4. Other Parts of the British Empire
There are also some Zionist groups as well as individual supporters in New Zealand, in Australia and in all other parts of the British Empire. In Egypt Zionism has recently made considerable progress.
5. The United States
The United States of America, with its three million Jews, of whom by far the greater number have migrated there from Russia during the past two generations, has naturally become an important centre of Zionism. It is impossible to give, in a brief outline, a proper conception of the greatness and importance of Zionist activities in America.
America is a world in itself, and this can equally be said of American Zionism. The majority of Zionists may already perhaps, or will very soon, reside in the English-speaking countries. The extent of Zionism in the United States cannot be gauged by the payment of the “Shekel” (the annual obligatory Zionist contribution), which is not by any means a criterion as far as Zionist allegiance in America is concerned. It is sufficient to mention such well-known names as: Justice Louis D. Brandeis, Nathan Straus, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Dr. Harry Friedenwald, Professor Richard Gottheil, Miss Henrietta Szold, Dr. Solomon Solis Cohen, Professor Israel Friedlaender, Rev. Dr. Pereira Mendes, E. Lewin-Epstein, Zolotkow, Louis Lipsky, J. de Haas, Professor Felix Frankfurter, Leon Sanders, Dr. C. S. Rubensohn, Nathan D. Kaplan, Judge Aaron J. Levy, Judge Julian W. Mack, Dr. H. M. Kallen, Rabbi H. H. Rubenowitz, Louis Robison, Dr. Benjamin L. Gordon, Julius Meyer, S. Abel, A. E. Lubarski, Maurice L. Avner, Rabbi S. Margolis, Rev. Max Heller, Joseph Barondess, Rev. H. Masliansky, Abraham Goldberg, Bernard Richards, B. Rosenblatt and many others, representing all classes, sections and shades of American Jewry—these names enable one to form a slight idea of the greatness of the movement.
Mr. Louis D. Brandeis, Justice of the Supreme Court, stands at the head of the Organization, and his influence in America equals almost that of Herzl in this hemisphere. Dr. Shemaryah Levin, representing the Inner Actions Committee, has done much to stimulate propaganda in America, and is strongly supported by a number of distinguished Zionists who have recently arrived there.
The movement has, however, a long and honourable record in America (where, as in other countries, the Zionist movement was preceded by a Chovevé Zion movement). There have been not only the Shove Zion in New York and the Chovevé Zion in Philadelphia in 1891; the beginning was much earlier. Mention has already been made of the Rev. M. J. Raphall’s activities; but he did not stand alone in his efforts. An attempt to form a Chovevé Zion organization was made at Cincinnati in 1855. In the Occident of Philadelphia, of March 8th, 1860, Mr. Simon Berman, the author of the Hebrew book Massot Shimon (published in 1874), published the details of a Chovevé Zion plan he had then formulated. Still later, Adam Rosenberg worked most energetically in connection with Chovevé Zion in other countries, and with the first colonists in Palestine. Rosenberg attended also the First Zionist Congress.
The Federation of American Zionists was organized on July 4th, 1897, with Professor Richard Gottheil as President, Dr. B. Felsenthal of Chicago, Dr. M. Jastrow of Philadelphia, Dr. S. Schaffer of Baltimore, Dr. J. L. Bluestone, Rev. H. Masliansky, as members; Mr. C. D. Birkhahn acted as Hon. Treasurer, and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise as Honorary Secretary.
The old and highly esteemed Dr. Gustav Gottheil, father of Professor Richard Gottheil, who had formerly been Rabbi at Manchester (and a friend of Professor Theodores), and had just then become Rabbi at New York (where he died in 1903), identified himself with the Zionist movement. Professor Richard Gottheil joined the movement from the beginning. He was a friend of Herzl, a member of the Actions Committee and a prominent figure at the Zionist Congresses. In order to spread a knowledge of the Zionist movement, the first Committee of the Federation resolved to issue a series of publications, and Professor Gottheil wrote his first pamphlet, The Aims of Zionism, in 1897. Five years ago he published an important work on Zionism. For a long time Dr. J. L. Magnes was most actively engaged in Zionist work, and he is still most active in the work of organizing Hebrew education in the United States.
The late Dr. Marcus Jastrow, who served on the first Committee, was an orientalist and a rabbi, pre-eminently known as a man of genius and thoroughness, and as an author of a great dictionary of the Aramaic-Talmudic language, and of other works of great value. It is not generally known, and therefore worthy of notice here, that when he was preacher at the Great Synagogue in Warsaw at the beginning of the sixties at the time of the Polish Insurrection, he was an enthusiastic friend of the Poles in their struggle for national liberty. Poles and Polish-Jewish patriots still cherish his memory with deep reverence.