It is not correct to say that Zionism is but a "gesture of
truculence" or an act of desperation against Anti-Semitism. It is true
that more than one educated Jew has been moved only by Anti-Semitism
to throw in his lot again with Jewdom, and he would again fall away if
his Christian fellow-countrymen would receive him anew in a friendly
spirit. But, in the case of most Zionists, Anti-Semitism only forced
them to reflect upon their relation to the nations, and their
reflection has led them to conclusions which would remain a lasting
acquirement of their mind and heart, even if Anti-Semitism were to
disappear completely from the world.

Be it well understood; the Zionism analyzed above is that of the
educated and free Jews,--the Jewish elite. The uneducated mass,
clinging to the old traditions, is Zionist without much reflection,
from feeling, from instinct, from distress, and yearning. They suffer
too much from the hardships of life, from the hatred of the peoples,
from legal disabilities, and social outlawry; they feel that they
cannot hope for any lasting amelioration of their situation so long as
they must live as a powerless minority among a hostile majority. They
desire to become a nation, to rejuvenate themselves by close contact
with mother earth, and to become once more the masters of their
destiny. This Zionist mass is still in part not quite free from
mystical tendencies. It allows its Zionism to be pervaded, to a
certain extent, by Messianic reminiscences, and blends it with
religious emotions. They have certainly a clear idea of the aim, the
reassembling of the Jewish nation, but not of the means. Still, even
they have realized already the necessity of themselves making efforts,
and there is a vast difference between their active readiness for
organization and their spirit of sacrifice, and the pious,
prayer-indulging passiveness of the purely religious Messianist.

III.

The new or political Zionism has had here and there forerunners, whose
first appearance dates back to the early half of the nineteenth
century.

In the beginning of the eighties terrible persecutions broke out in
Russia without any apparent reason, persecutions which cost hundreds
of Jews their lives, destroyed the prosperity of thousands more, and
induced tens of thousands to turn their backs on the land of their
birth. This calamity brutally aroused the Jews from their
hundred-year-old illusions and brought them again to a sense of