Page 219 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Articles

[An edited version of this essay was printed on page 6 of the Los Angeles
Examiner; unfortunately, the clipping does not include a date. It appears
on a page largely dedicated to Zionist expectations in the immediate
postwar period, including an upside-down map of Palestine (running
south to north) with an inset photograph of Theodor Herzl. AR’s
“opinion piece” followed this heading:

‘If Not Today, Never,’ Is Motto of Zionist Cause
By A. Rothstein
Secretary of the Zionist Movement in Los Angeles

A draft of the submitted manuscript remains, typed on four pages of
“Rothstein Bros.” stationery, untitled. From the number and type of
errors in the text, the typist was probably AR himself; extensive
corrections in pen and pencil are in his hand, as well. The newspaper
editor changed the order of paragraphs—which AR created in
abundance, a stylistic anomaly possibly demanded by the paper—and
removed some of the stronger language. Therefore, the original
manuscript version appears below.]

The first Zionist Congress was called in London, the Jewish
colonial bank was established there under the supervision of the
Bank of England—its name, the Anglo-Palestine Bank, testifies to
that fact—and all the Zionist economic and political institutions
founded in the last twenty years are under the protection of England
or the United States.
Herzl, after finding great difficulties in realizing his plans through
the influence of the central powers and Russia, turned his energy
toward practical work in Palestine. Believing in the old adage that
possession is nine-tenths of the law, he advised Jews to settle in
Palestine without political guarantees and despite the hampering by
old decaying Turkish laws.
Thousands of Jews from Russia, Rumania, Austria, and even from
the United States, went to Palestine, with the sole idea of preparing
the land for future comers. They established flourishing colonies,
and founded modern Hebrew schools where the language of the
poets was used as a living tongue by young and old, from

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