Zionism

One Baltimorean was at the first Zionist Congress. Another founded Hadassah. A third collected arms illegally for the fledgling Jewish state in a warehouse on Hanover street. And a group of Baltimoreans put together the deal for a boat that became the most famous immigrant vessel in Zionist history.Practically any leaf one turns in the history of Zionism and the founding and building of the Jewish state has the name of a Baltimorean written on it.At the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, there was just one American delegate: Rabbi Shepsel Schaffer of the Shearith Israel Congregation, representing the Zion Association of Baltimore.

Birth of Zionism's drive to forge Israel to be markedBASEL, Switzerland -- About 1,700 delegates have arrived in Basel to mark the 100th anniversary of the historic meeting that launched Zionism's drive to create modern Israel.The First Zionist Congress in August 1897 is credited with transforming scattered 19th-century calls for a Jewish homeland into a single political movement that helped change the face of the 20th century.Pub Date: 8/27/97

FEW IDEAS have started so far-fetched and come to reality so swiftly as Zionism, Jewish unity in a modern state re-creating the biblical homeland.The pogroms of the Russian empire in 1881 rekindled Jewish identity and inspired settlements in Palestine, where some Jews had always lived. Theodore Herzl, a Viennese writer sent as a journalist to Paris where he saw political anti-Semitism up close, converted to Zionism and became its prophet with his book, "The Jewish State," in 1896. He organized the first World Zionist Congress.

UNITED NATIONS -- Israeli officials and many of their United States supporters charge that U.N. Resolution 33/79 defames the national Jewish liberation movement and encourages a siege mentality in Israel.The resolution was adopted Nov. 10, 1975, by a roll-call vote: Seventy-two countries voted for it, 35 voted against, and 32 abstained.Now, with the changes of the past year in Eastern Europe and the recent upheaval in the Soviet Union, many Arab diplomats believe there is no longer majority support in the General Assembly to retain the measure if a strong challenge is mounted.

In calling upon the United Nations General Assembly, yesterday, to repeal its "Zionism is racism" resolution of 1975, President Bush made peace in the Middle East everyone's responsibility. U.N. members are not to sit back and tut-tut about the behavior of the few key players. They have their own part to play. Should they refuse to do it, any larger failure would be in part their fault.It was the height of Third World confrontationism when the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 branding Zionism -- the founding idea of Israel -- a "form of racism" and a threat to peace.

BY VOTING overwhelmingly to repeal its infamous resolution characterizing Zionism as "a form of racism and racial discrimination," the U.N. General Assembly has finally moved to erase the moral insult it inflicted on Israel 16 years ago and to redeem its own honor.The anti-Zionism resolution was conceived in Cold War opportunism and enacted in an atmosphere of political cynicism. The Soviet Union, a chief sponsor, saw it as a cost-free way to curry favor with Arab-bloc and other Muslim countries.

Local Jewish officials exulted after the United Nations General Assembly yesterday rescinded its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism."It's long overdue, and I'm elated," said Isaiah Kuperstein, the executive director of the Baltimore district chapter of the Zionist Organization of America.Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people can lay claim to their biblical homeland in the Middle East. Arabs have countered that this notion is racist because it excludes non-Jews from the territory.

PRESIDENT Bush has taken a calculated political risk in calling on the U.N. General Assembly to repeal its notorious 1975 anti-Israel resolution describing Zionism as "a form of racism and racial discrimination." The risk is twofold.One involves the chance that a resolution of repeal, though it seems sure to pass, might do so by such a small margin as to leave in doubt whether the United Nations as an organization had in fact acted to erase an infamous paragraph in its history. The other element of risk involves timing.

UNITED NATIONS -- Israel's days as an international outcast may be at an end.The United Nations General Assembly was expected today to repeal its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism.Bush administration sources were expecting 74 sponsors and about 100 affirmative votes for the repeal, which needs only a simple majority of the Assembly's 166 members present at the time of the vote. Arab opposition to the repeal was disorganized and some pro-U.S. Arab countries, such as Kuwait, may choose to be absent.

The United Nations' repeal of its 16-year-old resolution equating Zionism with racism is expected to encourage Israel to continue participating in the delicate Middle East peace talks, although Arab opponents of the repeal say it will impede peace efforts and inflame extremists on both sides.The Evening Sun wants to know whether you think this vote will help bring peace to the Middle East or will it hamper that effort?Call SUNDIAL, the Baltimore Sun's telephone information system, on a Touch-Tone phone.

Prisons must focus on rehabilitation Recently, The Baltimore Sun recommended toughening Maryland's good time credit system because some prisoners do not deserve access, citing one "poster boy" anecdote ("Doing the time," editorial, March 17). We agree that review of the system may be useful but for entirely different reasons. The Sun's call for alarm about good time credits is unwarranted. Maryland, with its rate of 74 percent of actual sentence served, is far above the national average of 55 percent.

In January, four longtime Israel bashers were invited to the University of California, Los Angeles, to analyze the human rights conditions in Gaza, and used the stage to attack the legitimacy of Zionism and its vision of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians. They criminalized Israel's existence, distorted its motives and maligned its character, its birth, even its conception. At one point, the excited audience reportedly chanted "Zionism is Nazism" and worse. Jewish leaders condemned this hate-fest as a dangerous invitation to anti-Semitic hysteria.

Zionism, morality aren't in conflict After reading Yakov M. Rabkin's column "Gap among Jews widens on questions of Zionism" (Opinion Commentary, March 8), I'm in quite a quandary about what he calls "the fracture between those who hold fast to Jewish moral tradition and the converts to Jewish nationalism," because I think this is a false dichotomy. I don't mean that Israeli nationalists always behave properly or that certain forms of nationalism needn't be criticized, even halted. But thank God that in Israel, despite all its problems, the nationalist fanatics are a decided minority and seen by most as anathema.

A profound division has developed between Zionist advocates of Israel and Jews, secular and religious, who reject or question Zionism and actions taken by the state of Israel. Public debate about Israel's place in Jewish continuity has become open and candid. Many Jews try to come to terms with the contradictions between the Judaism they profess to adhere to and the Zionist ideology that has taken hold of them. This coincides with serious concerns expressed across Israel's political and religious spectrum about the future of Israel.

ZIONISM is the nationalism that created and sustains the modern state of Israel. It is as open to the charge of exclusionism, of a them-and-us mentality, as are other nationalisms. Israel, like other nations, maintains a religious identity, which presents problems. It flowed from the suffering of the Jewish people in czarist Russia, and then in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. To equate Zionism with racism is to have no genuine interest in combating racism, a worldwide problem that includes the hostility to Israel as well as the attitudes of some Israelis.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell doesn't plan to attend the United Nations World Conference Against Racism this week, a move likely to prompt anger and disappointment in the United States and abroad. Senior U.S. officials said this weekend that the Bush administration has not decided whether to send a lower-level delegation from Washington, send diplomats now in the region or possibly boycott the conference altogether. In the months leading up to the conference, two explosive issues have overshadowed all others: proposed discussions of reparations for slavery and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

IF THE United States attends the World Conference Against Racism, it's sure to receive much-deserved criticism for the wrongs committed within its borders. But it also can give the world a few important lessons on how to make strides against racism. That's one reason Washington should play a prominent role in the conference, which is scheduled to begin next Friday in Durban, South Africa. The Bush administration has threatened to boycott or send a second-tier delegation to the event. But make no mistake: This is a first-stringer's job. Secretary of State Colin Powell exemplifies this country's racial progress.

One Baltimorean was at the first Zionist Congress. Another founded Hadassah. A third collected arms illegally for the fledgling Jewish state in a warehouse on Hanover street. And a group of Baltimoreans put together the deal for a boat that became the most famous immigrant vessel in Zionist history.Practically any leaf one turns in the history of Zionism and the founding and building of the Jewish state has the name of a Baltimorean written on it.At the First Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, there was just one American delegate: Rabbi Shepsel Schaffer of the Shearith Israel Congregation, representing the Zion Association of Baltimore.

FEW IDEAS have started so far-fetched and come to reality so swiftly as Zionism, Jewish unity in a modern state re-creating the biblical homeland.The pogroms of the Russian empire in 1881 rekindled Jewish identity and inspired settlements in Palestine, where some Jews had always lived. Theodore Herzl, a Viennese writer sent as a journalist to Paris where he saw political anti-Semitism up close, converted to Zionism and became its prophet with his book, "The Jewish State," in 1896. He organized the first World Zionist Congress.

Birth of Zionism's drive to forge Israel to be markedBASEL, Switzerland -- About 1,700 delegates have arrived in Basel to mark the 100th anniversary of the historic meeting that launched Zionism's drive to create modern Israel.The First Zionist Congress in August 1897 is credited with transforming scattered 19th-century calls for a Jewish homeland into a single political movement that helped change the face of the 20th century.Pub Date: 8/27/97