Theodor Herzl

The Beginnings of the Political Zionism

The antecedent of political Zionism is the hateful behavior of European society towards the assimilated Jews, antisemitism, and the sad events of the Dreyfus affair in Paris in the fall of 1894, which can be considered as its cause.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1891–1935) was an offshoot of a fully assimilated banker family from Paris, who was arrested on charges of spying for Germany as an officer of the French Staff. Thousands of people attended the demotion of the caption and shouted: “Death to the Jew!” As a reporter of a Viennese newspaper, who believed that assimilation was an opportunity for the abolition of hatred towards the Jews, Theodor Herzl (of Hungarian origin, Tivadar Herzl, 1860–1904) was an eyewitness of the events. He was shocked by the temper of the crowd and the power of the events, he recognized that the hatred for Jews would never be abolished by dissolving among the nations, but by giving up Jewish identity and self-destruction. The survival of the Jewish people had only one chance: to create a home for them.

Under the influence of the events, Herzl started to write a book about the situation of the Jews. He wrote a letter to the baron, Maurice de Hirsch (1831–1896) who at the time worked on establishing settlements for fleeing Jews in Argentina. Herzl lived in the ecstasy of the vision of migrating to the Promised Land. The meeting with the baron did not succeed: Hirsch did not want to support his plan financially. Herzl was not disappointed by the difficulty but inspired, he wrote a letter in two weeks to the Rothschild Family Council to gain support. This letter was the foundation of his work, The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat), published in 1896, in which he pictured the organization of a complete Jewish state. To make this dream come true, he met heads of state and negotiated with Jewish organizations. In May 1897, he decided to gather the first Zionist world congress, then in June he established a newspaper with the title Die Welt on his own money to serve the causes of Zionism.

On August 29, 1897, the first Zionist congress was held in Basel, that was the first symbolic Parliament of the soon to be born Jewish state. According to Herzl, the purpose of the congress was to lay the foundations of the Jewish state – a shelter for Jewish people – and to reach legal and international insurance for the cause. The most significant supporter of Herzl was Max Nordau (also of Hungarian origin, alias Miksa Südfeld, 1849–1923). For the execution of the Zionist plan, the Zionist Organization (its later name: World Zionist Organization) was established and led by Herzl. After the three month long “Parliament”, Herzl wrote in his diary on September 3, 1897: “Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word — which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly — it would be this: At Basel, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.”

Herzl took diplomatic steps towards the Sultan, the Emperor and the Pope in order to promote the cause of a Jewish State, then he attempted to persuade Jewish communities and the Russians. He populated his plans in the form of a futuristic novel The Old New Land (Altneuland) to reach even more people, it was published in 1902. At the same time, the difficulties and efforts he made consumed his power and in 1904, he died. His work, the goal of political Zionism, that is the creation of a home for the Jewish people with internationally guaranteed legal certainty, were carried on by many others.

The First Zionist Congress

The banner of the Congress

Max Nordau

Book cover of the The Old New Land

The most significant Zionist congresses and their results until the creation of the State of Israel

Year	Congress	Most Significant Event
1897	1.	For the execution of the Zionist cause the Zionist Organization was established (its later name: World Zionist Organization).
1898	2.	The congress was welcomed with good wishes from the Turkish Sultan. The Jewish Colonial Trust was founded. They set the persuasion of Jewish communities for the Zionist cause as a goal.
1901	5.	The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael) was established, its capital was collected by Jewish people and its purpose was to redeem lands. Leo Motzkin, Martin Buber, and Chaim Weizmann suggested that the Jewish state would need Jewish culture. To support this a cultural committee was created.
1903	6.	The pogrom in Kisinyev, the slaughter of Jews prompted the solution of the Jewish question. As a temporary solution, different areas were submitted (e.g., Cyprus, El Arish etc.) Herzl eventually accepted East-African Uganda, offered by the British as a temporary solution despite the opposition of many.
1905	7.	The Uganda-plan was rejected. At the same time, the minority (territorials) accepted the English offer, they separated themselves from the Zionist association, however their movement was disbanded in 1918.
1907	8.	The practical Zionists and the political Zionists started to get closer to each other. Under the guidance of Chaim Weizmann, the Synthetic Zionism was created, which mixed the principles of the two trends.
1933	18.	After Hitler came to power, to help the Jews in Germany, a central office was founded for the issues of Aliyah from Germany.
1939	21.	The main topic was the argument over the fight against the British White Paper of 1939 on Palestine.
1946	22.	On the first Zionist Congress after the Second World War, the activist trend won with Ben Gurion. Chaim Weizmann was followed by Ben Gurion as president. The “diplomatic Zionism” was replaced by “militant Zionism”.

The presidents of the Zionist Organization – its later name, World Zionist Organization – until the creation of the State of Israel

President	Presidential Time
Theodor Herzl	1897–1904
David Wolffsohn	1905–1911
Otto Warburg	1911–1920
Chaim Weizmann	1920–1946, except between1931 and 1935), Weizmann becomes the president of the State of Israel later as well.
David Ben Gurion	1946–1948

Arthur Ruppin

Practical Zionism

The practical Zionists hold that the creation of a Jewish state can only be achieved by purchasing lands in Israel and establishing settlements, which would make it easier for the existing communities to claim political rights and international legal certainty than claiming rights before acting. Actually, practical Zionists are the former members of the BILU and Hovevei Zion movements before Herzl, and they support the continuation of founding and improving settlements despite the diplomatic negotiations on Zionist Congresses.

In favor of the settlings, the Jewish Colonial Trust was established in 1898 which purchased lands a year later in Lower-Galilea, and in 1900 the Rothschild-settlements were owned by the Trust. In 1903, the Anglo-Palestine Company (later Bank) was founded in Jaffa to support investments. The appearance of Arthur Rupin (1876–1943) was a significant breakthrough in practical Zionism, he came to Israel in 1908, commissioned by the Zionist Congress, and in Jaffa he opened the predecessor of the Jewish Agency (Sochnut), the Eretz Israel Office (Land of Israel Office) to help settlement activities. Practical Zionism can be dated back here, and Rupin is considered to be its father.

It is significant to emphasize that Jewish settlement policy is always adjusted to demographic reality, that is they occupy and purchase lands where Arabs are not settled. The Arabs in turn gladly sell the deserted, rocky, malaria-parlous areas for high prices to the Jews. Then risking their own lives, leaving their jobs as doctors, lawyers, litterateurs, musicians, the Jews would make the lands fruitful.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

Religious Zionism

Among religious Zionists, the ideas of political Zionism came through pretty hard: the Jews believed that salvation would only come from above which cannot be forced by human deeds. Thus, they received the secular, political, practical and cultural Zionist aspirations suspiciously. Apart from some early advocates of Zionism – e.g., Rabbis Yehuda Hai Alkalai (1798–1878) and Zwi Hirsch Kalischer (1795–1874) – or later the supporters of the Hovevei Zion Zionist group – rabbinic leaders like Shmuel Mohiliver (1824–1898) and Yitzhak Yaakov Reines (1839–1915) – or Yehiel Michal Pines (1843–1913) who planned out a Zionist alternative inside Orthodoxy; they could not achieve breakthrough results.

The first representatives of Zionist religious-nationalist philosophy and therefore the father of religious Zionism, is Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935), the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British mandate. Rav Kook realized that the land of Israel, and those political, practical and cultural Zionists who sacrificed their whole lives and careers for Zionism – even though they did not know – had a religious side: the atheist, sinful Zionists were in fact the “servants of the House of the Lord”, their deeds, the rebuilding of Israel were the way to salvation, just as the “profanation”, rebirth of the Hebrew language.

According to Rav Kook, the issue of Zion was not just an issue of the Jews but had a universal significance: as according to the prophecies, there would come a Messianic era which brings peace and well-being for humanity, and this era could not start until the land of Israel and Jerusalem are occupied physically and spiritually by Jewish people.

In 1904, at the beginning of the second Alijah, Rav Kook arrived in the land of Israel and started to spread the philosophy of religious Zionism as a rabbi of Jaffa. He was elected to be the chief rabbi of Jerusalem in 1919, then in 1929, he became the first official Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British mandate until his death in 1935. His ideas were carried on by his son who becomes one of the leading figures of the religious settlement movement after the Six-Day War in 1967.

 

John Nelson Darby

Christian Zionism

While historical Christianity stands on the grounds of allegoric Scripture interpretation and substitution theology since the 2–3rd centuries, the new Protestant movements from the 16–17th centuries turned back to interpret the prophecies literally. They recognized that according to the prophecies, before the millennial, peaceful era the Jews should return to their land, and Israel needed to be restored. There are several representatives of millennial theology – e.g. Francis Kett (around 1547–1589), who was burnt alive for his views in 1589 – and in the 18th century by the ideas of the Millenists the Restoration Movement was started which was supported by not only theologians and authors, but by politicians as well.

In the 19th century, futurism and the movement led by John Nelson Darby (1800–1802) emphasized the restoration of Israel – besides the powerful motions of the Spirit of God. (The views of these theologians highly influence later the Pentecostal-charismatic and neo-Protestant movements.) With Herzl worked a Christian Zionist, interpreting prophecies, William H. Hechler (1845–1931).

William E. Blackstone (1841–1935) is considered to be the father of American Christian Zionism, who compared the part of the United States in the return of Jewish people to their country, to the Persian Cyrus.

From the second half of the 20th century, Christian Zionist theology dominated politics and public life: lobbying with representative groups, organization on diplomatic and politic levels in support of Zionism and the cause of Israel. The Israel-friendly politics of many presidents was led by the theologian views of the End Times and Messianic Era.

 

Pastor John Hagee, a modern era Christian Zionist