Simon Dubnov's Faith in 'Jewish People's March Into History'
Stirring Concluding Chapter of Martyred Scholar's 'History of Jewish People'
While many experts have
emerged in the last three
decades as compilers of Jew-
ish historical data, the names
of Simon Dubnov and Hein-
rich Graetz (1817-1891) re-
main major among the great
historians of the last century.
It is not only the history of
Russian and Polish Jewries
but the world Jewish History
as well has distinguished the
inerasable contributions of
Dubnov.
Dubnov's monumental "His-
tory of the Jews" has been
translated, for publication in
five volumes, by Moshe Spie-
gel. The fifth and concluding
volume in the series has just
been issued by the publisher
of the complete new text,
Thomas Yoseloff.
The new volume, trans-
lated from the Russian, is
from the fourth definitive re-
vised edition of Dubnov's Vol-
umes IX and X. It covers
the eras from the Congress
of Vienna until the emer-
gence of Hitler.
The reader must take into
account these basic facts:
Until the Bolsheviks came to
power, Dubnov wrote, on the
basis of his lifetime of
studies, in St. Petersburg and
Odessa. He moved to Ger-
many during the Bolshevik
revolution, in 1917, and when
Hitler rose to power he fled
to Riga, Latvia. He lived
there until 1941. It was in
that year that he was mur-
dered by the Nazis, at the
age of 81, when he and other
Jews were herded into the
Hitler-made ghetto.
Therefore the period until
which he continued to produce
his great work is of great
significance in his writings.
The final volume in this
Dubnov series commences
with the year 1815. It was at
the Vienna Congress in the
early years of the last cen-
tury that Jews presented pe-
titions for just rights, chal-
lenging the discriminatory
acts in Germanic lands and
asking for fairness in treat-
ing the Jewish populations.
The shouts "Hep-hep, Jude
Verreck !" were heard in
many cities in Germany, and
Jewish petitioners sought re-
lief from the threatened pog-
roms and the prejudices that
were extant in literary, so-
cial, economic circles.
Dubnov's review of the
"Christian hatred" links here
with the subsequent Hitlerite
terrors that sought Jewry's
extermination.
We have in this historical
account a resume of the
struggle for just rights, for
emancipation, for succor
from the horrors that dom-
inated wherever there were
Jews.
Because that era also co-
incided with the soon-to-
begin Jewish migrations to
America, this volume has
added significance. This vol-
ume is a study in the popu-
lation movement, in the Re-
formation and Emancipation
and their effects upon Jews.
The anti-Semitic outbursts in
Germany, Austria - Hungary,
Russia, Romania and other
areas receive fullest studies,
leading up to the migrations
to the new centers, in Amer-
ica and in Palestine.
LATE SIMON DUBNOV
Here we have prophecy!
In 1938, in three years just
preceding his martyrdom,
when Jews were murdered
in the millions, he saw the
coming of statehood !
In his final years, as his-
torian, as one who was a
Jewish nationalist yet not a
Zionist to begin with, he nev-
Therefore his comments on ertheless acclaimed that "the
the Zionist movement, on the Jewish people continue their
activities in Palestine are of march into history." And the
chapter with which he con-
special interest.
And there is special signif- cluded this portion of his his-
icance in the interpretive tory is historic ! He wrote:
chapters of the emergence of
"At first, I did not intend
a great American Jewish ney down the long historical
community. While dealing road of the eternal people,
with "the remote splinters of it is permissible to ask the
the Diaspora," with the po- question: Quo vadis, Israel?
sition of Jews in all parts of At this moment, this question
the world, his concern with is associated- with the general
America and Palestine be- issue: in what direction is
come exceedingly significant. Europe and all of mankind
He was not considered a headed? We are confronted
Zionist. But in a note he with a turning point in the
wrote in April 1938, there is history of the world, and at
this comment:
this moment it is a turning
"At first. I did not intend
to extend the current survey
to the very last days; how-
ever, precisely these days of
the first quarter of 1938, wit-
nessed such events that illu-
minate brightly the course
of the latest reaction, and I
could not delete them in the
epilogue. On the other hand,
the Jewish historian could
not help escorting the read•
er to the threshold of a
`Jewish State' in Palestine
which we confront — even
though vaguely—at this mo-
ment."
"For the student of modern
history, beginning with the
Declaration of Human Rights
during the French Revolution
to the Nuremberg declaration
of depriving one of such
rights—according to the laws
of the 'German revolution'—
there is a confrontation with
this question: is it passible
that in its forward move-
ment, the 20th Century will
be just the opposite of the
point for the worse, to one of 19th instead of being its nat-
the worst ages in the history ural continuation? These
of nations. After the bloody
deluge of the last war, a
rainbow of peace appeared on
our horizon: the League of
Nations, the ideal of pacif-
ism, the disarmament idea,
the plan of Pan-Europe, the
Two top agricultural ex-
principle of protecting the
perts from Lebanon and
national minorities. This rain-
bow has dimmed in recent Saudi Arabia learned about
years. The old militarism is revolutionary irrigation me-
rearing its head once again: thods during a visit at Tosh
fearing one another, the na- Hasegawa's farm in southern
tions are arming feverishly. California. But they were
The old militarism now man- told by Hasegawa that they
had gone to superfluous ef-
forts in coming all the way
to California: "I told them
they would have obtained a
lot more information from
where it all began—next door
to where they live, in Israel."
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ideals of freedom, equality
and social justice, which are
so close to the spirit of the
people whose Prophets had
proclaimed them—could it be
that they will yield every-
where to the ideas of bond-
age, and of racial discrim-
ination, and of brute force,
or the principle that 'right
rests in might?' . . No, we
can not extirpate from our
soul the ideals of humane-
ness and the belief that the
human species will continue
progressing from bestiality
to humanism. This faith was
bequeathed to us in the pro-
phetic words of the Bible
about the 'end of time,' when
`swords will be forged into
plowshares,' and the strong
will live in peace with the
weak Ca wolf with a sheep'),
because all will be strong in
spirit and morally perfect
(`the earth will be filled with
Omniscience'). Without this
faith. and without our eternal
idealism, we would be an
ephemeral. and not an eter-
nal, people.
"However, 'faith without
deeds _ acad.' We would not
be a universal people, if in
moments of catastrophes, we
would be isolated from one
another—if the fractions of
Jewry throughout the world
were not to pool their forces
to rescue the threatened
parts, and to Preserve the
whole. The perils of the last
decades served to consolidate
our world Diaspora as never
before. The contemporary
rapprochement of the two
hemispheres — the Old and
the New Worlds — is espe-
cially noteworthy. Europe and
America have united in the
general aspiration to build
our historical home in Asia;
now, they unite in helping
the victims of the German,
Austrian and Polish catastro-
phes. Two organzations—the
World Jewish Congress and
the American Jewish Con-
gress—are not united in the
struggle for the right on an
international level.
"The Jewish people em-
barked upon the 19th Century
numbering 3,000,000 souls —
primarily in Europe — with
an additional 10,000 in Amer-
ica and a handful of lamen-
ters at the Wailing Wall in
Jerusalem. At present, there
are 15,000,000 Jews, one-third
of whom are to be found in
America; and almost h a
million are engaged
construction of the renewed
Land of Israel in Palestine,
exhilarated by the perspec-
tive of a Jewish State.
"And so, the Jewish people
continue their march into
history."
Here we have the vision
of a great master, the em-
phasis on his people's will to
live, the realization of what
was transpiring, yet the re-
fusal to abandon faith in Is-
rael's destiny !
What a glorious chapter we
have just quoted 'as the fi-
nale of a glorious history
brilliantly compiled !
How blessed we are that
our historians are men of
courage and of realism !
How tragic that a great man
should have perished at the
hands of beasts who threat-
ened the security of the en-
tire world! This great man
left us a great !
Blessed be the memory of
Simon ,Dubnov !
An Israeli Irrigation Lesson Acquired
by Arabs Visiting Farmer in California
COINED BY THE
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ifests itself in the form of a
dictatorship, from the right
or the left, under the banner
of a totalitarian state that
suppresses the freedom of
the individual and of society.
In the history of the Jews —
which was always a true ba-
rometer of the progress and
the regress of mankind — we
also discern, in recent years,
signs of a return to the Mid-
dle Ages. The new crusaders
who carry the swastikas, are
exterminating the Jews in
the center of Europe — in
the same Germany, where
the crusaders of the 12th Cen-
tury lived. The medieval
mass explusions of Jews are
being prepared today by way
of ousting "foreigners" (Ro-
mania), or through economic
boycott and terror, to en-
force evacuation ( Poland ).
The accusations of the Mid-
dle Ages are reiterated in the
20th Century in the form of
an infamous literary forgery:
`The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion,' in which all sorts
of crimes are being attribu-
ted to Jews, to justify the
most horrible violence against
them. The theory of racism,
as aforesaid, leads from hu•
manism to bestiality.
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The technique which so
interested the Arab travellers
is called drip irrigation
Pioneered in the Negev
(Israel's arid southland)
some 13 years ago, it has
been enthusiastically adopt-
ed by fruit and vegetable
farmers in the American
southwest. In drip irrigation,
water running through per-
forated plastic pipes is sup-
plied to plants and trees in
trickles, keeping the soil
constantly moist—in con-
trast to the conventional
heavy sprinkling or flooding
of crops.
The method was imported
into the U.S. two years ago
by Don Gustayson, a Uni-
versity of California farm
adviser who had made a
study tour to the Middle
East. The results have been
quite spectacular, as testi-
fied to by Hasegawa, a
Japanese - American farmer
and one of the earliest "con-
verts." "Instead of paying
$500-$600 an acre for water
per year as I did with con-
ventional furrow irrigation,
I now pay less than $300,
and my tomato yield has in-
creased by 25%," he said.
Drip irrigation has also
eliminated Hasegawa's weed
problem, sharply reduced
mold and other plant dis-
eases, and cut fertilization
costs by applying plant food
through the irrigation sys-
tem.
Gustayson credits Israel's
Dr_ Simcha Blass with in-
novating drip irrigation in
the Negev, and describes
the method as "the biggest
thing to hit agriculture since
the introduction of sprinkling
25 years ago." Currently, the
kibutz company, Netafim,
manufactures and exports
the various parts which make
up the drip system, Gus-
tayson explained, but two
dozen American companies
have launched crash pro-
grams to design similar sys-
tems.
"So far, Israel has 15,000
acres under drip irrigation;
South Africa 8,000 acres;
Australia 15,000 acres, and
the U.S. somewhere between
10,000 and 15,000 acres,"
Mr. Gustayson said.
However, American farm-
52 Friday, April 6, 1973
—
ers have barely begun, he
added, stating: "This year
vine growers in central Cali-
fornia are putting thousands
of acres into drip irrigation,
and avocado, strawberry,
and citrus , --)wers are also
finding it a very successful
way to irrigate. On farms
where plants would hardly
grow due to the high salini-
ty in local water, they are
flourishing with the same
water using drip irrigation.
By keeping the soil con-
stantly moist, the salt is
diluted and the plants can
live with it
In a five acre avocado ex-
periment operated by Gus-
tayson for the University of
California, a plot with drip
irrigation used on , " rth
the water of a coml.
orchard under conventional
irrigation. "That means a
saving of $21,000 in one year
for 200 acres," he elaborat-
ed. "Yet at the same time,
'avocado trees develop much
more rapidly with drip irri-
gation and are considerably
more productive."
Asked what the Arab ag-
ronomists said when he ad-
vised them to study drip
irrigation at the Israeli
source, Hasegawa replied:
"Well, they seemed a little
embarrassed."
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS