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Anti-Semitism has likewise taught many educated Jews how to find the way back to their people. It has had the effect of a severe ordeal, which the weak cannot withstand, but from which the strong step forth stronger, or rather with a keener self-consciousness. It is not correct to say that Zionism is merely a gesture of defiance or an act of despair in the face of Anti-Semitism. Doubtless many an educated Jew has been constrained only through Anti-Semitism to attach himself again to Judaism, and he would again fall away if his Christian compatriots would welcome him as a friend. But in the case of most Zionists, Anti-Semitism was only a stimulus causing them to reflect upon their relation to the nations, and their reflection has led them to results that must remain for them a permanent intellectual and spiritual possession, even if Anti-Semitism were to vanish completely from the world.