The Basel Program was the first manifesto of the Zionism, Zionist movement, drafted between 27-30 August 1897 and adopted unanimously at the First Zionist Congress in Basel, 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, Alexander Mintz, Siegmund Rosenberg, :de: Saul Raphael Landau , Saul Rafael Landau, together with Hermann Schapira and Max Bodenheimer 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 wiktionary:öffentlich, 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