Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3A GUIDE FOR THE STUDENT OF ZIONISM CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY SURVEY The Jews are a people with a continuous and recorded history of more than three thousand years. This people numbers today nearly fourteen million souls. The greater part of this dispersed people is living in national concentration within a number of countries, in distinct and self-contained communities that are kept separate by the inner pressure of a peculiar way of life or a peculiar emotional character, both preserved to a greater or less extent by religious sanction, and frequently by the outer pressure of prejudice or special legislation. The millions of Jews in the world are descendants of the nation in Palestine that was conquered and that was dispersed two thousand years ago. They are as distinct a national element as the Belgian or Polish people, since they have preserved their national individuality. No one can point to a moment of time at which the Jewish people lost their national character. Besides a purity of race as great as that of any nation living on its own soil, the Jewish people has also preserved at least four of the chief factors of national life; namely, laws, customs, history, and language. A fifth national factor, religion, has been the means of preserving the other four. Religion has therefore been the chief national asset of the Jew. The Jews Recognized Everywhere as Distinct People Certain portions of the Jewish people have lost national will and energy, and it is this fact that has led to the use of the word "race" instead of "nation" or "people" to designate the Jews. It is a degrading term, for it implies that the Jews have kept the body but lost the soul of nationalism. The modern anti-Semitism of Western Europe is a direct outcome of this weakening of national will, for anti-Semitism is no...