Part 10 (1/2)
The Rabbis will receive communications regularly from both Society and Company, and will announce and explain these to their congregations.
Israel will pray for us and for itself.
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE LOCAL GROUPS
The local groups will appoint small committees of representative men under the Rabbi's presidency, for discussion and settlement of local affairs.
Philanthropic inst.i.tutions will be transferred by their local groups, each inst.i.tution remaining ”over there” the property of the same set of people for whom it was originally founded. I think the old buildings should not be sold, but rather devoted to the a.s.sistance of indigent Christians in the forsaken towns. The local groups will receive compensation by obtaining free building sites and every facility for reconstruction in the new country.
This transfer of philanthropic inst.i.tutions will give another of those opportunities, which occur at different points of my scheme, for making an experiment in the service of humanity. Our present unsystematic private philanthropy does little good in proportion to the great expenditure it involves. But these inst.i.tutions can and must form part of a system by which they will eventually supplement one another. In a new society these organizations can be evolved out of our modern consciousness, and may be based on all previous social experiments. This matter is of great importance to us, on account of our large number of paupers. The weaker characters among us, discouraged by external pressure, spoilt by the soft-hearted charity of our rich men, easily sink until they take to begging.
The Society, supported by the local groups, will give greatest attention to popular education with regard to this particular. It will create a fruitful soil for many powers which now wither uselessly away. Whoever shows a genuine desire to work will be suitably employed. Beggars will not be endured. Whoever refuses to do anything as a free man will be sent to the workhouse.
On the other hand, we shall not relegate the old to an almshouse. An almshouse is one of the cruelest charities which our stupid good nature ever invented. There our old people die out of pure shame and mortification. There they are already buried. But we will leave even to those who stand on the lowest grade of intelligence the consoling illusion of their utility in the world. We will provide easy tasks for those who are incapable of physical labor; for we must allow for diminished vitality in the poor of an already enfeebled generation.
But future generations shall be dealt with otherwise; they shall be brought up in liberty for a life of liberty.
We will seek to bestow the moral salvation of work on men of every age and of every cla.s.s; and thus our people will find their strength again in the land of the seven-hour day.
PLANS OF THE TOWNS
The local groups will delegate their authorized representatives to select sites for towns. In the distribution of land every precaution will be taken to effect a careful transfer with due consideration for acquired rights.
The local groups will have plans of the towns, so that our people may know beforehand where they are to go, in which towns and in which houses they are to live. Comprehensive drafts of the building plans previously referred to will be distributed among the local groups.
The principle of our administration will be strict centralization of our local groups' autonomy. In this way the transfer will be accomplished with the minimum of pain.
I do not imagine all this to be easier than it actually is; on the other hand, people must not imagine it to be more difficult than it is in reality.
THE DEPARTURE OF THE MIDDLE CLa.s.sES
The middle cla.s.ses will involuntarily be drawn into the outgoing current, for their sons will be officials of the Society or employees of the Company ”over there.” Lawyers, doctors, technicians of every description, young business people--in fact, all Jews who are in search of opportunities, who now escape from oppression in their native country to earn a living in foreign lands--will a.s.semble on a soil so full of fair promise. The daughters of the middle cla.s.ses will marry these ambitious men. One of them will send for his wife or fiancee to come out to him, another for his parents, brothers and sisters. Members of a new civilization marry young. This will promote general morality and ensure st.u.r.diness in the new generation; and thus we shall have no delicate offspring of late marriages, children of fathers who spent their strength in the struggle for life.
Every middle-cla.s.s emigrant will draw more of his kind after him.
The bravest will naturally get the best out of the new world.
But there we seem undoubtedly to have touched on the crucial difficulty of my plan.
Even if we succeeded in opening a world discussion on the Jewish Question in a serious manner--
Even if this debate led us to a positive conclusion that the Jewish State were necessary to the world--
Even if the Powers a.s.sisted us in acquiring the sovereignty over a strip of territory--
How are we to transport ma.s.ses of Jews without undue compulsion from their present homes to this new country?
Their emigration is surely intended to be voluntary.
THE PHENOMENON OF MULt.i.tUDES
Great exertions will hardly be necessary to spur on the movement.