Mila 18 - Leon Uris [29]
Then came the Lovers of Zion, the first practical move to organize colonies in the Holy Land.
The thousand religious groups, led by their rabbis, fought the new radicals who departed from traditional Jewish living, but the brush fires ran wild and each new pogrom made the desire for freedom more intense. Writers, dreamers, angry young men threw off the shackles of the past.
Theodor Herzl molded the hundred different ideas of a thousand years into a simple paper called “The Jewish State,” setting forth the credo that the Jews would never reach a status of equality until the re-establishment of their ancient homeland was achieved.
Herzl was hailed as a new messiah by some, was scorned as a new Sabbatai Zvi by others, but the father of modern Zionism had planted the seed of the new tree of hope for the Jews of the Pale.
As anti-Jewish riots spread over Europe at the end of the century, the urgency of Zionism heightened.
It was into this world of pogrom and flaming new ideas that Israel Androfski was born at the close of the century. World War I brought freedom to redeclare the state to Poland behind the legions of Pilsudski. Israel Androfski and most of Poland’s Jews listened to the words and ideals of Pilsudski and believed that after nineteen hundred years their emancipation had come. The Socialists and idealists rallied all of Poland behind him.
... And then Marshal Pilsudski abandoned the Jews and peasants and the workers of Poland to attain dictatorship with the age-old powers of the feudal gentry, the colonel’s clique, and the Church behind him. ...
To the Jews, another shattering disillusion as riots and unfair taxation and trade restrictions heightened against them.
“Andrei! What is! You carrying rocks in your pockets and fighting goyim in Krasinski Gardens?”
“Poppa, they started it. They attacked me when we began our deliveries.”
“I told you to run from the goyim.”
“I will not run.”
“God help me! God help me for a son like this. You listen to me. You will go to synagogue and pray and you will be a good Jew!”
They accepted Andrei outside the Jewish area because he could pit his strength against them and win. But behind his back he knew he was always “the Jew.” Always the Jew, no matter what he attained. Always the wall between them. Never able to be accepted ... what he craved the most eluded him.
“I have decided to join the Zionists, Poppa.”
“Those radicals! My son, my son. You have not been to synagogue for six months. You are now twenty years of age and you have not found out yet that the price of being a Jew calls for patience and prayer and acceptance of your position.”
“I’ll never accept it. Oh, Poppa, I cannot find what I want in the Talmud. I must look for myself. ...”
“Andrei,” Alexander Brandel said. “You must accept the commission in the Ulany. Do you realize what it means to all of us to have one of our boys, a Zionist, a Ulany officer? It has never happened. And pray God you’ll make the Polish soccer team for the Olympics in Berlin. Andrei ... do it for us.”
“If they would only accept me ... as ... not some sort of a freak!”
“I know, Andrei, how hard it is to carry this battle for us, but your back is strong and we need you.”
“We are like a bird a long way from home, circling aimlessly ... looking for a place to light and build a nest. But as soon as we cry we are driven from the tree and we must circle again. ...”
Israel Androfski lay on his deathbed and rasped to his bereaved boy, “And have you won your great battle for acceptance? Andrei ... return to a good Jewish life before it is too late. ...”
What is