Social Zionism : selected essays

Front matter

"Moses commanded us a Torah; Eyen the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob."

EX LIBRIS

gbrafjam Jhsaac STacobsfon

Introduction

IN the city of Pittsburgh, on June 25, 1918, the Zionists of America, in convention assembled, adopted a program for the future Jewish State in Palestine, which bids fair to be as epoch-making as was the first declaration of Zionism, known as the Basle Platform. As the latter expresses the political aspect of Zionism, even so does the Pittsburgh Program enunciate the social basis of Zionism — a striving for social justice that has characterized the Jewish race throughout the centuries, from the days of the prophets of Israel even to our own times. The Basle Platform is the declaration of independence proclaimed by that group within the Jewish race who had determined to build a Jewish State. The Pittsburgh Program gives us a picture of the kind of state for which the Zionists are striving.

The Pittsburgh Program, indeed, has world wide significance. Its result may prove to be of benefit not to ourselves alone, but to all the world. In making Palestine a laboratory for momentous experiments in the quest for social justice, we are dedicating the future Jewish State to a world purpose, even as Moses transformed our ancestors into a "chosen people," who, from the vantage ground of the Holy Land, were to bring the message of divine justice to the world. There, in concrete experience, shall we realize the message of the prophets of Israel, as proclaimed in the ancient Jewish state, for in this final Jewish state we shall develop a model community based on Social Justice. Can there be a higher or nobler mission? The Pittsburgh Program, unanimously adopted, reads as a prophecy of the future Commonwealth in Zion : —

1. Political and civil equality irrespective of race, sex, or faith of all the inhabitants of the land.

2. To insure in the Jewish national home in Palestine equality of opportunity, we favor a policy which, with due regard to existing rights, shall tend to establish the ownership and control of the land and of all natural resources, and of all public utilities by the whole people.

3. All land, owned or controlled by the whole people, should be leased on such condi-

INTRODUCTION 11

tions as will insure the fullest opportunity for development and continuity of possession.

4. The co-operative principle should be applied as far as feasible in the organization of all agricultural, industrial, commercial, and financial undertakings.

5. The fiscal policy shall be framed so as to protect the people from the evils of land speculation and from every other form of financial oppression.

6. The system of free public instruction which is to be established, should embrace all grades and departments of education.

7. The medium of public instruction shall be Hebrew, the national language of the Jewish people.

The second, third and fourth principles comprise a declaration of Social Zionism, as a complement to the Political Zionism of the older days.

The Pittsburgh Program is the excuse as well as the justification for this little volume. The author first used the phrase "Social Zionism" in an article appearing in the "Collegiate Zionist" in July, 1910. Since that day such phrases as the "Zion Commonwealth," "Jewish Industrial Army," and many other expressions used by the author for the past ten years, indicative of the social element in Zionism, have become the general property of Jewish nationalists.

Yet these phrases are not mere catch names for subjects of essays and speeches. They represent a well defined theory of social action with respect to Zionism. This theory is the basis of all the chapters of this book, which are reproductions, in whole, or in part, of various essays and articles published during a period of nine years (1910 — 19). Only a few words and phrases have been changed, or omitted, in several instances where the old word or phrase might prove misleading at the present time. It follows, therefore, that some of the illustrations and allusions in the various chapters may not seem timely, or the most appropriate, in view of the rapid changes that have occurred during the last few years; yet this disadvantage is more than offset by the opportunity that it offers the reader to trace the development of a social theory in Zionism, culminating in the adoption of the Pittsburgh Program. This volume may, therefore, serve as an introduction to the study of certain planks in the Pittsburgh Program and its implication. What is this social theory — what does the Social Zionist want?

f f f

A Social Zionist is one whose idealism is not satisfied merely with the creation of a Jewish state, but who is determined to build a model state in the Holy Land — freed from the economic wrongs, the social injustices and the greed of modern-day industrialism. While he may not be prepared to endorse the full program of any particular radical school, yet he purposes to utilize the truths of all schools in building the new Commonwealth in Zion.

Not so long ago, the champions of protective tariffs and government subsidies in the United States had the temerity to oppose all radical measures of social reform, on the ground that we must "let-well-enough-alone," and that extensive "State Interference" was a dangerous philosophy, since such paternalism would destroy the individual liberty that has come down to us as an heirloom from the fathers who framed the constitution.

Gradually, our views on state interference are being transformed. The state is no longer regarded merely as a legal system with a police force, as an appendix, to enforce the decrees of the courts. Men know now that the state can be utilized as a power for the self-development of society as well as for the self-realization of the individual. They are convinced that the state, by regulating and controlling y\ our industrial system, may offer far more liberty than we have to-day. Herbert Spencer pictures the happy freedom of the savage, who owes no allegiance to Parliament, with its statutes and its senseless interference in the activities of the individual citizen. But a careful critic reminds us that the poor Englishman, living under a government ruled by many volumes of the revised statutes, has far more liberty than the Australian Bushman or the Savage of the South Seas, forever in fear of starvation and murder.

Not by casting off all the bounds of law, but by increasing state activity for the protection of our economic life and for increasing our commonwealth, can we approach true liberty. And so we are learning that poverty, unemployment and all the conditions that are unfavorable to the physical development of man are limitations upon true liberty. They are forces of coercion that set bounds to the self-development of the individual, for they deny to him the opportunities for physical and mental growth.

Yet, from one point of view, there is a strong objection that may be urged against extensive state interference. It is the argument that has been used repeatedly against Socialism, when we are told that

INTRODUCTION IS

socialists would substitute simply the coercion of majority rule for the tyranny of captains of industry. Fundamentally, this argument is the stronghold of Anarchism, which denies the right of coercion to any group of people, however large.

The philosophy of Anarchism, however grotesque its manifestation among ignorant devotees of high sounding phrases, at least has one strong logical basis. Thoreau and Tolstoi both repudiated the right of taxation on the part of the state; and, undoubtedly, from the point of view of logic, they were correct in the deduction that they could not justly be forced to pay taxes to a state to which they had refused to swear allegiance and whose benefits they were willing to forego. The logical Anarchist will say: I was brought into the state by birth and was made a member of the community without my consent. Must I then forever be denied the right to shift for myself? Must I remain an unwilling subject of a state whose advantages I do not seek? Have you the right to force me to pay taxes to support an institution from which I am only too willing to withdraw?

Social Zionism presents a simple program. It requires that the "Social Commonwealth in Zion" shall be a voluntary institution. The New Zion must have a voluntary co-operative association to safeguard the economic interests of the people. This co-operative association might take the form of a Jewish Industrial Army, wherein citizens might enlist as "soldiers in industry," and receive in addition to a "living wage," a share in the profits of this co-operative institution. But no one would be compelled to spend his life-time in such an industrial army, for each would be free to withdraw and engage in any industry, even in competition with the Industrial Army. This will give us an interplay between the forces of co-operation and individual initiative that might prove to be of great value.

It would not abolish competition, but limit its scope and raise its plane. The state would say to the citizen: you must not barter your body and soul for the bread and clothing that nature requires, even as we refuse to sanction a contract for individual slavery. The Co-operative Industrial Army, will, automatically, establish a minimum wage, for then no one will be so foolhardy as to work for smaller wages, that will not secure for him at least the necessaries of life.

At the same time, by national control over the land of Palestine, the Jewish state will be able to regulate the economic system even outside of the

"^ R -°-" t I fit

1"^°**'

Co-operative Industrial Army. Through the instrumentality of the Industrial Army we shall establish for labor a minimum wage, while through state control of the land, we shall be able to regulate the maximum price for food, clothing and shelter. These two complementary programs will automatically regulate the industrial system of the new Jewish state, and will guide us along the road to "Social Justice."

Such a co-operative army, and state control over the land of Palestine would form the pillars upon which would be erected an industrial democracy in the Holy Land.

"And they shall build houses, and inhabit

them; "And they shall plant vineyards, and eat the

fruit of them.

"They shall not build, and another inhabit, "They shall not plant, and another eat; "For as the days of a tree shall be the days

of My people, "And Mine elect shall long enjoy the work

of their hands."—

(ISAIAH, Chapter 65 — Verses 21, 22)

fe\"vNS-

Social Zionism.

Chapter 1

WE hear so much of the "Brotherhood of Man," and we listen so often to discourses on the "Unity of Mankind," "Universal Peace," and on other prospects of the distant future, that we are often apt to forget the most important force of the living present. In the national will to live there exists, to-day, a force which has exerted an influence upon civilization so profound, that these grand universal dreams seem but as side-issues when compared with this invincible yearning.

This desire for nationality, aided by the songs of the minstrel and the gifted words of the poet, has its foundation in science. The Biologist tells us that every climate produces its characteristic trees and

*) See Appendix A.

fruits; that while we may introduce foreign seeds into new localities, the result will depend, to a very large extent, on the new environment — the nature of the soil and climate, and the competition of other plants. In short, while we may transplant seeds to new lands, we can do so only within well-defined limits. Furthermore, in nature — before the hand of man interferes — we find the fir tree in one locality, the maple tree in another well-defined territory, and the sugar-cane in another environment, entirely distinct from the former.

In animal life we find the same situation. The lion of Africa and the tiger of India have certain well-defined kingdoms of their own, distinct and separate from the quarters of the polar bear and the domestic horse and cow. Within certain limits we may acclimatize them, but they show a strong tendency to revert to the life of their ancestors.

1. The Primary Environment of Man

By the use of clothing, houses for shelter and the thousands of inventions that minister to the needs of mankind, the highest class of animals have learned to adapt themselves to diverse environments. Yet, even man, the heir of the ages, is restricted to a relatively small portion of the earth's surface. Furthermore, the places that men occupy are apportioned among various races — the white man cannot live and thrive in the tropics, and the Esquimaux perish in the mild and inviting climate of California. England has conquered a vast empire in the East, yet the sons of Britain fail to bring forth a second generation to inherit the riches of India. America has pacified the Philippine Islands, after a large expenditure of blood and money, yet, unlike the conquests in California and Texas, these islands in the Pacific will never be populated by the Anglo- Saxon and kindred races.

But these are the restrictions of the primary environment which nature imposes. There is another environment, made by man himself, and which may be called the secondary environment, exerting, in the history of the human race, a far larger influence.

2. The Secondary Environment

More than three thousand years ago, tribes of Semites, while wandering in the desert for forty years, were welded together into one nation by the genius and strength of a statesman-prophet. He gave them laws that made them a chosen people — separate and distinct from the surrounding nations.

After a thousand and five hundred years of national existence, while heroes fought, priests prayed and prophets preached, the children's children of these wanderers were solidified into a race with a distinct inheritance. The destruction of their sacred temple and the devastation of their country once and again failed to exterminate that race, and for more than eighteen centuries they have been subjected to the fires of persecution and the torments of intolerance. Yet have they preserved a unity of type which everyone instinctively recognizes in the Jew.

About the time that the Israelites succumbed to the mighty onslaughts of Rome, tall, light-haired barbarians were harassing her armies on the northern fringe of her vast domains, on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube. Indeed, in a battle that is numbered among the decisive facts in history — at Teutoberg Forest — these barbarians stayed the arm of the Eternal City, and the Germans were permitted full scope for self-development, unhindered by the enervating luxuries of Italy. Through turmoil and violence, through struggle and achievement, these barbarians began to solidify into the German nation.

Five centuries after Arminius annihilated the Roman legions in the German forests, kinsmen of the hardy warriors who followed him embarked in their little ships to conquer the island of Great Britain. Marauding bands harassed the coast, and, penetrating the interior, subdued the original inhabitants, reducing them to serfdom. Under Canute the Dane and William the Conquerer, these kindred races began to assimilate with the Celts of Britain to form the nation of Englishmen, and during the following centuries their grandchildren conquered new lands, until the sun does not set on British soil. They were the pioneers who created new Bnglands in Canada, Australia, and South Africa, and who laid the foundation of the American Republic.

Now, we can understand how the Israelites might have been able to occupy Great Britain, and how the Germans might have patiently listened to the teachings of Moses in the deserts of Sinai, and how the English might have struggled for centuries in the disputes between the Empire and Papacy. In short, there is no insuperable logical difficulty in supposing that the primary environment might have fallen to the lot of any of these nations. But the secondary environment created by man — the environment of Israel with its priests, prophets and warrior kings (who wrote psalms in the intervals of the Lord's battles) , the environment of the Teutons as they struggled in disunion, for generations, before they succeeded in establishing the German nation, the environment of the English sea robbers, while they conquered Britain and while their sons sang with pride "Britannia Rules the Waves," as they conquered the world's fairest provinces — these conditions were chiefly instrumental in forming the Hebrew, the German and the Englishman, even as the primary environment, belonging to all of them, made them White Men instead of Esquimaux, Caucasians instead of Negroes. In short, while humanity is limited by a primary environment consisting of soil, climate and physical situation, man is ever evolving a secondary environment consisting of past experiences, present conditions and ideals, and aspirations for the future, which tend to differentiate one group of people from another.

History, when read aright, stands as an ever willing witness to sanctify this secondary mancreated environment. From the earliest days, there have been dreamers and conquerors who, each in his way, sought to reduce all mankind to one race — to consolidate all peoples into one grand hodgepodge of humanity. The civilization that grew up on the banks of the Nile struggled for centuries with the inhabitants on the banks of the Tigris and

Euphrates, but neither Egypt nor Assyria nor Babylonia could establish a world-empire. The genius of Cyrus enabled Persia to approach the limits of a world-empire, but it crumbled before the onslaughts of the Greeks under the boy-genius of Macedon. Alexander the Great dreamed of making a Greek world-empire, that would be the melting-pot for all nations. And yet, only twenty years after he had completed his splendid conquests, the Empire of Alexander was torn asunder into rival kingdoms. Rome profited from the mistakes of all her predecessors, and the Queen City sought to incorporate all foreign races as her own children, so as to assimilate the entire world into the all-inclusive Roman citizenship. Yet, the period of the Roman Empire was followed by the days of Feudalism, when almost every hamlet was a distinct nation and every robber-baron an independent king.

Gradually, the Kingdoms of Western Europe were formed, but neither Charlemagne in the West nor the Omars in the East, fighting with the fanaticism of the followers of the Prophet, could create, over incongruous populations, lasting empires. The dying notes of the greatest attempt to create a world-empire still ring in our ears, for it is hardly a century since the greatest military genius of all time, backed by the enthusiasm of a great nation, went forth to realize the dream in which Alexander and Caesar had failed. Had Napoleon the Great been as keen in history as in politics and war, he would have concluded that to amalgamate all nations into one world-nation is an impossible task.

3. Cosmopolitanism and Internationalism

Is there no fundamental principle at the basis of all this history — some great tendency which limits the conqueror and baffles the plans of those who dream dreams of world-nations? I submit that it is the secondary environment to which we referred, the artificial environment which man creates, which forms the basis for nationality — the national language, the national traditions, the racial type of physique and mind, the national charateristics and the resulting culture, and, finally, the national religion.

We may agree that this secondary environment has hitherto thwarted the plans of world-empire, yet we may justly ask: is it right, is it good, that nationalism should have triumphed and should continue to triumph over the dreams of Universal Brotherhood? There have been numerous theorists and statesmen who have philosophized about the

"barriers" of nationalism, and have condemmed the unreasoning prejudices of the mob that prevented the rapid development of a world-empire.

In the Golden Age of Athens, a powerful sect labored for the realization of a cosmopolitan empire in which all would be Athenian citizens with equal rights. They called themselves the Stoics. While we must admire their sincerity and strength of character, their broad-minded outlook on nearly every subject, I want to point out one prejudice which should call into question the premise of which they were so proud. In Athens, we recall, only pure blooded Athenians had full political rights, while foreigners were classified as barbarians, to whom was offered little more besides trading privileges. The first Stoics were nearly all descendants of these barbarians, being the offspring of Athenians who had been corrupted (as the Greeks believed) by intermarriage with foreigners. Their children saw the gates of advancement closed upon them by unfair laws, while they fully realized that, in talents and riches, they were not inferior to the old, native stock. It was only natural for them to evolve a cosmopolitan philosophy that would include them in the scheme of life. I do not wish to be understood to imply that the Stoics sought, in a selfish spirit, to utilize philosophy and logic for their own purpose; but we may conclude that dreams of cosmopolitanism, of the virtual equality and unity of all races, were unconsciously accepted by these stepsons of Athens, because their condition placed them in a receptive mood for such a philosophy.

For the sake of brevity we must omit mention of the many other dreams of Universalism, but we cannot overlook the new philosophy of Cosmopolitanism that grew out of Socialism. The economic principles underlying the Socialist movement are endorsed by many radical thinkers who have no sympathy with the vagaries of "class war" to the exclusion of all racial and national ideals. Indeed, this old, simonpure Socialist view, is being rejected by the Socialists themselves in Germany and France, and will, undoubtedly, be repudiated by American Socialists. The founders of modern Socialism, Karl Marx and Lassalle, were Jews by race — members of a nation that has had to endure German Anti- Semitism for many centuries. They were regarded as members of an outcast people, and, with their keen minds, the old philosophy of the Stoics appealed to them as fair and logical. There are no nations, they reasoned, and governments are only instruments, artificially created by the ruling classes, for the oppression of the workers. Let us pull down all these barriers and make one united nation, in which there will be no distinction between German, Frenchman, Jew and Turk.

When this formula of Socialism became clear, radical thinkers like Mazzini withdrew from their ranks, because Italy was an ideal which he would not exchange for all the dreams of communism. In one of his most famous speeches, he declared: "Love your country. Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart, blushing, whispered the first words of love; it is the house that God has given you, that by striving to perfect yourselves therein, you may prepare to ascend to Him. It is your name, your glory, your sign among the peoples. Give to it your thought, your counsels, your blood." And then: "Love humanity. You can only ascertain your mission from the aim set by God before humanity at large. God has given you your country as your cradle, and humanity as mother; you cannot rightly love your brethren of the cradle if you love not the common mother. Beyond the Alps, beyond the sea, are other peoples now fighting, or preparing to fight, the holy fight of independence, of nationality, of liberty; other peoples striving by different routes to reach the same goal." Mazzini, the poet-orator, saw clearly the scope and value of nationalism, and we of to-day are putting into scienific expression the ideals of Mazzini, the Italian, of Gambetta, the Frenchman, of Hess, the German — most of them of Jewish blood. The theory which is now being clothed in scientific formula has no quarrel with Nationalism. On the contrary, it is based on the historic claims that Nationalism has been of large value in every upward step of civilization. It is the theory of Internationalism as opposed to the theory of Cosmopolitanism. While the latter assumes that the future will bring forth a world-empire formed by the mixture of heterogeneous nations and races, Internationalism holds forth the prospect of a noble synthesis of nations — a grand harmony in the world symphony, in which every nation will lend its distinctive note to blend with the music of all. Not to destroy nations would be its aim, but to glorify all races of mankind. Instead of a kingdom or World Republic composed of individuals of a uniform type, we Internationalists have the vision of a great United States of the World, in which every State — with its own peculiar people, language, character and culture — would unite with all the others in the ever-lasting war for righteousness and social justice.

.4- Nationalism and Internationalism

We do not say to the Chinaman: come with us, intermarry with our people, and then we shall evolve a uniform type, thoroughly assimilated, in which prejudice can have no place. We do not invite the extermination of races and the self-effacement of nationalitites in order to secure toleration and respect. But we say to Chinaman, Russian, Negro, Italian, German, Frenchman and Jew: develop to the utmost limit your distinctive traits, your characteristic culture, and solve your own peculiar problems — religious, social and political — in your own peculiar way, unhindered by the interference of other nations. iBut over and above the ties of patriotism, which bind you to your native land and the heritage of your forefathers, is the claim of humanity, which can be satisfied only when all the inhabitants of every nation become brothers, in sister states, of the United States of the World. Then, in this higher unity, which permits large scope for the development of each nationality, with its characteristic physical type, language and culture, we shall achieve the "Brotherhood of Man," the "Sisterhood of States" and "Universal Peace."

Need I indicate the application of these principles to the Jewish question? To us Zionists it is sufficiently clear that we Jews are entitled to representation not only in the "Brotherhood of Man," but, as an entity, in the "Sisterhood of States." The striking tendency in modern history is the growth of Empires, Federal Governments and Confederations, in which ample opportunity is offered for autonomous states and national self-development. We Zionists demand that in the World Republic of the future the Jews shall take their stand not merely as so many million individuals, without union or common traditions, purposes and ideals, but as an integral sister state, with a prospect for the "self-realization of Israel." To all the Jews of the diaspora, such a Jewish Commonwealth would be the nucleus for a Jewish Renaissance, that will usher in the New Jerusalem.

Chapter 2

cA SOCIAL COMMONWEALTH IN ZION

ASocial Commonwealth is an organization of a social group in which each individual citizen is assured of sufficient satisfaction of the physical needs of existence and of an economic surplus that makes possible the attainment of higher ideals. The leaders in modern thought have come to realize that there are certain physical conditions indispensable to true liberty. Just in so far as a dweller of a city slum has been deprived of opportunities which he might have had under a better social system, he is not free — he is the slave of the Social System of his day. The frugal and industrious employee in the sweatshop, who must run his machine or face his starving family, is not legally a slave. That has been abolished since the American civil war; but, chained to his environment, a serf to his machine, he is, in fact, a slave.

The negro slaves of half a century ago worked in healthful fields, received rations, and rude huts

*) See Appendix B.

for shelter. The wage slaves of our city slums to-day, probably exceeding in number the negroes before the Civil War, should be thankful for the immunities which they enjoy and of which the downtrodden negro was deprived. Yet, for the fields of cotton have been substituted unhealthful factories; for the rations and the hut of the negro a pittance of wages. The submerged tenth are not free, unless freedom be compatible with slavery. They lack opportunity and the power to change their position — the essential ingredients of liberty. Dependent on others for mere physical existence, how can they be free in the higher things of life?

1. The Physical Basis of Ideals

A scholastic philosopher of the Mediaeval Church might have made some important deductions from certain acts of Jehovah as recorded in the Old Testament. When the Children of Israel went forth from Egypt, they wandered for forty years in the Desert, supported directly from the bounty of the Lord. The All- Wise understood that a nation of slaves can be converted into freemen only after they have become independent of the tyranny of physical want. In His beneficent wisdom,

He sent them manna from the Heavens to satisfy the craving for food, so that the Chosen People might have the leisure and the inclination to pursue higher things. God knew that, in itself, the Exodus did not convert slaves into freemen; that Liberty means more than emancipation, more than the mere negative process of breaking old chains. True liberty is a positive concept, and only after the brethren of Moses had been freed from the inexorable physical needs were they really free to follow the laws of the Almighty. Therefore, might the church philosopher justly conclude : "We mortals should profit from the deeds of the Eternal. The supreme function of government, as revealed to us through the works of the Lord, should be to endeavor continually and persistently to provide for the physical wants of the citizens." Only after we have removed the despotism of physical needs can we succeed in building a higher self, a better and nobler type of man.