By this exploitation of aversions, Dr. Trietsch expects to deposit the
Jews of the Pale over Western Asia as "culture-manure" for a German
harvest; and if the Jewish migration to Palestine had remained nothing
more than a stream of refugees, he might possibly have succeeded in his
purpose. But in the last twenty years this Jewish movement has become a
positive thing--no longer a flight from the Pale but a remembrance of
Zion--and Zionism has already challenged and defeated the policy which
Dr. Trietsch represents. "The object of Zionism," it was announced in
the _Basle Programme_, drawn up by the first Zionist Congress in 1897,
"is to establish for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured
home in Palestine." For the Zionists Jewry is a nation, and to become
like other nations it needs its Motherland. In the Jewish colonies in
Palestine they see not merely a successful social enterprise but the
visible symbol of a body politic. The foundation of a national
university in Jerusalem is as ultimate a goal for them as the economic
development of the land, and their greatest achievement has been the
revival of Hebrew as the living language of the Palestinian Jews. It was
this that brought them into conflict with the Germanising tendency. In
1907 a secondary school was successfully started at Jaffa, by the
initiative of Jewish teachers in Palestine, with Hebrew as the language
of instruction; but in 1914, when a Jewish Polytechnic was founded at
Haifa, the German-Jewish _Hilfsverein_, which had taken a leading part,
refused to follow this precedent, and insisted on certain subjects being
taught in German, not only in the Polytechnic, but in the
_Hilfsverein's_ other schools. The result was a secession of pupils and
teachers. Purely Hebrew schools were opened; the Zionist organisation
gave official support; and the Germanising party was compelled to accept
a compromise which was in effect a victory for the Hebrew language.