ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF ZIONISM THROUGH 1917
Zionism is "a movement born in a situation of exile" (Segre, 1980, p. 16). This statement refers to the fact that, while Jews were dispersed in various countries of the world in the late nineteenth century, they were largely unassimilated, or, at least, not fully assimilated, in the societies of these countries. They were subject to periodic repression and other forms of anti semitism. Zionists saw the solution to the prob lems of repression and anti semitism in a Jewish unification; however, they were not the first to express this idea (Segre, 1980). Zionists, however, were more specific than others in their conception of how such unification should occur.
Zionism "started as an immediate response of individuals to a situation which had come to be regarded as intolerable" (Vital, 1975, p. 137). The situation was the pogroms in Russia during the 1881 1884 time period. Yehuda Pinsker published a phamplet in 1882, which is considered to be the first manifesto of Zionism (Segre, 1980). In this pamphlet, Pinsker, among other things, attacked Jews for seeking the cures to their problem from outside Jewry, and called for a territorial solu tion, i. e., the establishment of a Jewish land (Segre, 1980).
Zionism was formally founded by Theodor Herzl, with the convocation of the First Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897 (Segre, 1980). The Zionism of Herzl was a secular movement,
and, as such, it drew strong criticism and condemnation from religious Jews (Segre, 1980). As a Jew "totally assimilated" in European society, Herzl was described "as a man completely ignorant of Judaism" (Segre, 1980, p. 3). It is argued that, "because of his assimilation and detachment from Jewish reali ties," he was able to create a theoretical concept of a Jewish nation among a dispersed people without a land (Segre, 1980, p. 3). Thus, Zionism has been described as "a collective expres sion of the wi...