[Gutenberg 63689] • On the Eve of Redemption

Excerpt from On the Eve of Redemption

N 0 people has felt the upheaval more than have the Jews. None has had a greater share in its sorrows. None has had more reason to examine carefully its past and its present and to define its future plans; and none can look with clearer purpose or with firmer courage into the future. For none has better ground than have the Jews for confident hope in the moral progress of the world, - that people which has been the constant witness of the course of civilization throughout the agesand has never lost its faith in the ultimate victory of Justice and Right.

We need not speak in generalities. The smaller nations are assured that their rights will be safeguarded in the future, and that these rights will embrace not only protection from attack and aggression, but equally the right of development along the lines of their own national bent, the right of self-govern ment, the right to cultivate their own spiritual possessions. There is no other people to whom this is so full of deep meaning as to the Jews. During the many centuries of the Dispersion our people has ever looked for ward to its Restoration in its ancestral home. During these many centuries there has never been a day that the prayers for the Return have not ascended in every country of the world in which the Children of Israel have been dispersed. This undying hope has been the factor in the unique, the miraculous pre servation of a small people scattered among all the peoples of the globe.

The national movement of the past genera tion, which has led to the rejuvenation of the Hebrew language, to the founding of prosper ous Jewish colonies in Palestine, to theestablishment of the Zionist Organization with its branches throughout the world, this national movement has trained us to think politically and to act with statesmanlike grasp of present conditions and of plans for the future. A part of our people has been prepared to deal with the great national pro hlems which obtrude themselves upon us to day. Large numbers are still confused by the new outlook and must find guides to direct them in the new paths.

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