Economic distress, political pressure, and social obloquy already drive us from our homes and from our graves. The Jews are already constantly shifting from place to place.
Do you know out of what the German Empire arose? Out of dreams, songs, fantasies and black-red-gold ribbons? Bismarck merely shook the tree that fantasies had planted.
Our first object is... the obtaining of sovereignty, assured by international law, over a portion of the globe sufficiently large to satisfy our just requirements.
The Jews had, as a matter of fact, long been all along the most ingenious entrepreneurs. It was only our own future that we had never built upon a business basis.
We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country .... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.
If anyone thinks that Jews can steal into the land of their fathers, he is deceiving either himself or others. Nowhere is the coming of Jews so promptly noted as in the historic home of the Jews, for the very reason that it is the historic home.
I believe I understand anti-Semitism which is a very complex movement. I see it as a Jew, but without hatred or fear. I recognize what is anti-Semitism is rude jesting, vulgar jealousy of métier, hereditary prejudice; but also what can be considered as in fact legitimate defence.
But we wish to give the Jews a Homeland. Not by dragging them ruthlessly out of their sustaining soil, but rather by removing them carefully, roots and all, to a better terrain.
When I remember thee in days to come, O Jerusalem, it will not be with pleasure. The musty deposits of 2,000 years of inhumanity, intolerance, and uncleanliness lie in the foul-smelling alleys... The amiable dreamer of Nazareth has only contributed to increasing the hatred... What superstition and fanaticism on every side!
What We want is to make it possible for our unfortunate people to live a life of industry for it is by steady work alone that we hope for our physical and moral rehabilitation. For this reason above all we have undertaken to rally our people around our ideal.
The Jewish question exists wherever the Jews live, however small their number. Where it does not exist it is imported by Jew immigrants. We naturally go where we are not persecuted, and, still persecution is the result of our appearance...By persecution we cannot be exterminated...the strong Jews turn proudly to their race when persecution bursts out. Entire branches of Judaism may disappear, break away; the tree lives.
Nothing prevents us from being and remaining the exponents of a united humanity, when we have a country of our own. To fulfill this mission we do not have to remain literally planted among the nations who hate and despise us.
In Paris... I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to "combat" anti-Semitism.