These views, at first advocated by
the Hebrew-writing and Hebrew-reading Maskilim, gradually filtered into
the various strata of Russo-Jewish society, and when the clouds began to
gather fast in Russia's sky, and the change in the monarch's policy
augured the approach of evil times, Zionism rapidly made enthusiastic
converts even among the most Russified of the Jewish youth. On November
6, 1884, for the first time in history, a Jewish international assembly
was held at Kattowitz, near the Russian frontier, where representatives
from all classes and different countries met and decided to colonize
Palestine with Jewish farmers.
Since then Haskalah in Russia has become nationalistic and Palestinian.
Even those who were at first opposed to it gradually grew friendly, and
finally became "lovers of Zion" (Hobebe Zion). Among the Russo-Jewish
students in Vienna, Smolenskin, the militant Zionist, organized an
academic society, Kadimah, a name which, meaning Eastward and Forward,
contains the philosophy of Zionism in a nutshell. Seeing that the
Alliance Israelite Universelle encouraged emigration to America, both he
and Ben Yehudah published violent attacks on the French society, and
endeavored to thwart its plans as far as possible.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293