homeland. The State was to be modern, sophisticated, and technologically advanced. What Herzl did not discuss, was the Jewish content of that state. Was it to be a state of the Jews or a Jewish state? He essentially saw that place as a secular entity. It was to be a haven of safe refuge for harassed Jews, rather than a vibrant center of Jewish spiritual life.There were two groups whose religious outlook could not have been more different opposing Herzl. First were the Reform Jews. They insisted that we must live comfortably in any nation of the world where we find ourselves as citizens. They go on by saying that don’t need our own land. Furthermore, the Reform Jews argued that we as Jews are not a national entity. That we are solely a religious community, and that we differ from our Christian counterparts only in one way: we practice the Jewish religion and they practice Christianity. We go to a synagogue and they go to a church. In every other respect, we are the same. The other fierce opponents to Zionism were the Orthodox. They insisted that as Jews we could not have a state of our own, until the Messiah comes. Nonetheless, Herzl was undeterred by these objections. He persisted in pursuing his goals. In 1897, exactly 100 years ago, Herzl organized the First Zionist World Congress, in Basle, Switzerland. About 200 participants representing different countries assembled there. Following the Congress, Herzl continued to try to gain support of European statesmen towards the Zionist cause. Some, like Kaiser Wilhelm II, of Germany, seemed favorably inclined, however others, like the Sultan of Turkey were unreceptive. Herzl was now somewhat discouraged by his lack of success. In fact, he was willing to settle for any land that he could obtain as a haven of refuge for Jews. Eventually he developed the Uganda Plan and negotiated with Great Britain. Great Britain proposed, as a temporary solution, that the Jews secure a...
