MIA > Archive > Kautsky > Are the Jews a Race?
Since then we have had the World War, which has by no means improved the economic conditions for the flourishing of a Jewish community in Palestine. To be sure, the political conditions for Jewish emigration to that region have apparently been improved, while the consequences of the war have at the same time strengthened anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and thus increased the desire for a secure homeland for the Jewish race.
In Western Europe and America as well as in the Central Powers, the Jewish population had become exceedingly patriotic for the most part; far from standing above the warring factions, as an exclusive race or nation might have done, they plunged into the war with the greatest enthusiasm. The German Jews felt that they were only German, the French Jews that they were only French. They hated each other with all the fury of the war psychosis, and did not consider that they had any interests in common.
Neither of the two belligerent groups had the upper hand from the outset. Each was obliged to utilise every resource at its disposal. On both sides of the trenches, each government sought to obtain the full support of its proletarians, and also of its Jews. The cheapest concession that could be made to the latter was in the form of promises to support Zionism. For these promises were all to be realised at the expense of Turkey. The Central Powers, as well as the Entente, permitted the Jews to believe that their victory would result in a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
Therefore the war stimulated not only the English, French, German or other nationalism of the Jewish population, but also its specifically Jewish nationalism: Zionism. Now that the war is over, it appears that this aspiration is to be realised through the victors. The victors, in the Peace Treaty with Turkey, assigned control over Palestine to the League of Nations. In the name of the League, Palestine is to be administered by England, which will encourage the establishment of a Jewish home-land in Palestine. Of course, this is by no means equivalent as yet to the establishment of an independent Jewish state, but it may give rise to hopes of such a state. However, this will be possible only if a steady stream of Jewish emigration turns to Palestine and there creates a flourishing community. This stream would have to be a very generous one if it should introduce any essential improvement in the lot of the Eastern European Jews. We have already seen that in the twenty-seven years between 1881 and 1908, 2,000,000 Jews emigrated from Europe, but the number of Jews in Eastern Europe nevertheless increased considerably during the same period, while their situation became worse and worse. In Russia, in 1880, there were not quite 4,000,000 Jews, while in 1914, there were 6,000,000 or 7,000,000, an increase of 2,000,000 or 3,000,000. In Austria-Hungary, in 1880, there were 1,646,000 Jews, while in 1914, there were 2,260,000, an increase of more than half a million. Of the 2,000,000 Jews who emigrated, only 26,000 had turned their steps to Palestine; this means that emigration to Palestine would have to increase phenomenally if any alleviation of the condition of the Eastern European Jews should be expected from this source.
The hopes of the Zionists in this field were much raised by a calculation made by Professor Ballod in a book entitled: Palästina als jüdisches Ansiedlungsgebiet [1], which was written during the war. Ballod argues in this work against a calculation set up by the German geographer, Professor Philippson, who had maintained in an article contributed to the Berliner Tageblatt of February 9, 1916, which is based on the professor’s intimate knowledge of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, that the stony soil of Palestine could not support a population of more than 1,200,000 persons.
Ballod also attacks a book written by the agronomist, Jakob Öttinger, entitled Methoden und Kapitalbedarf jüdischer Kolonisation in Palästina [2], who believed that he was taking a very optimistic position in assuming that about 100,000 farming families could be established in Palestine, affording a livelihood to 500,000 members of these families. Ballod considers it possible to settle six million persons in Palestine not in the Palestine of to-day, but in a Palestine to be created on a new foundation. The realisation of Ballod’s proposals would raise Palestine from hitherto the most neglected corner of the earth to its most highly developed state. Ballod would establish 100,000 petty farms and 1,000 large-scale enterprises, operating with the most perfect machines, and the most effective fertilisers, and producing in accordance with the most modern methods. An immense irrigation system will transform the arid land into a paradise. Öttinger counts on an average wheat crop of 600 kilogrammes per hectare, while Ballod expects an average crop of 3,000 kilogrammes; in Germany the average crop is only 2,000 kilogrammes. In the case of cotton, Ballod hopes for crops of 600 kilogrammes per hectare, while in the United States only 200 or 250 kilogrammes are produced for the same area.
But Ballod calculates that the entire immense transformation of Palestine which would make it possible to achieve such record crops and would make the country a home for 6,000,000 persons, would cost only 5,000,000,000 gold marks, while Öttinger had calculated a year before that 2,000,000,000 francs would be necessary in order to settle half a million persons in Palestine.
It must be that Ballod expects to pay lower prices than Öttinger. For instance, Ballod says: “The erection of ordinary houses, together with wells and cisterns and the necessary irrigation pleats, could be carried out for 1,000 marks.” Öttinger, on the other hand, declares: “In accordance with previous experiences in Palestine, the dwelling of a worker will cost at least 2,000 francs; ... connecting up the farm with an irrigation system would probably cost 500 francs more.” [3]
Even Öttinger’s worker’s cottage, costing 2,500 francs (including irrigation system), will hardly be a palace. Later Zionists prefer, however, to take their material from Ballod. As late as 1919, Davis Triesch declares in his little book, Palästina und die Jüden, Tatsachen und Ziffern: “For 1,000 marks, a solidly built modest house can be erected. As a matter of fact, houses have recently been erected at this price in Germany.” [4] Lest the reader imagine that Triesch refers to the construction of birdcages, he adds: “Houses of five rooms or more must be erected for 1,000 marks, depending on the mode of construction.”
“Facts and figures” [5] of this kind must cause us to wonder why not only the entire Jewish race but also all of Christendom is not found flocking to this promised land, whose fabulously cheap houses have a striking way of reminding us of its fabulously large clusters of grapes, each cluster of which must be carried by two men, with the aid of a pole, because of its great size. [6]
But even if all of Ballod’s calculations should be correct, we are not informed as to the period within which they are to be made real. Even the far more sober Öttinger gives us no definite suggestions on this point. On page 100 of his book, Öttinger outlines a project for the foundation of new colonies:
“In accordance with this plan, in the course of about 12 years, 30 new Jewish points of support, having an initial agricultural population of 3,000 families, or 12,000 to 15,000 persons, would be established. In addition, about 30,000 Jews of other occupations would probably be attracted into the country by reason of this colonising.” These colonies would require a capital of 77,500,000 gold francs. But the 45,000 new immigrants provided here are quite a different figure from Ballod’s 6,000,000.
To be sure, Öttinger later adds that the colonisation of Palestine might, under favourable circumstances, proceed at a more rapid rate, in which connection he mentions the possibility of housing half a million new settlers in Palestine, but with the cautious interpolation: “Of course, this figure should be regarded as entirely hypothetical, and the question as to the time required for the colonisation of such a number of colonists should for the present be entirely left out of account.” [7]
Yet, this question is by no means of little account to Zionism. Whatever Zionism does not accomplish in the immediate future, it will never accomplish, as we shall see later. And it is entirely impossible to throw great masses of Jewish colonists into Palestine in the immediate future.
The war did not spare Palestine. The economic situation of the country was, like that of all other countries, far worse after the war than before it.
The situation in Palestine in the year 1919 may be inferred from a private letter which I have received from a Zionist whose name I may not divulge, but the name does not matter for the present. I have received confirmation of the contents of this letter from many quarters. The letter, which was written in Palestine and dated October 30, 1919, says among other things
“We are no longer of our former opinion as to immigration ... We are coming to the conclusion that a mass immigration is not only undesirable at the present time, but that it would be an outright cruelty, particularly for two reasons:
“1. Hygienic reasons. The whole region (cities as well as the country districts) is infected with malaria, not to mention a number of other avoidable infectious diseases, such as trachoma (an inflammation of the eyes). Palestine is in need of a thorough housecleaning before it will be suitable for colonisation. We found many of the Jewish colonies or villages in the most wretched condition; every settler in some towns was actually either incapable of work or hopelessly run down. The same condition was found in the cities. Although Jerusalem lies above the normal mosquito line, great numbers of mosquitoes are found there. A group of heroic young Jews from Poland arrived here after incredible adventures at the beginning of this year. We found most of them ill. The local medical station of the American Zionists has accomplished much; for instance, it annihilated the mosquitoes at Safed in six weeks, by having oil poured on the water in the cisterns. As a consequence of the visit paid by Brandeis, this station will achieve even greater things. But it will be a long time before the country is healthy enough to receive a mass immigration, for the draining of the swamps will involve far more labour than the oiling of the tanks.
“2. Employment. Palestine is full of Jewish beggars today. The Jewish population of Jerusalem and other so-called ‘holy’ places have been accustomed to live on the gifts of their co-religionists abroad. These donations were cut off during the war and cannot be renewed now because of the present situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe. Much misery is the result. In Safed, the Jewish population decreased from 10,000 to 3,000. These persons were not accustomed to work, but they have now been converted to the idea and are shouting for work. New industries are urgently required, and we have carefully considered the possibility of such industries; for instance, printing, the production of articles used in synagogues, of preserved fruit, garments, etc. But you may imagine that such industries must be built on a firm foundation if sweatshops and other undesirable European (and not only European; the factories of Damascus, for example, are said to be frightful) concomitants of industry are to be avoided ...
“I know very well what this delay will mean for the Jews of Eastern Europe who are ready to flock into this country by the millions. Unfortunately, Palestine cannot, even under the most favourable circumstances, undertake for many years to absorb in any adequate way all those that are prepared to come. The best informed authority on matters of the colonisation of Palestine, Artur Ruppin, has calculated – in a book that appeared last April, Der Aufbau des Landes Israel – that 20 years will be required under favourable conditions to increase the present Jewish population to 1,000,000 or 1,250,000, and that the increase in the number of Jewish workers employed in public works cannot be made more than 15,000 per year in the near future.
“The best authorities do not doubt that the country can be made to support a numerous population after the lapse of two generations. But this is but sad consolation for the victims of pogroms in our own day. But we cannot have our cake and eat it too.
“If Palestine is to become an asylum of refuge, it cannot be a truly healthy community. If it is to be built up on sound economic foundations, the would-be fugitives will have to bide their time.”
Since this letter was written, the economic conditions of the Jews in Palestine have improved considerably. Thanks to the active support of Jews all over the world, and to the energy and enthusiasm of the Jewish immigrants, much has been accomplished in the way of road construction, irrigation systems, agricultural settlements, and cultural institutions. An absolutely new Jewish city, Tel Aviv, has sprung into being, on a site that was a mere sand dune before the war; also, a Jewish university has recently been created.
The character of the Jewish immigration has changed considerably. While before the war it consisted chiefly of beggars, who lived in many parts of the world on Jewish charity, it is now workers and intellectuals at the prime of life who are coming, able and willing to reconquer the land of their fathers in the sweat of their brows, and, if need be, by superhuman exertions.
Anyone who has doubted the possibility of the Jewish people’s showing energy, resolution and intelligence in this crisis, must surely have changed his mind by reason of the work of Zionist reconstruction in Palestine.
To be sure, the giving of such an object lesson can hardly have been necessary, for no one really doubts that the Jewish race possesses great capabilities. The point at issue is not whether the Jews have ability, but whether the accomplishments of the Jewish cultural work in Palestine may justify the assumption that this region may become the centre for a great emancipation of the entire Jewish people, may put an end to the condition of the Diaspora, and gather the Jews of all the world into one great national state.
Our first question should be: How long will it be possible for the Jewish rehabilitation process in Palestine to proceed at a fairly rapid rate?
In view of the extremely unfavourable natural conditions offered by Palestine in the work of creating new arable soil and maintaining the excellence of that already acquired, as well as in the work of securing routes of communication, without which agricultural colonies cannot prosper, truly superhuman powers will be required, and the exertion of such efforts will deprive the workers of every vestige of a higher standard of living.
Of the Jewish immigrants who have come hitherto, and I do not mean former peasants, or ditch-diggers, but in great measure intellectuals, many – impelled by a patriotic enthusiasm – have willingly submitted to these labours and privations without a murmur.
But enthusiasm of this type has always been the special gift of a small group of chosen persons, and even in such cases it is not a permanent acquisition. The hard toil of the daily grind usually succeeds in soon crushing all heaven storming enthusiasms, and in the long run a new social order cannot be built up on overwork and on exertions greater than those formerly borne by the individuals in question.
The accessions of new enthusiasts must ultimately dwindle, and the ranks of those now at work will be thinned in the course of time.
Even in South America, and in present-day Russia or in the United States, where the natural conditions are far more favourable, and where political obstacles to the farming activities of the Jews are as little present as in Palestine, we have not observed that any isolated attempts to transform Jews into peasants have led – by their success – to any widespread emulation on the part of most Jews. We have no reason to assume that conditions in Palestine will be any different, once the period of the first flash of enthusiasm is past.
Already we find a predominant tendency on the part of the Jews in Palestine to settle in the cities. Tel Aviv is growing far more rapidly than are the agricultural colonies. This city is now only six years old, and already it has 40,000 inhabitants. There were 80,000 Jews in Palestine in 1921, who had increased to 120,000 by the end of 1924. In other words, the entire increase in population is accounted for by the existence of the city of Tel Aviv. In addition, there are 40,000 Jews in Jerusalem and 12,000 in Jaffa.
Reports from the cities themselves inform us that employment for artisans is increasing very slowly and that the number of vagrants (Luftmenschen) and intellectuals constitutes a percentage of the population that is rapidly increasing.
In other words, these cities will soon be facing the same problem that has been encountered by the Jews in the cities of Eastern Europe; in fact, the problem will be a more serious one, for the European Jews are at least living among a dense population which, though not Jewish, is nevertheless agricultural.
These difficulties will increase as the Jewish population of Palestine begins to live on its own work, ceasing to live on foreign philanthropy, as it did before the war. With the rise of a working class will come – even in Palestine – an increase in socialistic ideas, which will condition a sharp opposition of many Jewish elements to capitalism within Zionism. These contrasts became quite apparent even at the last Zionist Congress at Vienna; they will necessarily increase and express themselves with more and more definiteness.
As this condition increases, the interest shown by the Jewish capitalists of the world in Zionism will lose its ardour. But without constant accessions of new capital, the Jewish work of cultivation in Palestine will not make much progress.
As yet, there has never been much Jewish immigration. We have seen that the total increase of the number of Jews in Palestine was only 40,000 during the four-year period above mentioned; in other words, an average increase of 10,000 per year. The rate may since have risen to 20,000 or 30,000 per year. These figures are large when compared with the small area of the country, already holding six hundred thousand inhabitants.
But how insignificant are these figures when compared with the total growth of Judaism throughout the world! Annually this increase amounts to ten times the size of the Jewish immigration into Palestine. Under these circumstances, how could this country ever absorb more than an imperceptible fraction of the world’s Jewish population?
No doubt the promised land will some day be able to offer work to more inhabitants than at present, once all the projected great irrigation plants, highways, railroads, etc., have been completed, but the volume of the immigration tending in that direction will never be so great as to reduce in any way the number of Jews living in Europe and America, and thus to solve the present Jewish question.
At best, it might bring about the following partial accomplishment: the number of Jews in Palestine may increase more rapidly than the number of non-Jews in the country (the Arabs) and the new Jewish state, although it will never embrace the great mass of the world’s Jewish population, may nevertheless be predominantly Jewish in tone.
But even this prospect is not likely to be fulfilled.
To be sure, the length of time that would be required by Jewish colonisation in order to impress a Jewish stamp upon Palestine would be no argument against such colonisation, provided time were working in favour of Zionism as it has worked in favour of socialism; in other words, if the conditions for the realisation of Zionism were progressively improving in the course of the economic and political evolution. But these conditions do not apply in the case of Zionism, and this constitutes its fundamental weakness. Zionism cannot afford to wait, for the political conditions for its realisation are rapidly becoming worse. Whatever Zionism does not attain within the next few years, it will never attain at all.
For Zionism is not a progressive movement, but a reactionary movement. Zionism aims not at following the line of necessary evolution, but of putting a spoke in the wheel of progress.
Zionism denies the right of self-determination of nations, instead of which it proclaims the doctrine of historical rights, which is breaking down everywhere today, even where it is supported by the greatest powers.
The idea of democracy, of the self-determination of nations, is indissolubly connected with modern economic evolution, and is thus made irresistible. [8] This is not only true today for Europe, but it is beginning to be true for Asia, also.
The outcome of the World War might have involved a considerable progress in international relations, if the victors had everywhere accepted the democratic doctrine and recognised throughout, as a principle, the self-determination of nations. But they permitted themselves to be guided only by their love of power; they condescended to apply the notion of the self-determination of nations only at such points where it was convenient for them. Wherever an application of this doctrine might have strengthened their former opponents, they replaced it quite arbitrarily with other guiding notions, such as that of strategic boundaries, of monopolisation of the treasures of the soil or of traffic routes, as well as that of historical rights, the claim of a nation to the restoration of the boundaries of its state as they existed centuries ago, under entirely different circumstances.
Among the many antiquated legal claims which the little proteges of the great victors filed with the latter, the most ancient and moth-eaten is the historical claim of the Jews to Palestine. This claim is two thousand years old, and during these two thousand years the Jews have completely ceased to be a nation. They have not only lost their common territory, but even their common language. The only language that today might be considered a living Jewish language, namely, “Yiddish,” is a mutilated German. A faint tinge of Jewish nationalism is attained by this language only when it is set down in writing, not when it is spoken. It is German written in Hebrew characters.
Palestine does not yet have a Jewish population of any importance as to size. The single city of New York contains fourteen times as many Jews as Palestine, where the Jewish population amounts to not more than one-eighth of the total population, of which the great majority consists of Arabs. There are 620,000 Arabs as compared with 120,000 Jews; as economic conditions improve, the number of Arabs will increase as well as the number of Jews. Palestine could not very well be isolated from the neighbouring countries, which are entirely Arabic.
There is hardly any possibility that the Jews in Palestine will become more numerous than the Arabs. But every attempt made by the advancing Jewry in that country to displace the Arabs cannot fail to arouse the fighting spirit of the latter, in which opposition to the Jews the Arabs of Palestine will be more and more assured of the support of the entire Arab population of Asia Minor, in whose eyes the Jews appear as foreign rulers or as allies of the English oppressor.
It is a delusion to imagine that the Jews arriving from Europe and America will ever succeed in convincing the Arabs that Jewish rule in this country will ever redound to the advantage of the Arabs themselves.
In the early days of Zionism, people were blind to this difficulty. Little more attention was paid to the Arabs than was paid to the Indians in North America. Only occasionally is it remembered that Palestine is already an occupied country. It is then simply assumed that its former inhabitants will be pushed aside in order to make room for the incoming Jews. Ballod, for instance, discusses as follows the question of what is to be done in the way of claiming all of Palestine for Jewish colonisation:
“In the case of a mass colonisation, mere individual purchases of land from the Arab proprietors of large holdings would not be sufficient; on the other hand, in order that real-estate prices may not rise to fabulous heights, a Jewish chartered company must be given the right to expropriate land in return for adequate compensation.” [9] Ballod also says that the petty peasants, the fellahs, will not provide much trouble. In his opinion, they would “gladly leave Palestine if they should be offered opportunities elsewhere, for instance in Northern Syria or Babylonia, if the latter is to be reawakened to life by large-scale engineering operations, to obtain better conditions”. But who is to offer them these “better conditions”?
Ballod, himself, therefore expects that there will be trouble between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. His book was written at a time when Ballod was convinced of the victory of the Central Powers. We therefore find him expressing, in a special chapter entitled “The Central Powers and Zionism”, the advantages offered by Zionism to the Central Powers. He points out “that it is to the interest of Germany and Austria to have large masses of Jews settled in Turkey”, [10] in the first place, because this would mean an accession of population to their ally, Turkey, which would by that time have been somewhat denuded of population and resources, and in the second place, because the Eastern European Jews who would furnish this immigration would speak German and would thus help advance Turkey’s trade with the Central Powers, and, finally, for the reason that the Jews in Palestine would furnish a counterweight to the Arabs, who favoured England.
But the fact now is that England has won the war, and the Arabs have become as burdensome to England as they once were to the Turks. The Zionists now present the reverse side of the medal and extol the Jewish colonists in Palestine as England’s allies against the Arab aspirations for independence.
In spite of all these changes, one condition remains permanent: the dependence of Jewish colonisation on the victorious European great powers, and the opposition of the colonists to the Arabs. Both are necessary results of the given economic and political conditions, and each of the two factors gives strength to the other in rapid alternation. Here we find the profoundest cause for the untenability of Zionism. Jewish colonisation in Palestine must collapse as soon as the Anglo-French hegemony over Asia Minor (including Egypt) collapses, and this is merely a question of time, perhaps of the very near future.
The war immensely strengthened the nationalism of the Arabs. The English themselves aided considerably in this process by appealing to the Arabs as allies against the Turkish regime. Now they cannot exorcise the powers which they thus have conjured. [11] The spirit of national self-determination is irresistible in Western Asia as everywhere today, once it has seized the masses of the people, and such is the case now with the Arabs. Arabia is now practically independent. Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria, will become independent in the course of a few decades, and they will more and more deprive the European protectorate, which they must accept for the present, of all real authority.
There is no longer any doubt of the final victory of the Arabian people; the question merely is whether this victory is to be obtained by the peaceful method of a successive forcing of concessions, or by a period of wild guerilla warfare and bloody insurrections. The English mode of government points rather to the former, the French rather to the latter methods. In whatever way the process of transformation may be realised, the poor, weak Jewish settlers in Palestine will be the chief sufferers, during the battle of the Arabs for independence, as well as after their victory. Of all the European elements in Asia Minor, the Jews will be least able to defend themselves, as well as least capable of escape, and yet they will be treated as the worst enemies, because their colonising the country will prove that they intend to remain in it and not only make the former inhabitants dependent on them but even drive them out entirely.
Thus it may be considered truly fortunate for the Jews, who would be the sufferers, that the Zionist colonisation policy will very probably have great difficulty in getting started. We may therefore hope that the number of victims to the policy of Zionism will not be very great; this policy aims at bottom at nothing else than to transplant – at immense cost and with the greatest sacrifices of those concerned – enthusiastic Jews from regions in which anti-Jewish pogroms are subsiding, into a country where such pogroms are likely to ensue on a larger scale, if the Zionist programme should be successful to any extent that is at all perceptible.
This distortion of the original intentions into their precise opposite is inevitable whenever men base their conduct in the present time not on an investigation of the present, but on a submission to phantoms conjured up from a hoary antiquity.
But the dangers to the Jews who are lured to Palestine by a Messianic aspiration do not exhaust all the baleful effects of Zionism. It is perhaps far worse that Zionism means a wasting of the fortunes and resources of the Jews in a wrong direction, at a moment when their true destinies are being decided on an entirely different arena, for which decision it would be necessary for them to concentrate all their forces.
It is not in Palestine, but in Eastern Europe, that the destinies of the suffering and oppressed portion of Jewry are being fought out. Not for a few thousand Jews, or at most a few hundred thousand, but for a population of between eight and ten million. Emigration abroad cannot help them, no matter whither it may be turned. Their destiny is intimately connected with that of the revolution, in their own country.
The methods of the Bolsheviks are not those of the Western European Social-Democracy. The Bolsheviks will not be able to found a modern socialist state. What they are really establishing is a bourgeois revolution, which will assume forms corresponding to the social condition of present-day Russia, resembling in many ways the forms of the great French Revolution toward the end of the Eighteenth Century. Among its other effects, the French Revolution liberated the Jews in France, giving them full rights of citizenship. The same accomplishment will be included among the permanent achievements of the Russian Revolution for all of Eastern Europe, unless the Revolution succumbs to the most savage counter-revolution. But the struggle in Eastern Europe now is not only a struggle for political freedom and for the rights of the Jews to change their domicile. The conditions are also being prepared for an enhancement of their economic situation. In addition to the emancipation of the Jews, the emancipation of the peasants also will be one of the achievements of the revolution in Eastern Europe. A more prosperous peasantry will take the place of the present impoverished peasantry, thus creating a greater internal market for urban industry. Once peace has been re-established in Eastern Europe, industry, and with it transportation, will necessarily develop with giant strides; the urban population will find abundant employment and food, and the great mass of the Jewish population will find it possible to rise from conditions of life in which they have hardly emerged from the lumpenproletariat, to the conditions of the proletariat in large-scale industry, as a portion of which class they may then take part in the upward struggle of the entire class.
Herein only is there a possibility for the Jewish masses to achieve a truly human status. Zionism cannot strengthen them in this effort. Zionism will weaken them at the historically decisive moment by promulgating an ambition which amounts practically to a desertion of the colours.
1. Pro-Palästina, Schriften des deutschen Komitees zur Förderung der jüdischen Palästinaansiedlung, Zweites Heft.
2. Ballod, Palästina, p. 18.
3. Öttinger, Jüdische Kolonisation, p. 67.
4. Triesch, op. cit., p. 28.
5. Tatsachen und Ziffern, an allusion to the subtitle of Triesch’s book. – Translator.
6. “And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates and of the figs.” – Numbers xiii: 23.
7. Öttinger, op. cit., p. 104.
8. I have discussed this subject in detail in my book, Die Befreiung der Nationen, Stuttgart 1917
9. Ballod, Palästina, p. 30.
10. Ballod, op. cit., p. 27.
11. “Die ich rief, die Geister, Werd’ ich nun nicht los.” – Goethe, Der Zauberlerhrling, 1797.
Last updated on 10 June 2020