our land to us to-morrow, did we but essay to get it.  There are no obstacles—­but ourselves.  It is not the heathen that keeps us out of our land—­it is the Jews, the rich and prosperous Jews—­Jeshurun grown fat and sleepy, dreaming the false dream of assimilation with the people of the pleasant places in which their lines have been cast.  Give us back our country; this alone will solve the Jewish question.  Our paupers shall become agriculturists, and like Antaeus, the genius of Israel shall gain fresh strength by contact with mother earth.  And for England it will help to solve the Indian question—­Between European Russia and India there will be planted a people, fierce, terrible, hating Russia for her wild-beast deeds.  Into the Exile we took with us, of all our glories, only a spark of the fire by which our Temple, the abode of our great One was engirdled, and this little spark kept us alive while the towers of our enemies crumbled to dust, and this spark leaped into celestial flame and shed light upon the faces of the heroes of our race and inspired them to endure the horrors of the Dance of Death and the tortures of the Auto-da-fe.  Let us fan the spark again till it leap up and become a pillar of flame going before us and showing us the way to Jerusalem, the City of our sires.  And if gold will not buy back our land we must try steel.  As the National Poet of Israel, Naphtali Herz Imber, has so nobly sung (here he broke into the Hebrew Wacht Am Rhein, of which an English version would run thus): 

    “THE WATCH ON THE JORDAN.

    I.

    “Like the crash of the thunder
    Which splitteth asunder
      The flame of the cloud,
    On our ears ever falling,
    A voice is heard calling
      From Zion aloud: 
    ‘Let your spirits’ desires
    For the land of your sires
      Eternally burn. 
    From the foe to deliver
    Our own holy river,
      To Jordan return.’ 
    Where the soft flowing stream
    Murmurs low as in dream,
      There set we our watch. 
    Our watchword, ’The sword
    Of our land and our Lord’—­
      By the Jordan then set we our watch.

    II.

    “Rest in peace, loved land,
    For we rest not, but stand,
    Off shaken our sloth. 
    When the boils of war rattle
    To shirk not the battle,
      We make thee our oath. 
    As we hope for a Heaven,
    Thy chains shall be riven,
      Thine ensign unfurled. 
    And in pride of our race
    We will fearlessly face
      The might of the world. 
    When our trumpet is blown,
    And our standard is flown,
      Then set we our watch. 
    Our watchword, ’The sword
    Of our land and our Lord’—­
      By Jordan then set we our watch.

    III.