It would be rash to affirm that Zionism has died with Dr. Herzl. Since his death, however, the movement has suffered a certain transformation. Although his East Africa project has been rejected by the majority of the party, and though both those who favoured it and those who opposed it are now persuaded of the hopelessness of a chartered home in Palestine, yet the plan of a return to the Land of Promise still is enthusiastically adhered to, especially by the sufferers of the Russian Ghetto: with the only difference that repatriation is no longer looked for from the Sultan, or from the European Powers, but from individual effort. Side by side with political and diplomatic activity abroad, the Congress of 1905 resolved upon practical work in Palestine itself. This will take the form of general investigation into the country’s resources and its economic possibilities, and attempts at amelioration of its administrative conditions. In other words, the colonisation of Palestine is to be encouraged and its autonomy postponed until the Jews are established in sufficient numbers to obtain their ultimate object. “Creep into Palestine anyway. Colonise, redeem the land, populate it, establish factories, stimulate trade; in a word, rebuild Palestine and then see what the Sultan will say.” This is the advice given by a prominent Jew to his co-religionists.330 Whether these endeavours will yield the desired fruit or not is a matter on which it would be more prudent to express an opinion after the event. It is equally difficult to forecast the outcome of Mr. Zangwill’s “Jewish Territorial Organisation,” which, abandoning Zion at all events for the moment, seeks to found a Jewish Colony elsewhere. This variation of the Zionist programme has attracted the sympathy of many of those who stood completely aloof from the Herzl scheme. At the same time it has driven a wedge into Zionism proper.

Meanwhile, it would be idle to deny that, viewed as a whole, the Jewish Question at the present moment stands pretty much where it has been at any time during the last eighteen hundred years. A few Jews have solved the problem for themselves by assimilation to their surroundings. Some more dwell among the Gentiles in a state of benevolent neutrality: one with them on the surface, but at heart distinct; performing all the duties of citizenship conscientiously and sharing in the intellectual and political life of their adopted countries brilliantly; yet, by their avoidance of intermarriage, implying the existence of an insuperable barrier between themselves and those who have not the good fortune to be descended from Abraham. But the bulk of the race still is a people of wanderers; and their hope of restoration little more than a beautiful, melancholy dream. There are at the present hour upwards of ten million Jews, scattered to the four corners of the earth. Nine of these millions live in Europe: two-thirds of them in Russia, Roumania and Poland. In the Middle Ages persecution in the West had driven them Eastwards. Lately persecution in the East has turned the tide Westwards. There is no rest for Israel. If the past and the present are any guides regarding the future, it is safe to predict that for many centuries to come the world will continue to witness the unique and mournful spectacle of a great people roaming to and fro on the highways of the earth in search of a home.