StR,—Since Mr. Gilmour has been demanding factual argument, I trust
he will persuade Mr. Erskine Childers to back up his assertion that Ahad Ha'am was opposed to Zionist political colonisation in Palestine. If he cannot give the facts, I would invite Mr. Childers to apologise for being an evasive humbug in taking the name of a great man in vain. Ahad Ha'am opposed Herzl's solely political colon- isation not because it went too far, but because it did not go far enough, because it was not accom- panied by emphasis on Judaism as its essential spirit and dynamic living philosophy without which any purely political programme would lose inspiration and purpose. (And he was, and is, right). Ahad Htiam ridiculed and scorned those, like you, who advocated 'Zionist' colonies in Africa and elsewhere (see letter 21 in A had Ha'am, East and West Library.') He stipulated that settlement must be in Palestine but that it must be selective in personnel, Jewish in spirit, because only so could it grow, and grow in the right way. His Zionism was not to be determined by numbers but neither was it to be limited by num- bers. He wanted the best Jews to go and as many of them as possible. However much he differed from Herzl's purely political plan he never forgot, as Leon Simon points out in his Introduction, 'that there cannot be a Jewish State which is not also a Jews' State.'—Yours faithfully, [Erskine Childers is in Africa; his reply to corre- spondents may be delayed.—Editor, Spectator.]
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