A History of Zionism (23 page)

This statement provoked indignation, not only among the Left. Weizmann thought that Herzl’s talks in Russia had been utterly pointless: he was overwhelmed by the calamities of Russian Jewry, foresaw further persecution, and wanted a quick solution. But his assumption that men like Plehve would be of any help was totally unreal: ‘Antisemites are incapable of aiding in the creation of a Jewish homeland; their attitude forbids them to do anything which might really help the Jewish people. Pogroms, yes; repressions, yes; emigration, yes; but nothing that might be conducive to the freedom of Jews’.
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It was a dilemma which faced Zionist leaders from Herzl onwards and caused them much heart searching. Thirty years later Weizmann was to be received in audience by Mussolini. Should they have restricted their diplomatic activities to liberal and democratic statesmen? To have refrained from meeting dictators and antisemites would have saved them a great many moral conflicts. But it would have severely limited their freedom of action and might have hampered their efforts to save Jewish lives.

Whatever the scruples of Zionist leaders and militants, the Jewish masses prepared a welcome for Herzl such as had never been accorded to any Jewish leader. Tens of thousands shouted ‘Hedad’ (Hail) as he passed. About the reception in Vilna, Herzl wrote in his diary that the day would remain engraved forever in his memory. It was the first time that he had come face to face with the Jewish masses in eastern Europe. The unhappiness of these oppressed people was only too genuine: ‘There was a note in their greetings which moved me to a point where nothing but the thought of the newspaper reports was able to restrain my tears.’
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He had been warned of the bitter opposition of the Bundists – the anti-Zionist Jewish Socialists – and he watched with some misgivings the approach of some young working men, with hard, determined expressions on their faces, whom he took to belong to that party. Much to his amazement one of them came forward and proposed a toast to the day when ‘Melech Herzl’ (King Herzl) would reign. Such was the fathomless despair of the Jewish masses, such – to quote Weizmann again – the great surge of blind hope, baseless, elemental, instinctive and hysterical, attending his visit.

One week after his Russian trip Herzl was in Basle for the sixth Zionist congress. He reported to the Action Committee on his negotiations in St Petersburg and was amazed and embittered by the ingratitude of the Russian Zionists: ‘It didn’t occur to a single one of them that for my unprecedented labour I deserved so much as a smile, let alone a word of gratitude.’ All he got was a shower of reproaches. The next day he informed his colleagues of a message just received by Greenberg from Sir Clement Hill, chief of the Protectorate Department in the Colonial Office, in which the Zionist movement was told that the British government was ‘interested in any well considered scheme aimed at the amelioration of the position of the Jewish race’. As for the talks with Dr Herzl about the establishment of a Jewish settlement in Africa, time had been too short to go into the details of the plan and it was therefore impossible to pronounce any definite opinion. But the British government was willing to give every facility to a Zionist study commission which should go there to ascertain personally whether there were any suitable vacant lands. If the result were positive, and the scheme commended itself to the government, there would be a good chance of a Jewish colony or settlement being established under a Jewish official as chief of the local administration in which the members would be able to observe their national customs.
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The letter, formulated in the usual cautious diplomatic language, created a profound impression. Chlenov, the Russian Zionist leader, broke spontaneously into the
Shehekheyanu
– the ritual blessing upon receiving good news. This was both a recognition of the Jewish people as such by a major power and the expression of its willingness to help. Others were more sceptical. But to all the scheme came as a surprise. Herzl himself was not entirely happy about it. Greenberg had written that Joseph Chamberlain was considering a region between Nairobi and the Nan escarpment. Herzl was not certain whether this area was suitable for European colonisation, nor was it clear whether the British government was willing to give the colonists the independence he envisaged. Lastly, he knew of course that any such scheme could be realised only with a great deal of enthusiasm to overcome the many initial difficulties. And even Herzl, with his immense prestige and great hold over the movement, must have doubted whether he would be able to induce the Zionists to follow him to Uganda.

At first all seemed plain sailing. When the congress was told about the British message there was a storm of applause. Shmaryahu Levin, one of the secretaries, saw on the faces of the delegates ‘amazement, admiration – but not a sign of protest. … The first effect of the magnanimity of the British offer was to eclipse all other considerations.’
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Yet when the various factions and caucuses withdrew to consider the scheme in detail there was much opposition, and this despite the fact that the congress was not even asked to decide between Uganda and Palestine but merely to give support to the dispatch of an investigation commission to East Africa. Herzl made it clear in his opening speech that Uganda was not, and could never become Zion. It was envisaged as an emergency measure, to help those Jews forced to emigrate immediately, to prevent their scattering all over the world, and to promote colonisation on a national and state basis. Nordau, who had considerable misgivings, used the phrase
Nachtasyl
– a temporary shelter for the hundreds of thousands of Jews who could not as yet enter Palestine, a shelter which would provide a political training ground for the greater task ahead. The Jews owed it to England to subject the Uganda project to thorough examination, but Zion would always remain the final aim. There was yet another consideration: with each year Jewish immigrants would find it more difficult to enter other countries. The presence of little more than a hundred thousand Jews in Britain had sufficed to provoke restrictions. How much longer would the gates of America remain open?

Nordau was not at his most persuasive, and the fact that a great many west European delegates supported him did not help. Most Russian Jews were instinctively against Uganda and it was from eastern Europe that the immigrants were expected to come. As one of them put it, while they were enthusiastically promoting the Palestine idea they were now suddenly told by their leaders that they had been dreamers, that they had been wasting their time building castles in the air. Zion was the great ideal, but it could not be attained, redemption would come only from Uganda. This was quite unacceptable, and how could the leaders negotiate with the British government without even consulting the Jewish people, the Sovereign, on whose behalf they were acting? Practical arguments were also used: East Africa was quite unsuitable for mass immigration; both the man power and the funds at the disposal of the Zionist movement were strictly limited, and any diversion of either would have fatal consequences. Herzl and Nordau had recommended Uganda in order to find a palliative for the steadily growing
Judennot.
But the Jews had waited for Palestine so long that they could wait a little longer. Was it not symbolic that the delegates from Kishinev, the town which had suffered the worst pogrom, were unwilling to go anywhere except Palestine? As Weizmann said in a speech to his fellow delegates: ‘If the British government and people are what I think they are, they will make us a better offer.’

Everyone realised that the movement faced the most important decision in its history. Tempers were running short and excitement mounted hourly. An eye-witness described the scene at the end of one critical session:

For about half an hour people were shouting; some were singing Russian songs, others climbing on chairs, throwing leaflets from the galleries into the hall, banging the chairs on the floor. There was a tremendous noise in the galleries; some twenty girls had entered the hall through a side door and were adding to the clamour. Zangwill and Greenberg left the platform in an attempt to calm the public but the demonstrators just carried them shoulder high and the turmoil did not cease even after the lights had been turned off. … The tumultuous scenes continued into the small hours of the morning; the casino where the congress took place was besieged by masses of excited people. Only a very few could think of sleep that night.
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Herzl’s tremendous prestige sufficed to push the resolution through. By 295 votes to 178 it was decided to send a commission to East Africa. But there could be no mistake: the east European Jews would not go to East Africa. Herzl was called a traitor to his face, and a short time after the congress a Zionist student tried to kill Nordau.

There was a real danger that the movement would split. The opposition, which had already walked out, returned and declared that their action had not been a political demonstration against the leadership but the spontaneous expression of a profound spiritual shock. Herzl in his closing speech said that hope for Palestine was not lost, since the Russian government had promised its help. There was to be no break, no alteration in the Basle programme. With his right hand uplifted he said: ‘
Im eshkakhekh Yerushalayim
’. … If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand wither.
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Outward unity was restored, but Herzl was profoundly depressed and so were most of the delegates. When, after the final session, he left the congress completely worn out, he told his closest friends what he would say at the seventh congress if he was still alive. He would have either obtained Palestine by then or have realised the complete futility of his efforts. In the latter case he would say: ‘It was not possible. The ultimate goal has not been reached and cannot be reached within a foreseeable time.’ But since there was a land in which the suffering masses could meanwhile settle on a national basis, the movement was not entitled to withhold this relief for the sake of a beautiful dream. This choice would lead to a decisive rupture, and since the rift would centre on his own person he would step down. Two executive bodies would come into existence, one for Palestine, the other for East Africa, but he, Herzl, would serve on neither.

Herzl’s health deteriorated during 1903. The excitement of the sixth congress had been an additional, intolerable strain. There were frequent forebodings of death in his diaries. But for him there was no long rest cure, and soon he was setting off on yet another diplomatic mission. In Rome he met Victor Emanuel III, the young king who had succeeded to the throne a few years earlier, as well as Pius x, the new pope. The king, who had been to Palestine, noted that the country was already largely Jewish and would no doubt one day belong to the Jews. When Herzl remarked that they were no longer allowed to enter, the king replied: ‘Nonsense, everything can be done with baksheesh.’
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The pope was less helpful: ‘We are unable to favour this movement’, he told Herzl. ‘We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem, but we could never sanction it.’

Herzl’s last months were embittered by the quarrel with the Russian Zionists. Ussishkin, their most aggressive leader, who had been in Palestine at the time of the congress, published a letter after his return accepting his election to the Action Committee while stressing that he did not feel bound by the Uganda resolution. This was open rebellion, and Herzl in his answer sharply attacked Ussishkin and the policies advocated by the Russian Hoveve Zion whom he represented. What was the purpose of private land purchases in Palestine? Ussishkin could buy up every plot in his native Yekaterinoslav but it would still remain part of Russia. The Russian Zionists at their conference in Kharkov passed a resolution to the effect that Herzl had violated the Basle programme, and appointed three of their number to meet him, to demand in categorical terms that he drop his autocratic methods and in future submit all his projects to the supreme elected body, the Action Committee. He was also to promise in writing that he would not ask the support of the congress for any territorial projects other than those concerned with Palestine and Syria. The ultimatum greatly offended Herzl and caused much resentment within the Zionist movement outside Russia. It was regarded as an attempt to overthrow the leader. Herzl refused to meet the committee but saw the emissaries individually, and at the meeting of the Action Committee in April 1904 made a successful effort at reconciliation. He said he would not go to Uganda, nor would he exert any pressure in favour of East Africa. He wanted the Jewish people to decide on the basis of the facts. But he insisted on the primacy of political Zionism over the old Hoveve Zion approach. The Russians were always telling him that they had already been Zionists for twenty or twenty-five years, but what had they achieved without political Zionism? They had met in their small groups and had collected a little money. The Russians accepted Herzl’s argument that the Action Committee had done all it could for Palestine and would continue to do so, and gave Herzl a vote of confidence. The Uganda scheme receded into the background. Conflicting reports came from London about whether the British government still supported it. There had been adverse comments by experts and the white settlers in East Africa had protested against an influx of Jews.

Herzl did not live to see the seventh Zionist congress officially bury the scheme. His condition rapidly worsened, and he died on 3 July 1904 at the age of forty-four. The severity of his disease had not been known even to his nearest friends, and his death came as a tremendous shock to the movement. For hundreds of thousands of Jews in eastern Europe this was the saddest day of their life. Herzl had created the Zionist movement almost singlehanded. He symbolised their dearest hopes and their longing for a better future. He had been the new Moses who would lead them out of the house of bondage to the promised land. There was a great deal of hero worship, even among his central European followers. One of them relates how on the day the message about Herzl’s death was received he wanted to bow when he saw Herzl’s small son and to pay respects to him as crown prince.
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Herzl had stipulated in his will that he should be buried like the poorest of the poor. But many thousands came to pay their last respects and the Herzl cult became even more intense. Such adulation appeared strange and inexplicable to his critics, for Herzl was a failure, not only in their view but also in his own eyes. All his hectic diplomatic activity had been in vain. When he died, the Zionists were further away than ever from receiving Palestine. The German and the Russian governments were neither willing nor able to do anything on their behalf, and others were even less friendly. They had turned down Uganda and there was no reason to believe that the British would make a better offer. Herzl’s diplomatic activity had largely been
Schaumschlaegerei
, a public relations operation. The dramatisation of the Jewish problem was all he had managed to achieve. Governments and peoples in Europe had at last become interested in the Jewish problem and had heard about a possible way to solve it.