Item Description:

Like so many Jewish movements, the early Zionist Congresses were full of factions. When Britain offered the Jews the opportunity to colonize Uganda, Herzl wanted to accept, but he met with fierce opposition. Reading from the autobiography of Chaim Weizman, Rabbi Wein captures this dispute, including criticisms of Herzl for relying on the good will of Western powers, viewed as capricious at best. History resolved that argument, but a second, more persistent ideological war followed between the secularists and the Orthodox, creating rifts which unfortunately have yet to heal.

• how the Uganda offer served Britain's interests
• Weizman's more traditional yet more radical approach
• Churchill's early involvement in the cause of Zionism
• Reines and the founding of the Mizrachi movement
• the remaining question: what kind of state of Israel is it?

For more on the philosophy of Zionism, including religious Zionism, see "On Zionism." For the biographies of Herzl, Weizman and their successors, see "Leaders of Secular Zionism." And for a biography of Rabbi Yitzchak Yaakov Reines, see "Pillars of the Past."