Anti-Semitism has also taught many educated Jews the way back to their people. It has had the effect of a sharp trial which the weak cannot stand, but from which the strong emerge stronger or more confident in themselves. It is not correct to say that Zionism is but a "gesture of truculence" or an act of desperation against Anti-Semitism. It is true that more than one educated Jew has been moved only by Anti-Semitism to throw in his lot again with Jewdom, and he would again fall away if his Christian fellow-countrymen would receive him anew in a friendly spirit. But, in the case of most Zionists, Anti-Semitism only forced them to reflect upon their relation to the nations, and their reflection has led them to conclusions which would remain a lasting acquirement of their mind and heart, even if Anti-Semitism were to disappear completely from the world.
Be it well understood; the Zionism analyzed above is that of the educated and free Jews,--the Jewish élite. The uneducated mass, clinging to the old traditions, is Zionist without much reflection, from feeling, from instinct, from distress, and yearning. They suffer too much from the hardships of life, from the hatred of the peoples, from legal disabilities, and social outlawry; they feel that they cannot hope for any lasting amelioration of their situation so long as they must live as a powerless minority among a hostile majority. They desire to become a nation, to rejuvenate themselves by close contact with mother earth, and to become once more the masters of their destiny. This Zionist mass is still in part not quite free from mystical tendencies. It allows its Zionism to be pervaded, to a certain extent, by Messianic reminiscences, and blends it with religious emotions. They have certainly a clear idea of the aim, the reassembling of the Jewish nation, but not of the means. Still, even they have realized already the necessity of themselves making efforts, and there is a vast difference between their active readiness for organization and their spirit of sacrifice, and the pious, prayer-indulging passiveness of the purely religious Messianist.
The new or political Zionism has had here and there forerunners, whose first appearance dates back to the early half of the nineteenth century.