Just as in the bygone Middle Ages whenever Jewish suffering had reached a sad climax, so now too the persecuted nation found itself face to face with the problem of emigration.

And as if history had been anxious to link up the end of the nineteenth century with that of the fifteenth, the Jewish afflictions in Russia found an echo in that very country, which in 1492 had herself banished the Jews from her borders: the Spanish Government announced its readiness to receive and shelter the fugitives from Russia.

Ancient Catholic Spain held forth a welcoming hand to the victims of modern Greek-Orthodox Spain.

However, the Spanish offer was immediately recognized as having but little practical value.

In the forefront of Jewish interest stood the question as to the land toward which the emigration movement should be directed: toward the United States of America, which held out the prospect of bread and liberty, or toward Palestine, which offered a shelter to the wounded national soul.
While the Jewish writers were busy debating the question, life itself decided the direction of the emigration movement.