We are a people of city dwellers, a people of industrial laborers or businessmen, a people of hustlers, a busy, all too busy, people. We are a nervous people. One very seldom finds a Jew who is not nervous, and one very often meets Jews and Jewesses who are too nervous for words. Alienists will tell you that there are proportionately more Jews in lunatic asylums than non-Jews. By the way, this fact is already known for the last eighty-five years. There is one lunatic asylum in London with three thousand patients, and among these three thousand patients six hundred are Jews. Especially in the industrially developed countries the neurasthenic disposition of the Jew is a general phenomenon of life.

City life is nerve racking and nerve breaking, and since the Jews have to make a much harder struggle for existence than the non-Jews, city life is 2affecting their nerves more than the nerves of the Gentiles. But while the Gentiles can draw fresh physiological energies from the country by the constant migration from village to the city, the Jew can draw no such fresh forces. The economic background of the city is the village, and so is the physiological background; but the village is inhabited by Gentiles and not Jews. The attempt to create a Jewish farm population in America and other countries is but of recent date, and there is not yet a Jewish farm population to speak of. The migration of the farmer from the village to the city has a physiologically rejuvenating effect on the Gentile city population, but not on the Jewish population. They are dependent on the city only, and must make the best of the city life and cannot draw fresh blood from the village. Therefore, the Jew is more nervous than the Gentile, and therefore city life effects more the nerves of the Jew than of the Gentile, and therefore city life effects more the nerves of the Jew than of the Gentile. If not for the vast and inexhaustible vitality of the Jewish race brought about by the process of the survival of the fittest as a result of persecution, oppressions and pogroms, the Jewish people would be reduced to a small group, a remnant of 3an archaic race, and many more would be in lunatic asylums.

The Diaspora Jew, even if he is favored by Fate with wealth, has not all the advantages of life the Gentile has. He has always to be on his guard - lest the Gentiles would say that he is always more careful than the Gentile and must struggle harder for his existence than the Gentile. But unlike the Gentile, he cannot rejuvenate himself physiologically by drawing fresh blood from the village.

The progress of the industrialization of the world may be of an economic or of a political advantage to the Jew, but not of a physiological advantage. The more city life, the more breaking of Jewish nerves; the more hustling in the city, the more neurasthenics among the Jews. We confess that we do not believe very much in the success of the various attempts made to create a Jewish peasant class in the countries of the Diaspora, and therefore, physiologically the case of the Jews in the 4countries of the Diaspora is lost. The only place where the Jews can form a peasant class, and where they can establish a healthy and sound Jewish life, is Palestine. And therefore Zionism is not only of vital interest to the political and cultural future of our people, but also to its physiological future, for only in Palestine can the Jewish people undergo the process of physiological rejuvenation.

We are a nervous people, and in order to continue the struggle for our existence and to secure the future of our race, we must be a sound and healthy people. And we can regain our health and cure our nerves only in the country where we can establish a Jewish village. Country life in Palestine will strengthen not only our knees, but also our nerves; strengthen our muscles and make us strong enough to continue the struggle for existence. In the countries of the Diaspora, we keep alienists and nerve doctors busy, but living a sane and sound life in Palestine, the alienists and nerve doctors will be jobless - we, at least, we will not keep them busy, because our nerves will be healthy and strong.