It was not, however, until the spread of anti-Semitic doctrines through Europe made men doubt whether the Mendelssohnian denationalization of Judaism possessed the elements of permanency that the Jewish nationalist spirit reasserted itself in a practical form. As long as the anti-Semites were merely polemical, the nationalists were mute, but when in Russia their agitation took the form of massacres and spoliation, followed by legislation of medieval harshness, the nationalist remedy offered itself. In 1882 several pamphlets were published by Jews in Russia, advocating the restoration of the Jewish state. They found a powerful echo in the United States, where a young Jewish poetess, Miss Emma Lazarus, passionately championed the Zionist cause in verse not unworthy of Jehuda Halevi. But the movement did not limit itself to literature. A society, “Chovevi Zion,” was formed with the object of so extending and methodizing the establishment of agricultural colonies in Palestine as to make the eventual acquisition of the country by the Jews possible. From the beginning it was a great success, and branches, or “tents” as they were called, were established all over the world. At the same time two other great schemes for rescuing the Jewish people from oppression were brought before the public. Neither was Zionist, but both served to encourage the Zionist cause. One was due to the initiative of Mr Cazalet, a financier who was interested in the Euphrates Valley Railway project. With the assistance of Mr Laurence Oliphant he proposed that the concession from the Porte should include a band of territory two miles wide on each side of the railway, on which Jewish refugees from Russia should be settled. Unfortunately the scheme failed. The other was Baron de Hirsch’s colossal colonization association (see Hirsch, Maurice de). This was neither political nor Zionist, but it was supported by a good many members of the “Chovevi Zion,” among them Colonel Goldsmid, on the ground that it might result in the training of a large class of Jewish yeomen who would be invaluable in the ultimate settlement of Palestine. (Interview in Daily Graphic, 10th March 1892.)
None of these projects, however, proved sufficiently inspiring to attract the great mass of Jewish nationalists. The Chovevi Zion was too timid and prosaic; the Hirsch scheme did not directly appeal to their strongest sympathies. In 1897 a striking change manifested itself. A new Zionist leader arose in the person of a Viennese journalist and playwright, Dr Theodore Herzl (1860–1904). The electoral successes of the anti-Semites in Vienna and Lower Austria in 1895 had impressed him with the belief that the Jews were unassimilable in Europe, and that the time was not far distant when they would be once more submitted to civil and political disabilities. The Hirsch scheme did not, in his view, provide a remedy, as it only transplanted the Jews from one uncongenial environment to another. He came to the conclusion that the only solution of the problem was the segregation of the Jews under autonomous political conditions. His first scheme was not essentially Zionist. He merely called for a new exodus, and was ready to accept any grant of land in any part of the world that would secure to the Jews some form of self-government. The idea was not new. In 1566 Don Joseph Nasi had proposed an autonomous settlement of Jews at Tiberias, and had obtained a grant of the city from the Sultan for the purpose. In 1652 the Dutch West India Company in Curaçao, in 1654 Oliver Cromwell in Surinam, and in 1659 the French West India Company at Cayenne had attempted similar experiments. Marshal de Saxe in 1749 had projected the establishment of a Jewish kingdom in South America, of which he should be sovereign; and in 1825 Major M. M. Noah purchased Grand Island, in the river Niagara, with a view to founding upon it a Jewish state. All these projects were failures. Dr Herzl was not slow to perceive that without an impulse of real enthusiasm his scheme would share the fate of these predecessors. He accordingly resolved to identify it with the nationalist idea. His plan was set forth in a pamphlet, entitled The Jewish State, which was published in German, French and English in the spring of 1896. It explained in detail how the new exodus was to be organized and how the state was to be managed. It was to be a tribute-paying state under the suzerainty of the Sultan. It was to be settled by a chartered company and governed by an aristocratic republic, tolerant of all religious differences. The Holy Places were to be exterritorialized. The pamphlet produced a profound sensation. Dr Herzl was joined by a number of distinguished Jewish literary men, among whom were Dr Max Nordau and Mr Israel Zangwill, and promises of support and sympathy reached him from all parts of the world. The haute finance and the higher rabbinate, however, stood aloof.
The most encouraging feature in Dr Herzl’s scheme was that the Sultan of Turkey appeared favourable to it. The motive of his sympathy has not hitherto been made known. The Armenian massacres had inflamed the whole of Europe against him, and for a time the Ottoman Empire was in very serious peril. Dr Herzl’s scheme provided him, as he imagined, with a means of securing powerful friends. Through a secret emissary, the Chevalier de Newlinsky, whom he sent to London in May 1896, he offered to present the Jews a charter in Palestine provided they used their influence in the press and otherwise to solve the Armenian question on lines which he laid down. The English Jews declined these proposals, and refused to treat in any way with the persecutor of the Armenians. When, in the following July, Dr Herzl himself came to London, the Maccabaean Society, though ignorant of the negotiations with the Sultan, declined to support the scheme. None the less, it secured a large amount of popular support throughout Europe, and in 1910 Zionism had a following of over 300,000 Jews, divided into a thousand electoral districts. The English membership is about 15,000.
Between 1897 and 1910 the Zionist organization held nine international Congresses. At the first, which met at Basel, a political programme was adopted on the following terms:—
“Zionism aims at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine. For the attainment of this purpose the Congress considers the following means serviceable: (1) The promotion of the settlement of Jewish agriculturists, artisans and tradesmen in Palestine. (2) The federation of all Jews into local or general groups, according to the laws of the various countries. (3) The strengthening of the Jewish feeling and consciousness. (4) Preparatory steps for the attainment of those governmental grants which are necessary to the achievement of the Zionist purpose.”
Subsequent congresses founded various institutions for the promotion of this programme, notably a People’s Bank known as the Colonial Trust, which is the financial instrument of political Zionism, a National Fund for the purchase of land in Palestine and a Palestine Commission with subsidiary societies for the study and improvement of the social and economic condition of the Jews in the Holy Land. For the purposes of these bodies about £400,000 was collected in small sums and invested. Very little practical work of any abiding value, however, was accomplished, and on the political side the career of Zionism had up to the end of 1910 proved a failure.
In May 1901 and August 1902 Dr Herzl had audiences of the Sultan Abdul Hamid, and was received with great distinction, but the negotiations led to nothing. Despairing of obtaining an immediate charter for Palestine, he turned to the British government with a view to securing a grant of territory on an autonomous basis in the vicinity of the Holy Land, which would provisionally afford a refuge and a political training-ground for persecuted Jews. His overtures met with a sympathetic reception, especially from Mr Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, and Earl Percy, who was Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (October 1902). At first a site for the proposed settlement was suggested in the Sinai peninsula, but owing to the waterless character of the country the project had to be abandoned. Then Mr Chamberlain, who in the interval had paid a visit to Africa, suggested the salubrious and uninhabited highlands of the East Africa Protectorate, and in 1903 the British government formally offered Dr Herzl the Nasin Gishiu plateau, 6000 sq. m. in area. No such opportunity for creating a Jewish self-governing community had presented itself since
