Some English Press Comments on the London Zionist Congress (1900)
Spectator: “As to the Jews being able to live on the land in Palestine there can be no doubt. Those who have seen a Jewish colony in Syria will testify to the excellent physical and moral and agricultural results achieved. Merely to see the children there is ample warrant of what is done for the Jew by release from the Ghetto.”
Saturday Review: “Restoration to Palestine symbolizes the recovery of self-respect, the reattainment of nationhood.”
Globe: “Zionism answers the aspirations of the majority of persecuted Jews, but it is important to those Jews who have become completely assimilated to their Christian surroundings, and who ought to have an interest in the raising of the economic, moral and intellectual status of the mass of their unhappy brethren, which raising of status will necessarily be the first outcome of their gathering in the land of their fathers.”
Daily News: “Whatever difference of opinion may prevail as to the policy of the Zionist movement, there can be no doubt as to the intense and fervid interest of those who, at no small self-sacrifice, are doing this work of revival.”
Daily Graphic: “Zionism appeals to many sides of human thought, but perhaps the final impression it leaves upon the public mind is something akin to Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones which lived again. Is it possible that the dispersed nation, whose career is one of the standing marvels of history, is about to gather itself again and open a new chapter of its romantic annals? It looks very like it. The movement is in the hands of practical and courageous men; it has behind it a stimulus, not only of subjective enthusiasm, but also of objective strife, and it entirely responds to a practical need.”
Yorkshire Post: “The striking feature of the meetings was the unity of purpose and enthusiasm which seem to characterize all the delegates. Persons who speak quite different tongues nevertheless fraternize and grow enthusiastic over the prospect of returning as a nation to the land of their fathers.”
Leeds Mercury: “This is not wholly a dream.... Several colonies have settled down within their historic territorial limits. A few of them are already self-supporting. The movement is essentially democratic.”
Nottingham Guardian: “The movement the Zionist Congress represents is an important one and it may possibly produce momentous results.”
Newcastle Courier: “This movement in Jewry is one which readily commands the sympathy of the outsider. It is the voicing of that inarticulate feeling which has for ages silently swayed and sustained forlorn and seemingly forsaken Jews. The inextinguishable hope and the unshaken faith of these stricken people as to their future constitutes a striking object-lesson in these days of scepticism.”