tant d'injustices et d'humiliations patiemment supportées, je me suis demandé quelle mission je me donnerais, si dans les idées où je suis, j'étais membre de ce peuple particulier. Je me suis dit alors que je n'aurais qu'une idée, ce serait de reprendre possession de mon sol d'origine et de tradition et de rebâtir le temple de Jérusalem, sinon sur la place du tombeau du Christ, du moins en face. C'est cette idée que j'ai incarnée dans Daniel. On m'a dit souvent depuis, que je me trompais sur les ambitions des Israélites, qu'ils ne pensaient plus à ces représailles-là, que leur idéal était de vivre en paix avec les différentes nations qui leur ont donné droit de cité et qu'ils ont renoncé à finir leurs jours dans un foyer à eux. Tant pis pour eux, si c'est vrai. Il est bon d'avoir un idéal, même quand il est irréalisable. Voilà mon cher ami, aussi brièvement que possible, mes idées sur vos coreligionnaires. Ils m'ont toujours inspiré les sentiments que leur courage, leur persévérance, leurs malheurs, leurs efforts de toutes sortes doivent inspirer à des esprits de bonne foi et à des consciences désintéressées. . . . LXXI APPEAL OF DUNANT'S ASSOCIATION FOR THE COLONISATION OF PALESTINE (1867) PALESTINE COLONISATION To the Editor of the Jewish Chronicle. "... International undertaking for the Rejuvenescence of Palestine.-Palestine is a rich and fertile country, although now little populated, and therefore uncultivated. A soil greatly subject to a variety of circumstances is the cause of a great variety of meteorological conditions. Hence a great variety of productions peculiar nearly to every latitude; hence also a great facility for every colonist to find in his new country a climate approaching that of his native land. It is not to be feared that the colonisation of the Holy Land, judiciously carried on, can lack warm sympathies or labour under a want of colonists. Numerous adhesions from emigrants by the thousand, easy in circumstances and willing to work, have already addressed themselves to the founders of the undertaking for the rejuvenescence of Palestine." 1 The foregoing are extracts from a hitherto unpublished letter sent by Alexandre Dumas (fils) to a prominent French Jew. It is dated 1873. "The new reforms introduced by the Ottoman Government, the law which authorised strangers to purchase and hold real estate in the Turkish empire, the road now being constructed from Jaffa to Jerusalem, the works projected in the port of Jaffa, the improvements effected in the great lines of communication-all these undertakings and circumstances united seem to indicate that the moment could not be better chosen for commencing the colonisation of Palestine. . . . "The capital required for such an undertaking would not long remain unproductive; indeed, the financial operation of the company that should be formed for this purpose would be one of the simplest. "The uncultivated land in Palestine purchased of the Ottoman Government at a comparatively small price, and with facilities for payment, resold at a higher figure, would bring in an important profit. The increase in the value of this land-a direct result of the colonisation-would be an additional guarantee for the realisation of this expectation. "The supply to the colony of agricultural and industrial tools, a trade of importation organized on a scale strictly proportionate to the acknowledged wants of the new settlement, would offer to the company a field for a second operation, which, presenting neither risk nor peril, would nevertheless insure from the very beginning undoubted profits. The life which begins to stir in the port of Jaffa will take a fresh rise with the development of agriculture and manufacture in colonised Palestine. The rejuvenescence of Central Asia, which England on the one hand and Russia on the other pursue with so much vigour-the former in the way of peace and the latter in that of war-will not fail favourably to react on the trade of the coast of Syria, once so flourishing, and the decline of which only dates from the fall of the great empire of Persia. "Ancient Phoenicia, the cities of Tyre and Sidon, the richest of antiquity, owed their prosperity only to the intermediate trade carried on between the east and the west. The fall of the empire founded by Cyrus produced in Central Asia so great a moral and material decay that the trade and industrial pursuits of these immense regions perished from inanity. Tyre and Sidon had no longer any basis for existence; their grandeur accordingly gradually declined. Alexander, after these splendid and proud cities, succeeded in forming direct relations with India, which the founder of this empire had brought nigh to Europe. But Alexandria in its turn had to experience fortune's inconstancy. Since the discovery of the route to India to the day when steamers and the railway to Suez restored to it some life, desertion and oblivion were its lot. The piercing of the isthmus of Suez will end by restoring to Alexandria its pristine importance. The trade of India will once more completely come back to it, but the cities on the coast of Syria and Jaffa in particular will not the less remain mistresses of every commercial market of Central Asia, upon which a new destiny is dawning. A great economical revulsion in the old world is preparing, and the coast of Palestine will again become as in days of old, in common with that of Lower Egypt, the centre of all exchange between the old continents. The Palestine Company has therefore an immense future, which it is easy to foresee even now, but we must allow events to proceed in the development of its activity beyond the modest limits which we at present mark out for it. "Paris and Jerusalem, March, 1866 and September, 1867." The address of the secretary-general of this undertaking is Paris, 24, Rue de la Paix.1 LXXII EDWARD CAzalet's ZioNIST VIEWS "IT was through the armed intervention of England, that, in the year 1841, Syria was transferred from Egyptian to Turkish rule. At that time Lord Palmerston was in office; and his policy, as he explained to the French Ambassador, M. de Bourgoing, was to turn Syria into a desert under Turkish rule, and interpose this desert between the Sultan and his Egyptian vassal. In confirmation of this, which may seem to some an astounding statement, I can only refer you to Guizot's Memoirs,' vol. 2, p. 525.... to Syria assuredly reparation is due on the part of England.... To attempt to improve the Turkish Government of Syria is, for obvious reasons, a hopeless task. . . . No other country has anything like the same interest in Syria, that we have; besides which, it is to the English nation alone that the population of Syria look for protection and support. ... "It was England who handed this country over to the Turks in 1841. Turkey has ever since abused her charge, and it is only just that she should be now called upon to transfer it into more capable hands." " The Arabs, who form two-thirds of the whole of the population of Syria, and are for most part lords of the soil, are with very few exceptions completely illiterate, regardless of truth, dishonest in their dealings, and immoral in their conduct. In large towns the greater proportion of the upper classes are both physically and mentally feeble, owing to the effects of polygamy, early marriages, and degrading vices. Out of such elements there is no possibility of creating a ruling class. The other sects are too few in number, and too bigoted and superstitious, to be of any 1 Jewish Chronicle and Hebrew Observer, December 13, 1867, p. 6. |