SOLIDARITY
    The springs of solidarity, and its forms of expression - The growth of the community and its institutions - The cultivation of solidarity - The work of phalanthropic associations - The National-ist movement - The potentialities of solidarity and its limitations
Amid the welter of conflicting movements and divergent tendencies that characterize modern Jewry, there is one unifying element: the sentiment of solidarity. Not only among those languishing in the lands of persecution, but also among those thriving in the lands of freedom, the feeling still prevails that "all Israel are brethren." The strength of this feeling is a witness to the continued vitality of the historic consciousness in this age of increasing assimilation; its universality is a consequence and a reflection of the world-wide dispersion of Jewry. The concrete form in which it is normally manifested is the spontaneous organization of communities in whatever part of the globe Jews may settle. The special forms in which it finds expression are the measures adopted for the relief of distress and the defense of Jewish interests, and, most notably, in the projects launched for the solution of the Jewish Question.

The simplest and commonest form of Jewish solidarity is the organized community, which will be found in any town containing even a handful of Jews. The motor force in its organization is the desire for public worship, which cannot be properly conducted according to religious law without a minimum of ten adult males. The primary force is thus religious, and its external expression gradually materializes into a Synagogue. This institution forms the pivot and centre of communal life throughout Jewry, and -its establishment is followed by the growth of a cluster of other institutions, each answering some definite social need or aspiration  a school for the education of the young in the tenets of Judaism and the Hebrew language, a committee or board of guardians for the relief of the poor, a society for the furtherance of Jewish knowledge by lectures and debates, and for the provision of social entertainment. An indispensable adjunct of every community is also a separate cemetery consecrated for the reception of the dead. Tue town communities are often linked together by association with a central body in the metropolis, either for religious or secular purposes, particularly in the Western world.  The religious body acts as the ecclesiastical authority, the secular body as the guardian of civil and political interests. Some communities contain such an -abundance and elaboration of institutions, answering not only to a variety of tendencies and rites in the religious domain, and to every conceivable social, philanthropic, and intellectual purpose, but also to separate industrial and professional interests, and to rival political aspirations, that they form complete social organisms in themselves. 

Cognate in origin, allied by the same traditions and -customs, these communities give to modern Jewry the semblance of a vast network of autonomous settlements. The enlightened Jew, in whatever part of the globe he may live, is conscious of this world-wide dispersion. He has acquired this consciousness from his earliest youth, with his initiation into the history of his people; nay, from his early childhood, when he first heard stories of their persecution in barbarous lands told in hushed breath at the family hearth. The knowledge is fostered by his press, which takes as its sphere of interest the conditions of Jewry throughout the world; it is stimulated by contact with fellow-Jews arriving from other lands; it is sustained by frequent dispersion of the members of a single family, particularly from Russia, to all corners of the globe. The average Jew of today, therefore, has a wide range of interests, an extensive area of vision. His sympathy finds points of contact in every latitude; his mental horizon encompasses the whole globe.

But there are more concrete and substantial media for the manifestation and cultivation of solidarity. They consist in the great philanthropic associations founded by the Jews of the West for the benefit of their brethren in the East, and, above all, in the organization aiming at the restoration of Jewish national life in Palestine. The philan-thropic associations are to be found in all the great capitals of Europe, and their activity is confined for the most part to ameliorating the intellectual and economic conditions of the Jews in Eastern Europe and the Orient. Earliest in foundation was the "Alliance Israelite Universelle," which was established in 1860, in Paris, to relieve the social misery and intellectual stagnation of the Jews in the Near East, brought to light by the ritual murder accusation of Damascus. Its plan of operation was to found schools in which the children should receive a modern training to equip them for the battle of life. Eleven years later the Anglo-Jewish Association was established in London to aid in this work, and soon after the "Israelitische Allianz" was formed in Vienna to deal similarly with the needs of the swarming populace of Galicia. The most recent founda-tion is the " Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden" of Berlin, which not only aims at improving the conditions of the Jews of the East, but also protects and assists the hosts of Russian emigrants who yearly pass through Germany in quest of a land of refuge. The activity of these bodies is -solely philanthropic, but it assumes somewhat of a political colouring when the lives and property of their countless wards are threatened by riots or persecution, for then they solicit the goodwill of their respective governments on their behalf. But this political activity - if such it may be called - is prompted solely by a crisis, and it is wholly confined to overcoming the crisis. Richer in resources and wider in its area of activity is the Jewish Colonization Association, which owes its existence and its funds entirely to one man, Baron Maurice de Hirsch. Founded in Paris, in 1891, for the relief of the Jews in Russia by settling them in agricultural colonies in Argentina, it soon expanded in scope, establishing farmsteads in North and South America, undertaking the supervision of the colonies in Palestine created by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, and adopting various practical measures for improving the status of the Jews in Eastern Europe and the neighbouring lands of Asia. 

The most impressive manifestation of solidarity is afforded by the Zionist movement, which aims at restoring Jewish national life in the Holy Land.  It is the only movement of a political character which binds the scattered members of Israel together. Its ideals, espoused in every country of the world, provide the only common platform upon which Jews of different environment and upbringing can meet, for they are directed not to the amelioration of any section but to the advancement of the welfare of the whole people. The Zionist Congresses have contributed more to enabling Jews of different lands and languages to understand one another and to levelling down environmental prejudices than any other factor in modern times. By rousing the historic consciousness, by promoting the use of Hebrew as a spoken language and fostering its literature, by bringing the vision of a regenerated Judea from the mystic region of Messianic ideals to the terrestrial sphere of modern politics, and by focusing effort upon the practical rejuvenation of Palestine, Zionism has contributed in an unparalleled degree to the strengthening of racial solidarity. Its offspring, the Jewish Territorial Organization, which alms at finding a land of refuge anywhere, is also an expression of solidarity, but its main activity is that of an emigration agency, and hence it more properly belongs to the philanthropic category. 

Apart from the regular work performed by these various associations, exceptional measures of relief have to be adopted from time to time.  The Jewish people are peculiarly exposed to chronic catastrophes-a pogrom in Russia, a fire in a Turkish Ghetto, or a famine in the Holy Land; and the cry of distress that then rings through the Western world finds immediate response. If funds are wanted, they are sent quickly and liberally; if political protection is needed, it is immediately sought from the Government that has the greatest influence in the country affected. So promptly do the leaders of Western Jewry act that a threatened disaster is often averted, and how- ever great and urgent the demand for monetary aid may be they can easily satisfy it. In acts of charity they are unsurpassed, exercising unsleeping vigilance over their brethren in bondage, but they have not yet learned that prevention is better than cure. No practical attempt has yet been made to unite the various organizations in order to devise measures for diminishing the possibility of misfortunes in the future. Co-operation of a certain kind -does, indeed, take place, especially in regard to the educa-tional work in the East and the protection of the emigrants who wander across half the globe in search of a home. International conferences have also been held, in Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, and Brussels, but they were summoned, with one exception, to deal with an urgent crisis - a mass acre in Russia, a sudden exodus from Rumania. They fulfilled their function, they afforded temporary measures of relief, but they achieved nothing permanent. The only attempt, at Brussels in 1906, to create a general organiza-tion comprising representatives of all the existing bodies, to deal with the chronic evils of the Jewish situation, proved abortive. The imaginative Anti-Semite has long babbled of an international Jewish syndicate hatching dark, political plots, but little does he dream how Jews in authority recoil from the mere hint of a cosmopolitan organization. A scheme was actually proposed a few years ago for the creation of a standing committee of representatives of the philanthropic and political bodies of Europe and America, to meet at regular intervals, but it was received with scant sympathy in influential quarters. Even an alternative scheme, to facilitate rapidity of inter-communication and co-operation in cases of emergency, met with divided approval; and although it has been recently revived, the only result was a. union of some of the philanthropic organizations to carry out the relief of the Jewish victims of the Balkan War. The obstacles to permanent concerted action exist partly in the personal factor, and partly in the policy represented by most of the organizations, that each country has its own individual Jewish question which must be solved separately and locally. The only body that has had the sagacity to perceive the organic connexion of the Jewish problems in the various lands of dispersion, and which has projected a solution upon a far-reaching scale, is the Zionist Organiza-tion. But the Zionists form only a fraction of the Jewish people, and their present resources are painfully meagre in relation to the stupendous task before them. A union of the ideals and policy of Zionism with the funds and influence of the philanthropic associations, aided by the combined capital of the great Jewish financial houses, would provide the most potent and promising basis for achieving a speedy solution of the Jewish question. But a practical manifestation of catholic solidarity of such magnitude, embracing the sum total of Jewish power and Jewish idealism, and consecrated to the realization of Israel's highest destinies, remains a dream of the future.

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