The Dying Turk

7

"Great River Euphrates." That book contains a divine programme in symbol. The last symbolic event prior to "the kingdoms of this world" becoming "the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ" is thus given :

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial (of the wrath of God) upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared" (Rev. xvi. 12).

All the previous items of this symbolic programme have been fulfilled, as history has shown, and all in keeping, too, with interpretations arrived at long before they were fulfilled. And in keeping with such interpretations Turkey began in 1820 to dry up rapidly. Appearances did not favour such an interpretation, as an extract from the Annual Register (London), 1820, shows. The extract reads:

"The Ottoman Empire, by a long and unwonted good fortune, found itself, at the commencement of the era (1820), freed at once from foreign war and domestic rebellion."

And yet, from that year onwards, to our own times, the symbolic Euphrates has been slowly but surely evaporating. Now, as we have seen, and do see, all the long-closed gates of the Holy Land have been opened to the rightful owners; and where there were but 5 Jews previously we now find 100— instead of 500 we find 100,000. The Turk could only keep the Jew outside until the Times of the Gentiles were fulfilled.

Zionist Propaganda.

The reality of the "downtreading" and the futility of attempting to end the "scattering" before the "time appointed," are seen in the many attempts made during the past two or three hundred years. We will reproduce a list of these attempts, for which we are indebted to Professor Dr. Leon Keller, of Czernowitz University, and which the Professor says "Dr. Herzl had before him"; and he goes on to say: "Since Josef Nassi, the Jewish Duke of Naseos, recognized that the life in its own land, that is to say the resettlement in Palestine, as the only possible future for the Jewish people, has again and again been brought forward by Jews and Christians, by believers and heretics, by sages and fools."

The movement started by Sabbatai Zewi (16261676) resulted in no tangible consequences for Palestine, owing to its Messianic character, but it had the effect that the Zionistic idea as propounded by Josef Nassi was not mentioned again in Jewish quarters during more than 100 years, because the plans of several Colonization Societies to settle the Jews in Curaçao (1654) or in Cayenne (1659),* as well as the idea of Maurice of Saxony to make himself the sovereign of a Jewish State in Palestine (1749), originated from Christians.

It was not until the eighteenth century that fearless and magnanimous Jews came forward with new ideas of salvation.

In 1777 the Rabbi Israel of Polock, Rabbi *See Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, III. 62.

Zionist Propaganda

9

Mendel of Witebsk, and Rabbi Abraham Katz of Kalish, went to Palestine, and from there made propaganda by letters to their East-European co-religionists for the colonization of the homeland.

In 1878 the journalist and dramatic author, Mordechai Manuel Noah (1785-1851), appealed to all the Jews of the world to acquire Grand Island, a territory situate in the Niagara between Erie and Ontario, in the State of New York, and to found there a Jewish Commonwealth under the name of Ararat." (In 1825 a start with a view to the realization of this plan was actually made in Buffalo, but it did not succeed. Noah, however, referred again to this idea in his paper, Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews, 1845.)

In 1819 a Mr. W. D. Robinson pleaded for a Jewish Settlement on the Missouri; and in 1825 another Englishman did likewise for a similar scheme in Florida.

In 1835-1840 the celebrated Hebrew Bibliographer, Moriz Steinschneider (1816-1907), at the University of Prague called for the first time for a Jewish National sentiment-and had an appreciable response from amongst the Jewish students.

In 1840 Moses Montefiore submitted to the Governor of Syria his plan of Jewish immigration into the Holy Land, but without success. This, however, did not shatter his conviction as to the future of Israel in Palestine.

In the same year the Frenchman, Ernest Laharanne, in the paper Uber Neue Orientalische

Frage (The New Oriental Question), raised his voice in favour of an Independent Jewish State in Palestine.

In 1849 Barthelmey, in the Siècle, approached the Rothschilds that they should use their power and influence for the purpose of securing for the Jews their old, old home again.

In 1854 S. D. Luzzatto (1800-1865) wrote to Albert Cohen in a Zionistic spirit, as the latter proceeded to Palestine on a tour of study.

In 1857 Juda Ben Salomon Alkalai, the Rabbi of Semlin, published his paper, Goral Ladonai, in which he made the suggestion of founding a Company with a share capital for the purpose of the purchase of Palestine.

In 1861 the Rabbi Hirsch Kalischer of Thorn (1795-1875) succeeded by dint of persistent propaganda in forming the first Colonization Society.

In the same year Dr. Leon Pinkster (1822-1891) joined forces with E. Solowejczyk for the publication of the Russian periodical Zion.

In 1862 Moses Hess (1812-1875), who came forward with a philosophy of the Jewish National idea in connection with the paper published by Kalischer, Rome and Jerusalem, established a landmark in the drawing up of the modern Zionist programme.

In 1863 Henry Dunant, the founder of the Geneva Convention, identified himself with the Zionist programme.