They called the movement Zionism.
As blood riots against the Jews were increasing in Russia, Poland, Rumania, Austria, and Germany and, as Jew baiting was reborn in France, the Basle convention made its historic proclamation:
THE AIM OF ZIONISM IS TO CREATE A HOMELAND FOR THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN PALESTINE SECURED BY PUBLIC LAW.
Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary, “In Basle I established a Jewish State. If I were to say that aloud today, universal laughter would be the response. Maybe in five years, certainly in fifty, everybody will recognize it.”
After the formal declaration of Zionism, Theodor Herzl plunged into the arduous work like a man possessed. He was a dynamic leader and inspired all those around him. He consolidated his support, gained new adherents, raised funds, and built an organization.
Herzl’s immediate objective, however, was to obtain a charter or some other legal basis upon which Zionism could be built.
There was a split within Jewry itself. Herzl was constantly harassed by an element which considered his “political” Zionism impure. Many of the old Lovers of Zion balked. A part of the religious element decried him as a false Messiah, just as another segment had praised him as the true Messiah. But the Herzl train would not and could not be derailed. Hundreds of thousands of Jews carried an imprinted “shekel” in their pockets as proof of membership.
Still without a charter, Herzl began visiting heads of state to obtain a hearing for his ideas.
Herzl worked beyond his capacities. He depleted his personal finances, neglected his family, and impaired his health. Zionism had become a great obsession with him. At last he obtained an interview with the Sultan of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, Abdul Hamid II, “Abdul the Damned.” The aging old despot fenced with Herzl and gave half promises to consider a charter for Palestine in exchange for desperately needed money. Abdul was a corrupt human being. His vast holdings in the Middle East ran from the Mesopotamian Province and included Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and much of the Arabian Peninsula. He tried to play the Zionist proposal off against better gains and finally refused Herzl’s appeal. It was a terrible setback.
In the year 1903 matters reached a new low in Russia. In the city of Kishinev the Jews were charged once again with using Christian blood for their rituals, and on Easter of that year the government secretly spurred on a wanton slaughter that left the ghetto of Kishinev in ruins.
Finally England lent a sympathetic ear. At the turn of the century the British were expanding their influence in the Middle East and were already becoming a challenge to the failing Ottomans. They were entrenched in Egypt as well as in half a dozen sheikdoms on the Arabian Peninsula, and they were anxious to gain the favor of world Jewry in order to further their own aspirations. They offered the Zionists a part of the Sinai Peninsula for Jewish immigration and colonization. It was the understanding that this area stood at the door of the Promised Land and the door would open when the British took over. The plan was vague and ill advised and Herzl still hoped to gain a charter for Palestine, so the plan collapsed.
More attempts to gain a charter failed. The pogroms were overrunning a great part of Europe. Herzl became certain that a temporary haven had to be obtained to ease the situation. The British came forth with a second proposal. They offered the African territory of Uganda to the Zionists for Jewish colonization. Herzl desperately agreed to take it up before the next convention.
When the Uganda plan was proposed by Herzl, a fierce opposition developed, led by the Russian Zionists. The basis of their resistance was the fact that they could find no mention of Uganda in the Bible.
Twenty-five solid years of pogroms in Russia and in Poland were now causing the Jews to pour out from eastern Europe by the thousands. By the turn of the century fifty thousand had found their way to Palestine. Abdul Hamid II saw this influx of Jews as potential allies of the British and decreed that no more Jews from Russia, Poland, or Austria would be allowed.
However, the Sultan’s empire was rotten to the core. The Zionists had a world headquarters in England and a growing bank to back them up. Zionist bribe money kept the door of Palestine open for all who would enter.
This was the First Aliyah of the Jewish exodus!
Along with the return of the exiles to their Promised Land another event was taking place in the Arab world. After centuries of subjugation there was a rankling of unrest among the Arabs that spelled the beginnings of Arab nationalism. In all the Arab world there existed not a single independent or autonomous state.
Arab nationalism sprang first from liberal elements in
Lebanon as a progressive movement bent on instituting long overdue reforms. The ideas grew until a first conference was held in Paris and the call was given for the sleepers to awake.
These ideas not only frightened the colonials but they frightened the oppressors within the Arab world, and the well-meaning movement was grabbed up by tribal leaders, sheiks, religious leaders, and effendi landowners, under whose influence the original ideals degenerated into hate-filled dogma as each maneuvered to gain control of the dying Ottoman Empire.
The twentieth century!
Chaos in the Middle East. Zionism! Arab nationalism! The Ottoman’s decline and the British ascent! All these elements stewing in a huge caldron were bound to boil over.
Theodor Herzl’s comet streaked over the sky with blinding light and speed. It was a mere ten years from the day he had heard Alfred Dreyfus cry, “I am innocent!” to the day he dropped dead of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.
CHAPTER SEVEN: By the time the Zionist movement came into being the Rabinsky brothers were old-timers in Palestine. They knew almost every corner of the land and had worked at almost every job. They had lost most of their illusions.
Yakov was restless and bitter.
Jossi tried to find a measure of contentment in his existence. He appreciated his relative freedom. Moreover, he never stopped dreaming of the land in the Huleh Valley above Safed.
Yakov held both the Arabs and Turks in contempt. He looked upon them as enemies as he had looked upon the Cossacks and students of the gymnasium. It was quite true that the Turks would not tolerate murder, but everything else against the Jews seemed justified. Many a night Yakov and Jossi sat up arguing.
“Certainly we should obtain land through legal purchase but where are we going to get farmers and what is going to make the Bedouins and Turks leave us alone?”
“We will get farmers when the pogroms get bad enough again,” Jossi answered. “As for the Turks … you can buy them. As for the Arabs, we must learn to live side by side with them in peace. This will happen only if we understand them.”
Yakov shrugged. “One thing an Arab understands”-and
he held up his fist and shook it-“he understands this.”
“Someday they will hang you on the gallows,” Jossi said.
The brothers grew further and further apart. Jossi maintained his desire for peace and understanding and Yakov continued to be a proponent of direct action to counter the injustices against the Jews.
At the beginning of the new century Yakov joined a group of fifteen men who set out on a daring venture. One of the philanthropic funds purchased a small piece of land deep in the Jezreel Valley where no Jews had penetrated for centuries. Here the fifteen pioneers established an agricultural training center and experimental farm. The place was called Sde Tov, Field of Goodness. Their position was extremely dangerous, for they were locked in on four sides by Arab villages and at the mercy of Bedouin tribes who would not hesitate to murder for anything of value.
By 1900 there were fifty thousand Jews in Palestine and a bit more social life for Jossi. Most of those who fled the pogroms wanted nothing to do with the floundering agricultural colonies but were content to become merchants or tradesmen in Jaffa. A few of them settled in the tiny port town of Haifa. However, there were too many coming in for all of them to be absorbed as merchants and there were too many who owned just the clothes they wore; soon there was a good deal of talk of land redemption.