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No. 33 | Vienna, 12th August 1904 — 1st Elul 5664. | 8th Year.

The Session of the Greater Actions Committee.

The Greater Actions Committee of the Zionist Congress will assemble on the 16th of August for the first time since Herzl's death.

For the first time without him, for the first time without Theodor Herzl!

Not another word of that!

We will remain strong!

"The cause is so great that we ought to speak of it only in the simplest words."

So he said at the First Congress.

So we too will speak of our fate only in the simplest words.

He began a great work; it was not granted him to complete it. We are all bound to carry it on.

We swore it at his grave. We shall keep our oath.

Not only our fellow Zionists, but the Jews throughout the world, and all those in non-Jewish circles who follow us with sympathy or with hostility, are watching this gathering.

It is destined to decide whether or not we are equal to our task. The fate of our movement, and the fate of hundreds of thousands of our brethren as well, hangs upon these deliberations and resolutions; for they will indicate the main lines of the next, the decisive Congress — indeed, they will in large measure already fix them.

There is, properly speaking, but a single point for deliberation; yet that point means everything: the convening of the Congress. We know that in deciding this point our Actions Committee will also be deciding our future.

A Congress cannot be convened unless our supreme leadership knows exactly what is to be discussed at it. The Greater Actions Committee will therefore have to pronounce already, in principle, upon the shape of our organisation, which is to be adapted to the altered circumstances.

That is a question of decisive importance. The question is a hard one, and the personal considerations bound up with it demand the calmest and most careful reflection.

There is no lack of proposals aiming at a new arrangement of our supreme leadership. It may further be assumed that the members of the Actions Committee for the several countries have already made this matter the subject of thorough deliberation before the meeting convenes, so that we may consider ourselves safe from surprises.

The difficulties are none the less great. The authority that all acknowledged is wanting — the man for whose sake even deep-seated differences were overcome. Much calm and self-command will therefore be needed to reach agreement where opinions are opposed.

The men who hold our confidence will this time have to discharge their office under a fearful responsibility. Every mistake may prove fatal, every disunion ruinous.

We cherish the firm confidence that they are all filled with the gravity of the situation and fully conscious of their heavy task. We know that concern for the common good will from the very outset hold back any unwarranted aspirations on the part of individuals.

Our Leader emphasised at the very First Congress, and repeated ever after, that our cause must be raised into the impersonal if it is to succeed. Of this we are all convinced, and therefore we need not now expound it again at length.

This will show itself at the session of the Greater Actions Committee too, and it gives us the glad hope of a happy outcome to these deliberations. The importance of this assembly is so great that our leadership may be expected to take part in it in full number. That leadership, however, consists of men who have for the most part served our people for decades, and who have worked together with Herzl since political Zionism came into being. Even the most anxious, therefore, may await the results of the conference with composure.

There are, to be sure, people among our opponents who would gladly make the misfortune that has befallen us the foundation