12. ZIONISM. Past and The first Basel Congress (1897) declared that the movement it organized °aims at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine"; but modern Zionism is too complex to be defined by any formula. It is a broad stream wherein flow, but partially com mingled, many currents. The first in point of time is the expectation founded on Biblical prophecy and its traditional interpretation, God's purpose concerning His people can only be fulfilled by regathering the dispersed of Judah and Israel in the land of their fathers; and that this will be brought about through a divinely= commissioned prince of the House of David hence an °anointed one" (Messiah). This hope is expressed in many prayers of the established synagogue liturgy and even in the individual or collective after meat" In those countries and times, however, wherein Jews have enjoyed a practical civic equality with their neighbors, the Messianic expectation has been for many centuries and with the vast majority rather an article of faith and a pious hope of the indefinite future, than a matter of immediate concern. Everywhere, Jews have exhibited the most ardent attachment to the land of their birth or adoption and have ren dered it faithful and patriotic service. In Germany the 19th century witnessed a confer ence of rabbis (Frankfort 1845) who faith-. fully represented a large body of °Reform Jews" resolving to expunge from the prayer book °the petitions for a return to the land of our forefathers and the restoration of the Jew ish State"; while in the United States this ex ample was not only followed by two rabbinical conferences (Philadelphia 1869, Pittsburgh 1885) but bettered by the declarations of preachers and orators that ((America was [their] Palestine and Washington [their] Jerusalem. In those countries wherein the Jews have been continuously oppressed, as Russia, Rumania, Galicia, Morocco, the "dream" of re-establish ment in the Holy Land as a priestly nation, under the direct protection of Providence, has naturally been more prolonged and more in tense; and a strong intelligent minority— not all of whom may be characterized as astsl° —has nurtured the same hope, even in free countries. The belief that restoration was to be signalized, as of old, by some unmistak able sign of miraculous intervention, necessarily tended to discourage human initiative. Hence the many attempts, fantastic, tragic or simply premature, of pretended Messiahs (e.g., Serene, 729; David Alroy, 1160; Sabbathai Zebi, 1648); of Jewish statesmen in the service of European states (e.g., Joseph Nasi, Duke of Naxos, Ven ice, 1550, Constantinople, 1565) ; or of bene volent Jews of local prominence (e.g., Mordecai M. Noah of New York, c. 1820) to establish self-governing Jewish communities in Palestine or elsewhere proved abortive or disastrous. A
less ambitious and more frankly philanthropic movement has, however, in recent times, , met with a somewhat greater measure of success. In 1870 Charles Netter, acting for the (Alli ance Israelite Universelle," established a farm school near Jaffe, on land presented by the Sultan (Mikveh Israel) and in 1878 under the influence of Laurence Oliphant, active work in planting Jewish agricultural colonies in Pales tine began. Baron Edmond de Rothschild now became interested anis gave wise and practical aid. In 1882, and subsequently, many settle ments arose. This was brought about largely through agitation in Germany and, especially, in Russia, by means of various societies which finally took the name of Chovevei Zion of Zion"). Stimulated by the Ru manian and Russian persecutions of 1880 and 1881, the movement continued to spread in these and other countries, including England, France and the United States; and in 18'84 a confer ence was held in which more than 50 societies were represented. This phase of Zionism reached its height in 1890. In 1892-94, perhaps because the immigrants were so largely of Rus sian nativity as to raise the question of a pos sible complication with a persistent enemy, the Sultan's government restricted the entry of foreign Jews into Palestine, and the coloniza tion movement received a temporary check, only recently removed. Meanwhile two other currents, always more or less active, began to flow strongly; one of them, turbulently. The latter third of the 19th century was marked in Europe by the recrudescence of separatist and nationalist sentiment. The French Revolution had made °universal brotherhood" a watchword, and this influence persisted until after the failure of the revolutions of 1848 in Germany. The Franco-Prussian War (1870) and the Russo-Turkish War (1878) marked the return ing intensification of racial and national hatreds. To this a false philology and a falser anthropol ogy brought its pseudo-scientific jargon of °Aryan,)) and "Hamite.)) Out of the whirlpool that arose issued the two streams that have most influenced modern Zionism renascent Jewish Nationalism — a Volk Geist no longer religious in motive, and anti-Semi tism. George Eliot in (1876) described the first; the resurrection of obsolete oppressive laws and government-incited mas sacres in Russia (1880 to 1906) typify the last. (See article ANTI-SEMITISM in this section). In Germany, France and Austria Jews were not killed or subjected to legal disabilities, but they were harassed and restricted in social and Pro fessional life until finally the high-water mark of this form of persecution was reached in the `Dreyfus Affair" in France (1894-1906).