Citation de Stefan Zweig “The dangerous dream of a Jewish state with cannons…” — jan. 1918

"

[Jeremiah] is my most sincere and important work, the only one I consider necessary for me in a higher sense. I would have liked to talk with you and find out how it is received in your national circles: as a profession of faith, or as a renunciation of the idea. For I am entirely clear and resolute: the more the dream threatens to become a reality, the dangerous dream of a Jewish state with cannons, flags, and decorations, the more I love the painful idea of the Diaspora, [and] love the Jewish fate more than Jewish well-being. It is not in well-being or fulfillment that this people has ever found its value—it asserts its strength only under oppression, its unity only in fragmentation. And it will fragment by coming together. What is a nation if not a transformed fate? And what remains of it when it escapes its destiny? Palestine would be an end point, the circle would close in on itself, it would be the end of a movement that has shaken Europe and the whole world. 

"