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First Zionist Congress

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First Zionist Congress 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 1 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]) 2 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 3 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 4 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- 5 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. 6 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. 7 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 8 immediate path of danger in Europe was an utmost priority, and that requiring they be moved to Palestine was an unnecessary road block.
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