Life — February 3, 1916 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

R, BRANDEIS is a Zionist. In an article in the Ouslook (Jan- uary sth) he tells about the Zionist movement, expounding its aims and telling what it has accomplished in put- ting Jewish settlers into Palestine and helping them to develop that country, He likens these Jewish pioneers to the Pilgrim fathers. Zionism, he says, is not a movement to transport all Jews to Palestine, nor to get the sovereignty of Palestine away from the Turks. It is “a movement to give the Jews a home in the land of their fathers, where the Jewish life may be lived normally and naturally, and where the Jews may, in time, hope to constitute a majority of the population and look forward to what we have come to call home rule.” There are fourteen million Jews in the world, and Palestine would only hold about a fifth of them, but it would hold enough to give the world an exhi- bition of what Jews can do when they have no one to live on but Jews, and have a fair chance to live their own lives and shape their own government. Following Mr. Brandeis in the Out- look comes Rabbi Schulman, combat- ing Zionism, and saying that the soul that animates it is nationalism. He objects to nationalism. He says Juda- ism is a religion, not a nationality. He does not wish the Jews to have nation- ality. He objects to the creation of a new nationality within the American people. “ America,” he say: organized on the basis of race, but on great moral ideas. Therefore Ameri- can nationality has no room within it- self for the cultivation of an alien na- tional consciousness on the part of any group.” He finds Zionism to be racial, not religious. Many of its lead- ers have no affiliation with the syna- gogue. Jewish religion, he says, does not appeal to them. Their movement is new and secular, and by cultivating Jewish nationality would fetch another hyphen into American life. The Outlook briefly gives judgment for Dr. Schulman, accepting his con- tention that it is religion that consti- tutes the Jew, and professing to “see no more reason why a political organ- Ts APSE: * Zion for the Zionists > ism or nation should be based on Juda- ism than on Mohammedanism, Russo- Grecian Catholicism, Presbyterianism, Episcopalianism or Congregationalism.” It is a very pretty dispute, and the Outlook’s judgment does not settle it. For our part, our sympathies go out to Mr. Brandeis. The American Irish have a strong sense of race and re- ligion and a strong interest in home. Both are natural, both respected, though at times they inconvenience by-standers. The Irish want for Ireland very much what Mr. Brandeis says the Zionists want for Jews in Palestine, not sov- ereignty, but home rule. Surely it will not be thought unmannerly or inhos- pitable to hope that when the Irish get home rule it will be in Ireland rather than in Massachusetts, and that when the Jews get it it will be in Palestine rather than in New York. But they ought to have it somewhere. A race as remarkable and as historical as the Jews or the Irish ought to have a stamping-ground somewhere where they can have a fair chance to show what governmental and social capacity is in them. The racial heart should have a home. Ireland could no more hold the Irish than Palestine could hold the Jews, but it might hold the Irish heart, and doubtless Irish treasure would flow there as Jewish treasure would to Palestine. With a resting-place provided for the Jewish heart and for the Irish heart, hyphenism would be not increased but diminished in this country. With a deep sentiment satisfied, there would be by GH FRencH @ parish GB sweoish GR ITALIAN SRE spanish’ SS 27 Anese ERM A so much the less incentive either to Hi- bernize or to Judaize the United States. For the same reason it is probably de- sirable to keep up Germany and Eng- land. If the traditions and habits and laws and religions of this country have got to be pared down and modified to suit the prejudices of representatives of all the nations of the earth, our Uncle Samuel will come out at the little end of the horn. All vigor of national- ity will have been subtracted from him to make him docile, and some dark night bears will come out of the woods and eat him. It is better that he should be some- thing definite and virile, better for him, his folks and the stranger within his gates. He should be hospitable, con- siderate, liberal, compassionate, but it is not desirable that he should lose his backbone and become a pulp. But he will if he politely abandons all definite conceptions of life and aspires to be what-you-want to all comers. Nationality is troublesome, but indis- pensable. It is liable to go crazy and run amuck. It is raising horrible hob in this world at this moment. But it is going to last till the millennium comes, and if it doesn’t last the millennium won't come. Even Americans of the United States have got to have it. E.S. M. A Toss Up RAWFORD: If you go to war you're likely to be killed. CrassHaw: While if you remain a neutral you'll probably be torpedoed. NO, THIS IS NOT THE FAMILIAR DIAGRAM SHOWING THE RELATIVE SIZES OF THE VARIOUS NAVIES OF THE WORLD. IT IS A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE HYPHENS BELONGING TO CERTAIN FOREIGN-BORN CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES comicbooks.com