First Zionist Congress
The First Zionist Congress (Hebrew: הקונגרס הציוני הראשון) was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) held in the Stadtcasino Basel in the city of Basel on August 29–31, 1897. Two hundred and eight delegates and 26 press correspondents attended the event.[1] It was convened[2] and chaired[3] by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionism movement. The Congress formulated a Zionist platform, known as the Basel program, and founded the Zionist Organization.
"Basel Congress" redirects here. For the 1869 4th General Congress of the International Workingmen's Association, see Basel Congress (1869).The conference was covered by the international press, making a significant impression.[4]
The First Zionist Congress resulted in the following:
Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary (September 3, 1897):[18]
Subsequent congresses founded various institutions for the promotion of this program, notably a people's bank known as the Jewish Colonial Trust, which was the financial instrument of political Zionism. Its establishment was suggested at the First Zionist Congress in 1897; the first definite steps toward its institution were taken at the Second Zionist Congress in Cologne, Germany in May, 1898.[19] For the Fifth Zionist Congress, the Jewish National Fund was founded for the purchase of land in Palestine and later the Zionist Commission was founded with subsidiary societies for the study and improvement of the social and economic condition of the Jews within the Land of Israel.
The Zionist Commission was an informal group established by Chaim Weizmann. It carried out initial surveys of Palestine and aided the repatriation of Jews sent into exile by the Ottoman Turks during World War I. It expanded the ZO's Palestine office, which was established in 1907, into small departments for agriculture, settlement, education, land, finance, immigration, and statistics. In 1921, the commission became the Palestine Zionist Executive, which acted as the Jewish Agency, to advise the British mandate authorities on the development of the country in matters of Jewish interest.[20]
The Zionist Congress met every year between 1897 and 1901, then except for war years, every second year (1903–1913, 1921–1939). In 1942, an "Extraordinary Zionist Conference" was held and announced a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy[21] with its demand "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth."[22] It became the official Zionist stand on the ultimate aim of the movement.[21] Since the Second World War, meetings have been held approximately every four years and since the creation of the State of Israel, the Congress has been held in Jerusalem.
A participant card from the event.
The symbol of the First Congress.
The flag of the First Zionist Congress
Max Bodenheimer's (top left) and Herzl's (top right) 1897 drafts of the Zionist flag, compared to the final version used at the congress
