ilate in
its entirety with the dominant nation--with the landlord, as it
were. The landlord tolerates his tenant only so long as he finds him
convenient; let the tenant make the slightest attempt at competing
with the landlord, and he will be promptly evicted. During the Middle
Ages the Jews were persecuted in the name of religious fanaticism.
Now a beginning has been made to persecute them in the name of
national fanaticism, coupled with economic factors, and this "second
chapter of our history will no doubt contain many a bloody page."

[Footnote 1: A translation of the Hebrew term _Hibbat Zion_. In Russian
it was generally termed _Palestinophilstvo_, i.e., "Love of Palestine."]

[Footnote 2: See p. 236 et seq.]

Jewish suffering can only be removed by removing its cause. We must
cease to be strangers in every land of the globe, and establish
ourselves in a country where we ourselves may be the landlords. Such a
country can only be our ancient fatherland, Palestine, which belongs to
us by the right of history. "We must undertake the colonization of
Palestine on so comprehensive a scale that in the course of one century
the Jews may be able to leave inhospitable Europe almost entirely and
settle in the land of our forefathers to which we are legally entitled."

These thoughts, expounded with that simplified logic which will strike
certain types of mind as incontrovertible, were fully attuned to the
sentiments of the Jewish masses which were standing with "girded loins,"
ready for their exodus from, the new Egypt. The emigration societies
formed in the beginning of 1882 counted in their ranks many advocates of
Palestinian colonization. Bitter literary feuds were waged between the
"Americans" and "Palestinians." A young poet, Simon Frug[1], composed
the following enthusiastic exodus march, which he prefaced by the
biblical verse "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward"
(Ex. 14.15):

[Footnote 1: He became later a celebrated poet in Russian and Yiddish.
He died in 1916.]

Thine eyes are keen, thy feet are strong, thy staff is firm--
why then, my nation,
Dost thou on the road stop and droop, thy gray head
lost in contemplation?
Look up and see: in numerous bands
Thy sons return from all the lands.
Forward then march, through a sea of sorrow,
Through a chain of tortures, towards the dawn of the
morrow!
Forward