First Zionist Congress

Chair: Peter Mikulski

Hello delegates, I’m Peter Mikulski, chair of the First Zionist Congress at LYMUN 2020. We’ve been waiting for you all summer long and we’re so glad you’re finally here! We are about to embark on a deep dive into the exciting world of Zionism in the late 19th century. I simply cannot wait! But first, a little about myself. I am a sophomore and serve on LTMUN’s underclassmen board. At last year’s LYMUN, I was the vice chair of the Trump’s Cabinet ad hoc committee. I’m interested in Islamic history, amateur radio, and music. In this committee, you will assume the role of the men (and one woman) present at the First Zionist Congress held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland. Zionism -- the belief in the necessity of Jewish statehood -- is multifaceted. Many men believing very different things called themselves Zionists, so I hope your research is thorough and you come to LYMUN VII with a good grasp of the issues discussed at the First Congress. Well done research will make participating in debate and the resolution writing exponentially easier. It’ll also make the

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committee’s outcome more interesting for everyone! The following background guide I’ve written will be a good place to start, but, of course, it should not be your only source. Every delegate must complete a position paper (one page for each topic) to be eligible for awards in this committee. Additionally, I hope each of you will speak up in our session at least once. Strive to find compromise between the broad range of Zionist political outlooks represented. Whether this is your first conference or your thirtieth, I hope you’ll have fun and hone your writing, speaking, and negotiating skills. Zionism is a sensitive topic. The systemic discrimination and violence Jews have faced is an unignorable motive for the Zionist cause. While good faith critique of Zionism is well and good, this committee’s dias will proceed with a zero tolerance policy towards anti-semitism.

Thank you! Peter Mikulski ([email protected])

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Table of Contents 1. Letter from the Chair 2. Table of Contents 3. Committee Background a. Jews in 1897 b. Zionism: What was it? i. Practical Zionism ii. Political Zionism iii. Territorialist Zionism iv. Religious Zionism v. Spiritual Zionism vi. Socialist Zionism c. The First Zionist Congress 4. Committee Topics a. I: What will Zion look like?: Practical v. Political b. II: Where will Zion be?: Territorialism 5. Committee Characters

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Committee Background

In 1897 the world was a very different place than it is now. The many strains of Zionism advocated for at the First Zionist Congress are clearly a product of the dire conditions Jews were facing at the time. Understanding those conditions is a key to understanding the Congress.

Jews in 1897

Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain dominate Europe. The Ottoman Empire is well on its way to decline. The Second Industrial Revolution is pulling more and more people from the farm and field to the city and factory. People are living longer and longer as medicine and science plow forward. The 19th century saw the switch from candle to kerosene lamp to lightbulb. The world is undergoing social, economic, and political transformation. It’s 1897.

Europe was, at this point, still the geographic center of the Jewish population. Around 1880, 2.5 million Jews lived in Western Europe, while 4.2 million called Eastern Europe their home. These two spheres of Jewry had very different experiences.

It is fair to say Western European Jews had it better than their Eastern European counterparts.

French Jews were the first to receive emancipation in 1791, by decree of the revolutionary parliament. Neighboring England, Italy, and the rest of the Western region soon followed suit.

Prior to emancipation, Jews could not purchase land, were legally confined to life in ghettos, and

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restricted in the jobs they could work. They were not considered full citizens of their home state.

Emancipation came at price; Jews were forced to acculturate -- a term similar to but more

accurate than assimilate. Jews had to adopt the dominating national culture and reject certain

elements of their own. Before emancipation and acculturation, Jews were thought of as their own

nation and culture within the state. They worshipped, spoke, and dressed differently from the

rest. They lived, worked, and learned in separate spaces. Western European Jewry was faced

with a choice of whether or not to abandon these practices in return for their emancipation.

Thanks to tides within the community like Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, they accepted acculturation in a way that the Eastern European Jews did not.

Now-emancipated Western Jews began not just adopting European culture, but neglecting their

own. They spoke less and less Yiddish and Hebrew and became more and more culturally

German, French, British, etc. They pushed for religious reform. Reform and Conservative

Judaism were born out of post-Haskalah Western Europe. Not after long, Western Jews had become patriotic citizens of their countries.

Still, despite their legal status of equality and enthusiastic acculturation, these men and women

still faced anti-semitic discrimination. In Germany, for example, it was nearly impossible for a

Jew to become a professor or an officer in the army, no matter their qualifications. The media

often blamed Jews for the many ills of expanding capitalism and industrialization. Their high

upward social mobility after emancipation made them a target for the entrenched petite-

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bourgeoisie middle class. While conditions were improving for these Jews, things were still not easy.

Jews in Eastern Europe never even received emancipation, so their conditions were much worse.

Here Jews were unwilling to accept the radical abandonment of tradition to acculturate. They resisted the religious reform of the Maskalah and they kept speaking Yiddish. Their culture stayed separate from that of the rest of Russia. Because acculturation and emancipation never came, Jews stayed disadvantaged. In Russia, they were forced to live in the pale -- the only region in which they were permitted to settle. Work and educational prospects here were minimal.

Because of their poor economic situation, Eastern European Jews were predisposed to radical answers to their material problems. Jewish workers joined organizations like the Federation of

Jewish Workers from Russia, Lithuania, and Poland -- also called the “Bund” -- and the Russian

Socialist Party. Consequently, the Imperial Russian government increased legal discrimination against Jews, seeing them now as a “revolutionary element.” Pogroms -- violent riot massacres aimed at expelling Jews from an area -- had been prevalent in rural Russia, but after the assisination of Russian Tsar Alexander II in 1881 which the government blamed on radical Jews, they became exponentially more frequent. As a result of economic struggle and ethno religious violence, some 2.5 million Jews left Eastern Europe after the assasination in 1881 and before

WWI in 1914.

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Zionism: What was it?

The ills that Jews faced detailed above were the “Jewish Problem.” While that term now has anti-semitic connotations, it was a legitimate and important concept used by Jewish and goy

(non-Jewish) political philosophers. Zionism was one solution to the posed problem. While some pundits advocated complete assimilation into the mainstream culture of Europe

(assimilationists), some fought for the political autonomy to continue carrying on Jewish cultural tradition in Europe (autonomists), and others found answers in socialism (Bundists), Zionists argued for the establishment of new Jewish homeland (called Zion) outside of Europe.

Prior to the Congress, communication and cooperation between Zionist organizations was little.

Activism happened on the local and national level and was led by groups with their own leadership, operational structure, and vision for what their Zion would look like. In Western

Europe, Zionism was on the political fringe. Jews had given up so much to acculturate that they feared questions of dual loyalty to this potential Jewish state would reverse the progress they had made. Eastern European Jews were more open to the ideas of the philosophy. An escape to

Palestine in the wake of anti-semitic violence was very appealing.

The modern definition of Zionism -- generally something along the lines of “a movement in favor of the establishment of a Jewish state in what is now Israel” -- seems like a no brainer, but is not applicable to all the Zionist organizations and participants at the First Congress. In 1897,

Zionism was a much more diverse ideology with many vocal and often overlapping factions.

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Practical Zionism

Practical Zionism was the dominant strain of Zionism prior to the First Congress. It emphasized the need to evacuate Jews, especially those in Eastern Europe who were threatened by pogroms, to Palestine as soon as possible. Immediate return to the homeland was the primary goal, not statehood. Practicalists were content to live in a Holy Land administered by the Ottomans.

Political Zionism

Theodor Herzl, President and organizer of the Zionist Congress, was himself an outspoken

Political Zionist. The First Congress is seen as the turning point in the movement where Political

Zionism overtook Practical Zionism. Political Zionists believed that international recognition of

Jewish sovereignty over the Holy Land was a precondition for aliyah (Jewish migration to

Palestine). Herzl and others within his faction also advocated for the centralization of the various

Zionist organizations into a single strong movement that could achieve the goal of Jewish statehood.

Territorialist Zionism

Territorialists acknowledged the necessity of Jewish homeland, but did not believe that this homeland had to be in Palestine. These activists pushed for Jewish settlement in various other locations across the globe. Much like Practicalists, they believed that getting Jews out of the

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immediate path of danger in Europe was an utmost priority, and that requiring they be moved to

Palestine was an unnecessary road block.

Religious Zionism

To Herzl, the need to establish a Jewish state was not born out of religion but the poor material conditions of Jews in a Chrisitan-dominated Europe. Religious Zionists, though, believed that it absolutely was a religious pursuit, and that Zionism was for nothing if the homeland it established was secular and its citizens did not strive for total fulfillment of the mitzvah (rules and prescriptions laid out in the Torah).

Spiritual Zionism

Spiritualist Zionists did not believe that a lack of political sovereignty was the root of the Jewish

Problem, but that the culture had lost its way. Spiritualists pushed for a state in Palestine to serve as a geographic home for all Jewry but to serve as a hearth of a religious and cultural renaissance radiating outward to the Diaspora. This faction believed that the resources of the Zionist movement should be split between supporting settlement in Palestine and improving the lives of

Jews in Diaspora.

Socialist Zionism

Socialist Zionists believed that even if the nations Jews called home in Europe saw successful socialist revolutions, liberating the poor Jewish workers, they would continue to face hardships

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because of their ethno cultural position. To them, the solution was the establishment of a Jewish homeland built on the principles of socialism.

The First Zionist Congress

The First Zionist Congress was organized by Theodor Herzl - who will be played by the chair.

Herzl invited around 200 Zionist activists from across the world, many representing local Zionist organizations, as delegates to the Congress, which was to serve as a symbolic parliament of the

Jewish race and the Zionist movement. He sought to unite the fractured Zionist movement under one hierarchy and funnel their efforts into one. The Congress’s most impactful achievement was the writing and passing of a document known as the Basel Program. This work was a statement of the beliefs and goals of the Zionist Congress and the associated Zionist Organization created during the course of the sessions.

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Committee Topics

You’ve been personally invited to the First Zionist Congress by Theodor Herzl himself!

Congratulations! As you walk through the doors of Stadtcasino Basel Concert Hall where the sessions of the Congress are to be held, you are eager to put your mark on history and push the

Zionist movement in what you believe to be the right direction. Herzl has distributed an agenda with two items: “What will Zion look like?: Practical v. Political” and “Where will Zion be?:

Territorialism.”

Topic A - What will Zion look like?: Practical v. Political

Should Jews seek statehood, or at least some political autonomy, before they emigrate to their new homeland? This is the central question in the debate between Practical and Political Zionists who both had a very different image of what Zion ought to look like.

Practical Zionism

Discussion of Practical Zionism usually centers around the organization Hovevei Zion. This is because Hovevei Zion was the first significant Zionist movement, and because the first Zionist we all Practicalists. The great diversity of thought seen later in Zionism’s history simply did not yet exist. The foundations of Hovevei Zion (meaning “lovers of Zion” in Hebrew) were the “pre-

Zionist” writers. In the 1860s, writers like Moses Hess, Judah Alkalai, and Rabbi Zvi Hersch

Kalischer began discussing how Jews might end their diaspora and return to their Holy Land in

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Palestine. As pogroms picked up steam in Russia in the early 1880s -- specifically from 1881 to

1882 -- threatened Jews began to more seriously consider such a return as a solution to their plights.

(Portrait of influential pre-Zionist writer, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer)

This was the birth of Hovevei Zion and the Zionist movement. To these writers and their early adherents, the only concern was returning to Palestine and escaping persecution -- Jewish statehood or self governance was not a stated goal. Additionally, because escaping pogroms in

Russia was such a strong motive for this Zionist ideological line, Practicalism was always tied to

Eastern European Jewry during its lifespan -- not the more integrated and progressive Western

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European Jews. Various chapters for Jewish “lovers of Zion” sprung up across Russia from 1882 to 1883. These small, local organizations sponsored expeditions and piecemeal agricultural settlements in Palestine independently and almost entirely with charity money until 1884.

(Attendees of the Katowice Conference of 1884)

1884 saw the Katowice Conference, a meeting of leaders from independent Hovevei Zion chapters across Eastern Europe in Poland. It was initiated by Leon Pinsker, and in many ways was a blueprint for Theodor Herzl’s planning of the Zionist Congress. The Conference attendees decided to formally unite the various Hovevei Zion organizations under one administrative structure. They also unified their settlement efforts, hoping to increase the number they could send from Eastern Europe to start a new life in Ottoman-ruled Palestine.

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Through these efforts, Hovevei Zion became the flag bearer of the Practicalist Zionist cause. To

Practicalists, the first and only priority of the Zionist movement should be to get Jews out of

Europe and to the Holy Land, unlike Political Zionists who believed such plans shouldn’t proceed without the garauntee they could have political autonomy in their new home.

Zion as envisioned by Practicalist would be nothing like what the State of Israel is today in our timeline. Zionists would be content to settle in Palestine under the authority of the Ottoman

Empire -- which ruled the Holy Land at the time of the First Zionist Congress. So long as Jews were no longer being persecuted in Europe and living in the Holy Land instead, Practicalists would be happy.

Political Zionism

In our timeline, the Practicalist Zionist old guard were overtaken by the wave of Political

Zionism. Theodor Herzl and the Zionist Congress had a large part in this shift of the Zionist overton window. Political Zionism was a product of Haskalah -- the Jewish Enlightenment -- and

Jews in Western Europe who were seen as more progressive and nationalist. Because they refused to acculturate to mainstream European Christian Culture much less than their Eastern counterparts, they were treated much better by the governments of their home nations.

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Political Zionism is directly a result of this factor. It lacks the urgency of Practicalism, because

Western European Jews were not immediately threatened by anti-semitic violence. It recognizes

“the Jewish Question” as an international political issue best solved by nation states, demonstrating a trust in governments; Eastern European Jews lacked this trust seeing as their government openly persecuted them. Political Zionists believed that before Jews could be evacuated to the Holy Land, the movement must successfully lobby the approval of the international community and secure a guarantee of political autonomy.

(David Ben Gurion declaring the State of Israel below a portrait of Theodor Herzl)

Zion as envisioned by Political Zionists would look a lot like the State of Israel today in our time line, because Israel was founded and built by Political Zionists. The Politicalist ideal would be a nation state recognized by the entire international community encompassing the entire Holy

Land solely for settlement by Jews.

Other Types of Zionism

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Socialist Zionists found themselves on both sides of the Politicalist vs. Practicalist debate. Those who were both Political and Socialist Zionists fought for socialist Jewish state. Those who were both Practicalist and Socialists were content to settle in Ottoman ruled Palestine, but by establishing communal agricultural communities based in communist ideals (called kibbutzim).

Many would be happy for any Jewish settlement in the Holy Land whether or not it was in the image of Practicalism or Politicalism so long as it was socialist! Religious Zionists felt much the same way. To Religious Zionists, so long as the Jewish settlement was in the name of the Torah, it was great.

(Kibbutz residents fly the Israeli flag alongside the red flag)

Questions to Consider

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While in our timeline, 1897 and the First Zionist Congress marked the end of Practicalist

dominance and the beginning of Political Zionist reign over the movement, the delegates in

this committee may act outside of actual historical events. Perhaps the future is still Practicalist.

Or maybe socialist!

● If the Zionist movement decides to wait for a gauruntee of political autonomy in

Palestine, what should be done about pogroms in the mean time?

● How should the Zionist Congress go about securing such a garuntee and from who?

● Are Jewish settlement and Ottoman rule compatible?

● How can the Zionist Congress bridge the gap between Eastern and Western European

Jewry?

● What organs must the Zionist Congress establish in order to assist in the settlement of

Palestine?

● How should Jewish settlements in Palestine govern themselves? Religiously?

Socialistically?

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Topic B - Where will Zion be?: Territorialism

Delegates, Congress President Theodor Herzl has posed the above question for debate. While in

2020, we can laugh off Territorialism (the belief a Jewish state was needed but didn’t have to be

in the “Holy Land”) as an interesting quirk of Zionist history, it really was an incredibly

influential tide within the greater Zionist movement. Had only a few events gone differently,

Israel might have been established in Uganda, not Palestine! Would that be such a bad thing?

That is for you to decide.

Beginnings

(Cover of a Yiddish language edition of Auto-Emancipation by Leon Pinsker)

While historians often point to the year 1905 and the founding of the Jewish Territorial

Organization as the start of Territorialist Zionism, its origins can be traced to as far back as 1882 during the very beginnings of Zionism as a whole. When Leon Pinsker published his impactful

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early Zionist essay, Auto-Emancipation, he wrote that “the goal of our present endeavors must not be the ‘Holy Land,’ but a land of our own.” The Territorialist position is more briefly summarized by the slogan “Zionism without Zion!” They wanted a Jewish state (Zion) but saw no need for it to be in Zion (Palestine). Advocates of this sentiment have always been a fixture of

Zionist discourse. While Leon Pinsker is most famous for his connections to the Practicalist line

-- as founder Hovevei Zion -- he and many of his fellow Practicalists had Territorialist sympathies. Prior to 1905, Practicalist organizations were the main forum for Territorialist thought and activism.

Rise & Peak

(Text of the British Empire’s declaration of support for the “Uganda Scheme”)

In 1903, after negotiations with British representative Joseph Chamberlain, Theodor Herzl presented the “British Uganda Program” to the Sixth Zionist Congress. This plan provided for the evacuation of Eastern European Jews at risk from pogroms to British colonial East Africa

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where they would be granted political autonomy. The Congress declined immediate acceptance, instead establishing an investigative commission to inspect the plan and the African territory designated for Jewish settlement. At the conclusion of the investigation and presentation of its findings to the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905, the vote to approve the plan failed.

(Funeral of Theodor Herzl)

This decision triggered a schism within in the Zionist Congress and Zionist Organization. The

Territorialists within the Congress left en masse to join the Jewish Territorial Organization led by

Israel Zangwill, which would continue to pursue the British Uganda Plan without the Zionist

Congress’s approval. This split also coincided with the death of Theodor Herzl; the first speech given at the Seventh Zionist Congress was not the results of the investigation, but a eulogy for the Congress’s late President. Territorialist members claimed that they were the ones staying true to Herzl’s original intentions. After all, he was the one to initiate the first negotiations for the

Uganda Plan and supported it as a temporary solution to the Jewish plight in Europe -- just not

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the ultimate goal of the Zionist struggle. Just as Leon Pinsker was an influential forefather of both Practicalism and Territorialism, Herzl was important to both Politicalists and Territorialists

-- many of whom subscribed to both brands of Zionism. Ideological overlap within the Zionism movement was incredibly common.

(Members of the Jewish Territorial Organization posed with a portrait of the late Theodor Herzl)

After separating from the Zionist Congress, the Jewish Territorial Organization pursued many different Territorialist projects to varying degress of success. It continued to work on implementing the Uganda Scheme, although nothing ultimately came of these efforts.

Additionally, the organization pursued similar projects in Ecuador, Australia, and Suriname which were equally inconsequential. The most successful of its programs was the Galveston

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Plan, which helped 10,000 Jews escape from violence in Europe to America between 1907 and

1914. The Jewish Territorial Organization was not the only proprietor of Territorialist action. In

Russia, many Jews worked with the Soviet government to secure special powers of autonomy in

regions in which they constituted a majority, such as parts of Southern Ukraine. Territorialism

was frequently tied to European Jewish autonomist thought.

Decline & Ending

(The original typewriter manuscript of the Balfour Declaration)

Support for Territorialism steeply dropped off after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which the

British Empire guaranteed Jews the right to settle in Palestine. This removed the primary motive for Territorialist efforts -- the fact that immediate settlement in Palestine was a political impossibility. For most Jews, permission to settle in the Holy Land meant there was no point pursuing other locations. Eight years after the declaration, the Jewish Territorial Organization dissolved thanks to a lack of enthusiasm. As Zionist settlement in Palestine advanced and coelesced into Israeli statehood, the Territorialist position became less and less tenable. In its

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final years, the main argument shifted; Territorialism was seen as an option for Jewish statehood that did not require the displacement of native Palestinian Arabs. By the end of the 1950s, this peculiar line of Zionist thought was completely irrelevant.

(Native Palestinian Arabs displaced by the 1948 Arab-Israeli War following Israeli

independence)

Questions to Consider

While many of the examples of Territorialist Zionism praxis given above happened well after this committee’s date, 1897, they serve as useful examples for delegates. The Congress may pass a resolution to institute plans like these years before they happened in our timeline. Remember, your character and the events of this committee may stray from actual historical events!

Additionally, rumor has it that President Herzl has just concluded a meeting with the Colonial

Secretary of the British Empire, and will make a special announcement if the Congress chooses to discuss this agenda item.

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● Which is better: Jewish settlement outside Palestine beginning immediately or Jewish

settlement in Palestine beginning decades in the future?

● If a nation was to offer territory other than Palestine for Jewish settlement, should the

Congress accept?

● If the Congress is offered multiple territories for settlement, how should it decide which

to proceed in?

● If the Congress were to accept such an offer, how should it handle the peoples native to

the offered territory?

● Should the Congress accept such an offer if it does not provide for Jewish political

autonomy within the territory?

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Committee Positions

The dias of this committee has made an ideologically diverse selection of First Zionist Congress participants as characters to simulate the inter faction debate that went down in Basel. Some sources list some of those present as “official delegates” and others only as “participants.”

Regardless, all positions listed below will have exactly the same rights in committee sessions.

The same applies to all Christian and female delegates (Rosa Sonneschein and William Hechler); while they were not permitted to vote at the real First Zionist Congress, for fairness of competition they will be allowed to in this committee. Reminder that this is a specialized committee, not a crisis. The positions listed below are to give you a basis of your character and not for individual powers.

Note on Research

Understanding the topic of this committee is rather niche and that gathering good information on it is not always a cake walk, the dias has provided the following basic character descriptions and research links as a place to begin your research. If you cannot find certain information about your character that you are looking for, feel free to infer what their position would likely be.

Additionally, many of the characters below believed many different things over their careers. If your character espoused Territorialist positions after the date of the First Congress, for example, feel free to argue in favor of Territorialism in committee.

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Schepsel Schaffer

Rabbi Dr. Schaffer’s Zionism was shaped first and foremost by his being a Rabbi. He was a

Religious Zionist and an active member of Religious Zionist organzations like Mizrachi

(although he joined this one a year after the 1897 Congress. It is just the organization most exemplary of his Religious Zionist position). Rabbi Schaffer was born in Latvia, and his father was a Rabbi as well. He attended various yeshivot (Orthodox Jewish seminaries) across Europe, before arriving in Baltimore in 1893. Schaffer quickly climbed the ranks of the Baltimore Zionist

Association, and was elected President in 1895. He attended the First Zionist Congress as a delegate this association.

Research links

● http://jewishmuseummd.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/First-Zionist-Congress.pdf

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/religious-zionism

Rosa Sonneschein

The only American women in attendance at the first Congress, Sonneschein was in Europe in

1897 for two reasons: August’s Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, and the Women’s

Congress, a global meeting of suffragettes and women’s rights activists, in Brussels, Belgium, the following October. Sonneshcein was worldly. She was born in Czechia, raised in Hungary, married (and eventually divorced) a Croatian radical reform Rabbi, and settled in St. Louis. In

America, she edited a successful magazine, The American Jewess, which advocated for greater

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roles for women in synagogue life, Zionism, and specifically the Political Zionism of Theodor

Herzl.

Research links

● http://jewishmuseummd.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/First-Zionist-Congress.pdf

Adam Rosenberg

Unlike all of the other Americans at the 1897 Congress, Rosenberg was the only to have been born in the United States, specifically Baltimore, even though he was raised in Berlin, Germany by his father, a rabbi. He returned to the United States, specifically New York City, as a young man to work as a lawyer. Here he involved himself in the Zionist movement, joining and participating in Hovevei Zion and founding and leading his own organization, Shavei Zion, which united well-off investors to purchase land in Palestine for Jewish agricultural settlement.

Rosenberg traveled Europe and Palestine speaking with Zionist leadership. When in Europe for the 1894 World Congress of Hovevei Zion, Rosenberg advocated for the centralization of

Hovevei Zion under one central administrative structure. He feared if the Zionist movement was fractured and disorganized it would doom itself to failure. In this regard, Rosenberg tried to find a compromise in the midst of Practical vs. Political Zionist divide. He was a Practicalist in his support of immediate settlement in Palestine through Hovevei and Shavei Zion, but, like Herzl and the Political Zionists, wanted to unify Zionism into a single, strong, and organized political force.

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Research links

● http://jewishmuseummd.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/First-Zionist-Congress.pdf

Asher Ginsberg

Ginsberg, also known by his pen name Ahad Ha’am, come to the forefront of the Spiritualist

Zionist movement, also known as Cultural Zionism, through his essays and Zionist organization,

Benei Moshe. Ginsberg was strongly opposed to Political Zionism and wrote “The Jewish State

and Jewish Problem,” an essay critical of Herzl's ideals. In this essay, Ginsberg declared he

wanted “to establish a State which will be Jewish, and not merely a State of Jews,” meaning that

creating a state of migrant Jews in Palestine would be moot if it was not true to the spiritual and

cultural heritage of Judaism. Ginsberg was equally critical of the Practicalists, espousing his

qualms with Hovevei Zion’s brand of Zionism in the essay “This Is Not the Way.” He frequently

visited Jewish settlements in Palestine, and in the essay described his dissatisfaction with the

conditions Jewish migrants to Palestine were living in. Ginsberg argued that immediate

settlement in Palestine was a bad idea; he didn’t believe that its geography was sufficient to

support the entire Jewish population and that the hardships of life in the Palestinian desert would

doom the Zionist movement to failure. First, he believed, Zionist organizations must strengthen

Zionist Jewry culturally and spiritually, so they were prepared to undergo the struggles of life in

Palestine. He hoped this new, spiritually improved Jewish community in the Holy Land would

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inspire a global cultural revival of Jewry and inspire Jews to commit to the idea of a Jewish

Nation.

Research links

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-jewish-state-and-jewish-problem-quot-

ahad-ha-am

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ahad-ha-rsquo-am

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/spiritual-zionism

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/benei-moshe-jewish-virtual-library

Nachman Syrkin

Nachman Syrkin was the first Jewish thinker to fuse socialism and Zionism and was the foremost advocate of Socialist Zionism at the First Congress. For Syrkin, Zionism was not an expression of Judaism but supposed to be its replacement. “Zionism uproots religious Judaism in a stronger way than reform of assimilation, by creating new standards of ‘Judaism’ which will constitute a new ideology,” he wrote. Religion did not necessitate Jewish return to Palestine, to Syrkin, but the material conditions Jews were facing in Europe did. In the Holy Land, Jews would build a socialist utopia. For this reason, Syrkin called on Jewish settlers to form communes. These would eventually be known as kibbutzim and build the foundations of the coming State of Israel.

Syrkin was also an ardent supporter of the establishment of the Jewish National Fund and also open to the ideas of the territorialist movement later in his career.

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Research Links

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nahman-syrkin

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/socialist-zionism

● https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft6b69p0hf&chunk.id=s1.1.9&to

c.id=ch1&brand=ucpress

Jacques Bahar

Bahar, unlike most of the European Jewish attendants to the First Congress, had lived in a majority Muslim area -- in a Jewish community in French Algeria. Together with his friend

Bernard Lazare, who was present at the First Congress as well, Bahar published the Socialist

Zionist newspaper Le Flambeau. His, and most Jews living in France in the late 1890s, the political outlook was influenced by the Dreyfus Affair, an anti-semitic political scandal surrounding the treason trial of the Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Bahar wrote extensively about anti-Semitism and a hypothetical Jewish utopian state.

Research Links

●

Samuelle Pineles

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Samuelle Pineles stands at the confluence of many tides of Zionist thought. He was supportive of

Herzl and his strain of Political Zionism, but also an active member of Practicalist organization

Hovevei Zion. He was also the head of multiple other practicalist settlement projects in his native

Romania, including Yishuv Erets Yisra’el and the Alliance Israélite Universelle. In his later work, he was an advocate of Territorialism. Pineles was concerned with the immediate evacuation of Jews at risk of pogrom violence, and the organizations he ran and participated in facilitated these men, women, and children to escape to Palestine. Perhaps this commitment to the immediate settlement of refugees is why, even after pledging allegiance to Herzl and the

Political Zionist cause, Pineles continued to serve in Practicalist organizations.

Research Links

● http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Pineles_Samuel

Max Nordau

Abraham Salz was a Practicalist willing to compromise. In his youth, he worked with Jewish communities in Poland to combat their cultural assimilation and secured the support of a prominent Hasidic community, in his native Galicia, for the Zionist cause. With their approval and assistance, they organized the settlement of Galician Jews in Palestine. 10 years after the

First Zionist Congress, Salz advocated compromise between Practicalist and Political Zionist factions under the banner of Syntheic Zionism. Syntheticists supported immediate settlement in

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Palestine (like Practicalists) but not without efforts to secure statehood and international recognition for the nation they would form (like Political Zionism).

Research Links

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/salz-abraham-adolph

Bernard Lazare

Of delegates at the First Zionist Congress, Bernard Lazare was likely the most outwardly socialist, or, more accurately, anarchist. He was well connected, being in correspondence with

Asher Ginsberg, Jacques Bahar, and Theodor Herzl. Lazare was critical of Ginsberg, Herzl, and even Marx, but was good friends with Bahar with whom he ran the Socialist Zionist newspaper

Le Flambeau. Anti-semitism and the miscarriage of justice in France made apparent by the

Dreyfus Affair drove him to politics, and he served as the legal defense of many a controversial socialist and Zionist. To Lazare, Zionism was a matter of the emancipation of working Jewish people as soon as possible and their organization in a land where they could be free from oppression.

Research Links

●

Samuel Mohilever

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Samuel Mohliver, who also went as Shmuel Mohilever, was at the forefront of the religious

Zionist movement, but, due to his involvement in Hovevei Zion was also influential in

Practicalist Zionist circles. As pogroms swept across Eastern Europe, Mohilever began lobbying to philanthropists, requesting they help fund Jews’ escape to Palestine. He advocated for one plank of the Political Zionist platform, the centralization of Hovevei Zion into one hierarchical organization. He mainly conducted his working amongst Orthodox Jewish communities, and he lead the first prominent Religious Zionist organization, Mizrachi. Its motto, and a good explanation of the movement’s motives, is “the Land of Israel for the People of Israel according to the Torah of Israel.” While Mohilever’s Zionism seems conservative today, he was associated with a controversial group of reformist Jewish intellectuals known as the Maskilim and was not afraid to ruffle a few feathers.

Research Links

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/samuel-mohilever

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/religious-zionism

Gregor Belkovsky

Gregor Belkovsky did not make his position on the Political vs. Practical Zionist question known, but he was vehemently anti-territorialist. He detested the Uganda Plan brought in front of the Third Zionist Congress, and rejected any settlement of Jews outside of Palestine. He was born poor, but managed to put himself through law school. He never got his license to practice

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law because he was Jewish. Belkovsky was offered a job as a professor in a university in the

Russian Empire, but only on the condition that he convert to Christianity. He denied. He later taught in Bulgaria and became the leader of the nation’s Zionist movement. He was a personal friend of the Tsar of Bulgaria at the time, Ferdinand I.

Research Links

● http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2821-belkovsky-gregoire

Isaac Rülf

As a rabbi in Central Europe, specifically Lithuania, Rülf understood well the differences between Eastern European Jews in neighboring Russia and Western European Jews in neighboring Germany. He studied the pogroms in the Russian Empire and did his best to raise awareness of them in the Western European Jewish community, forewarning them that in the future they might not be safe either. His solution to this threat was, of course, Zionism. While he was a great fan of the Practicalist Leon Pinsker’s work, Rülf was one of the first Zionists to advocate for Political Zionism. The rabbi insisted that Zion be an internationally recognized state in Palestine -- nothing less and nowhere else. He did, though, encourage Jews to purchase land in

Palestine and move as soon as possible -- demonstrating a mix of Practical and Political thought.

Research Links

● https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Rulf_Isaak

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Davis Trietsch

Trietsch was born and educated in Germany, but as of the 1897 Congress, he had been living in

New York City for 4 years where he was studying “migration problems.” This prominent Zionist

leader was an aggressive territorialist and an advocate of settling Jews in British-controlled

Cyprus as soon as possible, an area which he concieved to be part of “Greater Palestine.” His attraction to immediate settlement differed from the Political Zionist mainstream of Herzl, being more aligned with the Practical camp. Davis Trietsch served the German Army in WWI after the

Congress, and had always supported Zionist collaboration with the then Imperial Germany.

Research Links

● http://jewishmuseummd.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/First-Zionist-Congress.pdf

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/trietsch-davis

Max Bodenheimer

Max Bodenheimer is most renowned for his work within the Zionist Organization after it was

established by the First Zionist Congress, specifically around the Jewish National Fund. The

Jewish National Fund was established by the Congress to support the Zionist Organization and

finance the purchase and settlement of land by Jews. While Max Bodenheimer was content with

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Political Zionism, he also worked with German diplomats on plans for increased Jewish political autonomy in Eastern Europe.

Research Links

● http://www.zionistarchives.org.il/en/AttheCZA/AdditionalArticles/Pages/Bodenheimer.as

px

Leo Motzkin

Dr. Leo Motzkin narrowly escaped death in a pogrom in 1881, making it safely to Berlin from his native Ukraine. This first hand brush with anti-semitic violence was a seminole influence on his pragmatic Zionist thought. He was a Political Zionist, a personal friend of Theodor Herzl, and major critic of Hovevei Zion and its Practical Zionism. His Zionist work including expeditions to

Palestine in order to survey potential settlement sites and the conditions of Jews already there.

Unlike others within the Zionist Congress and Organization who favored the British, Leo

Motzkin believed that Zionist Jews should work with the Ottoman Empire to achieve their goals.

Much of contribution to the Zionist effort was initiating dialogue with national governments about Zionism and encouraging them to support the movement.

Research Links

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/leo-motzkin

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● https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-

maps/motzkin-leo

Karpel Lippe

Lippe was one of the only staunchly anti-Political, Practical Zionists elected to the Congress’s executive committee. After Herzl published Judenstaat, a pamphlet which was the first to advocate for Jewish statehood and invented Political Zionism, Lippe wrote a piece in the Jewish periodical Zion in response. He declared that Jews ought not to establish their own state, but instead settle in Ottoman-administered Palestine as Turkish citizens -- the Practicalist position which had been the status quo since the inception of Zionism. Lippe’s philosophy was also very influenced by Haskalim. He supported modernization of the faith, but reject assimilation as a

solution to anti-Semitism unlike other Haskilim.

Research Links

● https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Lippe_Karpel

William Hechler

The Anglican Reverend Hechler was one of 10 Chrisitian delegates invited to the Zionist

Congress. He was first drawn to the movement out of disgust at the violent pogroms in Russia,

seeking a solution. He became a good friend of Herzl’s and was one of the first to attempt to

contact the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in order to secure a charter for Jewish settlement in

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Palestine. He worked with Herzl and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany towards these efforts -- which were ultimately unsuccessful. Hechler also had a large part in increasing non-Jewish awareness of the Zionist cause, especially in Western Europe.

Research Links

● https://www.israelanswers.com/sites/israelanswers.com/files/files/images/Hechler.pdf

Jacob de Haas

Haas was born in the British Empire, but is most notable for his work in America. Originally a member and advocate of Hovevei Zion, Haas eventually converted to Political Zionism and encouraged his fellow Practicalist Hovevei Zion associates to do the same. He was a journalist and close to Theodor Herzl who eventually ordered him to move to America in order to coordinate the Zionist cause there. Haas, recognizing the importance of these efforts, did and made a great impact on the course of Zionist history in America.

Research Links

● https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-

maps/de-haas-jacob

Nathan Birnbaum

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Nathan Birnbaum believed that Zionism was a quest for a revived center of Jewish culture, not for a political entity. Because of this, he promoted the use of the Yiddish language and the celebration of Ashkenazi culture. He took issue with what he perceived to be a general disdain amongst Zionists for the Diaspora community. He also disagreed with Herzl’s Political Zionism, opting instead for a fusion of Practicalist and Spiritualist ideas. Birnbaum was the one to coin the

English word “Zionism,” even though later in his life he eventually abandoned the movement.

Research Links

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nathan-birnbaum

● https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Birnbaum_Nathan

Nahum Sokolow

Nahum Sokolow was a successful journalist who focused his Zionist activism on convincing ultra religious Jews that, even though its leadership was predominantly secular, the Political

Zionist cause was a solution to their problems and in accordance with God’s will. At the time of the First Congress, Sokolow had Territorialist sympathies and thought that settlement in

Palestine was unlikely to ever happen, but he was never a practicalist. In later years, he had a major part in Zionist diplomatic operations such as the negotiation of the Balfour Declaration and meetings with Arab leaders already settled in Palestine.

Research Links

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● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nahum-sokolow

Israel Zangwill

Zangwill, a British-Jewish author nicknamed the “Dickens of the Ghetto,” is most known for pioneering the Territorialist Zionist movement, but his Zionist roots were in the

Cultural/Sprititualist tradition. He believed that Zionism should prioritize a revival of Jewish culture and focus on evacuating in-danger Jews from Europe promptly. Despite his eventual drift away from Political Zionism towards Territorialism, Zangwill was close to Herzl and helped him establish connections with important figures of British Jewry. Zangwill cited the importance of respecting the human rights of native Arabs in Palestine as a critique of Political Zionism as early as 1917.

Research Links

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/israel-zangwill

Mayer Ebner

Mayer Ebner was raised in an bourgeois family heavily influenced by the Haskala, but Ebner rejected the ideals of acculturation and assimilation, which he believed had failed to shield the

Jewish community from the rising tide of anti-Semitism. Instead, he was drawn towards Jewish nationalism and Political Zionism as an alternative solution. In his writings, he paid special attention to how Jewish settler ought to cohabitate with native Arab populations in Palestine --

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and issue oft overlooked by early Zionist thinkers. Even while working on his Zionists activism,

he continued to work in his native Austrian Empire, and later Romania, in the fight against anti-

Semitism and for legal equality.

Research Links

● https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Ebner_Mayer

Max Mandelstamm

Max Mandelstamm was a Russian ophthalmologist who found himself involved in many

different movements within Zionism. In the wake of the 1881-1882 pogroms in Russia,

Mandelstamm shifted away from his work in the hard sciences to focus on Jewish relations. He

participated in a commission headed by the Russian Imperial government to investigate the

recent wave of violence, to which he proposed Jewish emigration from Russia as a radical

solution. He made friends with early Zionist figures in Hibbat Zion and was an influential

participant in the Katowice Conference, but when Herzl rose to prominence and Political

Zionism came about, he shifted his allegiance to this faction. Later, in 1905, he was an adamant

supporter of the Territorialist cause and voted in favor of the British Uganda Proposal. Over the

course of his Zionist career, Mandelstamm support many different solutions to Jewish issues in

Europe.

Research Links

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● https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-

maps/mandelstamm-max-emmanuel

Isidor Jasinowski

Isidor Jasinowski was both a Practicalist and Territorialist because, as Russian Jew who lived through the pogroms, evacuating Jews from Europe was the number one priority. He received a traditional, Eastern European Jewish religious education, so keeping Jewish culture a part of

Zionism was also important to him. He was a member of Hibbat Zion, and he later joined the

Jewish Territorial Organization and was supportive of the British Uganda Program.

Research Links

● https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jasinowski-israel-isidore

Mordecai Ehrenpreis

Mordecai Ehrenpreis was a learned rabbi who travelled and worked all across Europe. He was a proponent of Cultural/Spiritual Zionism; he worked to promote the use of Jewish languages like

Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino. He opposed secular Political Zionism, but was still supportive of

Jewish statehood so long as it prioritized Jewish culture. Ehrenpreis demonstrated a willingness to comprimise with other factions of the Zionist movement in his work. He advocated an increase in communication and improvement of relations with the non-Jewish majority and sought to create greater understanding between Jews and non-Jews.

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Research Links

● https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-

maps/ehrenpreis-marcus

David Farbstein

David Farbstein’s activism sought to address the plights of Jewish immigrants and workers.

While he was raised in a conservative Orthodox family in Poland, he distanced himself from that lifestyle. He associated himself with other early Socialist Zionists like Nahman Syrkin and moved to Switzerland. He eventually earned his Swiss citizenship and involved himself in Swiss domestic politics as well as the Zionist movement. He worked with Herzl at the First Congress to establish the Jewish National Fund which would go on to bank roll Zionist settlement in

Palestine.

Research Links

● https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-

maps/farbstein-david-zevi

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