The First Zionist Congress also saw the foundation of the World Zionist Organization, with Herzl elected the first WZO president, and the election of an Inner Actions Committee and a Greater Actions Committee to run the affairs of the movement between congresses. It adopted the Hatikvah as its anthem, and it became Israel’s official national anthem in 1948.
The congress devised a schedule that was followed by all subsequent congresses: reports on the situation of Jewish communities in the Diaspora; lectures on Eretz Yisrael and settlement activities; and debates on cultural questions, which – no surprise here – were always highly contentious. Herzl attended each of the annual Zionist Congresses until his death on July 4, 1904, and a straight line can be drawn from the First Congress to the birth of the state of Israel only 50 years later. History proves that he was correct: at Basel he founded the Jewish State.
Shown here as Exhibit 1 is perhaps the greatest of all Zionist Congress rarities, a variant of the official postcard issued by the First Congress which adds the Rosh Hashanah inscription: “L’Shana Tova Tikatevu – 1897!” As the verso of the card (not exhibited here) shows, it was mailed from Vienna on September 26, 1897 to Dr. Heinrich Loewe (1867-1950), a renowned a scholar in Jewish folklore and founder of Jung Israel, the first Zionist Group in Germany.
The two beautiful images depicted by the card reflect two opposite ends of the Zionist spectrum: Jews praying at the Western Wall, which expresses the spiritual philosophy of Religious Zionism, and a planter spreading seeds in Emek Yizrael, which expresses the secular socialist theme of working the land. Written in Hebrew on either side of the Magen David is a beautiful, meaningful, and heartfelt sentiment: “Would that the salvation of Israel come forth from Zion!”
Exhibit 2 is an extreme American rarity, a Rosh Hashanah card depicting Herzl and the First Zionist Congress which, when it was mailed in 1898, became one of the first privately issued postcards to enter the postal stream in the United States. As required by a newly enacted law, written on the verso is “Authorized by Act of Congress, May 10, 1898.” This act, which became effective July 1, 1898, authorized for the first time the mailing of private postcards in the United States and requiring only a penny stamp for domestic delivery. (Until then, only official U.S. government-issued postcards could be used.)
Exhibit 3 is also a great rarity, an 1897 Rosh Hashanah card issued to commemorate the First Congress in Basel less than one month before the Yamim Noraim that year, which depicts more than a hundred attendees. Herzl is clearly visible in the largest frame in the middle, and Max Nordau is on his immediate left.
Finally, it should not be surprising that the Rosh Hashanah theme appears on other cards of subsequent Zionist congresses. Shown here as Exhibit 4 is Herzl greeting the attendees at the Second Zionist Congress; note that all participants were “dressed to the nines” in their tuxedos.
But my personal favorite remains Exhibit 5, the “Mother Rachel” card by artist Josef Budko for the Thirteenth Zionist Congress in Carlsbad, Czechoslovakia (1923). The cited verse is Jeremiah 31:15, the famous pasuk we read on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, in which the prophet references Rachel’s petitioning Hashem to enable Am Yisrael to return from the Babylonian exile. (God’s name, which appears twice in the verse, has been altered in the version pictured here to avoid shamus issues.)
