A History of Zionism (19 page)

As I sat on the platform … I underwent a curious experience. I saw and heard my legend being made. The people are sentimental; the masses do not see clearly. … But even if they no longer see my features distinctly, they still sense that I mean truly well by them and that I am the little people’s man.
*

After the unsuccessful London trip, and a disastrous meeting with Rothschild in Paris (‘I consider the house of Rothschild a national misfortune for the Jews’, he wrote to Zadok Kahn, the French chief rabbi), his mind was made up. The rich Jews were all against him. He would now appeal directly to the masses. An organisation with branches all over the world would be set up. Above all he would get the support of the enthusiastic young generation. So far he had engaged in secret diplomacy, but the inactivity and hesitations of his followers compelled him to become a popular leader. There were moments of despair. On 13 October 1896 he wrote in his diary:

I must frankly admit to myself: I am demoralised. From no side, help, from every side, attacks. Nordau writes to me that nobody stirs any longer in Paris. The Maccabeans in London are more Pickwickian than ever. … In Germany I have only opponents. The Russians look on sympathetically while I slave away, but none of them lends a hand. In Austria, especially Vienna, I have a few adherents. Those who are not self-seekers do absolutely nothing; the others, the active ones, want to ‘get a boost’ in their career.

But nine days later Herzl was invited to a gala reunion of the Jewish students’ union and he notes: ‘A series of ovations … All the speakers referred to me.
On ne parle que de moi là dedans.
’
†

Visitors and letters began to arrive from all parts of the world. Zionism, Herzl realised, was gradually winning the esteem of ordinary men in all sorts of countries, people ‘are beginning to take us seriously’. But one million florins was needed to put the movement squarely on its feet. Unless he could overcome these initial difficulties ‘we shall have to go to sleep, although it is full daylight’. Meanwhile, as a Zionist friend wrote from London, everybody was waiting to see how the cat would jump. If he succeeded they would join. If not, he would be ridiculed and forgotten. And so Herzl laboured on, unaided and singlehanded. He still believed (as he wrote the year before) that gravity (and inertia) could be overcome by movement, the dynamic element was all: ‘Great things need no firm foundation. An apple must be placed on a table to keep it from falling. The earth hovers in the air. Thus I can perhaps found and secure a Jewish state without a firm anchorage. The secret lies in movement. Hence I believe that somewhere a guidable aircraft will be discovered.’

During the early months of 1897 he needed all the faith he could muster. On 4 June the first issue of
Die Welt
was published. It was to remain the central organ of the world Zionist movement up to the First World War. Herzl had not only to provide the money and attend to all the technical details. He had also at first to supply much of the contents. He worked himself to utter exhaustion, while the outcome of the venture seemed highly doubtful. Ten days before the publication of the first issue only two subscriptions had come in, and this despite a considerable promotion campaign. (Ten months later it had 280 subscribers in Vienna among a Jewish population of about 100,000.) A little later Herzl convened a small committee in Vienna which decided to call a Zionist congress in Basle. It was first scheduled to take place in Munich because the Russian delegates were wary of Switzerland and the German city had kosher restaurants. But the leaders of the Munich Jewish community did not want to act as hosts to the congress. This resistance was typical of the attitude of many Jewish institutions and individuals towards Zionism. They claimed that there was no Jewish question, certainly not in central and western Europe. Why stir up trouble and supply ammunition to the antisemites who had argued all along that the Jews constituted a nation apart with their own secret government, that they were not and could not be loyal citizens? Herzl was not disheartened by the wave of protests and the great disunity in his own ranks. The Lovers of Zion in Britain and France, and some of the Russians, decided to boycott the meeting. Some of his early German supporters also tried to sabotage the plan from within. Several Viennese Zionists attended, but only to try to oust him from the leadership. Herzl remained firm: ‘The congress will take place.’ As a result of his unceasing efforts, pleadings, and his willingness to make constant financial sacrifices, the first Zionist congress was opened on 29 August 1897.

Despite the preparatory talks, there was a great deal of confusion. No one knew exactly what the congress was to decide and who was going to attend. Herzl, as a participant later wrote, was the only one who knew what he wanted. He had few illusions about the strength of his movement. On the eve of the congress he again noted in his diary: ‘I stand in command of striplings, beggars and sensation mongers … some of them exploit me. Others are already jealous or disloyal. Still others desert me as soon as any little career gives them an opening. Only a few are unselfish enthusiasts. Nevertheless, even this army would do the job if success were in sight.’

The task of the congress, as he formulated it in his first speech, was ‘to lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation’.
*
For Herzl this was a most delicate operation – an ‘egg dance, with the eggs invisible’. He could not offend the rabbis or the modernists; he had to accommodate the Austrian patriots and not arouse the suspicions of the Turks. Nothing disagreeable could be said about the Russian government for fear that it might outlaw altogether the semilegal Zionist movement. But how could the situation of the Jews in Russia be passed over in any survey of the situation of world Jewry? The question of the Holy Places was a major egg, and so was the Rothschild family, which could not openly be criticised because of the help they gave to the Palestinian settlers. Herzl attached tremendous importance to the solemnity of the occasion. One of his local followers had hired a large hall with a gaudy vaudeville stage, but Herzl immediately decided to move to more dignified quarters. When Nordau appeared in a frock coat Herzl implored him to change into full dress (swallow-tails and white tie for the opening session). Everything was to be in the grand style, impressive and solemn. These elaborate preparations came as a surprise to the 197 delegates attending the congress; for most it was their first encounter with Herzl.

The congress was opened by Dr Lippe, an old Lover of Zion who recited the prayer
Shehekheyanu
: ‘Blessed art Thou o Lord our God, King of the Universe, who hast kept us alive and brought us to witness this day.’ He was to have spoken for ten minutes, but instead went rambling on, with well-meaning platitudes, making, as Herzl saw it, one embarrassing slip after another. Herzl sent word to him four times, and finally ordered him to stop. He concluded his speech by proposing an address of thanks and devotion to the sultan. The two speeches which followed, by Herzl and Nordau, were the highlights of the congress. There was nothing startling or novel in Herzl’s message: the feeling of union, of solidarity among the Jews, had been fading when modern antisemitism broke on them. But now ‘we have returned home. Zionism is the return of Judaism even before their return to the Jewish land.’ The world again recognised that the Jews were a people. They needed a strong organisation. They had nothing to hide since they would engage in no conspiratorial activities. They wanted to revive and cherish the Jewish national consciousness and to improve the material conditions of the Jewish people. The eyes of hundreds of thousands of Jews were fixed on them in hope and expectation. The merits of sporadic colonisation were not to be ignored, but the old, slow methods, without any basis of legal recognition, would not help to solve the Jewish problem. Only recognised right should be the future basis, not sufferance and toleration. The movement would have to become far greater, much more ambitious and powerful if it was to achieve any of its aims: ‘A people can be helped only by itself; and if it cannot do that, then it cannot be helped.’
*

Herzl was greeted with tremendous applause lasting fifteen minutes. (‘I remained altogether calm and deliberately refrained from bowing so as to keep the business at the outset from turning into a cheap performance’, he noted in his diary.) He was followed by Nordau, who presented a brilliant survey of the situation of the Jews in various parts of the world, its material and moral aspects and implications. Nine-tenths 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.

This was the moral
Judennot
which was even more difficult to endure than material suffering, because it affected sensitive and proud people. The emancipated Jew was uncertain of himself and of other people, fearful, lacking equilibrium, suspicious of the secret feelings even of his friends. Some Jews, new Marranos, were trying to escape the danger by conversion, but the new racial antisemitism did not recognise this easy way out. Still others were joining the revolutionary movement, hoping that with the destruction of the old order, antisemitism too would disappear. Lastly there were the Zionists. It was the task of the first Zionist congress to consider ways and means of tackling the acute emergency facing the Jewish people. Nordau spoke freely, almost without notes. Always a superb orator, he rose to new heights at this congress. Herzl noted in his diary: ‘He spoke gloriously. His address is and will continue to be a monument of our age. When he returned to our table I went over to him and said:
Monumentum aere perennius
– a monument more lasting than bronze.’

Subsequent speakers dealt in detail with the situation of the Jews in eastern and western Europe, and there were comments on the historical and economic justification of Zionism, and on colonisation in Palestine. One of Herzl’s close collaborators suggested that no more Jews should emigrate to Palestine until there was an internationally recognised legal basis for their settlement. This was in accordance with the official programme of the movement adopted at a previous session:

Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognised, legally secured 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, labourers and those pursuing other trades.
   

2. The unification and organisation 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 fulfilment of the aims of Zionism.
   

The preamble was adopted after a lengthy debate. The original draft had mentioned only a legally secured home (or homestead), but some of the younger delegates, like Schach from Cologne, and Leo Motzkin, argued that Zionism had nothing to hide. Its aim should be to win over the sultan for its aspiration to gain autonomy in Palestine. Without international legal guarantees there was no future and no security for the Jewish people. To the argument that such youthful impetuosity could harm the already existing colonies, Motzkin replied that ‘the old style colonisation will lead to nothing anyway’. A few thousand Jewish peasants had been settled in Palestine in fifteen years, but this had not aroused much interest among other Jews and the original impetus had petered out.
*
After these interventions the weaker formula was discarded and the definition originally used by Herzl, ‘publicly recognised, legally secured’ (
öffentlich-rechtlich
), reinstated. The congress also dealt with organisational questions. How was Zionism to be transformed from an inchoate movement into an effective, powerful organisation? It was decided that the Zionist congress should become the supreme organ of the movement and that for dealing with current political questions an action committee of twenty-three members was to be elected. All those over the age of eighteen accepting the Basle programme and paying a shekel (one shilling or 25 cents) had the right to vote in elections to the congresses.

In the discussions a great many ideas and suggestions which were in later years to play a large role in Zionist activities were first aired. Bodenheimer, a close friend of Wolffsohn in Cologne, outlined a plan for the establishment of a Zionist bank and central fund. Herman Shapira, a Russian-born professor of mathematics at Heidelberg, suggested that a Hebrew university should be opened in Palestine. As the third day of deliberations drew to its close, Max Mandelstam, one of the oldest Lovers of Zion, asked for the floor and in a tremulous voice expressed his and the other delegates’ gratitude to ‘that courageous man who was primarily responsible for the gathering of Jews from all countries taking counsel on the future of our people’.
*
Amid shouts of thanks and loyalty and tumultuous applause, the first Zionist congress came to an end.

It was a milestone in modern Jewish history. In contrast to the Kattowitz conference fifteen years earlier, it was not a small meeting of a few notables, receiving no publicity and leaving no traces. Acclaimed with fervent enthusiasm by some, attacked with equal intensity by others, the first Zionist congress achieved exactly the aim which Herzl had set himself: to reopen public discussion on Zionism. Jewish and non-Jewish newspapers all over the world reported the congress and reflected on its significance. For Herzl the foundation of a Zionist organisation was of tremendous importance. In his diplomatic activities he would now have the official backing of a new, dynamic movement. No longer was he simply Dr Herzl of the
Neue Freie Presse
, but the head of a world-wide organisation. Of great importance for the future of the movement was his meeting with the representatives of Russian Jewry, who with seventy delegates had constituted the strongest contingent in Basle. Herzl was impressed by the calibre of these men, of whose existence, with very few exceptions, he had been only dimly aware.