Herzl's book was at once greeted by tens of thousands of Jews, chiefly the young, as an act of redemption. It was not to remain merely printed paper, but should be transformed into a practical creation. New societies were founded everywhere, no longer with a view of the slow, petty settlement of Palestine by means of groups of Jews creeping surreptitiously as it were into the country, but by the preparation for an emigration "en masse" into the Holy Land, based on a formal treaty with the Turkish Government, guaranteed by the Great Powers, by which the former should accord the new settlers the right of self-government.
The premises of political Zionism are that there is a Jewish nation. This is just the point denied by the assimilation Jews, and the spiritless, unctuous, prating rabbis in their pay. Dr. Herzl saw that the first task he had to fulfil was the organizing of a manifestation which should bring before the world, and the Jewish people itself, in modern, comprehensible form the fact of its national existence. He convoked a Zionist congress, which in spite of the most furious attacks and most unscrupulous acts of violence,—the Jewish community of Munich where the congress was originally intended to be held protested against its meeting in that town,—assembled for the first time in Basel, the end of August, 1897, and consisted of two hundred and four selected representatives of the Zionist Jews of both hemispheres.
The first Zionist congress solemnly proclaimed in the face of the attentive world that the Jews are a nation, and that they do not desire to be absorbed by other nations. It vowed to work for the emancipation of that part of the Jewish race which is deprived of all rights, and which is dragging out its existence in undeserved misery, and to prepare for it a brighter future. It puts its aims on record in a programme unanimously adopted with the greatest enthusiasm. This ran as follows:—
"Zionism works to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine guaranteed by public law.
"For the reaching of this goal the congress proposes to adopt the following means:—
"(1.) The well-regulated promotion of the settlement of Palestine by Jewish agriculturists, artisans, and manufacturers.
"(2.) The organization and knitting together of the whole Jewish community by means of proper local and general institutions, in accordance with the law of the different countries.
"(3.) The strengthening of the Jewish self-respect and national consciousness.
"(4.) Preparatory steps for obtaining the consent of the governments, which is necessary for the achievement of the aims of Zionism."