2 2 2 D O C U M E N T 2 0 8 S P E E C H A T R A L L Y 208. Speech at Rally for the Keren Hayesod in Berlin[1] [Einstein 1926k] Dated 4 March 1926[2] Published 9 March 1926 In: Keren Hayesod. Das Palästinawerk: eine Kundgebung deutscher Juden im ehemaligen Herrenhaus zu Berlin am 4. März 1926. Stenographischer Bericht. Berlin: Keren Hayesod, 1926, p. 18. Fundamentally, it does not comport with my ideal for race-based and tradition- based communities to specifically cultivate and emphasize their distinctiveness. However, if such a community is embattled, it must defend itself as a community so that its individual members can assert themselves physically and spiritually. Through association, it must be accomplished that the individual escapes spiritual dangers, which arise, of necessity, out of isolation. Whoever has clearly come to understand this must approve and encourage the association of all Jews in the shared work, even though he is, in principle, opposed to any nationalistic attitude.[3] For me, there is no doubt that with the current state of affairs, the development of Palestine is the only objective that has the appealing strength necessary to achieve an effective association of Jews. It is Herzl’s[4] immortal service to have been the first to clearly recognize this situation and to have drawn the practical con- sequences from this recognition. Therefore, in my opinion, every Jew who is deeply concerned about the health of the Jewish community as a whole and the dignity of Jews in general must coop- erate with all his might in the realization of Herzl’s ideal. The Jew who works for the Jewish community and the Jewish homeland in Pal- estine no more ceases to be German than the Jew ceases to be a Jew as a result of baptism and name change. The two affiliations are based on realities of different kinds. The distinction is not between Jew and German, but rather between upstand- ing and spineless. Whoever remains loyal to his origin, race, and tradition will also remain loyal to the state of which he is a citizen whoever is disloyal in the first case is also disloyal in the other.