Part 6

At about the same time, Herzl met Philip Michael Von Nevlinski, a descendant of a long line of Polish noblemen who had entered the diplomatic service and became a diplomatic agent-at-large and a French journalist. In the first stages, Nevlinski guided Herzl in all the work he did in Constantinople. When Herzl came to Constantinople in June, 1896 he was under the impression that Nevlinski had already arranged an audience with the Sultan. It was not so easy, however. But whether such an audience had been arranged or not, Herzl was able to meet, a number of highly-placed Turkish officials, including the Grand Vizier. At first, the line of action was not clear, but by now Herzl had formulated his proposals to the Sultan.

Ever since the middle of the nineteenth century, Turkish finances had been in a shocking condition. The Empire was being badly managed. The Sultan was regarded as "the sick man of Europe." In 1891 the total external debt, including unpaid interest, reached the figure of two hundred and fifty-three million pounds sterling. In 1881 there was a consolidation of the debt. It was reduced to one hundred and six million pounds, but the finances of Turkey were placed under the control of a committee representing the creditors, to whom was transferred certain domestic Turkish monopolies and the collection of several categories of taxes. This enabled the European powers to intervene in the affairs of Turkey. Only by the removal of this foreign tutelage could Turkey hope to regain its independence. It was to achieve this end, Herzl thought, that the Jews, and the Jews alone, could be useful. For this service, he intended to ask for a Jewish State in Palestine. Herzl followed this line until finally the need for refunding the Turkish debt disappeared.

But at this time Herzl was not able to obtain an audience with the Sultan. Nevlinski reported that such an audience had been refused because the Sultan declined to discuss sovereignty over Palestine. Doubt was expressed as to the accuracy of the report. Whatever the fact may be, the first venture of Herzl in Constantinople was not successful.

Herzl moved along the lines that led to Constantinople and Berlin, but he did not overlook the importance of maintaining contact with Jewish philanthropies. A letter sent to the Baron de Hirsch came a day after his death.

Herzl went to London where matters had been arranged for him to meet the leaders of British Jewry. He met Claude Montefiore and Frederick Mocatte, representatives of the Anglo-Jewish Association. They were not sympathetic. Herzl fared no better at a banquet given to him by the Maccabbeans. The personal impression Herzl made was profound. But there was no practical issue nor did he make any progress during the time he spent in England. He got Sir Samuel Montagu and Colonel Goldsmith to agree to cooperate with him in an endeavor to establish a vassal Jewish State under the sovereignty of Turkey if the Powers would agree; provided, the Baron de Hirsch Fund placed £10,000,000 at his disposal for the plan; and Baron Edmund de Rothschild became a member of the Executive Committee of the proposed Society of Jews. These conditions were fantastic at that time and Herzl could not meet them.

He went to Paris and had a talk with Baron Edmund. Baron Edmund was older than Herzl and felt ill at ease in the presence of a calm critic of all he had done for Jewish colonization in Palestine. Herzl made the impression on him of an undisciplined enthusiast. Baron Edmund did not believe it possible to create political conditions favorable for a mass immigration of Jews. Even if that could be done, an uncontrolled mass immigration into Palestine would have the effect of landing tens of thousands of Jews to be fed and looked after by the small Jewish community in Palestine. He clung to his idea of slow colonization attracting no attention and careful not to provoke hostility. Every reply of Herzl fell upon a closed mind. Baron Edmund's refusal to cooperate was decisive.

This was a decision of historic significance. It turned Herzl away from the thought that the Zionist movement should be built upon the support of Jewish philanthropy. All his hopes in this connection were dissolved by the contacts he had made in London and in Paris. Baron Edmund's refusal to cooperate carried with it the refusal of the Baron de Hirsch Fund and of the circle of leading Jews in London.

Reluctantly, Herzl came to the conclusion that there was only one reply to this situation. The Jewish masses must be organized for the support of the Zionist movement.

The organization he had in mind was not a popular democratic organization. What he meant was to assemble the upper "cadres" to take charge of the organization of the masses for the great migration. At the same time, he wanted to prove to the philanthropists that a popular organization was possible. He felt that they would be greatly influenced by the development of a widespread popular movement. Whatever his thoughts were at that time, his decision to turn to the Jewish masses, to abandon reliance upon the wealthy led to the organization of the modern Zionist movement.

He organized his followers in Vienna. He was the center of a circle in which were included the men who later became the members of the first Zionist Actions Committee. In November 1896 he, for the first time, addressed a public meeting in Vienna. In this address he did not use the term "The Jewish State," nor did he use it in most of his public utterances at that time. He had become cautious. He did not want to prejudice his political work in Constantinople.

He was still thinking of issuing a newspaper, but there were no funds for that purpose. The report that he intended to issue a newspaper drew the attention of a number of personalities and groups in Berlin. There were the Russian Jewish students, led by Leo Motzkin, and a group called "Young Israel," headed by Reinrich Loewe. A conference was held on March 6 and 7, 1897, called by Dr. Osias Thon Willy Bambus and Nathan Birnbaum. They had come together to talk about a newspaper but the First Zionist Congress was launched at this meeting Herzl's proposal for the calling of a General Zionist Conference in Munich was agreed to. In the preliminary announcement of the calling of this Conference or Congress, Herzl said:

"The Jewish question must be removed from the control of the benevolent individual. There must be created a forum before which everyone acting for the Jewish people should appear and to which he should be responsible."

Every one of Herzl's ideas was met by protests and public excitement. The protests were usually launched by Jews. The calling of the Congress aroused a great deal of indignation in conservative circles. The Rabbis of Germany protested not only to the holding of the Congress but also the choice of Munich.

The Congress controversy persuaded Herzl to begin the publication of the weekly Die Welt. The first issue appeared on June 4, 1897, Herzl provided the funds. The journal was something new in Jewish life. It was, in fact, the organ of the Congress. Throughout Herzl's life, Die Welt served as the exponent of his ideas. At first, Herzl contributed numerous articles. He sent in a regular weekly review of all activities connected with the movement. He was responsible for many unsigned articles and notices. He directed the paper in all its details, although he refused to figure as its official editor and publisher. The amount of work he did during the months preceding the Congress was amazing. He was completely absorbed in every aspect of the Congress. The man of the pen revealed himself as a first-class man of action.

On August 29, 1897, the First Zionist Congress was assembled, not in Munich but in Basle, Switzerland. The majority of the delegates to the First Zionist Congress, drawn to Basle from all parts of the world, saw Herzl for the first time. The total number of delegates at the first session was 197.

The first act of the Congress was the adoption of a resolution of thanks to the Sultan of Turkey. Then Herzl rose and walked over to the pulpit. It was no longer the elegant Dr. Herzl of Vienna, it was no longer the easy-going literary man, the critic, the feuilletonist. As one reporter said: "It was a scion of the House of David, risen from among the dead, clothed in legend and fantasy and beauty." The first words uttered by Herzl were: "We are here to lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation." "We Zionists," he stressed, "seek for the solution of the Jewish question, not an international society, but an international discussion.... We have nothing to do with conspiracy, secret intervention or indirect methods. We wish to place the question under the control of free public opinion."

His First Congress address contained the ideas which he had already expressed in previous speeches and articles, but there was a great difference between the views in "The Jewish State" and the address delivered at the first session of the Zionist Congress. The latter is the carefully considered public statement of one who knew he represented tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of followers. His words were not those of a seer, but of a statesman. Almost as profound was the effect produced. It was at this Congress that the Basle Program was adopted.... "Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally secured home (or homeland) in Palestine."

The second important task of the First Congress was the creation of an organization. The Congress was declared to be "the chief organ of the Zionist movement." The basis of electoral right was to be the payment of a shekel, which at that time was equivalent to twenty-five cents. There was to be an Executive Committee with its permanent seat in Vienna. Everything which was to unfold later in Zionism, both in the way of affirmative forces and inner contradictions, was already visible or latent in the first Congress. There was discussion of a bank, of a land redemption fund to be called The National Fund, the creation of a Hebrew University, and the clashes between practical and political Zionism.

On his return to Vienna, Herzl made the following entry in his diary: "If I were to sum up the Basle Congress in a single phrase I would say: In Basle I created the Jewish State. Were I to say this aloud I would be greeted by universal laughter. But perhaps five years hence, in any case, certainly fifty years hence, everyone will perceive it. The state exists as essence in the will-to-the-state of a people, yes, even in that will in a single powerful person.... The territory is only the concrete basis, and the state itself, with a territory beneath it, is still in the nature of an abstract thing ... In Basle I created the abstraction which, as such, is invisible to the great majority."

All that Herzl did in the political field--his conversations in Constantinople, his interview with the Grand Duke of Baden in advance of the holding of the First Congress, was undertaken as author of a political pamphlet. He was now aware of the fact that he was called upon to act as President of the World Zionist Organization. It was difficult to draw a line between the movement and its leader. Herzl insisted that his leadership in the movement was impersonal and that now its direction was vested in its instruments--the Congress and the Actions Committee. But he had all the authority of an accepted leader.

The evolution of Herzl's conception of the Jewish problem since he saw the degradation of Dreyfus can be measured by a study of the articles he wrote after the First Congress. He himself was quite aware of the transformation. He had seen the Jewish people face to face. "Brothers have found each other again," he said. He wrote with great appreciation of the quality of the Russian delegates. He said, "They possess that inner unity which has disappeared from among the westerners. They are steeped in Jewish national sentiment without betraying any national narrowness and intolerance. They are not tortured by the idea of assimilation. They do not assimilate into other nations, but exert themselves to learn the best in other peoples. In this way they manage to remain erect and genuine. Looking on them, we understood where our forefathers got the strength to endure through the bitterest times."

Immediately after the First Congress, Herzl grappled with his second task, the creation of the Jewish Colonial Bank. He wrote of the bank in Die Welt in November, 1898, "The task of the Colonial Bank is to eliminate philanthropy. The settler on the land who increases its value by his labor merits more than a gift. He is entitled to credit. The prospective bank could therefore begin by extending the needed credits to the colonists; later it would expand into the instrument for the bringing in of Jews and would supply credits for transportation, agriculture, commerce and construction."

The seat of the bank was to be London. There were to be two billion shares at £1 each. The bank was to be directed by men acquainted with banking affairs, but the movement would be placed in a position to control its policy. The hopes of Herzl grew from week to week. As he approached the practical situation he became less and less confident of the cooperation of men of wealth. Differences arose in the preliminary discussions as to the scope of the bank. In the first draft of the Articles of Incorporation the Orient alone was named as the area of work for the bank. Menachem Ussishkin insisted that the words "Syria and Palestine" should be substituted. After a great deal of discussion, the proposals for the formation of the bank were brought to the second Zionist Congress and the Articles of Incorporation, as amended, were adopted by acclamation.

Herzl clung to the idea which had come to him when he was thinking of the Jewish State as a pamphlet, that it might be better for him to write a novel. The impulse to write such a novel became irresistible after his visit to Palestine. It was to be called "Altneuland." He began to write it in 1899. It was completed in April 1902, and published six months later. It is remarkable that he could write such a novel while engaged in varied political activities in Constantinople, in London and in Berlin; and while he had to deal with the many troublesome internal Zionist problems.

"Altneuland" was a novel with a purpose. It described the Palestine of the near future as it would develop through the Zionist Movement. It had the weaknesses of every propaganda novel. The entire work has something of the state about it and proceeds in the form of scenes rather than by way of narrative. Each type has a specific outlook. Most of the characters are portraits of living personalities. It was his purpose to memorialize his friends and his opponents.

"Altneuland" tells of a Jew who visits Palestine in 1898 and then comes again in 1923 when he finds the Promised Land developed under Jewish influence. Its territory lies East and West of the Jordan. The dead land of 1898 is now thoroughly alive. Its real creators were the irrigation engineers. Technology had given a new form to labor, a new social and economic system had been created which is described as "mutualistic," a huge cooperative, a mediate form between individualism and collectivism. Haifa had become a world city. Around the Holy City of Jerusalem, modern suburbs had arisen, shaded boulevards and parks, institutes of learning, places of amusement, markets--"a world city in the spirit of the twentieth century." In this new land, the Arabs live side by side in friendship with the Jews.

"Altneuland" did not produce the effect Herzl had expected. Within the Zionist Movement it did more harm than good. Many of Herzl's friends were disappointed that the novel should have so little of the Jewish spirit. It ignored the Hebraic renaissance. The novel evoked the sharpest criticism from Achad Haam.

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