“Einem russischen Juden” [pseudonym Pinsker, Leon]. “Autoemancipation!” Mahnruf an seine Stammesgenossen [“A Warning Call of a Russian Jew to His Kinsmen”]

(ZIONISM)

W. Issleib (G. Schuhr)

Berlin

1882

FIRST EDITION

The first modern call for a Jewish homeland. Following the government-led pogroms in Russia in 1881, Pinsker (1821-1891), hitherto an assimilationist, underwent a dramatic change in outlook. The publication of this famous tract, with its dispassionate analysis of the psychological and social roots of anti-Semitism, provided the stimulus for the Chibath Zion Movement. Despite the derision the work received from some quarters, it was a precursor of Herzlian Zionism. EJ, Vol. XIII, cols. 545-8