Sejarah Zionisme, 1600-1918/Volume 1/Bab 16

BAB XVI.

WACANA INGGRIS TERHADAP SANHEDRIN

Wacana Inggris pada Sanhedrin—F. D. Kirwan—Abraham Furtado—Rev. James Bicheno—Deklarasi Sanhedrin dan tanggapan Inggris—M. Diogène Tama—Pangeran de Ligne.

Kembali ke sejarah Inggris, kami kini mencetuskan untuk menelusuri penekanan yang dihadilkan di negara tersebut oleh Banding Palestina oleh Bonaparte tahun 1798 dan Proklamasi Sanhedrin pada 1807.

Wacana Inggris pada penekanan tersebut sangat jelas. Tak ada pertentangan yang bahkan timbul terhadap pemulihan negara Yahudi di Palestina: gagasan tersebut telah disambut di Inggris selama berabad-abad. Namun, wacana Inggris bertentangan untuk menjadikannya alt strategi atau politik di genggaman penakluk ambisius. Selain itu, wacana tersebut tak dilibatkan untuk memisahkan gagasan Pemulihan Israel dari emansipasi Yahudi. Sehingga, Sanhedrin sebetulnya dianggap langkah dini tentatif terhadap pemulihan, dan deklarasi dibuat oleh badan tersebut melawan aspirasi nasional Yahudi yang menghasilkan penekanan kejutan dan keberkehendakan. Pada kenyataannya, Deklarasi tersebut ditujukan untuk dijadikan penyangkalan kebangsaan Yahudi dalam aspek etika, sejarah, budaya atau agama-nya: ini lebih kepada janji kesetiaan politik. Sehingga Deklarasi tersebut, yang mengekspresikannya dalam istilah yang berlebihan, terhitung untuk mengejutkan dan membingungkan para teman pintar dari Yahudi di Inggris, dan menimbulkan kesalahpahaman.

F. D. Kirwan, penerjemah Inggris dari Parisian Sanhedrim, yang diterbitkan dalam bahasa Prancis oleh penyunting Yahudi-Prancis, M. Diogène Tama (Appendix xlii), berujar, dalam prakata-nya: “... Pandangan mutlak yang dimiliki oleh Bonaparte terhadap bangsa Yahudi adalah, sampai saat ini, terlibat dalam tantangan; sementara laju mendadak yang digerakkan olehnya terhadap mereka dapat dipertanyakan. Kala kami menganggap bahwa populasui Yahudi di Prancis dan Italia tak terhitung, oleh para perwakilan mereka sendiri, dengan jumlah lebih dari seratus ribu jiwa (jumlah kecil kala dibandingkan dengan populasi di negara-negara tersebut), mereka nampak kehilangan apa yang menjadi pergerakan besar yang dapat secara langsung dihasilkan kepada Bonaparte dari Yahudi yang mengerjakan pekerjaan persenjataan. Kami juga mengetahui bahwa rencana ambisi besarnya terhimpun pada hukum wajib militer; namun Yahudi menyesuaikan dengan mereka; mereka dapat melarikan keputusan mereka; dan bahwa seluruh pemuda Yahudi, dari usia layak, akan, dalam hal jumlah, membuat pengerahan layak terhadap pasukan kerahan Prancis.

“Pengerahan untuk menghimpun pekerjaan persenjataan, dilang oleh anggota utama Yahudi-Prancis, disamping selalu dipasangkan dengan rekomendasi kuat untuk mengikuti perdagangan dan peternakan; singkatnya, pekerjaan tersebut dilakuakn tanpa bangsa yang tak dapat memberadakan oleh dirinya sendiri, namun tentunya tak lebih berguna ketimbang golongan lain yang memberikan sejumlah kecil orang, yang menganggap sebuah kekaisaran sebagai negara mereka tempat pekerjaan tersebut dikerjakan.

“Kami mendapati rekomendasi yang sama yang sangat diberlakukan dalam jawaban M. Furtado kepada pedagang Yahudi dari Frankfort, yang dapat memiliki pilihan pekerjaan. Ia berkata, ‘Kami memiliki banyak pedagang dan bankir di antara kami, dan sejumlah kecil tukang dan peternak,—dan, di atas semuanya, sejumlah kecil prajurit’: namun jika warga mereka sepenuhnya mengisi cabang pekerjaan tersebut, apa yang dibutuhkan disini untuk peternak, tukang, dan prajurit dari mereka sendiri?

“Para perwakilan Yahudi berujar bahwa Bonaparte menyatakan gagasan regenerasi mereka, dan penebusan politik mereka, di tanah Mesir dan tepi Yordan. Ini tak kami ragukan; dan walau kami sempat malu untuk memegang pendirian luar biasa, kami merasakan sebuah keputusan bahwa pikiran besarnya menghimpun gagasan pendirian ulang mereka di Palestina, dan bahwa ini membentuk bagian rencananya terhadap Mesir, yang ia ketahui tak pernah ditinggalkan.

“No one will contend that this idea is too wild for his conception; it is, on the contrary, perfectly consonant with his love for extraordinary, dazzling enterprises; he acts in this even with more than his usual foresight, by attempting to prepare the Jews for the new situation he intends for them. It is with this view that he encourages them to follow those professions which are necessary for men forming a distinct nation in a land of their own; for certainly, a body wholly composed of merchants and traders could never exist as such....

“The answer to the sixth question, by which the French Jews acknowledge France as their country, without any restriction whatever, is a still more heinous dereliction of the tenets of the Mosaic law; for they give up, by it, the hope of the expected Messiah, and of the everlasting possession of the promised land of Canaan, which they deem a part of the sacred covenant between God and His chosen people.

“While we thus inculpate the Jewish deputies, it cannot be expected that we shall lay too great a stress on the fulsome and frequently impious flattery which characterizes all their productions....

“But flattery is the opiate of the guilty conscience; it sooths the pangs of remorse;...”

A similar view was expressed with considerable eloquence by the Rev. James Bicheno (1751‒1831), of Newbury, an Anabaptist minister who attained some distinction in his day through his works on the Prophecies, and of others on various subjects (Appendix xliii). He was the author of The Restoration Of The Jews: The Crisis Of All Nations;... 1800¹ (Appendix xliv).

This book is a valuable contribution to Christian pro-Zionist literature. The author is a great believer in the future of Israel and of Palestine, but he looks upon the problem mainly from a religious point of view, though he does not demand any conversion of Jews prior to their Restoration. Many of his conclusions are unacceptable, and others are incapable of proof, but even these are useful in so far as they may “stimulate the minds of rulers to meditation, and thus suggest to them new aspects¹ and new ways of inquiry”; and although there is little thought in his book, and some of its main themes are not developed with completeness or accuracy, the ingenuity which leads to so many suggestions, and the elegance which groups them so artistically, give the book vivacity and diversity. The author refers to the Parisian Sanhedrim, and accepts the view of the English translator, F. D. Kirwan.

Une antique nation, autrefois l’unique dépositaire des volontés du Très haut, et gouvernée par la divine législation de Moïse, est dispersée depuis plus de dix-sept Siécles sur la surface du globe. En rapport avec tous les Peuples, elle ne se mêle avec aucun, et elle semble exister pour voir passer devant elle le torrent des siécles qui les entraîne. Un tel phénomene serait inexplicable, s’il ne tenait qu’à l’ordre politique, car il était moralement impossible que les Juifs pûssent longtems exister, malgré toutes les vicissitudes et les persecutions dont ils furent les victimes chez les différentes nations de la terre. Dans combien de proscriptions ne furent-ils pas envelloppés! Pour ne parler que de la France, qui ne sait les haines, les mépris, les outrages, les confiscations, les bannissemens, les supplices même qu’ils y ont endurés? rien de cruel, rien de deshonorant ne leur a été épargné; de sorte que l’on serait tenté de croire que nos aïeux ne les comptaient point au nombre des humains. En vain quelques orateurs éloquens s’élevèrent contre une si criante injustice, leur voix ne fut point entendue, et les infortunés Israelites paraissaient à jamais condamnés à l’avilissement et à l’opprobre. Un nouveau Cyrus a paru, mais il a fait pour eux plus que l’ancien. S’il n’a pas reconstruit leur temple, il leur a donné une patrie et des loix protectrices de leur culte et de leurs droits civils; en les rendant citoyens et membres de la grande nation, il leur a rendu l’honneur; en leur donnant des mœurs, il les a garantis pour jamais du mépris des ses peuples. Pénétrés de reconnaissance pour de si précieux bienfaits, les enfans d’Israel se sont prosternés au pied du trône du Grand Napoléon, et les filles de Sion ont fait retentir les voûtes des temples de ces cantiques célébres que répétaient les échos du Jourdain, lors qu’au retour de sa captivité le peuple Hébreu célébrait les miséricordes du Seigneur. La gratitude des Israëlites français ne s’est pas bornée à de simples démonstrations, ils prouvent chaque jour qu’ils sont dignes des faveurs du Souverain par leur attachement à son auguste personne et par leur soumission à ses loix.

A Paris, au Bureau de l’Auteur des Fastes de la Nation Française, M. Ternisien d’Haudricourt, Rue de Seine N.º 27 F. Sᵗ. Germain.

“... If the Sanhedrim were to consult only on what was domestic, why invite the co-operation of all the Jews in Europe? The time was not come for the design to be exposed at full length. What grand scheme is developing, and whether Napoleon is devising the commercial aggrandizement of France, and the ruin of the English interest in the East, by the re-settlement of the Jews in their own land, time will discover. But it needs but little discernment, when, besides all this, the state of things both in Europe and in the East, and the character of the extraordinary man who has taken this people under his protection, are taken into consideration, to perceive, that something is intended more characteristic of the vast grasp of Napoleon’s ambition than that of squeezing out of the Jews a few millions of livres....”

Bicheno concludes thus: “... it must be allowed by all serious minds, ... that the great question relative to the future fortunes of the Jews, who, for so many ages, have been preserved as by a continued miracle, possesses considerable interest: ... that the Jews, after their present long captivity, will be gathered from all nations, and be again restored to their own country, and be made a holy and happy people. That their restoration will be effected at a time of great and general calamities.... That it is most likely they will be first put in motion by some foreign power, and that this power is some maritime one in these western parts of the world.... How long it is to the time when ‘the dry bones of the House of Israel’ will begin to move, it is impossible to say;... But although no one can say how near, or how distant, the time may be, when God will fulfil his promises to the Jewish nation; yet it is certain there never were so many reasons for concluding it not to be very far off, as at present. We live in awful times. We and our fathers have seen wars, but, since man learnt to shed blood, there never was one similar to the present, in which the nations are dashing each other to pieces.... Events the most alarming follow each other in quick succession.... Palestine itself is becoming the scene of contest; and that ferment, which has been productive of such unexpected and awful catastrophes in Europe, has reached the shores of Egypt and Syria.”¹

In conclusion, it may be pointed out that Bonaparte’s idea of the restoration of the Jews was not quite new in France. Some suggestions of the kind had been made in French literature before. Thus the Prince de Ligne¹ wrote, in his Memoirs upon the Jews, in 1797:

“After having traced to the Christian states their duties and their interests in regard to the amelioration of the condition of the Jews of Europe, we may prophesy what will happen in case they ignore this counsel.... If the Turks have a little common sense they will try and attract the Jews to them in order to make them their political, military and financial advisers, their police agents, their merchants, in short to become initiated by their advisers into all wherein lies the strength and weakness of the Christian states. Finally, the Sultan will sell to them the Kingdom of Judah, where they would act better than aforetimes.... The Jews who would have found again their country would be compelled to make therein flourish the arts, industry, agriculture and the commerce of Europe. Jerusalem, a horrible nest at present (this was written in 1797), giving a heartache to the pilgrims who come there now, would become a splendid capital. They would rebuild the Temple of Solomon upon its ruins. They would fix the waters of the torrents of Kidron, which would supply canals for circulation and exportation.”