A ZIONITE MOVEMENT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue X, 5 September 1896, Page 309

A ZIONITE MOVEMENT.

Among the new and noteworthy religious movements of the day the agitation in favour of a return of the Jews to the land of their fathers, on account of its extraordinary proportions and its international character, can claim, says Harper's Weekly, rather exceptional prominence. There has always been, both among Jews and Christians, a sentimental or religious interest in the re-establishment of the children of Israel as a nation or an ecclesiastical communion in their historic home; but only in our day and date has the movement assumed a tangible form and has a beginning been made toward the realisation of this idea. The Zionites, by which name the propagandists of this crusade are known, have become a power ; and the existence of fully three dozen Jewish colonies in Palestine, with more than four thousand colonists, as also the active support of such Jewish influence as the banking-house of the Rothschilds and of the International Alliance Israelite, are evidence enough that we are dealing here with a phenomenon deeply rooted in the religious thought of the times. The first beginnings of the Zionite movement date back to the persecution of the Jews in Russia and Roumania some twelve years ago. This aroused among the Eastern Israelites a phenomenal enthusiasm for a return to the Holy Land. Societies were organised, moneys were secured, and at once colonies were sent out. One of the results of this zeal without wisdom was the fate of a band of students from the U Diversity of Cherson, who went to Palestine determined to live as plain farmers, but who paid the penalty of their rashness by untold sufferings. As early as 1884 the Russian Zionites held a national congress at Kattowitz, where was founded the Montefiore Association, later reorganised, with the sanction of the Government, as a Palestine Agricultural Association. The central seat is at Odessa, and a representative committee sits at Jaffa, where also the organ of the society is published. The plans of the associates have been

carefully matured. Among their ideas is also the establishment of the Hebrew as the language of the Israelites. The Jaffa school for boys and girls is almost a Hebrew college ; money for a Hebrew university in Palestine is reported to be forthcoming. The beginnings of a national Hebrew library at Jaffa have been made largely through donations from prominent Jewish scholars. A regular Hebrew literature is being developed. Not only are the standard works of Humboldt, Schiller, Goethe, Shakespeare, and others being translated, but also original Hebrew works, especially in poetry, belles lettres, fiction, are attracting the attention of the literary world. Among Jewish lyrical writers Jehuda Gordon and Mapu deserve special mention. Jewish political papers, such as Hammagid (The Reporter), begun in 1856; Hammeliz (The Interpreter), begun in 1861, both weeklies, as also the scientific journal, Hashachar (The Morning Dawn), first issued in 1868. have already an international reputation. By utilizing these means and mediums the Zionites are doing thorough work to educate their people and enthuse them for their projects.

A singular co-operative agent they have found in the Jewish-Christian movement, headed by Rabinowitz, a learned lawyer at Kishenev, Southern Russia, who is known to Americans on account of the prominent part he took in the Chicago Religious Congress. He aims at the establishment of a Jewish-Christian Church—recognising Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah of the world, and the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy and prediction, but with a retention of national characteristics of the Jews of considered consistent with the acceptance Jesus, such as'circumcision, the observance of the seventh day, and the like, and aiming further at the establishment of this communion in Palestine, with the Hebrew as the language of the people. A similar project developed only last year at Smyrna, but independently of the Rabinowitz movement, has already resulted in the establishment of a Jewish Christian colony and congregation in the Holy Land.