In history there is a country by name Judea or as we call it Eretz Israel,
the Land of Israel. We have called it Israel since the days of Joshua
the son of Nun. There was such a country in history, there was and it is
still there. It is a little country, a very little country, but that
little country made a very deep impression on world history and on our
history because this country made us a people; our people made this
country. No other people in the world made this country; this country
made no other people in the world. Again they are beginning to make this
country and again this country is beginning to make us. It is unique;
it is a fact, and this country came into world history by many wars,
Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines
and others, it gained a place in history and in world history for the
same reason, because our people created here, perhaps a limited, but a
very great civilization, and shaped our people, the Jewish people, to
make it as it is from then until today; a very exclusive people on one
side and a universal people on the other; very national and very
international. Exclusive in its internal life and its attachment to its
history, to its national and religious tradition; very universal in its
religious, social and ethical ideas.
We were told there is one God in
the entire world, that there is unity of the human race because every
human being was created in the image of God, that there ought to be and
will be brotherhood and social justice, peace between peoples. Those
were our ideas; this was our culture and this made history in this
country and it took its place in world history. We created here a book,
many books; many were lost, many remained only in translations, but a
considerable number, some twenty four remain in their original language,
Hebrew, in the same language, Mr. Chairman, in which I am thinking now
when I am talking to you in English and which the Jews in this country
are speaking now. We went into exile, we took that book with us and in
that book which was more to us than a book, it was us, we took with us
our country in our hearts, in our soul, and there is such a thing as a
soul, as well as a body, and these three, the land, the book and the
people are one for us for ever. It is an indissoluble bond. There is no
material power which can dissolve it except by destroying us physically.
Here are Jews who are away for centuries, some of them many
centuries, some of them thousands of years, as the Jews in Yemen, where
they have always carried Zion in their hearts, and they came back and
came back with love. You will find in no other country in the world
people loving their country as the Jews love this country.
I wonder whether all the American members of this Commission know
this fact: In the first World War thousands of Jewish boys from
America, from the United States of America, came over to fight for the
liberation of this country in a Jewish Legion in the British Army, in
the Royal Fusiliers. I happened to be at that time in America and I had
the privilege of taking part in that, and I, too, was a volunteer in the
British Army and served under Allenby here in the 39th Battalion of the
Royal Fusiliers.
By the way, I know what happened then in Palestine? I don’t know
what happened in Egypt. There were Semitic soldiers in this country,
many thousands. Some of them fought on the other side, and I don’t blame
them. It was their right and perhaps their duty.
What brought over these thousands of American Jewish boys with
the consent and blessing of the President of the United States of
America, the late Woodrow Wilson? What brought them over if not the love
of Zion? Perhaps it can hardly be explained, but it is there.
Another thing, and it was mentioned to you, Jews tried to settle
on the land in many other countries. It was tried in Russia. Czar
Alexander Nicolai I tried to settle Jews on the land. The Soviet
Government tried to settle Jews on the land. It is a powerful
Government. Jews tried settling in Argentina; Jews tried to settle in
the United States of America. It failed. It succeeded here. There was no
love for the land there; there was love of the land here. As much as I
love this country I must tell you that Argentina is a much richer and
more fertile country than here. American certainly is more fertile, and
Russia, and they failed there. They succeeded here. It is because of
love of Zion.
Why? What is it? A man can change many things, even his
religion, even his wife, even his name. There is one thing which a man
cannot change, his parents. There is no means of changing that. The
parents of our people is this country. It is unique, but it is there.
More than 300 years ago a ship by the name of the Mayflower left
Plymouth for the New World. It was a great event in American and English
history. I wonder how many Englishmen or how many Americans know
exactly the date when that ship left Plymouth, how many people were on
the ship, and what was the kind of bread that people ate when they left
Plymouth.
Well, more than 3,300 years ago the Jews left Egypt. It was more
than 3,000 years ago and every Jew in the world knows exactly the date
when we left. It was on the 15th of Nisan. The bread they ate was matzot. Up to date all the Jews throughout the world on the 15th of
Nisan eat the same matzot, in America, in Russia, and tell the story of
the exile from Egypt and tell what happened, all the sufferings that
happened to the Jews since they went into exile. They finish by these
two sentences: “This year we are slaves; next year we will be free. This
year we are here; next year we will be in Zion, the land of Israel.”
Jews are like that.
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