Chapter 13: The Birth of Zionism

The Ghettoization of Jews in Europe

In the Middle Ages, many Christians held the Jewish people collectively responsible for killing Jesus. During the Middle Ages in Europe there was full-scale persecution, which included expulsions, forced conversions and massacres. The persecution hit its first peak during the Crusades between 1096 and 1320, where Jews were subjected to frequent massacres. In 1396, 100,000 Jews were expelled from France; and in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Most of the expelled Jews fled to Poland. From the thirteenth century, Jews in Catholic states were required to wear clothing identifying their religion. In Spain and Portugal, Jews were forced to convert to Christianity; however, many continued to secretly practice Jewish rituals. The church responded by creating the inquisition in 1478 and by expelling all remaining Jews in 1492. In 1542, the inquisition expanded to include the papal states. In 1516, the state of Venice decreed that Jews would only be allowed to reside in a walled area adjacent to Venice called the Ghetto. In 1555 the Pope decreed that Jews in Rome were to face similar restrictions. The requirement for Jews to live in ghettos spread across Europe. The ghettos were highly overcrowded and heavily taxed.

The persecuted Jews in Western Europe began migrating to Poland in the four­teenth century, and from there they moved to present­day Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus. In 1569, after the union of Poland­Lithuania, the new state held the majority of the Jewish population of Europe. The Jews there were under royal protection, enjoying communal autonomy. However, by the mid-seventeenth century, their situation declined. They became oppressed, and were forbidden to own land. They served the Catholic Polish landowners, managing their properties and collecting taxes from the Orthodox peasants.

In 1772, Poland was forced to cede considerable parts of its territory to its powerful neighbors: Prussia, Austria, and Russia. As a result, by the end of the eighteenth cen­ tury Russia had the largest Jewish community in the world. The Russian government of Catherine II considered the large Jewish population of the new territories to be a threat, which prompted her to create the Jewish Pale of Settlement, a territory where Jews were allowed to settle and pursue a wide range of economic activities. The Russian government prohibited Jews from living anywhere except in the Pale of Settlement, which included the Baltic provinces, most of Ukraine and Belarus, and the northern shore of the Black Sea.

The French Revolution was a major turning point in the history of the Jews in Europe. According to the new ideals of the French Revolution, all individuals residing in any particular state (that is, citizens) should have equal rights. The French Revolution’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 guaran­ teed freedom of religion and free exercise of worship. In 1791, France became the first country in Europe to grant Jews legal equality. In 1799, during the French invasion of the Arab world, Napoleon Bonaparte issued a proclamation offering Palestine as a homeland to Jews under France’s protection. This was also a way to establish a French presence in the region. In 1806, Napoleon passed a number of measures supporting the position of the Jews in the French empire. In conquered countries, he abolished laws restricting Jews to ghettos. He believed that the solution to the Jewish question was through assimilation. Emancipation spread rapidly; the Rome ghetto was opened and the Jews of Italy were granted full rights. Between 1808 and 1812, Prussia, the leading German state, granted Jews full legal emancipation.

During the nineteenth century, citizen-based states became the norm in most of Europe. The different sectors of European society (nobles and clergy, merchants and artisans, peasants and laborers) had to adjust to the new model in different ways, depending upon what they gained or lost.

For the Jews, adjusting to the new system was not a simple matter. For most of their history, Jews had been easily identifiable as a distinct social group: they often differed from the non-Jews in whose midst they lived not only in religion but in language, dress, eating habits, neighborhoods of residence, educational and social welfare systems, and occupation. Moreover, Jews who lived in one place often shared certain cultural attributes with Jews who lived in another part of the world. 26 In other words, they were considered to be a distinctive group. The new ideal, with its insistence on equality before the law, required them to gradually abandon the cultural characteristics that distinguished them from their neighbors.

However, it was not up to the Jews to enjoy the benefits of citizenship. In all European states, in the decades following the French revolution, citizens as a whole had to decide whether Jews could be admitted into their ranks. Many Europeans had doubts about whether Jews were worthy of being accepted as equal citizens. This matter was the subject of debate, the outcome of which varied from country to country.

The overwhelming majority of Jews lived in the two great multinational empires of Eastern Europe: Austria­Hungary (more than two million) and Russia (over five million). In those countries, the situation was different, because neither of them followed the post-Napoleonic model of Western and Central Europe. The populations in the two empires were split along ethnolinguistic lines, including Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Croats, and Ukrainians. Several national movements evolved calling for independent states, rather than supporting a unified movement toward transforming the empires into citizen-states.

Eastern European Jews continued to be set apart from non-Jews in the two empires, having their own social and cultural characteristics. As a result, the Eastern European populations felt that the Jews did not belong to them. In response, some Jewish leaders advocated mass immigration to Western Europe and the Americas, where Jews would have greater opportunity for assimilation. Others preferred to work with non-Jewish liberals to transform Russia and Austria-Hungary into citizen-based states along Western European lines. Those Jews were driven by the principles of socialism, which held that the proper relationship between states and societies ought to be determined by class, and not on the basis of ethnolinguistic identity. Growing numbers of Jews in Eastern Europe felt that they comprised a nation themselves, and they should find some territory beyond Europe, open for immigration, where they could relocate. Once they become a majority, they would be able to constitute their own mono-national state.

Jewish Assimilation in Central and Western Europe

In Central and Western Europe, the European Enlightenment inspired several Jewish scholars to establish an intellectual movement aimed at integrating Jews into European society. This new movement became known as Haskalah, or the Jewish Enlightenment. It started among secular scholars in Germany; Moses Mendelssohn (1726–1789), who is considered the father of Haskalah, was held by the liberal Jewish reformers of the nineteenth century to be the greatest Jew of modern times. Haskalah later spread to Eastern Europe, Lithuania, and Russia. The followers of this movement were called the maskilim, or “the wise.” They believed that the solution of the Jewish question was through assimilation into European society.

The Haskalah movement emphasized secular knowledge, modern languages, and practical professional training in order to prepare Jews for integration into society. They encouraged shifting to skilled jobs such as crafts and agriculture instead of moneylending and trade. The maskilim thought this would improve both the character and the position of Jews in society. They established Haskalah schools where the curriculum included European languages, arithmetic, geography, history, and art. They included Jewish studies in their curricula, but emphasized secular knowledge. They aimed to displace the Torah from its central position in Jewish education, removing references to Zion or Jerusalem and rewording traditional prayers that referred to a national redemption of the Jewish people in the messianic age. The Haskalah led to the revival of the Hebrew language as a replacement for Yiddish.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were about two and half mil­lion Jews in the world, some 90 percent of whom lived in Europe. There were roughly two hundred thousand in Germany, mainly in the eastern part of Germany, which was acquired by Prussia as a result of the partition of Poland. Most of them lived in the countryside, as few were permitted to live in the big cities. In 1815, only three thousand Jews lived in Berlin. Most of them were traders, middlemen between the cities and villages. In Berlin, the majority of the banks were in Jewish hands.

The beginnings of social and cultural assimilation took place in the early eighteenth century. In the first half of the eighteenth century, many German Jews spoke and wrote in German. They sent their children to non-Jewish schools and modernized their religious services. The messianic and nationalist elements of the Jewish religion were dropped. Organs and mixed choirs appeared in the synagogues. Mendelssohn and the Haskalah had paved the way for de­Judaization. During the last three decades of the eighteenth century, half the Jewish population of Berlin community converted to Christianity. In some communities, almost all the leading families converted. 27

The 1850s and 1860s witnessed significant gains for the Jews. They attained full civil equality in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Britain, and Scandinavia. During this period, the Jews achieved great successes in all fields of business, industry, banking, and free professions. In Berlin in 1905, they constituted less than 5 percent of the population but provided 30 percent of the municipal tax revenue. The Berlin Jewish community, which had numbered about three thousand in 1816, grew to fifty-four thousand in 1854. Several Jews held high government positions in Germany, France, Italy, and Hungary. The Jews of Central and Western Europe felt that at last they had found a secure haven, and now, after long suffering, had unlimited freedom to develop their talents. This new self-confidence and prosperity were reflected in the life and activities of the Jewish communities. The newly established synagogues were impressive and more dignified. Many Jewish students were admitted to universities, which resulted in a great influx of Jews into the free professions. In the field of science, Jews were making a contribution out of proportion to their numbers. The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed continuous political and social progress; many Jews held prominent government positions in France, Holland, and Italy. 28

Jewish assimilation in France went much further; French Jews were integrated into culture and society much faster than in other countries. In Britain, emancipation came gradually; still, the British believed that there was no danger that Jews would become predominant, as their numbers, compared to those in Germany, were smaller, and they contributed far less to cultural life.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Europe and North America witnessed a major economic depression triggered by the financial crisis of 1873. Many banks and stock companies defaulted. Germany suffered from a widespread decline in all aspects of its economy on the heels of the great boom of the early 1870s. The majority of Germans attributed this decline to individual Jews who had played a prominent part in speculation, accusing them of being involved in risky transactions. These beliefs triggered a new wave of anti-Semitism aimed at limiting Jewish influence in public life. Several publications introduced by prominent German intellectuals argued that the penetration of Jewish influence had already gone too far and too deep; the Jews had made the Germans slaves and had become the dictators of the empire. Many voices demanded radical measures ranging from excluding Jews from certain professions even to the expulsion of all the Jews from Germany. German Jews were shocked by this new wave of Judeophobia. Attacks against Jews prior to the nineteenth century had focused on their religion (i.e., the Jews had killed Christ and rejected his mission). But the new attacks focused on ethnicity: the character of the Jews as a race. According to this new doctrine, the racial characteristics were immutable; a Jew would continue to be a Jew, and could not be transformed into a German. 29

A few of the Haskalah leaders considered the new wave of anti-Semitism a turning point in the history of the Jewish enlightenment and concluded that the new attacks meant the end of assimilation. This meant assimilation would not be the answer to the Jewish question. But the majority of educated German Jews continued to be­ lieve in assimilation; they had been thoroughly Germanized. The overwhelming majority of Western Jews were optimistic about assimilation and were unwilling to abandon assimilation into European society as a goal. 30

Several pamphlets and articles published in Central and Western Europe between the 1840s and 1860s stated that assimilation would not solve the Jewish question: there was nowhere that Jews were welcomed or loved. The Jews were neither Germans nor Slavs, neither French nor Greek. The most important of these was published in 1862 by Moses Hess under the title “The Revival of Israel”; it later became known as “Rome and Jerusalem.”

Early Zionists in Western Europe

Zionism emerged in Europe in the 19th century in response to anti-Semitism. Its early thinkers made it clear that it was a movement based on politics and race, not religion.

Moses Hess (1812–1875)

Moses Hess was born in Bonn, in 1812. His father, an Orthodox Jew, was a wealthy merchant. On his mother’s side, Hess descended from a line of rabbis and scholars. In 1845 he joined the communist party, and under the influence of Marx began to preach the gospel of communism advocating the class struggle.

Hess was influenced by the writings of the Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz (History of the Jews from the Oldest Times to the Present), published in the 1850s. Graetz’s writings were behind Hess’s Zionist ideology.

The advocates of assimilation were convinced that anti-Semitism reflected the dying convulsions of the old order. Hess did not share their confidence; on the contrary, he believed that racial anti-Semitism was a deep, instinctive force, far more powerful than any rational argument. He stated in his book: “The Germans hate the religion of the Jews less than they hate their race . . . Neither religious reform nor baptism, neither Enlightenment nor Emancipation, will open the gates of social life to the Jews . . .” Jews might become naturalized citizens, but they would never convince others in Europe of their total separation from Judaism, as the nations of Europe had always regarded the existence of Jews in their midst as an anomaly. 31

Hess’s answer to the Jewish question was a return to what he called “the land,” a Jewish state in Palestine. The hope of a political rebirth for the Jewish people should be kept alive, until political conditions in the Middle East became ripe for the colonization of Palestine. France, he believed, would undoubtedly help them to establish their colonies, which might one day extend from Suez to Jerusalem, and from the banks of the Jordan to the shores of the Mediterranean. Hess predicted that the majority of the Jews of Western Europe would remain where they lived. But many thousands of Eastern European Jews would emigrate to Palestine. He also predicted that the new state would be basically socialist in character; the land would be owned wholly by the nation. 32

Heinrich Graetz (1817–1891)

The Jewish historians of the nineteenth century played a major role in the invention of the Zionist nationalist project by reconstructing the biblical stories and presenting the Jews as a race and a biological group. This Jewish cultural revivalism and renaissance, which began in the 1850s, reinvented Judaism as the ideology of a nation than a religion. 33 The Jewish historians Heinrich Graetz and Simon Dubnow played a major role in the invention of the Jewish nation.

Graetz is one of several Jewish historians who invented the idea of a Jewish nation and a Jewish race and gave Zionism what it needed to build its ideology and maintain its course. These historians had the Old Testament as their main reference. They turned the mythologies into a history book. In the 1850s, Graetz published five volumes under the title History of the Jews from the Oldest Times to the Present. Although Graetz was never a complete Zionist, he formed the national mold for the writing of Jewish history. He introduced the narrative of the Old Testament as being the history of the Jewish people; however, he made some omissions and emphasized certain segments.

Simon Dubnow (1860–1941)

Simon Dubnow, a native of Belarus, was Graetz’s successor. The Old Testament was still his reference; while he admitted that the Bible was full of imaginary tales, he insisted that its historical core was trustworthy. He claimed the contradictions of the text were due to the fact that some parts were written by Judeans and others by Ephraimites. He would always prefer the “truth” of the Bible over actual archaeological evidence.

Julius Wellhousen (1844–1918)

In 1882 the well-known biblical scholar Julius Wellhousen published the Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (a book authored by Ernest Renan), which became the most authoritative biblical commentary of its time. Wellhousen summarized a century of research that had attempted to date the composition of different parts of the Bible. He doubted the historicity of some of the biblical stories and stated that certain key passages were written long after the events they described. As he saw it, the Jewish religion had developed in stages, and every layer in the Pentateuch indicated a different date of composition; further, a major part of the Old Testament was written after the return from the Babylonian exile. This meant that the narrative of the ancient history of the Jews was not the culture of a mighty and superb nation but that of a tiny bloodless sect that had returned from Babylonia. This opened the way to challenging the veracity of the heroic stories about the origin of the Jewish nation.

Jewish Assimilation in Eastern Europe

The majority of the Jews in Europe were in Eastern European countries. At the end of the nineteenth century, more than five million Jews lived in Russia, ten times as many as in Germany. They were concentrated in the western part of the empire. Only about two hundred thousand were permitted to live outside the Pale of Settlement. The majority of the Russian Jews were without a definite occupation, living hand to mouth. Each morning they gathered in the marketplace or in front of the synagogue, waiting for any kind of work.

In 1840s, the Russian government became involved in Jewish education. There were no Jewish secondary schools, and those who continued their studies went to non-Jewish institutions. The support of the authorities of secular Jewish education encouraged many Jews to publicly express their identification with the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) movement. Although maskilim (educated adherents of the Haskalah) remained a small minority, their influence grew significantly and they became more effective, especially when many of them took up teaching positions in the government schools.

In 1856, under the rule of Alexander II, a new era began in the history of Haskalah. The new regime rescinded many reactionary policies. A series of laws were passed allowing Jews whom the authorities regarded as “useful” to live outside the Pale: wealthy merchants, skilled craftsmen, and graduates of universities and technical colleges, as well as physicians, pharmacists, and midwives. The ongoing industrialization and modernization of Russia opened up great opportunities for Jews. Those who mastered the Russian language, and possessed capital and talent, were invited to take part in the development of the Russian economy, which led to further integration and assimilation in the Russian community. A Jewish intelligentsia began to rise in Russia, characterized by their mastery of the Russian language, close acquaintance with Russian literature, and identification with the Russian people and Russian culture.

In the 1860s, as Russia became more industrialized, the poor urban population— Jews and non-Jews alike—suffered from the loss of their traditional sources of livelihood. The Russian government implemented a program of establishing farming communities for the urban poor. About forty thousand Jews moved to these agricultural communes in Ukraine. Subsequently, the French Jewish organization Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU) purchased farmland in Russia and trained Jews to work on farms there. Between 1881 and 1900, some fifty colonies and training schools for Jewish farmers were established by the AIU and other western Jewish agencies in rural areas of North and South America, including Louisiana, Oregon, and Argentina. 34

After the assassination of Alexander II and the accession of Alexander III in 1881, the old restrictions were reimposed, and persecution continued until the 1917 revolution. In April–June of 1881, shortly after the murder of Alexander II, vicious pogroms started in several Russian cities, inside and outside the Pale, and continued through 1883 and 1884. Large numbers of Jews were killed or injured by fanatical mobs, and much of their property was destroyed. The government did little to provide protection. A second wave of pogroms erupted in 1903, reaching a climax in October 1905, when, during twelve days of riots, 810 Jews were killed.

The last quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed a rising wave of anti-Semitism that swept across the pages of the Russian press. Whereas previously Jews had been accused of self-segregation and lack of education, now educated Jews were accused of pushing their way into key positions in the Russian economy. During this period, Haskalah leaders realized that their movement had reached a dead end, offering no solutions to the Jewish question. So they abandoned the idea of assimilation and advocated for emigration to safer countries as the preferred solution. The question of whether and where to emigrate became the subject of debate among the leaders of the Haskalah movement. The Russian-educated maskilim of Odessa and southern Russia tended to choose America, whereas the traditional Jews of Lithuania and White Russia were attracted to the idea of a Jewish refuge in Palestine.

It is estimated that between 1882 and 1914 about two and a half million Jews left Eastern Europe. The majority of the emigrants ended up on the safe shores of America; a much smaller number settled in Western Europe and Britain. 35 The first organized wave of Zionist immigration to Palestine, which became known as the first Aliyah, began in 1882. Although twenty­five thousand immigrants entered Palestine between 1882 and 1903, only five thousand of them survived the hard­ ships and stayed in Palestine. Between 1904 and 1914, during the second wave of immigration (second Aliyah), thirty thousand new Jewish immigrants entered Palestine. Most of them stayed and established collective agricultural settlements known as kib- butzim. They built, on a small scale, a new society based on their European socialist ideals. Chaim Weizmann and the other leaders of the Russian Zionists were behind this project. The immigrants established a new city called Tel Aviv (meaning “hill of spring”). In 1909 they formed a military defense force called the Hashomer (watch- men) to defend the new villages. By 1914 there were approximately eighty­-five thou­sand Jews in Palestine. In the first six months of 1914 alone, six thousand Jews settled in Palestine. In early 1917, some twelve thousand Jewish settlers were evacuated by the Ottoman authorities on the grounds that they were not Turkish citizens.

Early Eastern European Zionists

Perez Smolenskin (1842–1885)

Perez Smolenskin was the first among the Russian Jewish intellectuals to express his doubts about the chances of improving the lives of Russian Jews through assimilation. He proposed a mass exodus of Russian Jews to safer countries. While the majority of the emigrants believed that America was the ideal destination, he advocated emigration to Palestine—not as a messianic vision, but as the best solution to an immediate material problem. He believed that Palestine was a preferable destination compared to North or South America because of its relative proximity to Russia, as well as the lower cost of acquiring land. 36 Since the 1850s, Palestine had experienced economic growth; Western businessmen seeking investment opportunities were visiting the country in growing numbers, as were Christian tourists. In 1860, the Russian Orthodox Church built a cathedral, hospital, and hostel for pilgrims outside Jerusalem’s walls. In 1870, German missionaries built a hospital, an orphanage, and a school for girls outside the city. German colonists established settlements near Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa. In the 1870s, French missionaries built a large monastery and a convent. In 1880, American and Swedish Christians founded an American colony north of Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. 37

Moshe Leib Lilienblum (1843–1910)

Lilienblum in his earlier years was one of the sharpest critics of the Talmud, and an advocate of socialism. After the new wave of anti-Semitism, he proposed in his writings the emigration of the Jews of Eastern Europe to Palestine, where they would no longer be strangers:

During the age of faith we were foreigners in Europe because of our religion; now, in the age of nationalism, we are foreign because of our ethnic origins. We are Semites among Aryans, a Palestinian tribe in lands belonging to the peoples of Europe Why should we go to America, where we will still be foreigners, and not to our ancestral homeland? . . . Palestine can be our salvation forever! Our aim must be to stop being foreigners, and once we return bit by bit to the land of our forebears we shall no longer be so. 38

Leon Pinsker (1821–1891)

Pinsker, born in the Polish town of Tomaszow Lubelski, grew up in Odessa. He graduated from Odessa University with a degree in law, and from Moscow University with a degree in medicine. He was one of the most prominent leaders of the Haskalah movement. He played a major rule in the Society for the Spread of Education among the Jews of Russia. After the pogrom of 1881 he advocated mass Jewish emigration from Russia, and for the remaining nine years of his life he was the most prominent figure of the Hoveve Zion movement. In 1882 he published his famous pamphlet titled Auto-Emancipation:

The Jews comprise a distinctive element among the nations under which they dwell, and as such can neither assimilate nor be readily digested by any nation. In seeking to fuse with other peoples they
deliberately renounced to some extent their own nationality. Yet no- where did they succeed in obtaining from their fellow-citizens recognition as natives of equal status. . . .

The goal of our present endeavors must be not the “Holy Land” but a land of our own. There we shall take with us the most sacred possessions . . .

Pinsker proposed that the existing societies must convoke a national congress or directorate to represent Jewish interests. The first task of this national institute would be to find territory, and to acquire a tract of land sufficient for the settlement of several million Jews. This tract might form a small territory in North America, or a sovereign Pashlik in Asiatic Turkey.

Pinsker relentlessly continued his argument that even though Jews had lived in Europe for generations, they still remained aliens. Even if they were legally emancipated, they would not be socially emancipated and accepted as equals. He insisted that the Russian Jews would have to emigrate unless they wanted to re­ main parasites and be exposed to constant pressure and persecution. But since no other country was likely to open its gates to a mass immigration, they needed a home of their own. 39

Pinsker wrote his pamphlet when he was past sixty. His appeal received wide acceptance from Jewish writers in Russia, but not from the German Jewry. During 1881 and 1882, associations for the promotion of Jewish emigration to Palestine were founded independently in a number of Eastern European cities. At the beginning there was no coordination among them. Each group sent emissaries to Palestine to find out what conditions exist there. Between 1882 and 1898, Pinsker devoted great efforts toward these associations. A central organization was established at a conference in Katowice (then Kattowitz) in 1884 attended by thirty-six delegates; the group became known as Hoveve Zion (Lovers of Zion). Pinsker was elected president of the new organization. In 1890, Hoveve Zion was registered in Russia as an association for the promotion of farming and manufacture in Palestine and Syria.

Asher Ginzberg (Ahad Ha’am) (1856–1927)

Asher Ginzberg, a Ukrainian Jew who was the son of a wealthy merchant, studied the typical curriculum of traditional Jewish religious texts while teaching himself modern languages, literature, and philosophy. In 1884, he became active in the Hoveve Zion movement. He criticized the organization for sending settlers to Palestine before arming them with strong, clear national ideology. In 1889, he helped in establishing a society called B’nei Moshe (Children of Moses) made up of young intellectuals who believed in Jewish national cultural values. Writing under the pseudonym “Ahad Ha’am,” he published over one hundred essays presenting his ideas. He urged Zionist leaders to turn the Zionist movement from a political to a cultural direction. In 1907 he moved to London to serve as a mentor to the Zionists whose contacts with the British government helped to produce the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Ginzberg, unlike Lilienblum and Pinsker, did not value Palestine for its potential contribution to Jews’ safety but for its “Jewishness”: the set of cultural attributes that could justify recognition of Jews as nation. In order to be a true nation, Jews in all countries needed to be united by something more than religion.

After the 1897 congress, Ahad Ha’am stated that Jews did not need an independent state, but only the creation in their native land of a good-sized settlement of Jews working without hindrance in every branch of civilization, from agriculture and handicrafts to science and literature, which would eventually become the center of the nation, contributing to the common stock of humanity a great national culture, the “fruit of a people living by the light of its own spirit.” 40

The Zionist Movement

Zionism emerged in the late nineteenth century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement in response to the persecution of the Jews in Eastern Europe. The Zionists aimed to create a Jewish state in Palestine in order to end the suffering of the Jews and to protect them from the pogroms they were being subjected to in Europe. They were influenced by the European romantic nationalism of the mid-nineteenth century. The Zionist leaders were inspired by the German version of nationalism. They adopted German nationalist principles such as biology, racial purity, historical roots, and a mystical attitude to the land. Although the Zionist movement was supposed to be secular, it utilized religion to promote its ideology, on the basis that the Jews were the Chosen People of God, and that Yahweh had prom­ ised them the land since Abraham, and repeated his promise to his descendants. Zionism secularized and nationalized Judaism. The Zionist thinkers claimed the biblical territory and reinvented it as the cradle of their new nationalist movement.

The first organized wave of Zionist emigration, which became known as the first Aliyah, began in 1882. The most active group of Hoveve Zion was the Bilu, a group of Russian Jews founded by high school and university students in Kharkiv led by Israel Belkind. Out of three hundred members, only forty reached Constantinople; of those, only sixteen ultimately arrived in Palestine. At the beginning they worked at Mikve Israel, the agricultural school established in 1870 by the Alliance Israelite Universelle (AIU) with financial support from Baron Edmond de Rothschild. The AIU planned the establishment of a small experimental farm project in which fifty to a hundred Russian Jews would spend several months training as farmers at Mikve Israel. They eventually established Gedera, an agricultural settlement south of Jaffa. The Bilu members who established a central office in Constantinople spent a long time trying to obtain an official permit from the Turkish authorities to establish a series of settlements in Palestine. The Turkish government put many obstacles in their way, and in 1893 banned Russian Jews from immigrating into Palestine and purchasing land altogether. These orders were circumvented by registering the land that was bought in the name of Jews from Western Europe and by bribing local officials. In this way a few settlements were established by the early emigrants. Among the first agricultural settlements established during this period were Rishon le Zion (First to Zion), founded in July 1882 by Jews who had immigrated from southern Russia; Zichron Ya’akov (Ya’akov’s Memorial); Rosh Pina (Cornerstone), founded in September and December 1882 by separate groups from Rumania; and Petach Tikva, (Ray of Hope) north of Jaffa, founded in 1878 by young Jews from Jerusalem who originally came from Hungary, but they had to leave because most of them were affected by malaria.

They returned to the deserted site a year later and succeeded in reviving the colony with the help of a reinforcement of Russian immigrants in 1883.

The majority of the colonists were middle-aged religious Orthodox Jews with only basic schooling. They had no agricultural experience, and no effective leadership. The preliminary financial planning for each colony was carried out by the Hoveve Zion society which had established it. The founders assumed that the colonists would be self-sufficient from the second year of colonization. However, none of those colonies met the expectations, and when the colonists failed to honor their financial com- mitments, the settlement societies, which were dependent on Jewish philanthropy and donated private capital from their memberships, refused to send more funds. A representative from the colonies met with Baron Rothschild in October of 1882 for help. Rothschild agreed to provide the needed funds on the condition that his agents directly supervise and control operations. 41

Baron Rothschild not only funded the settlers, but also sent established agriculturists and experts to help the settlers plan and structure the colonization of the land. By 1890, there were twelve colonies in various stages of development, hosting 350 households and a total of two thousand people settled on 85,000 dunums (about 21,000 acres).

Rothschild’s involvement in Jewish settlements increased further in the 1890s. Besides the first nine colonies he supported, he supported seven other rural settlements, as well as nine urban communities, through monetary assistance and technical expertise provided by his officials. He introduced modern European knowledge in the realms of agriculture, administration, and technology. Modern farming techniques were taught at the Mikve Israel agricultural school, while tools and equipment were brought from France. A massive injection of capital was directed toward the development of the infrastructure to include well drilling, opening roads, and building structures for health and education. He introduced viticulture and established wine cellars. Baron Rothschild assumed responsibility for the majority of settlement activities until 1900, when the World Zionist Organization took over this responsibility.

The Realization and Growth of Zionism

Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) is considered the father of the Zionist movement since its birth in the late nineteenth century, although several Jewish intellectuals, most of them Russian Jews, advocated Zionism prior to the publication of Herzl’s pamphlet, The Jewish State.

Herzl was born in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, in 1860. In 1878 he enrolled in the law school of the University of Vienna. After he graduated from the law school in 1884, he worked as civil servant in Vienna and Salzburg for a short time, then in 1885 he devoted his life to journalism. In 1891 he was appointed as Paris correspondent for Vienna’s finest and most powerful liberal newspaper, the New Free Press.

While in Vienna, Herzl underestimated the power of anti­Semitism, and was counting on the process of assimilation of Jews in their communities as the solu­tion to the Jewish question. However, in Paris he realized that assimilation or even conversion would not be the answer. He studied the condition of the Jews throughout the world and concluded that there was only one solution: The Jews needed a Jewish territory with an independent Jewish government. He also felt that he himself was destined to be the leader of a modern Zionist movement whose goal would be the return of the Jewish people to Palestine. However, he did not exclude other territories as possible locations for the Jewish state.

Herzl spent the second half of 1895 traveling throughout Europe to gain political and financial support for his plan from Europe’s wealthiest Jews, such as the Rothschild and Hirsch families, but failed to win their endorsement for his ideas. In the face of this failure, he wrote down his ideas in a statement that might reach not only the rich but also the poor—Jewish and non-Jewish alike. During the winter of 1895–1896 he completed a pamphlet titled The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question. It is considered one of the most important documents of Zionist literature. It states, in part:

The Jewish question is a national one, which can only be solved by making it a political world question to be discussed and settled by the civilized nations of the world. In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers. It is useless for us to be loyal patriots. No one can deny the gravity of the situation of the Jews. Wherever they live in perceptible numbers, they are more or less persecuted. The form of persecution varies according to the countries and social circles in which they occur. . . .

Let all who are willing to join us, fall in behind our banner and fight for our cause with voice and pen and deed. Those Jews who agree with our idea of a state will attach themselves to the society, which will thereby be authorized to confer and treat with Governments in the name of our people. The Society will thus be acknowledged in its relations with Governments as a state-creating power. This acknowledgment will practically create the State. Should the powers declare themselves willing to admit our sovereignty over a neutral piece of land, and then the Society will enter into negotiations for the possession of this land; here two territories come under consideration: Palestine and Argentine? Shall we choose Palestine or Argentine? We shall take what is given us, and what is selected by Jewish public opinion. The Society will determine both these points. Argentine is one of the most fertile countries in the world, extends over a vast area, has a sparse population and mild climate. Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency.

If his majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey.
Herzl’s pamphlet received a strong positive response from Jewish working people. Many Jews, especially those who were assimilated in their communities, feared losing the rights that they had fought for and finally achieved at home. The ultra-Orthodox Jews, however, opposed the Zionist concept of the Jewish state. The Jewish tradition and religion clearly instruct Jews to wait for the coming of the promised Messiah at the end of time before they can return to Eretz Israel as a sovereign people in a Jewish theocracy (a modern movement called the Neuturi Karta op­poses the existence of Israel on these grounds).

A small circle of young Zionists rallied behind Herzl after his publication of his pamphlet, mainly members of the Vienna Jewish student organizations. He also received letters of support from Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. Two prominent Jewish leaders, David Wolffsohn and Max Nordau, joined him at an early stage of his mission. Wolffsohn, born in Lithuania, became a timber merchant in Cologne and was one of the leaders of the German Lovers of Zion. He urged Herzl to connect with the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe, because without their active help, his project would remain no more than a dream. (Max Nordau, like Herzl, was born in Budapest. In Paris, where Herzl met him, he was known as one of the leading literary essayists. He played a leading role in the Zionist movement in the years between 1896 and the outbreak of the First World War.)

Herzl believed that the Zionists’ goal could be achieved only by diplomacy through appeals to powerful statesmen and politicians and by the wealthy rul­ing classes. He initially tried to recruit the Jewish elite in Western Europe. He met with well-established Jewish bankers and industrialists and tried to get their support to back his vision, but he failed. So he changed his plans and directed his efforts toward getting the help and support of the working people. He toured Europe and held meetings in many cities; the gatherings were attended by large crowds. Herzl’s success in spreading his Zionist ideology among the working class was astounding.

During the early months of 1897, Herzl convened a committee in Vienna, at which it was decided to call a Zionist congress in Basel, Switzerland. At first, the congress was scheduled to take place in Munich, but the Munich Jewish community did not want to host the meeting. Many Jewish institutions stated that there was no Jewish question. “Why stir up trouble and supply ammunition to the anti­Semites who had argued all along that the Jews constituted nation apart . . . that they were not and could not be loyal citizens?” 42

On August 29, 1897, two hundred Zionist delegates from seventeen countries attended the first Zionist congress. The representatives of the Russian Jewry constituted the strongest contingent in the Basel congress, a total of seventy delegates. They accepted Herzl as their leader, though not without reservations. The leaders of Hoveve Zion had been expecting great help and support from the Western European Jews, but had received none. Now a Westerner was presenting a plan for the establishment of a Jewish state with aid from the governments of Europe. Before writing The Jewish State, Herzl had only the vaguest notion of the activities of Jews in Russia. Furthermore, he did not regard Palestine as the only possible territory for the state. 43

In his opening address, Herzl stated the purpose of the congress: “To lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation”; at the end of his speech, he outlined the goal of the Zionist movement: for the world to once again recognize that Jews were people. They had nothing to hide since they would engage in no conspiratorial activities. They needed a strong organization to revive and cherish the Jewish national consciousness and to improve the material con­ ditions of the Jewish people. The merits of sporadic colonization were not to be ignored, but the old, slow methods, without any basis of legal recognition, would not solve the Jewish problem. The only recognized right should be the future basis, not sufferance and toleration. 44

Herzl was followed by Nordau, who presented the situation of the Jews in various parts of the world. Laqueur summarizes this speech as follows:

[Nordau pointed out that] nine­tenths of world Jewry were literally starving, fighting for their bare existence. Western Jewry was no longer subject to legal discrimination but it had been emancipated well before their host peoples had been emotionally prepared to give them equal rights. The emancipated Jew had given up his old Jewish characteristics but he had not become a German or Frenchman. He was deserting his own people because anti­Semitism had made him loathe it, but his French and German compatriots were rejecting him. He had lost the home of the ghetto without obtaining a new home. 45

The congress then approved the Zionist Movement Program, articulated as follows:

Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally secure home in Palestine for the Jewish people. For the achievement of its purpose the congress envisages the following methods:

1. The programmatic encouragement of the settlement of Palestine with Jewish agricultural workers, laborers and those pursuing their trades.

2. The unification and organization of all Jewry into local and wider groups in accordance with the laws of their respective countries.

3. The strengthening of Jewish self-awareness and national consciousness.

4. Preparatory steps to obtain the consent of the various governments necessary for the fulfillment of the aims of Zionism. 46

The initial draft of the Zionist program mentioned only a legally secure home; through lengthy debate, the Russian delegates managed to add, “Encouragement of the settlement of Palestine with Jewish agricultural workers, laborers, and those pursuing other trades.” Such concessions to the Hoveve Zion were necessary, because hardly any other Jewish group besides the Russian Jews had rushed to support Herzl. On the contrary, the plans for the congress were met with great opposition. The Association of German Rabbis issued a public declaration calling the efforts of the “so-called Zionists . . . antagonistic to the messianic promises of Judaism.” The London Jewish Chronicle, the chief organ of British Jewry, likened the congress to a gathering for a Hyde Park demonstration and protested that the Zionists represented no Jews but themselves. Indeed, during the World Zionist Organization’s first year of operation it received membership dues from about 65,000 people, around half of 1 per cent of all Jews in the world. Even by 1913, only about 130,000 Jews around the world paid dues to the WZO. 47

The meeting lasted for three days, during which Zionism emerged as a unified movement with a leader, a program, and an organization. The congress established the WZO to include all Jews who accepted the Zionist program. It was decided that the congress should become the supreme organ of the movement, and that an action committee of twenty-three members was to be elected for dealing with current political questions. Herzl was elected the president of the organization.

The Zionist program conceived in Basel made no mention of the native population of Palestine. However, Herzl’s position toward the Palestinians was already formulated, as stated in his diary on June 12, 1895: The removal of the native popu­lation from the “Hebrew Land”:

When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefit to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us.

We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying any employment in our own country.

The property owners will come over our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.

Let the owners of immovable property believe that they are cheating us, selling us something far more than they are worth.

But we are not going to sell them anything back. 48

The Zionist movement claimed that the Jewish people were a superior, pure race that had full rights to Palestine. Zionist ideology denied any rights to Palestinians in their land. They saw Palestine as their land occupied by “strangers” and thus in need of repossession—”strangers” meaning everyone not Jewish who had been living in Palestine since the Roman period.

Zionist leaders throughout the history of the Zionist movement have adopted the same position. They have promulgated the idea of “a land without a people for a people without a land,” denying the presence of native population in Palestine. Chaim Weizmann, one of the most prominent leaders of the Zionist movement, stated in 1914:

There is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country? The owners of the country [the Turks] must, therefore, be persuaded and convinced that this marriage is advantageous, not only for the [Jewish] people and for the country, but also for themselves. 49

When Weizmann stated that there were no people in Palestine, he meant that there were no people worth considering. This racist mentality was patently evident in his communication with Arther Ruppin, the head of the colonization department of the Jewish Agency. He wrote to Ruppin:

“The British told us that there were some hundred thousand kushim [a derogatory term used to refer to a dark­skinned per­ son of African descent] and for those there is no value.” 50

Moshe Smilansky, one of the leaders of Hovevei Zion, wrote in 1891:

“As soon as we have a big settlement here we’ll seize the land, we’ll become strong, and then we’ll take care of the Left Bank. We’ll expel them from there, too. Let them go back to the Arab countries.” 51

Israel Zangwill, a prominent leader of the Zionist movement, stated in April 1905:

“Given that Palestine is already twice as thinly populated as the United States, and given that the majority of them are not Jews, we must be prepared to drive them out by the sword as our forefathers did.” 52

Aaron Aaronsohn, the director of the Palestine Land Development Company, proposed the transfer of the Palestinians to Iraq:

While Palestine must be made a Jewish State, the vast valley of Iraq, which is irrigated by the Euphrates and Tigris, should be restored, through the use of planned irrigation, to be the paradise of the world . . . and furthermore the Arabs of Palestine should be offered lands there. 53

Herzl’s Diplomatic Missions

During the last eight years of his life, Herzl traveled from one country to another seeking political and economic support for his cause. He knew that he would not succeed in getting strong support from his own people unless he had some success in the diplomatic field. In 1898, he tried to secure the support of Germany for the Zionist project. When he learned about the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Constantinople and Jerusalem, he followed him to Palestine. Herzl managed to meet with the German emperor in Jerusalem in November 1899. He presented to him the Zionist project, hoping that Wilhelm would discuss the idea of a German protectorate in Palestine for the Jews with the sultan. Herzl was later informed that the emperor had expressed benevolent interest in the efforts directed toward the improvement of agriculture in Palestine, as long as these accorded with the welfare of the Turkish empire and fully respected the sovereignty of the sultan.

In May 1901, Arminius Vambery, an Orientalist and freewheeling political agent, arranged for a meeting between Herzl and Sultan Abdul Hamid. The meeting took place on June 17, 1901. Herzl stated that the Jews would help Turkey to repay its foreign debt so that it would be able to gather fresh strength. The great powers wanted to keep Turkey weak by preventing its recovery, but Herzl could enlist the help of Jews around the world and promote the country’s industrialization. The sultan stressed that he was a great friend of the Jews, and said he would make a public pro-Jewish announcement and give them lasting protection if they sought refuge in his lands. The sultan’s advisers formulated a number of conditions, however: The Jews would establish a syndicate with 30 million pounds to help liquidate the Turkish debt; they would be permitted to settle in Turkey, but would have to become Turkish citizens; above all, there could be no concentrated mass immigration, but only scattered settle­ments. Herzl countered by proposing the establishment of a land company to take over uncultivated Turkish property in Palestine. The officials informed Herzl that the sultan did not agree. Further, they told Herzl that the sultan expected definite financial proposals within a month. Herzl’s attempts to win the support of wealthy Jews in this endeavor were unsuccessful; however, he continued to act as if it were within his power to relieve the sultan of the Turkish debt, estimated at 85 million pounds. Herzl was hoping that if he could secure the money, he would at last receive his charter.

In February 1902 Herzl was asked to return to Constantinople. The Turkish officials complained that nothing concrete had so far emerged. They also affirmed that the sultan was prepared to open his empire to Jewish refugees on the con­dition that they would become Ottoman subjects, and that they could establish themselves in all provinces except Palestine; in return Herzl was to form a syndicate for the consolidation of the Ottoman public debt, and was also to take over the concession for the exploitation of Turkish mines. They explained to him that the sultan could not agree to sponsor the immigration of the Jews to Palestine, as such plan would be extremely unpopular with his subjects. Herzl was again summoned to Constantinople in July 1902 for further discussions; however, this meeting was his final contact with the Ottomans. 54

In spite of its position, there was little the Ottoman government could do to stop the Zionist colonial project. European consuls intervened on behalf of the Jewish immigrants to renew expired entry permits. Jewish immigrants resorted to bribery to facilitate the purchase of land and the renewal of entry permits. They also circumvented immigration restrictions by entering Palestine through Egypt, and purchasing land in the name of established Jews who were already Ottoman citizens. 55

Although the Turkish CUP (Committee of Union and Progress), which rose to power between 1908 and 1913, officially adopted the same policy toward Jewish immigration to Palestine as Sultan Abdul Hamid had, it did not enforce it. In a bid to receive financial support from the Zionists, in 1913 the CUP government abolished the immigration laws and permitted land sales. It also shut down three anti-Zionist papers—al-Karmil in Haifa, Filistin in Jaffa, and al-Muqtabas in Damascus—that were constantly exposing the practice of land sale to Zionists. 56

In 1902, after the failure of his overtures to Turkey, Herzl shifted his diplomatic activities to Britain, where public opinion was concerned about Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. A royal commission was appointed to investigate the effect of the large number of Jews moving toward Central and Western Europe. The British Zionists managed to have Herzl invited as a witness. Lord Rothschild, who was a member of the commission, was concerned about this invitation. A heated exchange between members of the Rothschild family and Herzl took place before Herzl’s meeting with the commission. Lord Rothschild told Herzl that he did not believe in Zionism, and he felt that the Jews would never get Palestine. “Herzl’s appearance before the commission, Rothschild argued, could only have two effects: the anti­ Semites would be able to say that Dr. Herzl, the expert, maintained that a Jew could never become an Englishman; and if Herzl harped on the bad situation of the Jews in Eastern Europe and their need to emigrate this would lead to restric­ tive legislation.” 57 Rothschild and Herzl then agreed to present to the commission the idea of helping the Jews to found a Jewish colony in a British possession—either in the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian Palestine, or Cyprus. The next day Herzl met Lord James of Hereford, the chairman of the commission, and presented this proposal. He was very careful not to say anything which could be used as an argument for restricting immigration to Britain.

In October 1902, Herzl met Joseph Chamberlain, the colonial secretary.

Chamberlain did not reject the idea of founding a self-governing Jewish colony in the Brook of Egypt (Wadi al-Arish). British public opinion felt that something should be done for Eastern European Jews if they were to be barred from entering England. This subject was brought up in a subsequent meeting between Herzl and Chamberlain, but was dismissed because of the question of water supply. The diversion of water from the Nile for such a colony was thought to be impossible. In May 1903, Chamberlain offered Herzl a large area of British-controlled land in East Africa (Uganda) that would make an ideal location for a Jewish settlement. It occurred to Chamberlain, an architect of late Victorian imperial expansion, that Jewish migrants might serve an imperial interest by “populating the interior highlands of the east African Protectorate with non­native settlers who would help securing the space between the Indian Ocean and Egypt.” 58

Although Herzl rejected this initially, in a moment of despair he decided to give the offer serious consideration, and decided to submit this proposal to the sixth Zionist congress in August 1903. The pogrom in the Sian city of Kishinev (see below) was behind his decision to consider this option. 59

In August 1903, he went to St. Petersburg and met with Plehve, the Russian minister of the interior. Herzl hoped that the Russian government, which was eager to get rid of some of the Jews, could be induced to exert pressure on Turkey to absorb some of them in Palestine. Herzl asked Plehve if Russia would intervene and pressure the Turks to allow legal immigration of Jews to Palestine. In his meeting with Plehve, Herzl argued that supporting the Zionist movement would lead to a reduction of the Jewish population in Russia.

One week after Herzl’s Russian trip, in August 1903 the sixth Zionist congress convened in Basel. Herzl reported on his negotiations in St Petersburg and the British offer to settle the Jewish people in East Africa. He made clear that Uganda was not and could never become Zion. It was just an emergency measure to help those Jews forced to emigrate immediately to prevent their scattering all over the world. Nordau described Uganda as a temporary shelter for the hundreds of thousands of Jews who could not as yet enter Palestine. A great number of Western European delegates supported Nordau’s views. However, most Russian delegates opposed the offer, asking why Jews migrating abroad should choose East Africa as their destination instead of the more developed locales with more hospitable climates (like the United States) that were open to them. The delegates from Kishinev stated that they were unwilling to go anywhere except Palestine. After long debate, Herzl introduced a resolution to send a commission to investigate East Africa, which passed by a vote of 295 to 178. At the sixth Zionist congress, Herzl declared that the Russian government would not stand in the way of the Zionist movement if its activities remained within a legal framework. Chaim Weizmann, one of the main leaders of the Russian Zionists, attacked Herzl for his visit to St Petersburg and his talks with Plehve. Weizmann stated: “Anti­Semites are incapable of aiding in the creation of a Jewish homeland; their attitude forbids them to do anything which might really help the Jewish people. Pogroms, yes; repressions, yes; emigration, yes; but nothing that might be conducive to the freedom of Jews.” 60 Only a few months earlier, between April 6 and 8, 1903, a pogrom had taken place in Kishinev. About fifty Jews had been killed; many had been wounded, and many women had been raped.

The Russian Zionist Ussishkin, who was in Palestine at the time of the congress, published a letter after his return stressing that he did not feel bound by the Uganda resolution. This was open rebellion. The Russian Zionists in their conference in Kharkov passed a resolution stating that Herzl had violated the Basel program and demanded that he drop his autocratic methods. This resolution was regarded as an attempt to overthrow the leader. At the meeting of the Action Committee in April 1904, Herzl said he would not go to Uganda, nor would he exert pressure in favor of East Africa. He wanted the Jewish people to make a decision based on the facts.

Herzl presided over the first six congresses and worked hard during his term to implement the Zionist program; however, his efforts were unsuccessful. He did not live to preside over the seventh Zionist Congress. After a period of rapidly declining health, he died on July 3, 1904, at the age of forty­four. All his hectic diplomatic activity had come to nothing.

In 1901, the WZO established the Jewish National Fund (JNF) for the purpose of purchasing land in Palestine. Within two years, the JNF raised enough capital to launch its operations and began buying agricultural land. By 1908, there were twenty-six Jewish settlements comprising 10,000 settlers and 450,000 dunums (110,000 acres) of land. 61

The Russian Zionists, who took control of the Zionist movement after Herzl’s death, concentrated their efforts on strengthening the Hoveve Zion settlements. In the decade that followed Herzl’s death, the number of Jews entering Palestine and the number of settlements established both increased. Renewed pogroms in Russia in 1903 led to a new wave of emigration to Palestine. During this second wave of immigration between 1904 and 1914, which became known as the Second Aliyah, over 30,000 new Jewish immigrants entered Palestine. About 8,500 Jews entered Palestine between 1903 and 1907; and another 24,000 joined them between 1908 and 1914. Most of the new immigrants were secular socialist Jews under age twenty-five; based on their European socialist ideals, they established collective agricultural settlements called kibbutzim. The immigrants established a new city called Tel Aviv (Hill of Spring). In 1909, a military defense force called the Hashomer (watchmen) was formed to defend the new villages. 62

In 1881, the year in which the first wave of Jewish immigration to Palestine began, the Jews numbered about 24,000; the total population was 500,000. The majority were apolitical religious Jews who had no affiliation with Zionism, and most lived in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safad, and Tiberias. By 1914, as a result of the succeeding waves of Jewish immigration, there were 84,600 Jews in Palestine. 63

David Wolffsohn (1856–1914)

The seventh Zionist Congress, held in Basel in late July 1905, rejected the Uganda project. A new executive committee was elected with equal representation by both the political and practical groups. David Wolffsohn was chosen as the new president of the Zionist Organization. He had been one of Herzl’s earliest supporters, and Herzl regarded him as his successor. The Russian Zionists accepted Wolffsohn, as they had no alternative candidate.

Wolffsohn’s first mission, besides earning the support of the Russian Zionists, was to get the support of the Rothschilds. He visited Lord Rothschild in Paris and was more successful than Herzl in gaining his support. He went twice to Constantinople. The first visit was an attempt to revoke the ban on Jewish immigration. The second visit, in October 1907, coincided with a new Turkish financial crisis that gave rise to the Young Turks Movement and the CUP (see below). A plan was submitted to the Turks under which fifty thousand Jewish families would settle in Palestine, but not in Jerusalem. They were to become Ottoman subjects and serve in the army, but would be exempt from taxation for twenty-five years. Land would be acquired by the Zionist Executive and remain its property.

The political shifts in Turkey aroused hope among the Zionists; however, the Young Turks were no less nationalists than Sultan Abdul Hamid had been. Wolffsohn was doubtful that he would get any good deal from the Young Turks. In March 1909, a coup took place in Constantinople. In June 1909 the Zionists negotiated with Husayn Hilmi Pasha, the grand vizier, but there was no progress. Colonization in Palestine on a large scale was ruled out by the Turks, and the ban on immigration, which had been reimposed, would not be lifted. However, the Turkish-Italian war in 1911 gave the Zionists an opportunity to get some concessions from Turkey. The restrictions on immigration were partly lifted, and it became easier for foreign citizens to buy land in Palestine. During the war, a team of Jewish physicians was dispatched to assist Turkey.

At the ninth Zionist Congress in 1909 in Hamburg, Wolffsohn faced strong opposition from the Russian Zionists due to the way he managed the affairs of the organization. He was criticized for running the movement in way that echoed Herzl’s autocratic style. Wolffsohn submitted his resignation; however, the congress failed to agree on an alternative leader, so he was asked to stay in office.

Otto Warburg (1859–1938)

At the tenth Congress, which took place in Basel in August 1911, Professor Otto Warburg, a botanist from a well-known Hamburg banking family, was elected as the president of the Zionist Organization. Warburg was one of the few leaders who did not have a single enemy in the movement. His interest was directed almost solely on colonization and its problems. The Russian Zionists, at last, had succeeded in devoting most of the energy of the Zionist movement toward establishing more settlements in Palestine.

When Herzl died, there was no real hope that the Zionist movement would gain a firm foothold in Palestine before the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The Zionists were further away than ever from achieving their goals. The German and the Russian governments were neither willing nor able to do anything on their behalf. The “political Zionism” that Herzl had preached died with him, and leader­ ship of the movement passed into the hands of the “practical Zionists,” who had

maintained all along that only slow and steady colonization would create the Jewish state in Palestine. 64

Zionism in the First World War

With the spread of the Zionist movement in several countries, the local federations played a greater part in Zionist politics. The Russian Federation was the strongest by far; however, it did not play a major role in WZO affairs, as it was under constant attack from the Russian authorities. In addition, many of its most capable members had emigrated to Palestine. In Germany, only a small minority of the Jews joined the movement; the majority were content and felt themselves at home in Germany. There was less anti-Semitism in Germany than in France or Austria. In Britain, initially, the majority of the community was indifferent or even actively hostile. Wealthy Jews such as the Rothschilds were not willing to embrace the new faith, but they supported the lovers of Zion. The situation changed when the young generation, guided by leaders like Weizmann, became active. By 1914, the Zionist Federation of Great Britain had some fifty branches. In America, the first Zionist Congress aroused little interest; only a few groups of Russian immigrants in Chicago joined the Zionist Organization. A breakthrough came during the early years of World War I, when Louis Brandeis (1856–1941), one of the most respected lawyers in the US, became its leader. Brandeis devoted much of his time and energy to the Zionist movement single-handedly making American Zionism a political force. He was a prominent figure, a successful popular lawyer, and a friend and consultant of leading politicians. He was in line for a position in the government when Woodrow Wilson formed his first administration in 1913. The president encountered resistance to such an appointment, however, because Brandeis, “the people attorney,” had made many enemies among the rich. Wilson instead nominated him to the Supreme Court. Brandeis’s prestige and his reputation as one of President Wilson’s close advisers made him an asset to Zionist leaders in London. They made full use of this in their dealings with the British government, in which their aim was to induce America to join the war against the central powers as soon as possible. Balfour met Brandeis twice during his visit to Washington in April 1917; in fact, Brandeis was instrumental in obtaining the Balfour Declaration in return for the entry of the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. 65

When the First World War broke out in 1914, Zionist leaders throughout Europe, with the exception of those in Russia, felt that it was their duty to support their respective home countries. The German Zionist Federation announced that it expected all its young members to volunteer for military service. After the outbreak of the war, the persecution of Jews in Western Russia intensified. Hundreds of thousands were deported. The greater part of the World Zionist Movement was pro­Germany in World War I, and Zionist leaders believed in the inevitability of German victory. During the first three years of the war, effective political and economic aid to the Palestinian Jewish community was only possible through Germany’s auspices. Berlin during this period was the center of Zionist political activities, which aimed at protecting the Eastern European Jews who came under German rule and protecting the Zionist settlements in Palestine. German diplomatic representatives interceded with the Turkish authorities on behalf of Palestinian Jewry. Jemal Pasha, the Turkish commander in Syria, expelled six hundred Jews from Palestine, but German intervention succeeded in stopping further deportation.

Some prominent Zionist leaders were concerned about the open support for Germany by the Zionist movement; they warned against taking a one-sided position and advised neutrality. They argued that close cooperation with Germany jeopardized millions of East European Jews. To keep the WZO neutral, the Larger Action Committee convened in Copenhagen in December 1914. The committee decided to open an office there to maintain contact with Zionist organizations in both camps. Weizmann demanded the relocation of the office of the executive committee from Berlin to America during the war. As a compromise, it was decided to transfer some members to Britain and America; this dispersal was necessary in order to purse political activities in several capitals. It was also agreed that the members who remained in Berlin were authorized to speak for the whole body. It was further decided that the executive could not be party to any negotiation with the government of any country at war with Turkey. It is worth mentioning here that Weizmann was able to negotiate with the British officials because he held no official position in the World Zionist Movement.

Chaim Weizmann

Chaim Weizmann was the main leader of the “practical” (labor) Zionists who had different views in regard to achieving the Zionism goals compared to the “political” Zionists. His views are summarized in this statement:

A state cannot be created by decree, but by the forces of a people and in the course of generations. Even if all the governments of the world gave us a country, it would only be a gift of words. But if the Jewish people will go build Palestine, the Jewish state will become a reality—a fact.

Although no one was more critical of the diplomatic approach than Weizmann, this opponent of political Zionism became the chief Zionist diplomat only a few years after making the statement above, and obtained the “charter” of which Herzl and Nordau had dreamed. It was one of the many ironies in the history of the Zionist movement. 66

Weizmann was born in Motol, a small village in the Pale of Settlement, in what is now Belarus. Between four and five hundred Russians and fewer than two hundred Jewish families lived in Motol. Chaim was the third of fifteen children; his father, Ozer, a successful timber merchant, was the only Jew ever chosen to be head of Motol. The Weizmanns were devout and observant Jews. Chaim attended a local Jewish school in Motol, where the children studied the Talmud and the Bible. However, he was fortunate to have access to nonreligious subjects such as natural sciences and chemistry; one of his enlightened teachers managed to smuggle secular textbooks to Chaim’s class.

In the early fall of 1885, his father sent him to a Russian school in Pinsk, a larger town forty kilometers south of Motol. Pinsk was an active and lively city of thirty thousand inhabitants, the majority of them Jewish. In Pinsk, Chaim was exposed to another world in which he had a chance to develop and absorb new ideas and interests. In Motol, Hebrew had been the language at school, and Yiddish the language at home. In Pinsk’s nonreligious high school, he learned Russian, and developed a great interest in the sciences. He was also exposed to Zionist ideas. (There were a number of small Hoveve Zion organizations advocating for the return of the Jews to Palestine in the years before the establishment of the World Zionist Organization in Basel in 1897.) Chaim had been enthusiastic about Zionism since he was eleven years old. The seven years he spent in Pinsk were very important in the development of his life. He wrote: “Pinsk set the double pattern of my life; it gave me my first bent towards science, and it provided me with my first experiences in Zionism.” 67

After graduating from high school in Pinsk in 1892, Weizmann was accepted at one of the finest scientific schools in Germany, the Charlottenburg Polytechnic near Berlin. He was immediately recognized as an extraordinarily promising chemistry student. Chaim remained in Berlin for four years, and in 1898 he moved to Switzerland in order to complete his formal education at the University of Fribourg. He earned his PhD in 1899; the subject of his thesis was chemical reactions to dye-stuffs, an interest that served him well later in his life. Soon after his graduating from the University of Fribourg, he was appointed a lecturer at the University of Geneva.

During his years in Berlin and Geneva, Weizmann formed friendships with some of the most prominent Russian and German Zionists. As an active Zionist during this period of his life, he revealed himself as a skillful political strategist. When the first Zionist Congress convened in 1897, Weizmann was elected as a permanent delegate from Pinsk. He was unable to attend for personal and financial reasons, but urged his friends to attend and to present their ideas at the meeting.

He attended the Second Zionist Congress in 1898, and at that time he had the opportunity to meet Herzl. He was somewhat underwhelmed by him, expressing his opinion in these words: “Though he was impressive, I cannot pretend that I was swept off my feet. There was a genuine greatness about him and a touch of pathos. It seemed to me almost at the beginning that he was undertaking a task of tre­ mendous magnitude without adequate preparation.” 68 He criticized Herzl’s aristocratic behavior, which was initially meant to appeal to the wealthy and powerful, accusing him of being an elitist. Weizmann’s approach to the creation of a Jewish state was different from Herzl’s. He disagreed with Herzl’s dependence on diplomatic and political action as a means of achieving Zionist goals. Weizmann’s concept of the Jewish state was an entity that had to be built up step by step, brick by brick, and settlement by settlement. 69 Weizmann was calling for immediate plans to strengthen the Jewish presence in Palestine, which meant developing a practical program of educational, social, and political activities so that the new settlers would be prepared for the time when their place in Palestine would be legally secure.

Weizmann’s next destination was the city of Manchester, in northern England.

On a visit to London in 1903, he received an offer from William Perkins, a professor of chemistry at the University of Manchester, to join him. Here he established his reputation as a scientist, as he was involved in several research projects and published more than thirty papers. At the same time he devoted time to his Zionist activities throughout England and Scotland, raising money for the immigration of Russian Jews to Palestine. As a scientist, Weizmann built a great reputation, introducing numerous business and commercial applications in his laboratory. At the same time he never lost sight of his goals as a Zionist. He traveled extensively for meetings, lecturing for the Zionist cause. Most importantly, he was able to make friends from all stations of life, from government officials to workers. Weizmann worked hard to establish a Hebrew university in Jerusalem. Land was bought on Mount Scopus to serve as the site for the school. The Eleventh Zionist Congress in 1913 set up a commission for the creation of the university. It would first consist of a medical school and departments of chemistry and physics.

In 1914, Weizmann and other scientists received a request from the British War Office to report any discoveries that might aid the war effort. He replied at once, offering the War Office his fermentation process related to the production of synthetic rubber. In March 1916, he was summoned to a meeting with the head of the British Admiralty’s gunpowder department. The subject was the acute shortage of acetone, a solvent that was essential to the manufacture of gunpowder. In this meeting, he was able to demonstrate that his fermentation process could be instrumental in the production of vast quantities of acetone. In the middle of 1916, he resigned from the university and moved to London. Once settled there, he devoted all his attention to his new responsibilities as head of the British Admiralty laboratories. During his years in London, Weizmann took advantage of every opportunity to present the case for a Jewish homeland in Palestine under a British protectorate. Through his government work, he established strong relationships with decision makers in Britain such as Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George. 70 Herbert Samuel played an important role in guiding Weizmann in his early activities with British leaders.

Weizmann’s strategic vision of the Jewish state in Palestine was based on three principles: First, the Jewish state would become an integral part of the British Commonwealth and would guard Britain’s strategic interests in the Middle East. Second, under British auspices, an agreement between Zionism and the Arab National Movement would be reached that would ensure the development of Jewish settlements in Palestine in return for substantial aid in modernizing the Arab world. Zionism would serve as a link between the Arabs and the West. Third, the Arabs of Palestine were a tiny and unimportant fraction of the Arab nation; their opposition to Zionism was generated by the narrow interest of feudal landlords rather than being an expression of genuine nationalism. The opposition would diminish when the masses received the economic benefits that Zionism would bring to Palestine. Some would elect to migrate to wholly Arab countries. 71