For the past few weeks, the Zionist leaders of Chicago have been very busy preparing for the million dollar drive which will soon take place, and which is a part of the general ten-million-dollar drive for the rebuilding of Palestine. This preparatory work was done with a great deal of dexterity and devotion, and no one can say that it has been ineffective. Even before the official opening of the drive, Chicago will have contributed three times as much this year as it did last year, during the entire drive. From the work accomplished up to now for the great cause, two conclusions can be drawn: first, that the Jews who wish to remain Jews, and hope for an immediate redemption, are more hopeful this year than they were last year; second, that the assimilators for whom Judaism is only a colorless charity business are stronger and more obstinate in their assimilative tendencies.

Those who still hoped, last year and two years ago, that the great historic events 2that placed the Jewish people between ruin and redemption--ruin in the countries of exile and redemption in Palestine--would break the obstinacy of the assimilated Jews and would restore them to their people and to the noble cause of Palestine, have made a great mistake. The nearer the great moment comes, the more obstinate and heartless do the assimilated Jews become in their stand on Palestine. Hitherto, we did not have the proper standard to judge the assimilated Jew. We could just imagine who was an assimilated Jew and who was not. Now we know. When a rich Jew is approached and is told that hundreds of thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe are simply waiting for the moment when they can emigrate to Palestine, because there is no future for them in their native countries, and that funds are necessary to help these unfortunate victims of sword, hunger, and pogrom to settle in Palestine and to provide them with homes to live in and land to work on--the rich Jew may reply that he has little or no sympathy with the plight of the unfortunate Jews in Eastern Europe, or what fate is in store for Palestine. Then we know that this Jew belongs to a decadent branch of the Jewish tree--then we know that he has been assimilated and is lost to us.

There are many such Jews in America, and Chicago, too, has a fairly large number of them. These assimilated Jews are deaf to the cries of anguish of their people. As far as they are concerned, all the Jews of Eastern Europe can perish and Palestine can vanish. They are dead to our people.....

This was proven clearly in the preparatory work which has been done in Chicago for the restoration fund drive. Every effort was made to attract the so-called German Jews to this work. The leaders of the Zionist organization and neutral persons talked to them, tried to convince them, and argued with them about the importance of creating the economic conditions in Palestine which would permit the country to take in and support the hundreds of thousands of Jews who are forced to emigrate from Eastern Europe and who have only one place to go--Palestine--because all others are closed to them. All these talks and arguments were in vain. They [the assimilated Jews] refuse to change their attitude. They refuse to contribute anything: money or effort; they are determined to remain aloof.

These assimilated Jews are not as dumb as they often appear. They know very well 4that the Eastern European Jews must emigrate. They also know that Palestine must be prepared for mass immigration. But they are enemies of Zionism and their hatred extends to all the Jewish nationalist ideals. Their hostility to the redemption of the Jewish people, which naturally must lead to the bankruptcy of assimilation, is stronger than their conviction that the Jews of Eastern Europe must emigrate to Palestine.

Their motto is: let hundreds of thousands, and perhaps, millions of Jews in Eastern Europe perish in a sea of blood and tears; let destruction be visited upon millions of Jews; let Palestine remain a devastated country, just so that the resurrection of the Jewish people does not take place. They have sold their hearts and souls to the devil of assimilation and they are determined to see the extermination of the Jewish people.....

And these are the same gentlemen who talk constantly about humanity, justice, and democracy. These are the same gentlemen who send deputations to Washington every moment to defend the cause of humanity.....If a sergeant in the Army mistreats a Jewish soldier, telegrams are immediately sent to Washington protesting 5this incident in the name of justice and humanity. But when millions of Jews in Eastern Europe are drowning in their own blood, and can only be saved by our making it possible for them to settle in Palestine, then these apostles of humanity, justice, and democracy prefer that these Jews shall perish, so long as they can maintain their doctrine of assimilation.

These assimilators, this damned "Generation of the Wilderness" will not help us to rebuild Palestine. We cannot depend upon them. If we ever hoped that in this crucial moment they would help us, we have been disillusioned. We must rely upon ourselves alone. We, the real Jews, alone must do the whole work. We alone are responsible for the fate of the future Jewish generations, and we alone must do the work of redemption.