The Basel Program was the first

manifesto A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a ...

of the Zionist movement, drafted between 27-30 August 1897 and adopted unanimously at the

First Zionist Congress The First Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני הראשון) was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) held in Basel (Basle), from August 29 to August 31, 1897. 208 delegates and 26 press correspondents attend ...

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS) ...

, Switzerland on 30 August 1897. In 1951 it was replaced by the Jerusalem Program.

History

The Basel Program was drafted by a committee elected on Sunday 29 August 1897 comprising Max Nordau (heading the committee),

Nathan Birnbaum Nathan Birnbaum ( he, נתן בירנבוים; pseudonyms: "Mathias Acher", "Dr. N. Birner", "Mathias Palme", "Anton Skart", "Theodor Schwarz", and "Pantarhei"; 16 May 1864 – 2 April 1937) was an Austrian writer and journalist, Jewish thinker a ...

Alexander Mintz Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

Siegmund Rosenberg Sigmund or Siegmund may refer to: People * Sigmund (given name), list of people with the name Sigmund * Sigmund Freud, a pioneer of psychoanalysis Arts and entertainment *'' Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, American 1970s TV series ;Fictional chata ...

, Saul Rafael Landau, together with

Hermann Schapira Zvi Hermann Schapira ( he, צבי הרמן שפירא; 1840-1898), or Hermann Hirsch Schapira, was a Lithuanian rabbi, mathematician at the University of Heidelberg, and Zionist. He was the first to suggest founding a Jewish National Fund for ...

and

Max Bodenheimer Max Isidor Bodenheimer ( he, מקס בודנהיימר; 12 March 1865 in Stuttgart – 19 July, 1940 in Jerusalem) was a lawyer and one of the main figures in German Zionism. An associate of Theodor Herzl, he was the first president of the Zi ...

who were added to the committee on the basis of them having both drafted previous similar programs (including the "Kölner Thesen"). The seven-man committee prepared the Program over three drafting meetings.

Goals

The program set out the goals of the Zionist movement as follows: The original draft did not include the word for "publicly recognized"; this was the only amendment made during the debate at the Congress, and can be seen in the final version with the word öffentlich inserted via a curly bracket. The amended draft was approved unanimously by the 200-person congress.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{cite book, first=Max, last=Bodenheimer, author-link=Max Bodenheimer, title=Prelude to Israel: The Memoirs of M. I. Bodenheimer, url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015026627060;view=1up;seq=11, year=1963, publisher=T. Yoseloff Pre-1948 Zionist documents 1897 documents German-language works Jews and Judaism in Basel Zionism in Switzerland