THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE Page 265
Chapter 7: Aliyah: Time to Go Home
 
 
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Aliyah 265

blishment, by the Zionist movement, and by the critical re- bviews of my book Time To Go Home (“An appeal to fear,” b“Hysterical,” “Intemperate”) that, once again, the unfortu- bnate Jews who did not want to listen would be lulled to sleep bby their leaders. The eras of Herzl and Jabotinsky would brepeat themselves, and this time the danger was far greater, bthe Holocaust having once occurred and having set a bdangerous precedent. The Wandering Jew was prepared to bwander all over the world except home. And this was the btheme of an article that I wrote for The Jewish Press in July, b1972, called “The Wandering Jew.”

b“These are the travels of the Children of Israel by which bthey went forth out of the Land of Egypt,” I wrote. “And bthey journeyed from Rameses and they camped in Sukkot band they journeyed from Sukkot and they camped in bEitam. . . . And they journeyed from Refidim and camped bin the Sinai Desert and they journeyed from the Sinai Desert band camped in Kivrot Hataava, and they journeyed from bKivrot Hataava and camped in Hazerot, and they journeyed bfrom Hazerot and camped in Ritma, and they journeyed bfrom Ritma and they camped in Rimon Paretz, and they bjourneyed from Rimon Paretz and they camped in Livna, band they journeyed from Livna and they camped in bRisa. . . .” (Numbers 33)

b“The wanderings of the Jews on their weary desert jour- bney home. The weary journey of the Wandering Jew bthrough history. It is not relegated merely to this one forty- byear period of the Jewish epoch. It is repeated constantly. It bis the story of the Jew in exile, never knowing more than a btransitory peace, never feeling more than a fleeting, inse- bcure moment of security. It is a story repeated endlessly, in bevery generation—not the least our own. It is tragic when bthe Jew is forced to journey from one camp to another. It is bludicrously pitiful when his wanderings assume the shape bthey do in the America of our times.

b“Thus will future chroniclers write of the mad wander- bings of the American Jew.

b“These are the travels of the American Children of Israel bby which they went forth from the land of Europe. . . . b 

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THE STORY OF THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE Page 265
Chapter 7: Aliyah: Time to Go Home