Volume II – The Seeds of Hate
Chapter 10 – The Birth of Zionism
By the last decades of the 19th century, Jewish life in Europe had become a paradox. On the one hand, never before had so many doors been open. Jews attended universities, became lawyers, doctors, bankers, scientists, writers, even politicians. Some families, like the Rothschilds, had risen to extraordinary wealth and influence, lending money to kings and governments. Others, like the Abramovichs in Warsaw, had begun to move beyond the shtetl, seeking lives as merchants, teachers, and professionals.
On the other hand, never had antisemitism felt so modern, so pervasive, and so suffocating. The emancipation promised by the Enlightenment seemed hollow. Pogroms still tore through Russian towns, accusing Jews of killing Christian children or conspiring against the Tsar. In France, the Dreyfus Affair showed that even a fully assimilated Jewish officer in the army could be humiliated, convicted, and publicly shamed for crimes he had not committed, solely because of his faith.
Assimilation was faltering. Hope was waning.
And in this crucible of disillusionment, a new idea began to stir: perhaps the Jews would never be safe in Europe, because Europe would never truly accept them. If so, the only solution was to go back to the land from which they had been driven nearly two thousand years before. To Zion.
Theodor Herzl's Awakening
The man who gave this vision its name was Theodor Herzl. Born in 1860 in Budapest to an assimilated Jewish family, Herzl had grown up steeped in German culture. He studied law, wrote plays, and worked as a journalist. For most of his early life, he believed in assimilation; the conviction that Jews could become Germans, Austrians, or Frenchmen of the Jewish faith, nothing more.
But in the 1890s, stationed as a journalist in Paris, Herzl witnessed the full fury of the Dreyfus Affair. He heard the crowds shouting, "Death to the Jews!" He saw newspapers filled with venom. He realized that in the eyes of the mob, Jews were not Frenchmen at all. They were outsiders, scapegoats, eternal strangers.
Herzl underwent what he later described as a profound awakening. Assimilation was a lie. "The Jewish Question," he concluded, could never be answered by acceptance into other nations. It could only be answered by creating a nation of their own.
In 1896, Herzl published a slim but explosive book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). His argument was clear and radical:
Antisemitism was not a social problem but a permanent condition.
Jews would never be free until they had sovereignty.
The answer was a Jewish homeland; most naturally in Palestine, though other sites were considered.
The book electrified some, horrified others. Assimilationist Jews dismissed Herzl as a dreamer. Traditional rabbis doubted whether Jews could return to Zion without the Messiah. But thousands of Jews, especially the young and the disillusioned, saw in Herzl's words the first clear path forward.
The First Zionist Congress
In August 1897, Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. Some 200 delegates attended, representing Jewish communities from across Europe. They argued, they sang, they prayed, they wept. Herzl, dressed in formal evening attire, spoke with the solemnity of a statesman:
"We are here to lay the foundation stone of the house which is to shelter the Jewish nation."
The Congress adopted the Basel Program, which declared: "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law."
For Herzl, the event was historic. That night, he wrote in his diary:
"At Basel, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this aloud today, I would be greeted with universal laughter. In five years, perhaps, and certainly in fifty, everyone will perceive it."
For the Jews of Europe, the Congress was a turning point. For the first time in centuries, Jews were not merely reacting to persecution; they were envisioning sovereignty.
Ben-Gurion and the Second Aliyah
Among the next generation inspired by Zionism was David Ben-Gurion, born David Grün in 1886 in the Polish town of Plonsk. His father was a lawyer, his mother died when he was young, and he grew up in a house filled with Hebrew books and Zionist ideals.
By the time he was twenty, Ben-Gurion was convinced that Jewish life in Europe was doomed. In 1906, he joined the Second Aliyah, a wave of Jewish migrants to Ottoman Palestine.
Life there was hard. Malaria, poverty, and resistance from local Arabs made survival a daily struggle. Ben-Gurion worked in agriculture, labored in fields, joined socialist collectives, and dreamed of building a Jewish state on the soil of their ancestors. He was not alone. Thousands of young men and women, many from Russia and Poland, made similar journeys.
For them, Palestine was no longer just a dream. It was a place to sweat, to build, to suffer, and to hope.
The Abramovich Family's Debate
Back in Warsaw, the Abramovich family faced a painful choice. Pogroms had torn through nearby towns. Their shop had been vandalized, their synagogue defiled. Some neighbors whispered of leaving for America, others for Palestine.
Moishe Abramovich, the family patriarch, argued that Europe was still their home. "We have been here for centuries," he said. "We speak the language, we know the people. We are part of Poland."
But his son, Isaac, a restless young man, carried a tattered copy of Herzl's Der Judenstaat in his pocket. He spoke with fire about leaving, about starting anew in a land where Jews would no longer bow or beg. His sister, Rivka, dreamed of America instead, a place of skyscrapers and freedom, where Jews could prosper without abandoning modern life.
At the family table, their debates mirrored those echoing across the Jewish world. Stay or go? Assimilate or separate? Dream of Europe or dream of Zion?
Divisions Among Jews
Zionism did not unite the Jews; it divided them.
Assimilationists argued that Jews should remain where they were, embracing national cultures, contributing as citizens, and trusting in gradual acceptance.
Religious traditionalists argued that returning to Zion before the coming of the Messiah was heresy.
Socialists dismissed Zionism as bourgeois escapism, insisting the real struggle was class, not nation.
Zionists saw themselves as pioneers, visionaries, realists who understood that assimilation was a dead end.
This cacophony of voices meant that in 1900, Zionists were still a minority among Jews. Most continued to believe in assimilation. But the movement was growing, and events in Europe would give it more fuel.
European Reactions
Non-Jews also reacted strongly to Zionism. Some liberals welcomed it, imagining that if Jews had their own homeland, antisemitism might fade. Some antisemites perversely welcomed it too, seeing it as a way to rid their nations of Jews.
But most Europeans dismissed it as fantasy. "The Jews," they said, "will never leave Europe. They are too tied to money, to cities, to modernity."
And yet, year by year, ship by ship, Jews were leaving. Some to America, others to Palestine. Each departure was a quiet act of defiance against centuries of persecution.
Chapter Summary
By the turn of the 20th century, Zionism had moved from vision to movement. Herzl had given it a political program. Ben-Gurion and the pioneers had given it muscle and sweat. The Abramovich family, like countless others, wrestled with choices that carried the weight of destiny.
In Vienna, Herzl died in 1904, his heart weakened by years of ceaseless work. He was only 44. But his dream outlived him. His body was later reburied in Jerusalem, on a hill now called Mount Herzl, a symbol of the vision he had unleashed.
For the Jews of Europe, the question of the future had sharpened. Could they remain in nations that turned on them in times of crisis? Or must they, like Abraham of old, leave their lands and journey to a new home promised by history and faith?
As the new century dawned, the answer was not yet clear. But the seeds had been sown. Zionism was no longer just a dream whispered in prayer. It was a movement, a vision, and for some, a calling strong enough to risk everything.