XV. - THE RELIGIOUS CRISIS OF ISRAEL
As a result of its mixture with the various European peoples, the Jewish race underwent great transformations in the 19th century. The modern Jew no longer retains anything today from the traditional Jew, neither his clothing, nor his language, nor his morals, nor his rites, nor even the features of his physiognomy. The Israelite Universe (August 1906, p. 590) raised a cry of alarm, not hesitating to confess that the situation appears desolate and without remedy. We will try to give you an idea.
THE CONVERSIONS MOVEMENT.
During March 1902, an appeal was sent from Berlin to the Jewish communities of the five parts of the world, with the aim of interest the sons of Israel in the founding of a statistical office intended to collect all the information which could have as its object the demographic state of the race, the material and moral living conditions of the various groups, the further development of their prosperity. Such is the spirit of solidarity to which the scattered elements of this fragmented and wandering nation belong that, from the first days of May of the same year, a Jewish Statistical Society with its headquarters in Berlin was founded, organized, linked to a vast network of branches created at the same time in Vienna, Lamberg, Odessa, Warsaw, Tomsk, Philippopoli, Bern, Hamburg, and correspondence offices established in Strasbourg, Posen, Zurich, Vilna, Pinsk, Saint Petersburg, Amsterdam, Cincinnati, New York. Thanks to the numerous and reliable documents published by the sixth section, Statistics of Religious Life (1), it is now possible to follow very closely and fully appreciate the unusual movement of conversions which has been evident for around thirty years. years in Israel. According to data officially collected in the Jewish Year-Book of 1905, the overall figure of the Jewish population in the world was, at that date,
1. Cf. Jûdische Statistik, herausgegeb, vom “Verein fûr jûdische Statistik” unter Redaktion by Dr. Alfred Rossio. Berlin, 1905.
of 11,081,000 souls, including 8,748,000 in Europe, 1,556,000 in America, 351,000 in Africa, 342,000 in Asia and 17,000 in Australia (1). Fr. Jean de Le Roy, the famous German missionary who dedicated his life to the evangelization of the Jews, managed, by gathering a host of precious documents, to set the number of Jews converted during the 19th century at 250,000. Of this number, 73,000 would have converted to Protestantism, 58,000 to Catholicism, 75,000 to the Orthodox and the rest, around twenty thousand, would be of unknown faith (2). Whatever the importance of these figures, they would not be enough to measure the scope of the current crisis in Judaism nor to suggest its fatal outcome, because it is not only the total of conversions and baptisms that it is a question of determining, it is much more their constant progression, which alone can faithfully translate the growing intensity of this powerful movement of Christianization. Because it should be noted that this movement, which dates from the emancipation of the Jews following the Revolution, was very slow to establish itself, and has always been expanding. It seems that Satan, seeing that his hour is approaching, is trying to divert the movement that has been agitating Israel for several years; because many of these conversions are not due to a firmly established religious conviction; rather, they are an entirely human calculation. However, there are some sincere ones. For us, children of the Catholic Church, we know from the words of Saint Paul which we have recalled
1. These figures, we see, differ from those given above, while being very close to them. They also relate to another year. 2. J. de LE ROT, Judentaufen im 19. Jàkrhundert, p. 49 et seq. Leipzig, 1899,
above, that one day, having re-entered the true Olive Tree, which is Jesus Christ, all Israel will flourish again. Did not the 19th century see the first fruits of this resurrection in these incomparable men who, emerging from the ranks of Judaism and clothed in the priesthood at the cost of the hardest sacrifices, filled the earth with the fruits of their apostolate (1).
1. It is enough to name the Ratisbonne brothers and the Lémann brothers. Mgr Augustin Lémann, prelate of the House of His Holiness; died at the end of June 1909. His brother Joseph survives him. Both born into Judaism, after a striking conversion, they devoted their lives to the service of the Church. At the same time as the Catholic faith, they had converted to the purest French traditions. At no time did the clouds of liberalism or democracy penetrate their intelligence. Their writings and speeches bear witness to this. They considered the French Revolution, true disciples of Joseph de Maistre, as a “satanic” event. Their studies on the “Entry of the Jews into French Society” in 1789 are authoritative, as are their works of Hebrew exegesis. The two Lémann brothers were students at the Ampère high school in Lyon when they converted. The influence of the famous Abbé Noirot, who taught philosophy there, had shaken them. But the decisive blow of grace is due to two nuns of Saint-Joseph, Sister Zéphirin and Sister Evariste, who, in charge of the Lyon infirmary, cared for them during an illness that they had together and whose piety was decisive for them. When they were convalescent, Father Murgues, chaplain of the high school, entrusted them to Father Rueil, vicar at Saint-Nizier. He catechized them and conferred baptism on them. The signal devotion to the Holy Virgin and to the Crucifix of Pardon, the scriptural knowledge of him who is no more, his fiery eloquence, all nourished by the Holy Books, which was heard in the illustrious pulpits of France, in Lyon, in Paris, in Orléans, in Reims, his works on the Holy Virgin, on Zionism, on the Jews since the Christian era and their influence in the French Revolution, his studies on the Gospels, in particular on the fourth Gospel and his refutations of the apostate Loisy, made him an eminent personality, esteemed and venerated in Rome as in France. His kindness and the kind welcome he gave to everyone had made him only friends.
Baptisms. — A book composed by a Jew under this title: Israelite Baptisms in the 19th Century, and with this epigraph Cum ira et studio has just been published in Berlin. Its author is Doctor Samter, renowned for his high intelligence and his in-depth knowledge of all religious, social and philosophical questions in Germany. “The numerous baptisms of Israelites in the 19th century form,” says Samter, “one of the saddest chapters in our history. The famous Schleiermacher, who lived in Berlin at the very center of this anti-Semitic movement, declares that Judaism is very close to dying. There are almost no more convinced Jews among us; we are ashamed of the very name Jew; young Israelite people who attend schools and universities pass themselves off as Christians. What are the causes of these lamentable desertions? Samter asks. A conviction, do you think? In no way, with rare exceptions, are the causes the desire for advancement and the horror of humiliation. Changing religion is an advantageous trade for the unfaithful Jew; then we are not Germans, we are not Prussians, if we are not Christians. So get baptized, says Councilor Pauls, viewing baptism less as a religious act, than as a guarantee (in Germany) against exclusion from honorary or governmental functions.” Samter then speaks of the dogmatic convictions required of the Jew who aspires to baptism in Protestant circles. Generally, the leap of faith is required; but mental restrictions quiet the conscience of the convert. How many dissidents, moreover, remove from their teaching the articles of faith which do not suit them, or which do not fit with their modernist opinions? How many Lutheran theologians reconcile dogmas with the philosophical system of Kant and Hegel! “It is rationalism in full force, accepting from religion only what is admitted by reason,” cries Samter, “and often, it is converted Rabbis who profess these doctrines. » From this observation, the author moves on to the statistics of baptisms administered in the 19th century, mainly in Prussia, England, Russia and Palestine. Their survey presents a total of 200,000 including 69,400 in Russia, more than 10,000 in Prussia, from 1880 to 1902; and 565 in the Protestant church of Mount Zion in Jerusalem. It is in France, where the Jews are less oppressed than elsewhere, Samter remarks, that baptisms are in smaller numbers - from which he judiciously infers "that threats, injustices, the prospect of gain make elsewhere more of baptisms than sincere convictions.” Mixed marriages. — But the most powerful factor in the decline of the religion of Israel is without doubt the favor which attaches more and more, in all the countries of the world, to mixed marriages. It is an honor for a Jew to marry a Christian woman and even more so for a Jewish woman to marry a well-titled Christian man. Veterans of the rabbinate cannot console themselves for the significant losses inflicted on Judaism by this leader. They are looking everywhere for a remedy for this pervasive evil, without finding any other, until now, than their redoubled curses. In mixed marriages, three-quarters of the children convert to Christianity, and it can be said that the other quarter no longer counts for Judaism. In France, these unions have rather diminished since the Dreyfus affair and, moreover, they have never been very numerous, even among the aristocracy. It is different in Austria, Hungary, Denmark and Sweden. Everywhere, it is easy to observe rapidly increasing progress, especially over the last twenty-five years.
The Evangelization of the Jews, — The thought of converting the Jews to the religion of Christ is not new in the Catholic Church. It was a very ancient custom in Rome, also adopted in most cities where there was a ghetto, a Jewish community, to oblige the Israelites to hear every year, preferably on Holy Saturday, and sometimes every week after Sabbath service, a sermon on the divinity of Jesus. Priests Lemann and Ratishonne inaugurated a more practical way of making the Gospel penetrate within the Jewish communities, by proceeding with the organization of a Society of missionaries intended especially for the evangelization of the Jews of Palestine. The Congregation of the Ladies of Sion, founded by brothers Marie-Alphonse and Théodore Ratisbonne, in 1855, took charge of the education of young Jewish girls and wasted no time in multiplying its boarding schools, its orphanages, its workshops, not only in France and in Palestine, but in England, Turkey, Lebanon. But nothing equals the spirit of enterprise and the ingenious activity displayed by the Anglicans, Presbyterians and Lutherans to attract the Israelites to their particular confession. In the city of London alone, there are no less than thirty Societies exclusively devoted to the evangelization of the Jews, and recently most of them have been transferred to the poor neighborhoods where the Jewish population is concentrated. Typical of all these associations is the London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, founded in 1808 by the Rev. Lewis Way. T
he United States, since 1880, has founded nearly twenty of these Societies, all richly endowed. For a million Israelites currently spread across the major centers of North America, there are no fewer than one hundred and fifty missionaries with credit of more than 200,000 francs. Denmark also has its missionaries, like Norway, like Switzerland. Germany has only three Jewish Mission Societies. In France, Protestants do not show such great zeal. It is hardly worth mentioning the French Society for the Evangelization of Israel, founded in 1888 by Pastor J. Kruger: it has only one missionary for all of France, which does not does not prevent it from having a magazine. Doctor Samter concludes that all these efforts have only poor results: “A lot of money has been spent to obtain zero results,” he says, “because all the thousands of baptized people are currently neither good Jews nor good Christians, and many missionaries have given up such an unrewarding task.” If England, the United States and even Germany spend so much effort, not to mention millions, to recruit Jews into their Churches, it is to be presumed that Christian proselytism is not the only one to inspire them and that national interests, which we can guess, are quite seriously involved in the affair. National interest is joined by private interest; we could read, in a recent issue of the popular Gazette of Cologne, these lines from the pen of a rabbi, Doctor F. Goldmann:
“In all the branches of the Administration of justice, in the chairs of middle schools and higher schools, in the army itself there are a large number of baptized Jews. It is unfortunately a thing universally known that in all these so-called conversions to Protestantism, baptism is only received for purely material reasons, namely to make one's way in better conditions, without the convert bringing to his new religion anything other than a cynical smile about how easily he got rid of the old one. It is for this reason that the number of Jews who receive Catholic baptism is very limited in Germany. There, as everywhere, in fact, the Catholic priest is accustomed to examining very carefully the reasons for conversion, and he mercilessly rejects anyone who would like to receive the Christian character for “business reasons”. The majority of Jews who want to be called Christians join the Protestant church, because here, the non-discussion of the reasons for their conversion facilitates their acceptance.
The fact that the convert must swear to observe the new faith that he is supposed to embrace is in no way likely to make his transition from one religion to another more difficult. As for most baptized Jews, this new faith is only a "business" thing; for them the recitation of its symbol is only a comedy, revolting and hurtful, for any convinced believer. The oath of these Jewish converts is, in a word, a perjury which would have them mercilessly taken to a house of detention, if, instead of being pronounced in the church before the eternal judge alone, it was before a court here below, in the presence of an earthly judge. Furthermore, what other moral qualities can there be in people who swear for the reasons we have? Is it not natural that after having first denied their own religion, then cynically deceived the representatives of another, they look with an eye of contempt and disdain at everything that bears the religious imprint? As soon as they are allowed to act freely in administration, justice, the army, it is inevitable that their moral principles and their destructive tendencies of religion exercise a harmful influence in a sphere as much greater as they occupy higher positions.”
II — REFORMS WITHIN JUDAISM.
As for Jews who keep the Jewish label, there is a pronounced movement for reforms. The synagogues are emptying, the rabbis are neglected. Similar to these insects poorly protected by nature and which marvelously take on, to conceal themselves, the color of the environment in which they live, the Jew if he becomes Orthodox with the Orthodox, Protestant with the Protestants, Catholic with the Catholics, he becomes especially incredulous with unbelievers. Everywhere he modernizes himself, that is to say he de-judaizes himself, and, to do better, he takes care to reject far from himself, he tramples under his feet all the distant traditions, his sacred books, and not only its doctrine, but its morality. The excessive and childish attachment to all the old customs suddenly gave way to a no less exaggerated contempt for the entire legacy of ancient Judaism. It is not easy to give an adequate reason or even a close reason for this instantaneous transformation in the direction of unbelief. The Jew James Darmesteter recognizes that the Jew, throughout the ages, has never been anything other than the secret keeper, the occult champion of unbelief (1). He would therefore do today on himself the work that he has done over the centuries on others. There are still today among the Jews irreducible Orthodox, enthusiasts of the tradition of Israel, loathing the baptized, fleeing all contact with the circumcised. Even in the brilliant spheres
1. JAMES DAMESTETER, A Glance at the History of the Jewish People, p-16. 1228
of modern society, we still find them sparsely, these faithful and zealous Jews. But it has been a long time since the Bible was read in the vast majority of families, and we no longer know anything about the Judaic religion. Belief in the supernatural has faded; the two essential dogmas of Judaism, the unity of God and messianism, are interpreted as pure symbols, and religious practice no longer fits with the new conceptions.
To put an end to these intimate rifts, a plenary assembly of the rabbis of France was convened in Paris in June 1906. The discussions were passionate and the struggle between conservatives and modernists was distinguished by its harshness and its violence. The modernists believed they were the masters: yet they were defeated. In 1908 or 1909, an assembly, comprising, it is true, only partisans of liberal Judaism, met in London to study the causes of these defections. She reported several. The first and main is the discordance which exists between the contemporary morals and ideas of Westerners and the Eastern thought formed by Mosaic legislation. Furthermore, the synagogue is cold, the services are no longer of interest; public prayers are from another age; men are separated from women in religious ceremonies; the Hebrew language used in the liturgy has become incomprehensible to most of those present, and there is a lack of music. This is why the very children whose parents are austere observers of the law seek religious guidance elsewhere or allow themselves to be seduced by rationalist theories. A few years ago, English Jewry undertook to remedy this state of affairs and proposed reforms. The divine service, which took place on Saturday morning, was postponed until the afternoon, to allow the entire community to take part. Liturgical ceremonies were radically transformed; English replaced Hebrew; the prayers, chosen with taste, were adapted to current needs. We would sing hymns, with organ accompaniment, and we would form a real choir. There would be sermons. A prayer book would be compiled for the use of families. Finally, the gentlemen could sit next to the ladies. These reforms were modeled, as we see, on the practices of the Anglican churches. They were not admitted without difficulty. Many Jews cried sacrilege and expelled the main instigators of this revolution from the United Synagogue. They openly broke with the established organization and stood apart. The number of their members is increasing day by day. A similar transformation was attempted in Germany.
Around 1850, men like Darmesteter, Munk, Weil, worked to give Judaism a liberal turn, “more in conformity with modern thought”.
There is a liberal Jewry in Germany, which dates back to 1870. It is mainly concerned with educational work, founds youth circles and gives women a large part in religious life.
In 1900, the Jewish Liberal Union was founded in Paris by Théodore Reinach. The new community asked the Consistory to grant it one of the synagogues: the request was rejected, the rabbis believing that the tendencies of the reformers would fundamentally modify traditional religion. Faced with this refusal, the Jewish liberals opened a synagogue of their own, and they sent to their co-religionists in Paris the following circular:
“A certain number of Parisian Israelites, firmly attached to the fundamental principles of the Israelite religion, but convinced of the necessity to bring the external forms of worship and the methods of religious instruction into more complete harmony with the conditions of existence, modern science and conscience, conceived the project of forming a group within the great Parisian community which will reorganize itself in execution of the law on the separation of Churches and State.
“It is not a question of causing a split, a schism. All we aspire to is to be able to celebrate our services, to educate our children according to our ideas, and we ask to do this in one of the existing temples, so as to clearly affirm through this external link our firm desire to remain in communion of thought, works and responsibilities with all of our co-religionists.” Here are the general principles which we intend to apply in carrying out our modest reform:
1 - Alongside the Sabbath, establish a Sunday morning service, to give those who are not free on Saturday the opportunity to learn and edify oneself.
2 - Reduce the duration of this service to one hour with prayers or elevations mostly in French and each time a sermon; this may, on certain days, and under the control of the association's steering committee, be entrusted to non-rabbi speakers, in accordance with an old Israelite tradition which deserves to be honored again.
3 - Make religious instruction more in-depth, better adapted to the assured results of modern criticism which has only enhanced the grandeur and originality of religious progress from which Judaism emerged.
4 - Allow everyone full freedom to follow traditional practices and ceremonies; it being understood that they must neither eclipse nor replace the essential of religion which resides in the communion of collective worship and in the ardor of individual moral belief.
In a word, we are pursuing a work, not of separation and upheaval, but of spiritual renovation which will be of a nature, if understood, to give Judaism a renewal of youth and vigor, to better ensure its character of doctrine' always alive with truth and moral force, to finally reconcile for him, even outside, precious sympathies. The spirit not the letter, truth and life, this is our motto. If these ideas, sir and dear co-religionist, are yours, we ask you to kindly send us now your adhesion in principle to the group in formation which would take the name of “Liberal Jewish Association of Paris”.
L'Univers Israelite devoted a long article to this liberal association, the main passage of which follows.
“Although we are not personally in favor of Sunday service, because we see it as a path towards the absorption of Judaism into Christianity and the removal of a guarantee of freedom of conscience, it would seem regrettable to us if the consistory refused to accede to the wishes of a category of people who are Israelites like us and who do not ask for anything contrary to religious law. A Sunday service is no more prohibited than a conference, and if it is only a question of lending a room or a synagogue for one or two hours a week, the community would lose nothing.”
This temple of the Jewish Liberal Union was inaugurated in Paris on Sunday, December 2, 1907. The “new style” service was celebrated by Rabbi Louis-G. Lévy, founder of the Liberal Union. As a sermon, he developed his program. The old customs, which Eastern customs had introduced into Jewish rites, no longer fit with the conditions of modern and European existence. The ritual obligation to be idle on Saturday, when everyone is working, and the obligation, in fact, to still be idle on Sunday, a public holiday for anyone other than the Jew, creates serious disadvantages for the latter; likewise the Jewish Passover, which lasts eight days, Yom-Kippur, three days, etc. There is such an obstacle to "business" that many Israelites detach themselves from the practices of religion in order to remain able to stand up to the competition. The Jewish Liberal Union aims to remedy this state of affairs. It will have Sabbath services said on Sunday, instead of Saturday. The Pasch will only last twenty-four hours; other holidays as well. Short visits to the synagogue will replace the long and repeated stations to which the Israelites were required during these festivals. Men will uncover themselves in the temple, because “it is the modern sign of respect. “
What exactly do Reformers want? We have just seen it: a minimum of worship, a minimum of morality, a minimum of dogma. But do the requirements in such a matter include a stopping point? One concession leads to another, and with the overbidding, which does not fail to play its role, the modest programs of the beginning are quickly outdated: it was only a question, first of all, of removing the aged furniture and shabby, to make the building itself a little more comfortable. Now we come to demand the sacrifice of the weekly rest and the observances of the Sabbath, then the suppression of the laws concerning fasting, abstinence, the choice of foods, finally the abandonment of the practices of circumcision. As for the dogma, we retain, it is true, the belief in the unity of God and in Providence, which is responsible for placing Israel at the head of the nations; but the messianic prophecies must be understood as referring to the Revolution of 1789 and the emancipation of the Jews: the Messiah is the whole race marching to conquer the peoples. For it should be noted that the majority of Jews who make any profession of Christianity always regard themselves as belonging to the Jewish race and havig to benefit from the promises made to it. For the initiated, the purely external entry of the Jews into a modernized Christianity is the means of arriving and leading to this Christianity without dogma, to this humanitarian religion, to this Jerusalem of the new order of which we have spoken. They enter Christian society to be a leaven of liberalism. However, even in Europe, there are Jews who pursue the destiny of Israel by other means.
XVI. — ZIONISM.
“What the Jewish people did five thousand years ago,” says Chateaubriand, “they still do. They have witnessed the ruin of Jerusalem six-seven times, and nothing can discourage them; nothing can prevent them from looking towards SION.” Every year, on April 20, throughout the earth, the Jewish nation rises, at the same hour, as one man, grasps the cup of blessing and repeats three times: “Next year in Jerusalem!” (1). In the book The Nations Quivering Against Jesus Christ and His Church, Father Joseph Lémann says: “I affirm that in all parts of the world where they are scattered, our former co-religionists still love Jerusalem, often pray in turning towards Jerusalem, giving charity to each other in the name of Jerusalem, hoping to see Jerusalem again. And I know of countries where Jews who are too poor or
1. Israelite Archives 1864, p. 335 to 350.
far too old to undertake the sacred journey, to see Jerusalem with their eyes and to press their lips there, have small bags filled with earth from Jerusalem brought to them. On their deathbed, they recommend to their children to bury them with this land of the homeland on their hearts...
The entire Jewish religion is founded on the NATIONAL IDEA; There is not an aspiration, not a pulsation that is not TOWARDS THE HOMELAND. When we get up, when we go to bed, when we sit down to eat, we call on God to hasten our return to Jerusalem, without delay, in our days!”
At the beginning of the Christian era, the Jews residing in Jerusalem came to cry at the very place where the fundamental stone of the Temple had been sunk. This place is called the sacred stone. They anointed him with oil and watered him with their tears. Today, this location of the sacred stone is enclosed within the Mosque of Omar, built on the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. The Jews are now crying in front of a preliminary wall of the Temple or surrounding wall that remains standing.
Here is how Fr. Joseph Lémann describes this scene:
“Every Friday evening, for nineteen centuries, when the Christian traveler goes in this direction, at nightfall he sees groups of poor Jews crying together. On one side, the women seated in a circle in the attitude of pain... Further, the men squatting on the remains of the Temple, kissing the remains of the walls; they lean their heads against it, they thrust their hands with a sort of frenzy into the crevices of the stone... We hear them recite the lamentations of Jeremiah and all groan, repeating this cry of pain: “How much longer, Oh my God! "
“Annals of Notre-Dame de Sion in the Holy Land” (December 1878) describe the same scene almost in the same terms: “On Friday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, at the foot of a high wall blackened by the centuries, the only remains of the foundations which support the esplanade of the Temple of Solomon, a hundred unfortunate Israelites, Bible in hand, recite aloud the lamentations of Jeremiah; some utter soul-crushing sobs; others huddle convulsively on the stones of the ancient wall, and kiss them with love; there are some who plunge their hands into the crevices of these venerable ruins, and then pass them over their eyes and lips; all raise their eyes and their arms to the sky, urgently calling for the help of God and the coming of the Messiah! !” P. We beseech you, have mercy on Zion; R:. Gather the children of Jerusalem. P. Make haste, make haste, Savior of Zion; R;. Speak in favor of Jerusalem. P. May royal domination soon be reestablished in Zion. R. Comfort those who mourn over Jerusalem, etc.
Does the prophet Jeremiah not seem to have seen this scene of pain, when he cries out in chapter XXX, verse 15: “Why do you groan over your ruins? Your pain is incurable because of your iniquities. Because of your hardness, I have brought these evils upon you.”
It seemed that modern times lent themselves to the realization of these wishes and that the duty was to help in this. Hence ZIONISM.
We can trace its conception to Moïse-Hesse, who published his book Rome and Jerusalem in 1848. After Hesse, the real promoter of the movement is Doctor Herzl, editor-in-chief of the Neue freie Presse, important newspaper in Vienna. “The emigration of the Jews,” says Herzl, in the book he wrote on the organization he dreamed of, “will take place, little by little, in a regular and methodical manner. The capital necessary to lay the foundations for the agricultural and industrial establishment of the Jews in Palestine will be provided by the people. The national soil, Palestine, will certainly be conceded to the Jews: the great powers, rather than letting one of them seize this country, will certainly prefer to see a small neutral and peaceful State founded there as should be the case. It inevitably be the future Jewish state. The Turkish empire will have even more interest in it, because the sale of the Palestinian territories will allow it to improve the state of its finances, and the colonization and development of Palestine by the Jews will provide it with incontestable economic advantages. In order to respect the scruples of Christianity, the holy places will be placed in the legal condition of extraterritoriality, a regime guaranteed and recognized by public international law. To build the Jewish State, we therefore have the personnel, the materials and the plans; the building land, we will get it. We are, therefore, able, today, to prepare a home for our freed nationality: to achieve this goal, we just need to want it, but we must want it with all our strength.
Restoring Jewish power in Jerusalem, Herzl continues, is therefore not only ensuring a place of asylum for unfortunate Jews, it is, in the Zionist idea, raising their fallen courage, reviving their faith in their hearts. in themselves, restore to them the conscience and pride of their race. Is Palestine not, moreover, the land where all the religious and national traditions of the Jewish people are attached? At all periods of its history, it is to Jerusalem, and especially to the sacred hill of Zion, that its mystical hopes, its faith in better days, in the midst of trials, have been attached.”
The Jews of Russia, Poland, Romania, and Finland hailed Herzl's book as an act of deliverance. Congresses with the mission of expanding the Zionist question are held regularly in Basel. The first took place on August 24, 1897. In 1898, the Zionists decreed the construction in this locality of a palace where the annual congress and the permanent committee would be held. Mr. Marmoreck from Vienna was responsible for drawing up the plan based on the instructions given to him: a large meeting room for congresses, offices for secretaries, restaurant rooms, and a large room intended for receive the “National Jewish Library”. This library was already very rich, but the books collected by the Zionists having no special location were in a state of confusion which was detrimental to the works and which made them almost useless for the workers. The action committee at the same time expressed its resolution to found a Hebrew academy. Another resolution of the congress of 1898 had as its object the creation in London of an international bank intended to launch and support the Jewish idea (1). The following year I’Intransigeant published the following information. We cannot say whether this was the fulfillment of the wish expressed by the Zionist Congress.
“A Jewish Company (Limited), registered in accordance with the English law on joint stock companies, was founded with a capital of two million pounds sterling, or fifty million francs, divided into 1,999,900 shares of one pound sterling and 100 founders' shares The company's general secretary is MJ-IZ. Loewe. The head office is located in London, Broad Street Avenue. The supervisory board is made up of twenty distinguished Jews, among whom we note the following names: Theodore Herzl, man of letters, in Vienna; Bodenheimer, lawyer, in Cologne; Bernstein Kohan, doctor of medicine, in Kissingers (Bavaria); Samuel Pineles, merchant, in Galatz. The board of directors counts among its main members: David Wolffsohn, of the house of Bernsteim and Wolffsohn, of Cologne; J.-H. Kahn, from the house of Lissa and Kahn, from The Hague; S.-L. Heymann, of London; Rodolphe Schauer, from Mainz; Horensein, merchant, in Kiew. Company Bank: London and Provincial Bank (Limited), 7, Bank Buildings, Lothbury, London. The composition of the various committees responsible for directing this Jewish Financial Company is established with remarkable eclecticism. There are good Israelites there from Austria, Holland, Russia, especially Germany.
1. The Bank of London now has three branches, one in Jerusalem, another in Jaffa and the third in Caiffa.
But what is particularly interesting is the valuable indication provided by the statutes on the aim of the Society. It says this: The Company does not have the exclusive aim of acquiring profits and distributing dividends. Its aim is to carry out ordinary banking operations in any region of the globe, as required by the interest of the Jewish people, in accordance with the opinion of the board of directors.”
At the Congress of 1901, there were more of two hundred delegates. Some came from Manchuria, America, Lake Chad, Siberia, southern Africa, Egypt and all of Europe. Dr. Herzl, president of the permanent action committee, announced that he had been received in a private audience by the sultan and that the latter had declared loudly that Zionism would find in him a powerful protector. After the president, various members of the action committee reported on the situation from a propaganda point of view. The figures cited deserve attention. Thus a Viennese delegate announced that all of Eastern Europe was shot through with an extraordinary ardor of proselytism. In Bulgaria, out of 6,000 Jews there are 2,000 Zionists. Russia has 600 groups, each of which has at least 1,000 francs for propaganda. The official figure given to the congress, for all of Europe, in the “Agitation” chapter, is 150,000 francs. The Zionist movement also reached England. This is how Mr. de Haas announced that four and a half percent of English Israelites had adhered to Zionism. It was especially in London and through the good dispositions of the Colonial Bank - of which rich Israelites and even Christians were members - that Zionism found support. — An Englishman, Mr. Hall Caine, sent a letter to Congress declaring that he, a Christian Zionist, greatly admired the Jews and that it was time they thought of building cities for themselves, after having too many built for others. They would form in Palestine, under the protection of the sultan and under the control of other nations, a Jewish Republic.
The Zionists adopted - a symbolic flag, which flew over the Basel casino during the four days of the Congress. On a white background, two longitudinal blue bands frame two superimposed triangles representing a six-pointed star. After the 1903 congress, an incident occurred that caused a lot of noise. At a ball given at a Jewish home by Jews with the aim of unity and solidarity, a Russian Jew named Chaïm Selik Louban fired two shots from a revolver at another Jew, the writer Max Nordau. At the congress, Mr. Max Nordau came to carry Mr. Chamberlain's proposals, offering to reconstitute the Jewish nation not in Palestine, but in Uganda. The congress included 490 members. This proposal unleashed a storm, Mr. Max Nordau, was accused of having betrayed the Jewish ideal which must aim at Jerusalem and nowhere else.
Mr. Max Nordau said that the Zionists, on hearing it "began to rolling on the ground, eyes bloodshot, mouth twisted, foam at the lips, contorted horribly .They had to be carried outside and I gave them my care as a doctor. They condemned me to death and theirs. executor designated by lot came from Berne for this purpose.”
The confrontation between Chaïn Louban and Dr. Max Nordau, a confrontation which Mr. Judge de Vallès carried out, was particularly interesting. The two adversaries clearly posed the Jewish question. Both recognized that the Jew constituted more than a religion, more than a race, a nation, and that this nation could never merge or assimilate with other peoples. They both concluded that it was necessary to reconstitute the kingdom of Israel. What divides Doctor Max Nordau and Chaïn Louban is that the first is a opportunistic, preferring to see the Jewish people reconstituting their nation in Africa rather than remaining as a wandering people, while intransigent, the Zionist student declares that the Jewish nation will establish itself in Palestine and only in Palestine.
The seventh congress opened, still in Bay, on July 26, 1905. More than seven hundred delegates, including more than a hundred from overseas countries, were gathered there. They represented twenty-two States (1). In his opening speech, Dr. Max Nordau recalled the memory of Dr. Herzl, promoter of the Zionist movement. He was appointed president with six vice-presidents from different countries, eleven assessors and thirteen secretaries for eight different languages.
1. Zionist associations were present at this congress, numbering 1,572.
The president, after these elections, read his keynote speech which was not published. The next day, one of the vice-presidents, Mr. Walmorok, from Paris, made his report on the management of the action committee. He noted the continued development of the Zionist movement. On July 28 the great discussion took place over the meeting place of scattered Israel. Would it be Africa, would it be Palestine? The number of speakers registered exceeded the custom. The office proposed designating four who would speak on behalf of the others. Dr. Syrken, of Paris, opposed it. The majority did not agree with him, and the agitation in the Assembly was such that the president was forced to close the session. In the anteroom, on the stairs, blows were exchanged and the police had to intervene. The discussion was resumed in the afternoon without further agreement. Adjourned at 7 a.m., the session was resumed at 9 a.m. July 29 was the Sabbath day.
On the 30th, the question of the colonization of Uganda by the Jews was finally closed. The Congress, while thanking the English government for its offer, passed the following resolution: “Congress firmly maintains the principles of its program tending to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. It refuses any colonization outside Palestine or neighboring countries.” The opponents protested, left the room gesticulating, to write and address to the Jewish people a protest against the treatment that the majority had inflicted on them. Other sessions took place on the following days where less important questions were dealt with: the appointment of the organizing commission composed of 31 members, the maintenance of the Palestine commission with its annual credit, the constitution of the national fund for purchase of land in Palestine, as soon as these purchases can be made on secure bases. On August 2, Mr. Frommensen, in the name of the American delegates, handed over to the care of Congress the Zionist banner which, at the Saint-Louis exhibition, flew among those of other nations. Since then, a new development has occurred.
On July 28 last year, the London newspapers published this news: "The leaders of the Young Turk party, who want to attract the sympathies of all parties and followers of all religions, would have included in their program, if we believe a telegram received from Saint Petersburg by the “Daily Telegraph”, the return of Palestine to the Jews on the basis of the Zionist project. We now understand why the Israelites so quickly embraced the cause of the Young Turks. "
The persistence of the Zionists in refusing in turn the territories that were offered to be granted to them in America first, then in Africa, then in regions more suitable for colonization than Palestine is today, shows although their goal is the restoration of Israel, in conformity with the predestination which they suppose for it, to arrive at the dominion of all peoples.
In the meantime, the Jews, solidly linked together, constitute in each nation a State within a State, bringing, in the event of a revolution, as we have just seen in Russia, the support of its influence and its action to all subversive parties. There is no revolution that does not advance the work of universal disorganization which should allow Israel to establish its domination over all peoples.
It was no longer in Basel, but in Hamburg, that the new Zionist Congress met at the end of December 1909. It made it possible to note a notable increase in the power of the movement which leads poor Jews, particularly those from Russia, Austria and Romania, towards the reconstitution of a Jewish state. In addition to the international congresses which take place every year in Basel, Zionism holds regional congresses in various countries, in the New World as in the Old. The press hardly seems interested in reporting them. La Vérité de Québec gave the report of the one held in Montreal on June 4 and 5, 1905, 260 delegates went there. M. de Sola, who chaired it, made an enthusiastic speech. He clearly proclaimed that the Jews are a distinct race, which must be maintained in its awareness of its ancient glory, and of the greatness that the future has in store for it. Before separating, the delegates elected the office for next year's convention.
The agricultural colonies that the Jews have in Palestine are currently one of the most interesting aspects of their Zionist propaganda. In 1870, a French Jew, named Netter, founded an agricultural school for Jews in Jaffa, and Jaffa became the true center of Jewish colonization in Palestine. In 1882, Jewish emissaries went to the Holy Land to purchase land for colonies preparing places of refuge offered to Jews expelled from Catholic or schismatic Christians in central and eastern Europe.
Since then, Jews have continued to settle in Palestine. They proceeded first by purchasing properties, then they bought entire Arab villages. They took advantage of a year of scarcity or calamity to send the tax collectors who demanded immediate payment. In a situation with not a cent in the village, they are forced to resort to the Jews, who hasten to lend... at the rate of 200 % and against mortgage of the entire village (the property being undivided in the villages of Palestine). After a year, the village was sold to the Jews at a low price. The Jewish penetration into Palestine is openly sponsored by the Alliance Israelite; it receives, as we have seen, the encouragement and subsidies of all the great Jews.
Its main lever is the Anglo-Jewisch, a colonization association, founded by Baron de Hirsch, and to which this illustrious buccaneer left 250 million when he died. It also has the support of the Anglo Palestine Company, founded, as we have said, for this purpose.
“The Rothschilds themselves, says Mr. Edouard Drumont, so prudent and so skilful, are enormously interested in this resumption of possession of the kingdom of Israel. This is how Edmond de Rothschild, after having purchased a number of villages on his behalf, brought together all these Jewish colonies in the hands of the Anglo-Jewisch Association, adding a donation of 20 million. If the rich Israelites favor the establishment of their co-religionists in Palestine, this does not mean that they take part and want to abandon Europe, where they occupy privileged positions, being kings of finance. Moreover, for the final goal that the nation pursues, it is useful for them to remain among other peoples.
At present, says the Bulletin of the Italian Geographical Society, a third of Palestine is in the hands of the Jews. They have considerable property everywhere: more than forty percent of the cultivable land in the Jaffa district; seventy-five percent of the area of the district of Tiberias; large areas of land west of the Jordan River, around Jerusalem, Jaffa and Caifa. They founded schools, established a printing press, and wrote a widely used newspaper. Jerusalem is already a conquered city; the majority of its current population is Jewish.
The number of Jews increases from year to year in Palestine. To say their exact number would be impossible, since civil status registers are unknown, and periodic censuses are ultimately reduced to more or less approximate estimates. But we are not exaggerating in bringing their number, for all of Palestine, to 100,000, therefore the eighth part of the total population of the country.
In Jerusalem, in the 17th century, there were barely a hundred Jewish families; in 1877, there were 15,000 Jews; in 1903, this figure had risen to 35,000, and currently we can estimate their number at 50,000. Apart from the holy city, their colonies are scattered throughout the country; in Hebron, there are 1,500, in Jaffa, 4,000, in Gaza, 100, in Nablus, 200, in Haifa, 900, in Acco, 1,000, in Tiberias, 3,500; in Safed, they form the vast majority of the population: 24,000 out of 35,000 inhabitants. In addition, they have several agricultural colonies of lesser importance: at Akir (the ancient Ekrou of the Philistines) at Artuf, at Zammarin near Caesarea, at Athlit, at Es-Sadjara between Tabor and Tiberias, etc. In addition, one can be sure to meet one or more Jewish families in all the small towns and villages where there is hope of profit as far as Kerak, in the heart of the Bedouin country.
The Jews of Palestine, said Dr. Motzkine at the Zionist Congress of 1898, must learn and speak Hebrew, so as to establish, through the use of this language, an indispensable solidarity between all members of the race. In fact, in the colony of Recbovoth, which, founded in 1890 by a group from Poland, has barely 250 inhabitants, Hebrew language courses are very popular, and the younger generation speaks pure Hebrew.
In the vein opened by Zionism, an American newspaper, Pearson's Weekley, announced that the Freemasons of Boston had formed a "Company" with the aim of rebuilding the Temple of Solomon. Another project: There is question of the constitution of a Jewish Parliament, a Parliament which would be international, it goes without saying, and which, similar to the socialist congresses or the conference of Morocco, would sit sometimes in one city, sometimes in another . The Jewish World of December 15, 1908 published on this subject the eminently suggestive statements of an active and restless Jewish nationalist, MB-J, Belisha; “What we want,” said Mr. Belisha, “is an institution that would be powerful and effective, an institution representing all Jews in an international Jewish Assembly, which would be based on democratic principles and would be responsible to the Jewish nation. We need a Jewish Parliament for united Israel; Zionist and territorial organizations are only sections. We need a Parliament that would act as the Grand Council of the entire nation. Naturally, it could not be a legislative body; it could not maintain his decisions by force, but he could exercise great moral power. What I propose is that this international assembly consists of 500 members, elected by all the Jewish communities of the world, in proportion to their number and their importance. Any man or woman over eighteen years of age could be an elector by subscribing the sum of 2 shillings 6 pence per annum, and if a million individuals agreed to this proposition we would have an annual income of £125,000…
The central office would be located in London or Paris. There would be an annual session of Parliament which would last one month,- and this session would be held in turn in all the principal Jewish centers of the world, to excite and maintain the interest of the party. This Parliament would sit until we could move it to land that belongs to us.”
Could this Parliament be the test, the outline of the Convention that the revolutionaries of 93 were already calling for to govern the universal Republic into which all the nations of the universe must merge and for which internationalist ideas prepare the ways in the minds of people???
By all that we have just said from No. VIII to No. XVI, it is easy to see how deep and extensive is the movement which has been agitating the Jewish people for a century. Obviously, it's a sign.
XVII. — IS THE ENTRY OF THE JEWS INTO THE CHURCH NEXT?
“The first consequence of the act of emancipation,” says Mr. Joseph Lémann (1), “was for the Jews the ruin of the traditions and practices which essentially constituted Jewish life. As long as this people had been despised and set aside, they had remained fervent, attached to their traditions, because it is the nature of persecution or hostility to make people stick to any ideas, to any beliefs. The Jewish people therefore held on to their religion for which they were in hostility with the rest of humankind. In the absence of the pure practices of Mosaism, which had become impossible since the fall of Jerusalem, he scrupulously observed the hundred times narrower prescriptions of his rabbis. The Talmud, this leaden book, weighed on him. But from 1791, that is to say since their re-entry into society, most of the Israelites, to put themselves in harmony with the requirements of civil law, and above all to be able to appear in this life of celebrations and pleasures that they encountered after leaving their Ghettos, one by one abandoned their traditions, the customs of their fathers, their embarrassing practices: so that, as for the first time, after the fall of Jerusalem, pure Mosaism had degenerated into Talmudism, now Talmudism itself degenerates in its turn into rationalism or indifference, that is to say, into nihilism.”
The same author thus exposes the consequences that this same emancipation has for us:
1. The nations quivering against Jesus Christ and his Church
“They were at all times a hostile power. They were also a financial power to be reckoned with. They became a civil power through the Citizen's rights that the Constituent Assembly recognized to them. Napoleon made them a religious power again by restoring life to their cult and their rabbis. All that remains is for them to become a political power which will have, among the hospitable nations, the treasury, the legislation, the army and diplomacy. They will get there... “
We can say today: They got there. The Jews are emancipated; will they truly convert, fulfill the prophecies in our day and enter en masse into the true Church? At first glance, it seems that they are further away than ever. We have seen that not only do they occupy the front ranks in the army of persecutors of the Church, but that many of them have lost their faith, and that they are the instigators of this movement which, in both hemispheres, wants to dissolve all religions in humanitarianism.
It is probable, however, that in the designs of Providence this prepares for that. The Jews have managed to humiliate the unfaithful Christian nations and to punish them, and during a time that only God knows, the punishment will become more and more visible and more and more serious. But the exercise of justice will be followed by that of mercy; and it may happen that when the leaders of the anti-Christian conspiracy see their plans fail and all their power shattered at the very hour when they believe they have a definitive victory, they will turn to their conqueror and like Saul will cry out. “Who are you, Lord? Lord, what do you want me to do?” — And the Lord will respond as in the first days of Christianity: “Go and bear my name before your nations, before the kings and before the children of Israel.”
Their preaching will bring the flock back to the fold. It will certainly happen one day. God affirmed it. The time and mode remain its secret. All interpretations of the Holy Scriptures on this point have always met with complete reservation on the part of the Holy See and the Church. “In one hand,” says M. Lémann, “the holy Church holds the divine Scriptures which announce this conversion, and in the other she prepares to bless the ancient people of God for whom she awaits and for whom she prays. But that's all. The routes by which they will return and the time of this return, she does not know. And every time that authoritative insights into the divine Scriptures were presented to it, the Church remained in reserve, reverring the seven mysterious seals that the lion of the tribe of Judah alone lifts” (1).
“The return of Israel,” said Doctor d’Allioli, “is of the greatest importance, since the entire conversion of the Jews will be the entire conversion of the world. » This is what Saint Paul said (Chapter XI of his epistle to the Romans): “Has God rejected his people? Far from there! —For I myself am an Israelite. God did not reject his people whom he knew in his foreknowledge. —What shall I say then? Did they collide so that they fell (forever)? God forbid.” The great apostle then goes on and makes this memorable and consoling prediction: "If their sin has been the riches of the world, and their decline the riches of the Gentiles, what will not be their fullness?... For if their rejection has become the
1. Rev., v, 5.
reconciliation of the world, what will their reintegration be (a return for the world) from death to life!” Already before Saint Paul, the prophet-king, David, had contemplated this unprecedented era, to this day of an outpouring of all the peoples of the earth without exception towards the Lord, during the conversion of Israel. His soul at this sight is exalted and he cries: “Praise the Lord, all nations, all peoples, praise him BECAUSE his mercy has been established on us (Israel) and the truth (the promises) will extend to all the rest of the centuries (1).” And before David, Moses: “The Lord your God will bring back your captives, he will have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from among all the peoples among whom he had previously scattered you. When you have been scattered to the poles of heaven, the Lord your God will take you out and take you and bring you into the land that your fathers possessed and you will be master of it, and blessing you he will make you more as numerous as your fathers were (2).” The events that have taken place over the past century still remind us of Hosea's famous prediction: “The children of Israel will be for a long time without a king, without a prince, without a sacrifice; without an altar: and after this they will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king (3).”
Fr. Lémann in his book: Les Nations quiveres wtitle Jesus Christ and his Church, p. 196, draws attention to this fact: “Thirty years ago (this was written in 1876),
1. Ps CXVI. 2. Deut., XXX, 3-6. 3. Hosea, III, 4-5.
in a sanctuary in Rome, the Virgin Mary revealed herself with her glory and her tenderness to a Jew (Mr. Libermann – probably the author meant Alphonse-Marie Ratisbonne), whose conversion was like a trumpet blast of the Apocalypse in the Church. From that moment on, as if at a signal from Mary, the conversion of the Jews began in the world, in a slow but certain manner.
Since then, modern Judaism has been divided into two currents: one, false Judaism, which tends to get lost in rationalism and indifference; but the other, true Judaism, which silently wants to complete itself, complete itself and crown itself in Catholicism. Because Judaism is the promised Messiah; Christianity is the Messiah that came.
XVIII. — THE JEWISH QUESTION AT THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
The Jewish question is increasingly occupying everyone's minds. Books dealing with it are multiplying and newspapers are talking about it almost every day. To this question, the Church has a solution, all of charity and peace. It was presented by five hundred and sixteen bishops to the Vatican Council, in these terms: "The undersigned Fathers ask the holy Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, in a humble and pressing prayer, that it deigns to warn by a very paternal invitation the very unfortunate nation from Israel; that is to say, it expresses the wish that, finally tired of a wait no less vain than long, the Israelites hasten to recognize the Messiah, our Savior, Jesus Christ, truly promised to Abraham and announced by Moses: completing and thus crowning the Mosaic religion without changing it.
On the one hand, the undersigned Fathers have the very firm confidence that the Holy Council will have compassion on the Israelites because they are always very dear to God because of their fathers, and because from them Christ was born according to the flesh. On the other hand, the same Fathers share the sweet and intimate hope that this vow of tenderness and honor will, with the help of the Holy Spirit, be well received by many of the sons of Abraham, because the obstacles that stopped them until now seem to disappear more and more since the ancient wall of separation fell. So may Heaven gran that as soon as possible they acclaim Christ saying to him: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! May Heaven grant that they may run to throw themselves into the arms of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, who, already their sister according to the flesh, can still be their mother according to grace, as she is ours!”
This is the desire and hope of holy Church, which does not want to uproot the half-broken reed, nor extinguish the still smoking wick, but only aspires to save with the nations the remains of the house of Israel.
A few days before the presentation of this petition, Pope Pius IX receiving in audience the brothers Lémann, tireless apostles of the conversion of Israel, exclaimed: “Here are the two Israelite brothers, the two priests who have great zeal for the salvation of their people. Ah! to get all these signatures, you had to walk well and tire yourself out a lot.” The two brothers replied: “Yes, Most Holy Father, we have walked well; personifying in us all our people, we were a wandering Jew, and the wandering Jew finished his errands, by climbing the stairs of all the Bishops of the world, gathered in Rome. In Rome we traveled around the world one last time. And Pius IX continued with tenderness: “My children, I accept your postulatum, I will hand it over myself to the secretary of the Council. Yes, it is appropriate, yes, it is good to address to the Israelites a few words of exhortation and encouragement. Your nation has certain promises in the Scriptures of the return. If the harvest cannot be completed, may Heaven grant us at least a few bunches.” Then, lovingly blessing these two good priests: “You work for your people, it is your vocation, continue your furrow; you must do for him what Moses did, deliver him.” Yet another day, Pope Pius IX said to the same brothers Lémann whom he greatly loved: “Let us pray for the Israelites so that they may share in the triumph of the Church.”
XIX. — ASSOCIATION OF PRAYERS FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS.
Towards the end of 1903, an ecclesiastic from the diocese of Paris, interpreter of some pious faithful, addressed the Mother House of the Congregation of Notre-Dame de Sion to communicate the desire they had conceived to arouse among Christians living in the middle of the world an association of prayers whose object would be the conversion of the people of Israel. This desire, so consistent with the impulse felt by the two brothers Marie Théodore and Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, following the miraculous conversion of January 20, 1842, was to be favorably received by the Congregation born from the miracle. There was no hurry, however, to follow it up; and, despite repeated requests, from December 1903 to December 1904, the project remained without execution. We then insisted more strongly that the souls of good will whose small circle had expanded could finally meet and unite their prayers by attending a monthly mass, the celebration of which would take place at the altar of Notre-Dame. of Zion. This wish, having received the sanction of HE the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris who placed the new Association under the direction of the priests of Notre-Dame de Sion, the mass was fixed for January 25, the feast of the conversion of Saint Paul. On this occasion, the Associates united for the first time in the prayer that for sixty years the Daughters of Zion have repeated every day at the most solemn moment of the Holy Sacrifice. It is the one that the Savior himself, dying on the cross, addressed to God in favor of his people: “FATHER, FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.”
At each of the meetings which regularly followed that of January 25, this supplication rose between two hymns imbued with compassionate love for Israel. It exudes from the hearts and lips of the Associates whose number since then has continued to grow with marvelous rapidity. Sympathies that seemed to be waiting only for a touch to occur are awakened on all sides. A movement of merciful charity comes against a repulsion, unfortunately motivated for too long. The initiative of fervent zealots and pious zealots was able to conquer numerous centers of intercession spread across various parts of France, Italy and Palestine: Franciscan, Dominican, Capuchin and Poor Clare nuns, young girls entrusted to At these various establishments, priests, Christians living in the middle of the world, all together formed at the end of the first year a total of nearly a thousand people. These already consoling advances were far from foreshadowing the expansion that followed them. Indeed, a current of ardent charity invaded Tyrol, Bavaria and Ireland with a communicative impulse. Entire villages ask to register following their pastors. In several schools, the prayer: “God of kindness” is recited in common, a large number of families adding it to their morning and evening prayer. As at the time of the coming of the Redeemer on earth, it is still the inhabitants of the countryside who are willing to spread the good news of salvation whose dawn is dawning on Israel. - But now, simultaneously on the side of the Holy Land, a horizon no less full of hope opens up. He is a Prince of the Church, it is his collaborators, it is his most worthy flock who are committed to the Association. “More than ever, it is the moment to pray for the conversion of the Jews” declared Mgr Piccardo, being the first to join this peaceful crusade. In Tunis, the Archbishop, giving his imprimatur to prayer, deigns to place himself at the head of the Associates. His Majesty adds, with a conviction well worthy of his eminent piety, that this personal inscription is entirely to his advantage, since it allows him to participate in the indulgences associated with it. These indulgences were granted by Leo XIII first, to the prayer: “God of goodness” which the Priests and Religious of Our Lady of Sion repeat daily. More recently, at the request of a converted Israelite Lady, zealous, zealous as well as tireless and intelligent, our most holy Father Pope Pius X deigned, on March 22, 1906, to grant the Association new and important favors. These indulgences, by giving new impetus to the work, were the starting point for an even more rapid expansion, and, in less than two years, brought the number of associates to more than 18,000 (in January 1908 , the number of associates was 50,000) spread in France, England, Scotland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Tunisia. and as far as the English Indies and Canada. “The thought of working for Israel wins all hearts,” wrote a pious Christian. And she added: “In these troubled times of discord, of divisions, of dissensions, how beautiful it is, how touching it is to see this league of prayers formed,” this union of souls animated by one only desire, - pursuing the same goal: to bring back to God the people always dear to his Heart * It seems that today, the Savior wants to extend to Christian souls the mission formerly given by him to his disciples. “Go first” to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. » To propagate the Association which aims to realize this divine injunction, is therefore to enter into the merciful views of Jesus; it is also an act of love and devotion to the Church which awaits its most decisive triumph from the conversion of Israel: it is to rejoice in heaven; it is to prepare for the world an era of peace and resurrection; it is to amass treasures of merit for oneself. If the kingdom of Heaven is assured by the glass of water of one who cannot offer more, what will not be granted to those whose persevering prayer will have hastened the day which will see Israel fall at the feet of its Redeemer !
PRAYER OF THE ASSOCIATES (100 days of indulg. Leo XIII, July 15, 1893). “God of goodness, Father of mercies, we beg you through the Immaculate Heart of Mary and through the intercession of the Patriarchs and the Holy Apostles, to cast a look of compassion on the remains of Israel, so that They come to the knowledge of our only Savior Jesus Christ and may share in the precious graces of the Redemption. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
PLENARY INDULGENCES IN PERPETUITY (Granted by NSP Pope Pius on March 22, 1906): 1 - A plenary indulgence on Holy Thursday to all those members of the Prayer Association who, having confessed and received Communion will recite the prayer Pro perfidis Judaeis, that the Church says on Good Friday, or else Pater, Ave and Gloria Patri. 2° A plenary indulgence to be won on the first Friday of each month by the associated members, provided that, in their prayers, Masses , Communions, they intend to ask God for the conversion of the Jews, and this without the need for any special formula.
After this communication had been made to us we found the following information in the Annals of the mission of Our Lady of Sion:
By a brief of August 24, 1909, His Holiness Pius deigned to establish the arch-confraternity association of prayers in favor of Israel. The headquarters of the new Archconfraternity is located in Jerusalem, in the basilica of Ecce-Homo which serves as a chapel for the nuns of Notre-Dame de Sion. It was fitting that the seat of this archconfraternity was in the Holy City where the sacred vestiges of the old and new people of God are preserved and corroborated; where, in front of pilgrims from all over the world, they bear witness, through their very ruins, to the authenticity of the facts they recall; where the fulfillment of ancient prophecies responds to the fulfillment of those which are still to be verified, particularly with regard to the conversion of the remnants of Israel. The movement, starting from France, spread with truly prodigious speed, and soon there was no land so distant where a few elite souls did not implore to obtain the conversion of Israel. Memberships, initially individual, are followed by long lists of hundreds and thousands of new Associates. In certain countries, where the Christian faith has remained more alive, hearts are so won over to this apostolate that entire parishes are registered. Adherents come from all classes of society as the first Christians came to the Gospel; they also come from the ranks of those in the Church who are “the chosen portion.”
Eminent prelates, priests, in large numbers, religious men and women offer to participate in a work whose aim is to hasten the entry of the Jewish people into the fold and to obtain unity in the Catholic faith. More than thirty archbishops and bishops have rank among the Associates. The prayer “God of goodness” is translated into eighteen languages, not with a view to future and problematic accessions, but to meet the needs of members already acquired in the new apostolate. In certain countries the shaking of souls is such that it is communicated to the Israelites themselves; several, for whom the divine light is beginning to dawn, ask to be included on the lists, wishing to also pray for their own conversion. These prayers are beginning to bear fruit. It might seem at first to souls of little faith that heaven remained obstinately closed, but behold, grace descends with such abundance that hidden germs spring up everywhere and promise an opulent harvest. It is not yet the awakening of a people to the true faith, but for many upright souls the veils are being torn; they recognize the One whom their fathers had misunderstood, and among them several, in the joy of the truth conquered, aspire to the honor of the apostolate. The Annals of the Mission of Notre-Dame de Sion, report these conversions in France, in Prussia, in Austria, Hungary, Poland, America. Everywhere they find facts as striking as they are consoling.