New-York tribune., 1918-11-11
Zion

Palestine as a new Utopia, a state
wherein all that is best in politics, eco
nomics and religion will come to fruition,
is the interesting forecast of DR.. Caster,
one Of the leaders of the Zionist move
ment throughout the world and chief
rabbi of the Sephardic Communities of
England. The Sephardic Communities,
in England as we'll as in other lands, are
the descendants of the Jews who were
expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and
Isabella in 1892. Wherever they were
scattered throughout the world these
Jews carried with them high standard
of culture. The Sephardim are proud of
the great number of famous statesmen
they have produced. Disraeli was of
them. These facts give more than ordi-
nary interest to this prophecy Of Dr.
Caster
Palestine will be the great centre of
civilization, not only for maintaining and
for furthering the great ideals pro-
nounced by prophets and seers in Israel,
but where all modern social reforms
would easily be introduced on the basis
of Biblical teaching, solving, or at any
rate attempting to solve, economic and
industrial problems, problems of the
relation between capital and labor, and
even of the relation between Church and
State, and other questions which are
considered now after-war problems.
"The Jews will start there on quite
an Independent platform, not fettered by
vested interests or old feudal traditions.
They will write, as it were. on a clean
slate the new message to the world"
10 the Gentle the most astounding
statement made by DR.. Caster is that to
himself and other Jews it is immaterial
whether the overlordship of Palestine is
Christian or Mahometan. It is in dis
cussing the protectorate that must be
maintained over Palestine until it is
ready for entire independence that he
says:
GAS to the religious aspect, the view
which is taken by the vast majority of
Christians is entirely different from that
which we take. To them it is matter
of freedom, as they would call it, from
the rule of the infidel. To US it is a
matter almost of Indifference as to which
Of the two daughter religions Of Juda-
ism, Christian or Islam, holds the rule in
Palestine. The followers of the two are
to US, from the religious point of view,
equidistant.'
1t is easier to get DR.. Casters point
of view in this matter when it is recalled
that he is descendant of those Jews
who rose to wealth and power in Spain
under the MOors and were driven out In
poverty and suffering by their Christian
majesties Ferdinand and Isabella.
The matter of the ultimate indepen-
dence of Palestine is one on which Or.
Caster lays great stress, and when that
day comes the Jew throughout the world
shall look to the Jewish nation for pro-
lection just as the Frenchman, no matter
where he lives, looks to France ard the
Englishman to England.
And finally, Dr.. Caster sounds the
warning, as Kipling did, that EAST is
East and West is West" and that one
cannot impose its civilization upon the
other, and that Palestine, being both of
the Orient and the Occident, must be the
solvent in which the antagonistic ele-
ments can mix. It is not the least of
Palestine's roles, to judge by the serious
ness with which DR.. Caster discusses
that phase
Palestine will become the only pos
slb!e connecting link between the West
and the East. For if the Western pow-
ers imagine they can introduce Western
civilization into Asia they are laboring
under very grave and gross miscon-
ception. Wheresoever that civilization
has-been carried it has acted as a dis
solvent: it has destroyed the old and has
created no new. The best that can be
found in Western civilization can be car
ried to the East only through a semi
Eastern people which combines the intel
lectuality of the West with the spiritual
ity of the East.
Let no European power imagine that
they will be able to hold forever rule
over Eastern peoples. All European set
tiers from the West, except the Jews.
decay physically. Morally they lose their
grip, and all the while the subject ma
tions awaken to a full self-consciousness
A grave danger may thus arise when
the spirit Of the East becomes aroused
to high pitch of fanaticism unless
means are taken to mould the future 80
as to prepare gradual awakening to
the highest and noblest ideals of human
ity. And that the Jews alone can do by
their knowledge of the West and their
sympathy with the East. That is the
salvation which is to come again from
the hills Of Judea and from the Mount
of Zion