the Jewish mission.  These views, at first advocated by the Hebrew-writing and Hebrew-reading Maskilim, gradually filtered into the various strata of Russo-Jewish society, and when the clouds began to gather fast in Russia’s sky, and the change in the monarch’s policy augured the approach of evil times, Zionism rapidly made enthusiastic converts even among the most Russified of the Jewish youth.  On November 6, 1884, for the first time in history, a Jewish international assembly was held at Kattowitz, near the Russian frontier, where representatives from all classes and different countries met and decided to colonize Palestine with Jewish farmers.

Since then Haskalah in Russia has become nationalistic and Palestinian.  Even those who were at first opposed to it gradually grew friendly, and finally became “lovers of Zion” (Hobebe Zion).  Among the Russo-Jewish students in Vienna, Smolenskin, the militant Zionist, organized an academic society, Kadimah, a name which, meaning Eastward and Forward, contains the philosophy of Zionism in a nutshell.  Seeing that the Alliance Israelite Universelle encouraged emigration to America, both he and Ben Yehudah published violent attacks on the French society, and endeavored to thwart its plans as far as possible.[9] The Hebrew weekly Ha-Meliz, published in St. Petersburg, was a staunch supporter of the movement, and a little later Ha-Zefirah, published in Warsaw, which was at first indifferent, if not antagonistic, joined the ranks.  In Russian, too, the Razsvyet and especially the Buduchnost spread Zionism among their readers, while books, pamphlets, and poems were published in Yiddish for circulation among the masses.  In addition to the Hobebe Zion societies formed in many cities, secret societies were organized, such as the famous Bene Mosheh (Sons of Moses), which had for its object the moral and intellectual improvement of the future citizens of the Jewish Republic; the Bilu (initials of Bet Ya’akob leku we-nelekah, “O House of Jacob, come and let us go"), formed by Israel Belkind, who went to Palestine with his fellow-students of the University of Kharkov, and founded the colony of Gederah; and the Hillul (Hereb la-Adonai u-le-Arzenu, “A sword for God and our land"), the members of which pledged themselves to remove any obstacle to the cause of nationalism, even at the cost of their lives.  The Bone Zion (Builders of Zion), a sort of Masonic fraternity, was a very potent secret society, which undertook to constitute itself a provisional Jewish Government, and assiduously watched the Zionistic societies and their leaders in every portion of the globe.[10]