Page 38

DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE

Max Nordau Dreamed,
Now His Dream Lives

MAX N ORDAU
•
•
IN 1920 MAX NORDAU issued a to the underground rumblings of

clarion call to the Jews of
the world for the mass r...gration
of east and central European
Jewry to Palestine. Twenty-
eight years before the establish-
ment of the Jewish. State and the
colossal Jewish emigration to
Israel, Nordau had a prophetic
vision of the horrors to come and
a burning prescience of the needs
of his people.
These are his words, written
years before the scourge, of Hit-
ler, when to many they sounded
like the nightmare of a false
Cassandra, rather than the simple
description of truth which we
now know them for:
"We need Palestine, not dis-
interestedly, but effectually; and
not. a Palestine occupied by in-
dustrial owners. We need it for
the people, that we may establish
there those millions of our breth-
tern who are being threatened
with massacre or rapine in
Ukraine, whom Poland is try-
ink to strangle slowly but inex-
orably by means of economic
boycott, and whom Austria Hung-
ary, and Germany want to push
back into the ignominy of the
ghetto."
• • •
SAW THE MENACE
HE SAW THE MASSACRE
coming. He saw the concentra-
tion camps, the crowded freight
trains, the crematoria.
When the world was still deaf

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DZI-THE THEATER

8935 3,11ck

impending disaster he heard the
cries of the martyred six million.
With an uncanny instinct, that
came from his deep feeling of
the common fate of all Jews, he
sensed the bloody wave of ex-
termination, the genocide of a
whole people, when the name of
Hitler was still unknown out-
side Germany.
It was this deep-seated present-
iment of doom—so tragically ver-
ified by ensuing events — that
made him think of such extreme
measures as mass-migration and
the building of a Jewish State.
Of course, he saw the diffi-
culties in the way of the real-
ization of his project. He was all
too familiar with the arguments
of "practical" men against so vast
and unprecedented an undertak-
ing. He knew these difficulties
and these argumentS—he knew

them better than those who op- the "practical" men are still here ridiculed as a dreamer, a Utop-'
posed him because of them—but to plague us—just as Nordau ian.
he was determined to overcome saw they would be.
It was pointed out that mass
them.
migration would be impossible
But
they
are
being
met—as
he
• • •
foresaw and they did not. Houses without some sort of revolution-
REFUTES OBJECTIONS
are being built. Money is being ary action. Well, the revolution-
IN HIS CALL for mass migra- raised. There is little luxury, but ary action has come. The Jews,
tion, Nordau went through the no one is starving. And the land. those who can, are leaving Eu-
objections of this scheme (that is being built.
rope in the hundreds and thous-
is, Herzl's scheme, Zionism's
Had Nordau's councils been ands for Israel.
scheme) one by one.
But the action and the migra-
listened to, the six million who
"It isn't possible, there are no lost their lives In Hitler's fur- tion have come a quarter of a
houses to live in'. No houses? naces might now be living and century too late—too late forever
'They will live in tents to begin working in Israel. As he sale for the six million who paid with
with . . . 'they will have nothing "We want to establish our fel- their lives for the shortsighted-
to eat'. We will feed them. .. 'It low Jews; first hundreds and ness of their "practical" leaders.
will cost billions'. No, but many thousands of them, later millions, • On July 29, we celebrated the
millions—and they must be not in 50 or 100 years, but quick- hundredth anniversary of Nor-
found."
ly, to save them from the assas- dau's birth. The celebration he
Thus he met the arguments of sins, and to make them a valiant, would have liked most is going on
in Israel, where the Jewish State
the "practical" men, whose prac- vigorous Jewish nation."
ticality meant seeing no further
It is easy now with the wisdom he envisioned is being built.
The redemption of Israel is a
than their noses. There objections of hindsight to see how right he
were practical for a few days, was. If only the Jews from East testament to the truth of his life,
weeks, even years. But in the Europe had left the ghettos be- his writings, his dream. And his
long run their fear of running hind them and migrated in their example will stand before the
Jewish people for centuries,
risks—and remember, it was millions to Palestine!
their advice, nor Nordau's, that
The Balfour Declaration had nerving us to boldness and action
was followed—m ea n t the de- just been made. British policy when we know we are right,
struction of European Jewry.
was still fluid. Powerful Arab warning us always against half-
Nordau's cry went unheeded, rulers were pro-Zionist. And the measures and timidity.
In the State of Israel and in a
except by a small group of "im- countries of East Europe, which
practical" Zionists. That was 30 are now reluctant to let the Jews future of the Jewish people, Max
years ago. Today, Nordau's words go, were then eager to have the Nordau has an immortal month ,
ment.
read like the latest newspaper Jews leave.
dispatch. datelined from Tel
• • •
SEND RELIGIOUS ARTICLES
Aviv.
NORDAU RIDICULED
NEW YORK — The Mizrachi
Palestine is being flooded by
POLITICAL CONDITIONS Women's Organization is engaged
huge waves of immigration. In
i one year the population of the were perfect. But that wasn't in a program of shipment of re-
country has risen 30 per cent. enough for the "practical" men. ligious articles to its projects in
According to Prime Minister Ben Nordau was laughed at. He was Israel.
, Gurion, "In the course of the one
year since the establishment of
Israel, 213,000 came in, as many
ROSH HASHONAH
as in the preceding 15 years."
GREETINGS
And more are coming! It is
widely expected that, inside of
four years, a million Jews will
S.
have come to Israel .
• • •
BUILDING GOES ON
WHOLESALE MEATS
OF COURSE, THERE have
been and there are difficulties,
9735 Peterson
great difficulties. The very dif-
11341 Woodward
VI. 2-0590
ficulties urged against Nordau by

Greetings

COHEN and
A. LEVENBERG

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FLAMINGO THEATER

Thursday, September 22, 1949

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