But from this point of view the term “practical work” does not apply
only to the agricultural colonies. This national Hebrew type may have,
and indeed has, its generating stations outside the agricultural
settlement. Many Zionists criticise the Directors of the National Fund
for sinking a good deal of their capital in the building of Jewish
quarters in towns (such as Tel-Aviv in Jaffa). From the point of view of
the Programme these critics are certainly right. The Fund was created
for “the redemption of the land” in the widest sense of the term, and
not for the purchase of small pieces of urban land, and the erection on
them of houses for Jews. But, as I have said, the work is directed not
by the demands of the Programme but by the promptings of an instinct. If
our visitor from the Diaspora remains some days in Tel-Aviv, observes
its life, and sees the Hebrew children who are growing up there, he will
not criticise the National Fund for having made it possible to found
such a generating station. He will wish with all his heart that the
Directors would commit the same fault again, and create similar stations
in the other towns of Palestine.
And need it be demonstrated that the Hebrew schools in Jaffa and
Jerusalem are centres of unremitting activity in the creation of “the
genuine type of a Jew”? This educational work, again, does not fit in
very well with the Programme. “What use,” it is often asked, “is there
in educating the children in the national spirit, so long as the land is
not redeemed, and the nation does not come to the land, and many of
these very children may not remain there? To redeem the land, extend the
settlement, capture labour—that is the way to realise the Programme. But
education? When the number of Jews in Palestine is large, national
education will follow as a matter of course. At present we have no right
to use for spiritual purposes the resources which are needed for more
important things.” I doubt whether this criticism can be reasonably and
logically answered on the basis of the Programme. But what can logic do
when instinct pulls the other way? The very men who promise to bring
about the redemption by means of “practical work in Palestine” are using
a great deal of their energy in educational work in the country; and
Zionists generally value such work and turn to it more and more. To
learn why, one has only to listen to the speeches at a Zionist meeting
during a debate on “cultural work” in Palestine. The “redeemers” forget
for a time the Programme, the “home of refuge,” and all their other
catchwords, and begin to extol “the revival of the spirit,” and the
creation of a new Hebrew type. They prophesy that this type will in
future be a connecting link between all the scattered parts of the
nation. They point to the beneficial influence already exerted by the
schools in Palestine on education in the Diaspora. And so forth, and so
forth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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