Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-20
Anglo=1ewi8b Community.
Zangwill Comments Upon Refusal of Leaders
to Form Permanent International
Committee.

tional rivalry. What wonder If the status
| of the Jew is low in most countries of
| the world. and if he is occasionally ex-
| posed to unparalleled prosecutions! Even
! when. as slow consequence Of the Rus
sian programs. perception of the absurd
| ity of this state of things began to dawn
upon the Jewish mind, it is characteristic
that the proposals for unity and peace
came simultaneously from rival French
! and German organizations; characteristic,
too. that the less efficient of these forms
of unity is the one that has met with a
warmer welcome. OF course. 1 rejoice
even in the minimum OF corporations.
but | am utterly unable to see why it can
not be increase in the maximum.
True, it Is urged that standing in
ternatioral jewish organiza ton would i'm
ply that there was u Jewish nation, and
thus provoke political prejudicas. The
first half of this argument rests upon a
misconception, and the second upon a
morbid miscalcu!ation. Whatever might
be the case If Jewish territory We're
ever re-created, the Jews. at present,
ubiquitously scattered, constitute not a
nation. but a religion or church. Their
body includes a small. but still a substan-
tial number of converts of every race and
nation. The members OF the Jewish
Church. exposed to infinitely more danger
than the members Of any other church.
lack the faintest centraliZing or unifying
machinery.
Half a century ago the Alliance Israel
lite Universelle was rejected to supply this
deficiency, and in the face of exactly the
same absurd apprehensionS OF political
danger it established itself successfully.
Unfortunately, the Franco-German war
came. to weaken the unity between Ger
man and French members of the Jewish
Church Alliance. and-presumably in nerv
Gus apprehension of analogous political
omplications-when the English branch
of the alliance was founded in 1871, 1t
was unfortunately made largely autOnO-
nous and with separate title. The
pressing need for Jewry today is to renew
and dffuse universally the Alliance Is
raelite. or create the organization pro-
posed by DR.. HOrOwitZ The former alter
native seems the more economical as the
nucleus already exists.
Il do not forget that heads of Russian
JeWry' are protesting against the extern
sion Tor at least the 'legalized' extension)
of the Alliance of Russia, calculated to
provoke reprisals from the Black Hun
dreds. But, in the first place. l believe
that these "heads" with their morbid
nerves and political uninte!ligence, are no
true judges of cause and effect and that
SO far from being massacred, the Russian
Jews would be safer under the protection
of a strong central Jewish body, espe-
cially at this moment of Anglo Russian
entente.
1.-The excuse that massacres would oc-
cur is the pretext of Stolypin and the
whole official world of Russia refusing
Jewish emancipation; but because of the
price that may have to be paid for It,
and. as a matter of fact, am glad to find
that the minority of Russian Jews are
protesting, not against being included in a
general Jewish organization, but against
being excluded from one.
But If as a sop to those weak senti-
mentalists who prefer perpetual tragedy
to heroic graphing with the evil. Russia
were excluded for the present from the
sphere of cooperation, there is no reason
why the Jews of the rest Of the world
should not now form a stronger body for
united work and self-defense. Let them
even hold an International congress, and
let them make 1t clear to the world that
it is not only a Jewish Church congress,
but a church congress to which nothing
that may affect the veal or woe Of its
members can be Indifferent"