[¹] “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
Let my right hand forget her cunning” (Psalm cxxxvii. 5).
This was one of the most solemn moments of the Congress. On the other hand, when Professor Schapira first spoke about the necessity of a Jewish National Fund, an idea which he had advocated some time earlier in Hebrew articles, the proposal was regarded as a chimera rather than as a practical scheme. But he did not feel discouraged by the opposition of the “practical people.” During the first year of the Zionist organization, between the first and second Congresses, he devoted himself entirely to Zionist work. He died on a Zionist propaganda tour, during a stay at Cologne.
The first Christian clergyman to encourage Herzl was the Chaplain to the British Embassy in Vienna, the Rev. Dr. W. H. Hechler, who is an ardent student of the Bible and a Christian “Lover of Zion.” With the full knowledge of his chief, the British Ambassador, he supported the Zionist movement, and introduced Herzl to several of his Royal and Imperial pupils and friends. He was the first English clergyman to go to Russia and help the persecuted Jews on the spot: he visited at that time Odessa, Mohilew, Kishinew and Balta. He visited the Holy Land several times, and regularly attended the Zionist Congresses.
Among the most interesting visitors at the Congress were, the famous pioneer of Zionism, Henri Dunant; and the Protestant pastor Dr. Johannes Lepsius, son of Carl Richard Lepsius (1810–1884), the famous Egyptologist, who is thoroughly acquainted with the East, and had been pastor of a small community in the Harz Mountains. Dr. Lepsius warmly espoused the cause of the Armenians in 1895, and when, as the result of his agitation, the German Government sent him a warning, he resigned his post. He placed his views on the Zionist Congress before a meeting held on the 7th September, 1897, at Basle, in a paper entitled, “Armenians and Jews in Exile; or, the Future of the East with Reference to the Armenian Question and the Zionist Movement.” After referring to points of similarity between Jews and Armenians, both persecuted races, he said: “When the time comes ... will Jewry lay their hands on Palestine and say: this is our land? Will anyone be able to prevent them? Even if the Zionist movement has an exclusively national character, there is yet a strong religious undercurrent. We believe that the Jewish nation has a future before it, and that this future will be a glorious one.” The address was followed by an interesting discussion, in the course of which Professor Carl Friedrich Heman, the Orientalist, of Basle University, heartily endorsed Dr. Lepsius’ views.
The greatest achievement of the new Zionism was the Jewish Congress—the supreme authority in the movement based upon democratic principles—and the creation of a world-wide organization for the resuscitation of the Jewish nationality and for the regaining of Palestine, not by brute force or political adventure, and not by any act against the government or the population of the country or any other government or nation, but by force of conviction, enthusiasm, devotion and self-sacrifice.
M. Zadoc Kahn (1839–1905), Grand Rabbin of France, addressed a letter of congratulation to the first Zionist Congress. The Grand Rabbin wrote that he would not fail to follow with much interest the deliberations of the Congress. Whatever might be thought as to the utility and opportuneness of the Congress, it could not be denied that it merited every attention. Differences of opinion were inevitable, but he prayed with all his might that God might guide and inspire all the leaders of the movement, and that the debates and the resolutions which would be arrived at would be for the benefit of Judaism throughout the world.
In an interview on the subject of the Zionist movement, which took place immediately after the first Zionist Congress, M. Zadoc Kahn spoke in the highest terms of Dr. Herzl.
“This man of faith is also a man of action. He is an apostle, but an apostle who is doctor of political economy. I know he occupies a distinguished place in the Austrian Press, and that he has excellent relations in the highest political spheres. But he appears ready to sacrifice all for the triumph of his ideas.” M. Zadoc Kahn then criticized in very mild terms the exaggerated “pessimism” of Herzl’s pamphlet, “The Jewish State,” and after dwelling on the religious aspects of the question, he concluded:—
“The sympathy of the French Jews, now awakened, is assured to the Zionists. To ridicule or condemn a project when this project carries with it hope, and thus consolation, to thousands of co-religionists who are molested in their quality as Jews, this the French Jews have not the right to do.”