onal existence, and then prate about our lacking
manly virtues. What we lack is not genius (Genialitaet) but
self-consciousness (Selbstgefuehl) and appreciation of our value
as men (Bewusstsein der Menschenwuerde), of which we were
deprived by you!

Of course, it requires many years and a great expenditure of money to
establish a nation on a firm basis. But in Pinsker's dictionary the word
"impossible" does not exist. "Far, very far," says he, "is the haven of
rest towards which our souls are turning. We know not even whether it be
East or West. But be the road never so long, it cannot seem too long to
the wanderers of two thousand years."

Pinsker's impassioned appeal made a deep impression. It was obvious that
colonization would be the shortest road to renationalization. But as to
the place in which the colonies should be established, no agreement
could be reached. Pinsker, like Herzl after him, left the problem
unsolved. Some preferred America or even Spain. In southern Russia a
society, 'Am 'Olam (The Eternal Nation), was organized on communistic
principles. It sent an advance guard to the United States, where, as the
Sons of the Free, they established several settlements, the best-known
of which was New Odessa, in Oregon.[8] The majority, however, preferred
Palestine, the land which, in weal or woe, in pain or pleasure, remains
ever dear to the Jewish heart; the land to which the ancient exiles by
the waters of Babylon had vowed that sooner than forget her would their
right hands forget their cunning and their tongues cleave to the roofs
of their mouths; the possession whereof had been held out as the most
alluring promise, and to be deprived of which the prophets had regarded
as the severest punishment.

Zionism, even Territorialism, among the Russian Jews is by no means
solely the result of modern anti-Semitism. At the same time that
Mordecai Manuel Noah was planning his Jewish state Ararat in western New
York (1825), Gregori Peretz, who, as a child, had been converted, with
his father, to the dominant religion, and had been advanced to the rank
of an officer in his Majesty's army, was dreaming of the
renationalization of his alienated brethren. As a leading figure in the
councils of the Dekabrists, he never ceased his efforts until his
comrades accepted the restoration of Israel to his pristine place among
the nations of the earth as part of their revolutionary programme. But
with the suppress