RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Zionism Zobah
while at the same time they earn their livelihood in the school. To these institutions must be added the Central Jewish Library (Midrash Abrabanel), founded in 1900 by Joseph Chazanowicz of Bielostok (35,000 volumes) and the Agricultural Experiment Station founded in 1910 in the neighborhood of Haifa. These and other similar institutions have the object of making Palestine a center of Jewish activity, to which the Jew will be attracted, not in order to die there, as the pious did in former times, but to live and work.
An offshoot of the Zionist movement is the socalled “ Territorial Organization.” This grouping is the result of impatience at the failure of the various negotiations entered into by Herzl with the late sultan, and of the wish to relieve more speedily the
increasing distress of the Jewish masses 7. The in eastern Europe than seems possible Territorial- in Palestine. In 1902 Herzl himself ist Zionists. had opened negotiations with the Anglo-Egyptian government looking to a concession of certain territories in El-Arish, between Palestine and Egypt, but these negotiations failed because that government was unwilling to allow any of the water of the Nile to be diverted from Egypt proper for the irrigation of El-Arish. In 1903 proposals were made, at the initiative of the English government, for establishing a Jewish settlement on the Guas Ngishu Plateau in the East African Protectorate. When these proposals were brought before the Sixth Zionist Congress, they were met by a most determined opposition, both the religious and the national Zionists feeling that the abandonment of Palestine as an objective, if only for a time and for specific reasons, was contrary to the deeper spirit and meaning of the Zionist movement. But the minority did not disarm; and when the seventh congress accepted the adverse report of the commission that had been sent to East Africa, this minority formed itself into the “ Jewish Territorial Organization,” with Israel Zangwill at its head. Its object is to procure some territory, no matter where, to which those Jews can go who can not or will not remain in the lands in which they live at present, and where they can form a community upon an autonomous basis. This organization has grown rapidly, and has the sympathy of many Jews who do not share the national sentiment of the Zionists. But it has been quite unsuccessful in its search for such a territory—the attempts made to secure a footing in Canada, Australia, Cyrenaica, and Mesopotamia having proved abortive. Its chief practical work has been confined to assisting organized immigration from eastern Europe to Galveston, Texas, and to the southern states of the American union. RicHaRD GOTTHEIL. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Besides the files of Die Welt, the ‘‘ Protokolls”’ of the congresses, Publications of the Federation of
American Zionists, and the present author’s article in
JE, xii. 666-686, consult: T. Herzl, Zionistische Schriften,
ed. L. Kellner, Berlin, 1905; B. Walker, The Future of
Palestine, London, 1881; J. Neil, Palestine Re-Peopled,
London, 1883; B. Negroni, Del ritorno degli Ebrei nella
Palestina, Modena, 1891; J. Bahar, La Question juive
Restons, Paris, 1897; F. Heman, Das Erwachen der jiidi-
schen Nation, Basel, 1897; M. Jaffe, Die nationale Wie-
dergeburt der Juden, Berlin, 1897; H. Sachse, Zionisten-
kongress und Zionismus eine Gefahr? Berlin, 1897; B.
Elieser, Die Judenfrage und der socialistische Judensiaat,
Bern, 1898; D. Farbstein, Der Zionismus und die Judenfrage, Bern, 1898; T. Bogianckino, Del Sionnismo: osservazioni di diritto internazionale, Bologna, 1899; C. Waldstein, The Jewish Question and the Missions of the Jews, London, 1899; D. Baron, La Question juive et sa solution, Lyons, 1900; M. S. Nordau, Der Zionismus, Brunn, 1902, Eng. transl., London, 1905; idem and G. Gottheil, Zionism and Anti-Semitism, New York, 1903; Sapir, Der Zionismus, Briinn, 1903; H. Hoppe, Hervorragende Nichtjuden iiber den Zionismus, Konigsberg, 1904; A. Sandler, Anthropologie und Zionismus, Briinn, 1904; Die Stimme der Wahrheit, ed. E. Nossig, Berlin, 1905; C. Joubert, Aspects of the Jewish Question: Zionism and Anti-Semitism, New York, 1906; S. Levy, Zionism and Liberal Judaism, London, 1911; Zeitschrift fiir hebrdische Bibliographie, xii. 52 sqq.
ZO’BAH (ARAM-ZOBAH): An Aramean kingdom or people. The fundamental passage is II Sam. x. 6-15, which relates to the war against the Ammonitic Hanun waged by David, in which Syrians of Beth-rehob, Zobah, and of “‘ king Maacah ”’ were engaged. These peoples were supposed to be neighbors of the Ammonites, and this fits with Bethrehob, located by Schumacher at Ribab, twentyfive miles east of ‘Ajlun and thirty-one north of Rabbath Ammon, the Ammonite capital. Maacah lay between Hermon on the north and Geshur on the south, and between Bashan on the east and the upper Jordan on the west, north of the Yarmuk. Between these two Zobah is mentioned, and its position is likely to be between them, i.e., in eastern ‘Ajlun toward the upper Yarmuk. From the passage in question, no closer definition of the position is possible, and no place of like name has yet been found, since the village Suf, seven miles e. of the village of ‘Ajlun and nineteen w. of Rihab, hardly fits the case. To the district doubtless belonged the Hamath-zobah of II Chron. viii. 3, which is to be distinguished from ‘‘ Hamath the great ”’ of Amos vi. 2 on the Orontes; the former is the city of Il Sam. vill. 9-10. Of David’s campaign against the Arameans east of the Jordan II Sam. x. 6 sqq. testifies, but of his war far to the north in the valley of the Upper Orontes nothing sure is known. Other passages speak of a king of Zobah—Hadarezer in II Sam. x. 15-19a; I Chron. xix. 16-19, who summoned the Arameans from beyond the Euphrates to the war and had a number of kings under him. Since I Chron. xix. 6 knows of Aram-naharain (i.e., Arameans of the banks of the Euphrates) and Maacah and Zobah being in a confederacy, and Ps. Ix., title, speaks of Aram-naharaim and Aram-zobah as opponents of David, a great Aramean kingdom in Syria east of the Orontes used to be assumed. But this is questionable, since David does not appear to have extended his operations beyond Damascus. Assyrian records give no trace of such a kingdom. Moreover, the expression ‘‘ beyond the river” (II Sam. x. 16) is late and is from the point of view of Assyria, and verses 15-19a belong also to late tradition; the entire chapter, indeed, is redactorial. Verse 17 suggests that the region (immediately) east of the Jordan was the region in question. An Assyrian inscription from the time of Asshurbanipal mentions a Zubiti or Zupiti south of Damascus, the site of which is not determined, but which Winckler and Schrader identify with Zobah. The position indicated by the cuneiform inscription would agree with the probable
Zoeckler Zonaras