is not
possible without considerable sums of money. In order to be armed
financially for the time that Turkey will accord such a charter, the
second Zionist congress (1898) decided to found a national Jewish bank
institute, the "Jewish Colonial Trust," with its headquarters in
London. This resolution was carried out the following year (1899). The
bank has been brought into being. Its capital in shares is two million
pounds sterling. It can, by the statutes, start business when one
eighth of this capital, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds
sterling, has been actually paid up. This has already been done.
Another financial instrument of Zionism is the "National Fund,"
created by the fifth congress (1901), which is raised by voluntary
subscription and which is to amount to two hundred thousand pounds
sterling. The half of this sum is to be devoted to the purchase of
land in Palestine, the other half to remain an intangible common
property of the Jewish people, which will by means of compound
interest and gifts continually increase, so that at important
junctures the interest may be used for great national purposes.
V.
I have taken pains to show, in as brief and as objective a manner as
possible, what Zionism is, what it desires to do, how it came into
being, and how it has developed up to the present. I have also
repeatedly mentioned that its most violent opponents have arisen from
the Jewish community.
Many of them content themselves with libeling and insulting the
leaders of the Zionist movement. This kind of hostility they who are
vilified can afford to despise. Men who, without expecting the
slightest advantage to themselves, out of the purest, most unselfish
love for the unhappy ones of their race, out of reverence for their
forefathers, out of a general spirit of philanthropy, have made the
greatest sacrifices in money, time, strength, and health, in order to
elevate their people and to free millions of innocent, persecuted men
from the bitterest misery, have the right smilingly to shrug their
shoulders when irresponsible fanatics or pitiable paid scribes
reproach them with self-interest or with vanity.
Besides these opponents of a lower type, there are others who do not
merely lie and slander, but also seek to argue. They delight in
comparing the apostles of Zionism with the false Messiahs like the
notorious Sabbathai Levi, who have appeared only too often in Jewish
history, and who have always done
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