The emigration societies formed in the beginning of 1882 counted in their ranks many advocates of Palestinian colonization.

Bitter literary feuds were waged between the "Americans" and "Palestinians." A young poet, Simon Frug[1], composed the following enthusiastic exodus march, which he prefaced by the biblical verse "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward" (Ex.

14.15): [Footnote 1: He became later a celebrated poet in Russian and Yiddish.
He died in 1916.] Thine eyes are keen, thy feet are strong, thy staff is firm-- why then, my nation, Dost thou on the road stop and droop, thy gray head lost in contemplation?
Look up and see: in numerous bands Thy sons return from all the lands.
Forward then march, through a sea of sorrow, Through a chain of tortures, towards the dawn of the morrow! Forward--to the strains of the song of days gone by! For future ages like thunder to us cry: "Arise, my people, from thy grave, And live once more, a nation free and brave!" And in our ears songs of a _new_ life ring, And hymns of triumph the storms to as sing.
This march voiced the sentiments of those who dreamed of the Promised Land--whether it be on the shores of the Jordan or on the banks of the Mississippi.
2.

PINSKER'S "AUTOEMANCIPATION" The conception of emigration as a means of national rejuvenation, which had sprung to life amidst the "thunder and lightning" of the pogroms, found a thoughtful exponent in the person of Dr.Leon Pinsker, a prominent communal worker in Odessa, who had at one time looked to assimilation as promising a solution of the Jewish problem.

In his pamphlet "Autoemancipation" (published in September, 1882), which is marked by profound thinking, Pinsker vividly describes the mental agony experienced by him at the sight of the physical slavery of the Jewry of Russia and the spiritual slavery of the emancipated Jewry of Western Europe.