The Federation of American Zionist Societies of New York, (FAZ) was formed December 15, 1897; Richard Gottheil, President, Herman Rosenthal, Rabbi Joseph T. Bluestone, vice presidents. Most remarkable and fortunate for the nescient American Zionist movement was the choice of secretary for the FAZ. Gottheil had been advisor, sponsor and friend to a young Columbia student who energetically and dynamically became the first Zionist secretary. His name was Rabbi Stephen Wise. For the next 45 years, Wise would become one of the enshrined, respected leaders of the American Zionist and World Zionist movements.

Gottheil and Wise were ill equipped to seek what every organization needs to survive – money. FAZ, loosely structured with smaller semi-independent chapters who sometimes paid dues but mostly did not, was desperately short of funds. Gottheil and Wise realized that they had no means of getting their ideas heard or promoting the policy of the FAZ except by word of mouth. They scraped a few hundred dollars together and borrowed a few hundred more to establish The Maccabean, the first English language Zionist magazine. Interestingly, the magazine was published in English not in Yiddish, the lingua franca of the immigrant Jews. The American Jewish immigrant culture was changing, settling in to life as Americans.

Louis Lipsky, born in Rochester, N.Y. in 1876 to Polish Jewish immigrants, was hired as the managing editor. Lipsky became the written voice of FAZ, and later the Zionist Organization of America, for the next fifty plus remarkable years. Lipsky's fluid, intuitive writing, his insightful stewardship and direction, reached the eyes of hundreds of thousands. The Maccabean eventually affected the opinions of millions of American Jews and non-Jews. Lipsky remained editor of the Maccabean all his life. He died in 1963.

Gottheil never truly desired to lead American Zionism. He saw only failure and resistance in the early years of FAZ. His personality did not respond well to the aggressive nature of Zionism's birthing struggle. At the same time, Gottheil deeply admired and respected Theodor Herzl. He dutifully plowed on.

In 1902, Theodor Herzl, the hands on administrator, sent Gottheil a suggestion that he hire Jacob de Haas as the new secretary of the FAZ. De Haas had been the secretary of the First Zionist Congress. Stephen Wise had left to take a position as a Rabbi in Portland, Oregon. Gottheil desperately needed an energetic, involved secretary. The work of running the FAZ was more than he could endure. With de Haas assuming the role of secretary, Gottheil, though elected president one more time, serving until 1904, virtually vanished from the Zionist movement for the rest of his life. He continued writing and supporting the Zionist effort but he never again undertook a leadership role.

De Haas assumed the leadership of the fragmented Zionist movement. He accomplished one thing above all other activities that cemented his name in the pantheon of American Zionism. He befriended the best known, and admired secular Jew in America, Louis Brandeis. De Haas introduced Brandeis to the ideas of Theodor Herzl and ideals of Zionism. After a relatively short period of examination and self-examination, Louis Brandeis became an ardent, committed Zionist in 1908. More importantly, Brandeis, would head the FAZ and the American Zionist movement by 1912.

Whereas Gottheil was a respected American Jewish figurehead; he was not interested in the administrative or political and economic struggle to establish Zionism, Brandeis was. Brandeis threw himself into the cause with a religious fervor that belied his own lack of Jewish religious values.

Zionism was not well received by the Jewish immigrants. Most of them were insecure in their new homes, being only a few years removed from the fear of the pogroms. The immigrants focused on adjusting, acculturating, learning English. They were fearful that the extraordinary freedom of the new Zion would be lost if they strayed too far, pushed to hard, made themselves too visible. They feared they would be sent back.

By 1912, American Zionism had reached a membership of only 10,000 out of a population of almost 2 ½ million Jews. Active Zionist membership was minimal though sympathies might have been much larger. Jews simply did not want to get involved. This changed with the emergence of the strongest and most visible symbol of Jewish acceptance into American life – Louis Brandeis.

Louis Brandeis was an assimilated Jew from Kentucky. He had had little formal association with Jews being more closely identified with the Brahmanism of the Bostonian social elite. Ironically, Louis Brandeis, who was to become the energetic exponent in word and deed, the legitimizer of American Zionism, descended from Judaism darkest heretical rejecters, the Jacob Frank heresies.

Jacob Frank converted, as did many of his followers, to Christianity believing in a perverted salvation theory that through the debasement of Judaism the Messiah could be forced from heaven. It was from heretical adherents of Frankist beliefs that Louis Brandeis, the spiritual and moral salvation, the galvanizer, the leader of American Zionism, and reputedly even his wife, descended from.

Under Brandeis' leadership, the American Zionist movement grew from 10,000 members to over 200,000 members by 1920. There were a number of factors to explain the rise of American Zionism under Brandeis. World War I was a key factor. Contemporary history is focused on the Holocaust and its aftermath. Forgotten is the reality of the mini – Holocaust of European Jews during World War I. The slaughter of hundreds of thousand of Eastern European Jews for simply being Jews was not lost on the American Jewish community. American Jews were keenly aware that the American escape valve had been cut off and soon would be fully cut off to Jewish refugees. World War I had almost totally shut out Jewish immigration to America. The recent immigrants knew of their families' traumas in Europe and were distraught with powerlessness. Zionism was an answer.

The acculturation of American Jewry to America and its values was another reason for the sharp rise of American Zionism. For the first time it was safe, it was o.k., it was responsible to stand up and protest Jewish oppression. It was proper to promote Jewish self-interest, as did many other American immigrant groups such as the Irish, the Germans and the Italians. America was different. America was unusual. America gave a freedom to Jews that they had not known for two thousand years.

In America, Jews could protest against wrongs committed against them by non-Jews. 1913, a Jewish manager of an Atlanta, Georgia pencil factory was accused of the horrific murder of a young female employee, Mary Phagan. Leo Frank, the manager, a 28 year old Jewish man from Brooklyn, born in Texas, a member of B'nai Brith, was accused.

The controversial trial of Leo Frank attained national notice. Former Presidents of the United States stood protesting the travesty of justice; that alone, was astonishing to the immigrant Jew. . Incredible, for the immigrant and their children, was a protest march of 50,000 Jews in the lower East Side of New York in support of Frank. The "Cossacks" were not called out.

In later decades American Jews would repeatedly exercise their new freedom. Jews prominently and proudly stood shoulder to shoulder with others demanding societal improvement for all oppressed and disadvantaged people suffering under discrimination. Most notably was the role Jews played in the American Civil Rights movement.

The immigrant Jew was becoming an American Jew. It was acceptable to speak as an American Jew with interests of their own and not be afraid. Zionism grew. Under the able leadership of Louis Brandeis, the friend of President Woodrow Wilson, the soon to be first Jew on the American Supreme Court, Brandeis understood the liberating effect Zionism had on the "Jewish Nation." He expanded on a central idea; to be a Good American one must be a Zionist. Jewish idealism, Jewish nationalism, Jewish values of freedom and democracy, and Zionism became identical with Americanism.

Zionism grew in absolute numbers and acceptability. For the vast majority of Jews, becoming Americans, achieving economic opportunity and security remained much more important than the "pipe dreams" of Zionism, Palestine and a relative handful of dreamers. The American Zionist movement languished after Brandeis left the leadership until the rise of Hitler in the 1930's.

What exactly was and is early American Zionism? What did it advocate, what were it's values and beliefs?

Richard Gottheil, the first president FAZ, vanished from Zionist development. He had disappeared into the life of the reclusive professor of Semitic Languages at Columbia. He reappeared in 1914 writing a book on Zionism. The book published by the Jewish Publication Society of America is titled Zionism and subtitled Movements in Judaism. The 235-page book reviews the history, development and beliefs of Zionism. It was Gottheil's Zionist faith, his ideals, outlined in intellectual format. In an address Gottheil summed up the Zionist position.

"But I must not detain you much longer. Will you permit me to sum up for you the position which we Zionists take in the following statements: -

We believe that the Jews are something more than a purely religious body; that they are not only a race, but also a nation; though a nation without as yet two important requisites — a common home and a common language.

We believe that if an end is to be made to Jewish misery and to the exceptional position which the Jews occupy, — which is the primary cause of Jewish misery, — the Jewish nation must be placed once again in a home of its own.

We believe that such a national regeneration is the fulfillment of the hope which has been present to the Jew throughout his long and painful history.

We believe that only by means of such a national regeneration can the religious regeneration of the Jews take place, and they be put in a position to do that work in the religious world which Providence has appointed for them.

We believe that such a home can only naturally, and without violence to their whole past, be found in the land of their fathers — in Palestine.

We believe that such a return must have the guarantee of the great powers of the world in order to secure for the Jews a stable future.

And we hold that this does not mean that all Jews must return to Palestine.

Louis Brandeis incorporated Gotthiel's intellectual definitions of Zionism into his pubic speaking. Brandeis was willing to fight. Gottheil was, constitutionally, not capable of fighting.

The father of the American Zionist movement was not Richard but his father Gustav. Rabbi Gustav Gottheil recognized the fire, the dream, the hope that Zionism could bring to the Jewish people. But, it was too late in his life. Rabbi Gustav Gottheil instilled enough Zionist faith in his son to carry the mission forward, through Richard, to a new generation, a new future.