Number of words: 320

In 1897 the first Zionist Congress assembled in Basle. The transactions of that historic gathering were perhaps less significant than the gathering itself. For the first time in Jewish history, representatives from Jewish communities throughout the world had assembled to discuss a programme of action for the Jewish people. Zionism, they declared, aims at astablishing for the Jewish people a publically and legally assured home in Palestine. A political movement had come into being and it was Herzl’s creation. It was this, rather than his frenzied embassies to heads of state which was to earn him the title of ‘father of the Jewish state.’

The embassies were, however, necessary, for the Zionist Organization could do little without the patronage of a great power. Herzl had two meetings with the German Kaiser Wilhelm II and they both proved futile. He was, however, able to interest Joseph Chamberlain, the British Colonial Secretary, in the Jewish question, and out of this emerged the East Africa scheme. The British offer of an area of hill country near Nairobi might not in normal circumstances have been seriously considered, but in April 1903 there was a particularly savage pogrom in Kishinev and the question of a secure refuge for the Jew assumed immediate urgency. East Africa was not Palastine, but because of the critical situation of Jewry, Herzl favoured acceptance. His very readiness to do so showed how far he was removed from the feelings which gave Zionism is its main impetus. He found influential supporters for the scheme, but the mass of the movement opposed it on the sufficient grounds that there could be no Zionism without Zion. But the scheme, while causing division and bitterness in the movement, had one important positive result. A great power had concerned herself with the work of the Zionist movement. Zionism has found if not a patron, at least a sympathetic listener.

Excerpted  from Israel by Chaim Bermant