August 28, 2019
The First Days of World Zionism, 122 Years Ago Tomorrow
By Allan ArkushA full English translation of the minutes of the first Zionist Congress is finally available, allowing an engrossing reconstruction of the momentous scene.
August 1897 was one of the most thrilling months in modern Jewish history.
Only a year-and-a-half earlier, when he published The Jewish State, Theodor Herzl might have struck his friends and colleagues as a person of unsound mind. But on August 29, 1897—122 years ago tomorrow—a couple of hundred delegates from all over the world showed up in Basel, Switzerland to attend the Zionist Congress that Herzl had conjured up out of next to nothing. At that moment, it was clear to all that he was a man to be taken seriously.
It is still clear, if not clearer than ever in hindsight. At that perilous juncture in Jewish history, replete with bigotry, persecutions, pogroms, and the travails of mass resettlement, the proud assemblage in Basel stands out as an event of great and unprecedented promise.