or an independent national existence in Palestine, which had
been their lode-star throughout the ages. _Diaspora_ as opposed to
_Palestine_, and as exclusive of it, became the slogan of emancipated
Jewry. The Jewish religion was refitted to harmonize with this new
striving for material and cultural progress. Reform Judaism arose, the
main object of which was to break down the previous separateness of
the Jews; and the theory of a "Jewish mission" sprang into life, not
as a spontaneous growth of Jewish tradition, but as a forced hothouse
product of practical life--a theory which proclaimed that an isolated
Jewish existence in Palestine was subversive of the very essence of
Judaism, that the mission of the Jewish people was to propagate
monotheism among the nations of the earth, and that this mission could
only be carried out in the Dispersion, in the midst of the nations
which were to be the objects of that mission.

As time progressed, however, the "Diaspora" thesis gradually lost its
force. Emancipation failed to fulfill the ardent hopes attached to it.
The nations refused to allow the Jews to participate fully and
unrestrictedly in the general life of the country. Anti-Semitism,
manifesting itself in the crude form of hatred, or under the subtle
guise of prejudice, turned, in many cases, the liberties previously
granted to the Jews into a scrap of paper. On the other hand, the
dangers of this extreme Diaspora Judaism, at first little thought of,
began to loom larger and larger. The rush for emancipation threatened
not only to disrupt the unity of the Jewish people throughout the
world, which had been maintained during the ages of suffering and
persecution, but it also led large and important sections of Jewry to
assimilation, that is, to complete absorption.

_The Antithesis "Palestine" and Its Inadequacy_

AS a protest against the thesis "Diaspora," its opposite came to life,
the antithesis "Palestine." Political Zionism sprang into being,
loudly proclaiming that emancipation was a failure; that Judaism had
no chance of life in the Dispersion, and that the only salvation of
Jewry lay in being transferred to Palestine. _Zionism or assimilation_
was the alternative placed before the Jewish people. All efforts of
Jewry, as the last attempt to escape annihilation, were to be focused
on the obtaining of a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine.
All Jewish endeavors in the Diaspora were deprecated, because
con