THE JEWISH COMMUNITY 185concept of practical Zionism' and supplied many of the earliest recruits for the
first Jewish colonies in Palestine. Very soon, however, a distinct difference of
emphasis appeared between the movement's two main centres. The Russian
Branch, in Odessa, headed by Dr Leo Pinsker, stressed the social, economic, and
cultural advantages of emigration. For the Polish Branch in Warsaw, in con-
trast, the slogan 'To Palestine' possessed much more fundamental, religious
overtones.^12
The religious overtones of Polish Zionism were present from the start, there-
fore. Whereas in Galicia and in the Russian areas of the Pale, Zionism must be
viewed as a culmination of the secular movements of the century, in the Polish
provinces it was frequently embraced by people who still maintained their tra-
ditional religious beliefs. So-called 'Religious Zionism' sought to reconcile the
claims of Jewish Nationalism with those of Orthodox Judaism; and it was no
accident that its founding fathers were almost all distinguished Polish rabbis.
One of the earliest tracts advocating Jewish agricultural colonies, the Dervishat
Zion (Seeking Zion) of 1862, was written by the Talmudic scholar and Rabbi of
Thorn, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer (1795—1874) who, in turn, was said to have taken
his ideas from his colleague and neighbour, Rabbi Elijah Guttmacher
(1795-1874) of Grodzisk. Twenty years later, the better-known activities of
Rabbi Samuel Mohilever (1824-98) pushed the same combination of interests to
their logical conclusion. During his visit to Paris in 1882, Mohilever, who was
Rabbi first of Radom and then of Biatystok, had the distinction of persuading
Baron Edmund de Rothschild to finance the original Colonization Scheme in
Palestine. He was one of the guiding spirits behind the religious wing of Hibbat
Zion. In 1897, his outspoken message to the founding Zionist Congress at Basle
urged the delegates, in tones of thinly veiled suspicion, to remember the claims
of religion:
Highly honoured brethren! Leaders of the Chosen People, beloved Sons of Zion, may you
be grarfted eternal life!...- The basis of the Hibbat Zion is the To rah, as it has been handed down to us from gen-
eration to generation. I do not intend this statement as an admonition to any individual
regarding his conduct, for as our sages have said, 'Verily, there are none in this genera-
tion fit to admonish.' Nevertheless, I am stating in a general way that the Torah, which
is the source of our life, must be the foundation of our regeneration in the land of our
fathers...
May the Eternal, the Blessed, the Exalted, the Keeper and Redeemer of Israel, bring to
pass the saying of his prophet, (Zechariah: 7-8): 'Thus saith the Lord, Behold I shall
bring my people from the East; from the lands of the setting sun, I shall bring them, and
they shall dwell in Jerusalem. They shall be My People, and I shall be their God in truth
and righteousness.'^13
Rabbi Mohilever's message served to remind the Congress, if any such reminder
were necessary, that the religious tradition was still uppermost among the
Jewish masses of the Polish lands. As shown by another favourite Hebrew pun,
'Polonia' could also be read as Poh-lan-ya (God rests here).