Page 151 - The Track Of The Jew Through The Ages - Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

a song of the fatherland. This 'indignation' does not seem to me to
have been appropriate; for our Jews could indeed hardly demand
that the regions beyond the Channel and the big pond should place
restraints on their hatred and have consideration for them when the
German army through its legendary victories would have almost
overrun the most cunning calculations of long years' work.
But they will already be relieved; Mr. Warburg, "well-known
in Paris", and Mr. Melchior seem to have been able, following the
famous model of earlier times, to successfully protect their own in
Versailles and to have generously left the kingdom of heaven to be
cultivated by the German. 295

Zionism

Now, within the entire scope of the international Jewish
question, there stands out one factor which has, especially during
the course of the war, increasingly gained in importance, Zionism.
Already in the last decades of the 19th century, Jewish circles
contemplated transferring their expatriate money to settlement in
Palestine.
In this way a number of Jews went back to their old
"homeland". But this effort remained without any success in spite
of the millions of collected Zion funds. Because the Jews did not
296
work in Palestine but lazed or haggled as usual.
Since the plots received rose in price, the land speculators
set to work, the settlers sold their land advantageously and returned
to Europe. Thus did things stand when Theodor Herzl emerged as
the preacher of political Zionism.
His energy succeeded in interesting further circles in the
Jewish state that was to be built, whereupon he summarised his
programme in 1 897 at the first Congress in Basel saying that "a
homeland guaranteed by public law for the Jewish people in

295
The entire later construction of the November Republic was a confirmation of
this view. [The Weimar Republic that replaced the imperial form of government
was established in Weimar in November 1919 and lasted until Hitler's accession to
power in 1933.]
296
Cf. W. Rubens, Das Talmudjudentum, Berlin, 1893, p. 69.
128