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53. “The Whole Thing Is Ridiculous” (1906)
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| 279 53 “The Whole Thing Is Ridiculous” (1906) Jacob Milch Like many of the Jewish labor movement’s pioneers, Jacob Milch (1866–1945) opposed Zionism and other varieties of left-wing Jewish nationalism making their presence felt in the United States during the early years of the twentieth century. His critique here originally appeared in the Yiddish monthly Di tsukunft and was reprinted in English translation in the International Socialist Review, a Marxist journal associated with the Socialist Party. The newest stream of Jewish immigration, driven to these shores by the waves of the Russian Revolution, and its counterpart, the atrocious massacres of Jews, has brought in its wake an undercurrent of new ideas and ideals which of late has excited the interest of the Jews in their old homes. As a result the little world in the so-called Ghetto is teeming with new life, new aspirations, new problems and new hopes. Until recently the intellectual life of the great East Side of New York was absorbed mainly in social questions of a general nature, or, to be more correct , in Socialism. To be sure no great event of contemporary life escaped the philosophic mind of the East Side, neither did the inhabitants thereof forget their unfortunate brethren at home, but all these were, so to say, secondary questions. The great problem which has moved the heart of the East Side was Socialism. The victories and defeats of the proletariat in any part of the world were of greater importance to them than the victory of the Japanese at Port Arthur, or any like event. This has now been changed to a great extent. The general spread of socialist thought throughout Russia, the deathly struggle now raging between the entire Russian people and the despotic regime, and the cowardly outrages perpetrated against the Jews by the “Black Hundreds” organized and sup- 280 | The Question of Zionism ported by the bureaucracy for the purposes of combating the revolution—all these have made their imprint upon the psychology of the Russian Jews and gave impetus to the organization of innumerable parties, the consequence of which is a mosaic of theories and movements which have for their end the establishment of an independent Jewish state on the one hand and the social revolution on the other. With the newest immigration these theories have now been transplanted to our shores and the little Jewish world was beset by a host of new parties of different descriptions and denominations; we have now Zionists and Territorialists, Zionist-Socialists and Socialists-Territorialists , Poalei Zion (Workingmen-Zionist), Socialist Revolutionary Territorialists , etc. And it goes without saying that each has its own theory, which is of course the only true one, with its own newspaper and party organization; and it also goes without saying that everlasting discussions, squabbles, quarrels and all sorts of friction is the order of the day. Upon a close examination we find that these theories and movements, notwithstanding their high-sounding and unpronounceable names, all emanate from, and are very much connected with, the old fashioned Zionism, are indeed only variations of the same. Our accounts must therefore be settled , first of all, with Zionism proper. [. . .] It is not within the province of this short work to point out all the shortcomings of political Zionism. Besides, the subject has been thrashed out so many times there is hardly any new word to be said about it. At best I can only repeat some of the objections that are being made against it, and this I shall do here only to the extent absolutely necessary to the understanding of our discussion. Zionism, or rather, Zionists, though starting from a common point—the persecution of the Jews, and reaching the same conclusion—the necessity of establishing an independent Jewish state, are nevertheless divided and subdivided among themselves as to the reason and ultimate aims of their movements . We shall here touch upon the two main divisions only, namely, the “Materialistic” and the “Idealistic.” Materialist Zionism deals mainly with the economic conditions and necessities of the Jews, while the Idealists take for their text the spiritual side of the Jews—the Jew not as an individual but as a nation. The one seeks to acquire the holy land for the purpose of improving the economic condition of the Jews as a nation, while the other refuses to consider this side of the question, claiming that with regard to the question of bread and butter the Jew can...