It is not only Jews who have come out of the Ghetto: Judaism has come
out, too. For Jews the exodus is confined to certain countries, and is
due to toleration; but Judaism has come out (or is coming out) of its
own accord wherever it has come into contact with modern culture. This
contact with modern culture overturns the defences of Judaism from
within, so that Judaism can no longer remain isolated and live a life
apart. The spirit of our people strives for development: it wants to
absorb those elements of general culture which reach it from outside, to
digest them and to make them a part of itself, as it has done before at
different periods of its history. But the conditions of its life in
exile are not suitable. In our time culture wears in each country the
garb of the national spirit, and the stranger who would woo her must
sink his individuality and become absorbed in the dominant spirit. For
this reason Judaism in exile cannot develop its individuality in its own
way. When it leaves the Ghetto walls it is in danger of losing its
essential being or—at best—its national unity: it is in danger of being
split up into as many kinds of Judaism, each with a different character
and life, as there are countries of the Jewish dispersion.[23]
And now Judaism finds that it can no longer tolerate the _galuth_[24]
form which it had to take on, in obedience to its will-to-live, when it
was exiled from its own country, and that if it loses that form its life
is in danger. So it seeks to return to its historic centre, in order to
live there a life of natural development, to bring its powers into play
in every department of human culture, to develop and perfect those
national possessions which it has acquired up to now, and thus to
contribute to the common stock of humanity, in the future as in the
past, a great national culture, the fruit of the unhampered activity of
a people living according to its own spirit. For this purpose Judaism
needs at present but little. It needs not an independent State, but only
the creation in its native land of conditions favourable to its
development: a good-sized settlement of Jews working _without
hindrance_[25] in every branch of culture, from agriculture and
handicrafts to science and literature. This Jewish settlement, which
will be a gradual growth, will become in course of time the centre of
the nation, wherein its spirit will find pure expression and develop in
all its aspects up to the highest degree of perfection of which it is
capable. Then from this centre the spirit of Judaism will go forth to
the great circumference, to all the communities of the Diaspora, and
will breathe new life into them and preserve their unity; and when our
national culture in Palestine has attained that level, we may be
confident that it will produce men in the country who will be able, on a
favourable opportunity, to establish a State which will be a _Jewish_
State, and not merely a State of Jews.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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