ZIONISTS. Signatures on an unmailed Dutch postcard of six prominent Zionists attending the Eighth Zionist Congress in Holland. 2/3p. Small 8vo. (The Hague, August 14-21, 1907). The signatories include:
WOLFFSOHN, DAVID. (1855-1914; “David Wolffsohn”). A successful Cologne businessman, Wolffsohn had been introduced to the Hovevei Zion movement as a student in Prussia. Upon the publication of Der Judenstaat, Theodor Herzl’s practical outline for the realization of a Jewish homeland, Wolffsohn became an activist in the Zionist cause. At the first Zionist Congress, it was Wolffsohn who suggested “two potent symbols: the blue-and-white Zionist flag based on the talith (‘prayer shawl’); and the shekel a membership fee [for the Zionist organization], named after an ancient Hebrew coin,” (Who’s Who in Jewish History, Comay). Wolffsohn and Herzl traveled to Palestine and Istanbul where he “maintained a businesslike control over the financial and economic affairs of the organization and played an active part in setting up the Jewish Colonial Trust, the ‘Zionist bank’ that started operating in 1901,” (ibid.). At Herzl’s death in 1904, Wolffsohn became his literary executor as well as the guardian of his children. The former vice president of the Zionist Organization, Wolffsohn succeed Herzl as president and maintained a middle ground between the ‘political Zionists’ and ‘practical Zionists’ until his resignation for health reasons in 1911.
WARBURG, OTTO. (1883-1970; “Prof. O. Warburg”). German botanist, pioneer, and president of the Zionist Organization from 1911 to 1921. “A member of the wealthy and assimilated Hamburg banking family, Warburg became a distinguished professor of botany and an advisor on German colonial settlement. In the Zionist Organization his interests lay in practical Jewish settlement rather than in political activity,” (ibid.). Warburg helped found the Palestine Land Development Corporation, Tel Aviv’s Agricultural Experimental Station (later the Institute of Agriculture and Natural History), and cofounded the National Botanic Garden of Israel at Hebrew University.
MOSES GASTER. (1856-1939; “M. Gaster”). After Gaster’s pro-Jewish views forced his exile from Romania to England, he lectured at Oxford and served as a rabbi to the country’s Sephardic population. An ardent supporter of Herzl, Gaster founded and became president of the English Zionist Federation as well as vice-president of the Zionist congresses in Basel and London from 1898 to 1900. His importance in the Zionist movement is underscored by the fact that he hosted discussions between Zionist representatives and the English Foreign Office prior to the momentous 1917 Balfour Declaration.
MENACHIM USSISHKIN. (1863-1941; “M. Ussishkin” in pencil). Born in the Russian Empire, Ussishkin, prompted by the wave of anti-Semitic pogroms that wracked Russia in the 1880s, was a co-founders of Bilu, whose goal was the agricultural settlement of Palestine. After serving as secretary of the First Zionist Congress, he vigorously opposed Herzl’s plan to establish a homeland in Uganda. Fleeing the 1917 Russian Revolution for London, Ussishkin was a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference. He made his Aliyah to Palestine in 1919 and soon became head of the country’s Zionist Commission. From 1923 until his death, he led the Jewish National Fund during which time he acquired major tracts of land for Eretz Yisrael.
TSCHLENOW, JEHIEL (YEFIM VLADIMIROVICH). (1863-1918; “E.W. Tchlenow” in pencil). A Ukrainian physician from Moscow, Tschlenow became a Jewish nationalist after the pogroms of 1881 and, beginning in 1908, he led Moscow’s Zionist Movement and became a board member of the Jewish Colonial Trust. He later participated in the negotiations that led to the Balfour Declaration.
MARMOREK, ALEXANDER. (1865-1923; “Dr A Marmorek”). After earning his medical degree in Vienna, Marmorek took a position at the Pasteur Institute where his research into bacteriology and the role of lymphatic glands garnered the attention of Pasteur himself. Finding his Jewish identity an impediment to his professional career in Austria, Marmorek returned to the Pasteur Institute where he directed research in the laboratory and pioneered treatments for tuberculosis, typhus, diabetes, and puerperal fever. An early adherent to Zionism dating from his student days in Vienna, Marmorek served in several leadership roles including membership in the Zionist General Council during the first eleven World Zionist Congress, where he and his brothers counted themselves among Herzl’s inner circle. In 1920, in opposition to Chaim Weizmann and the plan to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, Marmorek resigned from any role in future Zionist Congresses.
The Eighth Zionist Congress, the second since Herzl’s death, was held at The Hague from August 14-20. The May 24, 1907 Hebrew Standard, reported that “it is thought that one of the reasons that The Hague was chosen as the place of meeting instead of the [sic] Basle, Switzerland, where the congresses have taken place, is because of the desire of the Zionist leaders to bring the matter of Zionism to the attention of The Hague Peace Conference and The Hague Tribunal.” The congress resolved to open an office in Palestine and did so the following year in Jaffa.
Light wear and traces of former mounting in two corners, otherwise fine and rare.
