Jews -- Periodicals; Jews -- United States -- Periodicals
In the second place, any regulation of the Jewish status in Europe
must of necessity include Roumania. The injustice of the Government's
attitude in that country is even more pronounced than it is in Russia.
For Roumania is bound to a certain course by a "scrap of paper." At
the Berlin Congress of 1878, one of the conditions upon which
statehood was granted to Roumania was that the rights of free
citizenship should be conferred upon the Jewish inhabitants in the
principality--who, it may be remarked in passing, were among the
oldest residents there. Roumania gave her solemn promise to carry out
this condition; but by political subterfuge of the most brazen kind
she has circumvented the whole spirit of the demand. The Roumanian
Chamber passed a law to the effect that only Jews who had been
naturalized by it were entitled to citizenship; and as the Chamber
refused to naturalize more than a handful each year, the provisions
of the Berlin Treaty have been as good as void. When quite
recently--in 1913--during the progress of the last Balkan War and
prior to the intervention of Roumania, the Roumanian Jews volunteered
to serve in large numbers, the proposal was brought forward to grant
the rights of citizenship to all Jews who had entered the army. Yet
this proposal was voted down; and the condition of the Jews has
remained as it was prior to 1878. They are inhabitants in a country,
subject to its laws, liable to all duties placed upon citizens--but
they are themselves prohibited from becoming citizens. It is
intolerable that such a condition should be allowed to continue; and
if right is to take the place of might in the inevitable
re-arrangement of the community of European nations, the status of the
Roumanian Jews must be one of the Jewish problems to be solved.
_The Hope of Regaining Palestine_
There is a third Jewish problem the importance of which perhaps even
transcends the two just mentioned; transcends because of the interest
that attaches to it and because of its vital import to every Jew the
world over. I refer to the problem of Palestine, which is wrapt up
with the very existence of the Jews and which symbolizes the hopes
that have been nurtured throughout the centuries. We know that the Jew
in his inevitable march westward has kept his face turned towards the
East; that in prayer and in meditation his gaze has rested upon that
country which enshrined at one and the same time his origin and his
future aspirations. It is true that up to within some forty years that
aspiration remained in large part a pious wish; and that though it was
cherished as coming to realization "quickly and in our day," very few
attempts were put through to arm the Almighty with human effort. At
best, God-fearing and pious Jews removed to Palestine, either to
immerse themselves there in study and contemplation, or to end their
days in the odor of sanctity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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