page_title: Second Zionist Congress
section_title: Delegates
hierarchical_section_title: Second Zionist Congress / Delegates
caption_attribution_description: English: Max Nordau
context_page_description: The Second World Zionist Congress met in Basel, Switzerland on 28 August 1898. and was the second meeting of the Zionist Organisation. The World Zionist Congress brought together delegates from across the world to raise funds, lobby support and create the institutions that would one day form the modern day Jewish State known as Israel, which was established in 1948. The Congress met every year from 1897 to 1901. The main focus of the Second Congress, as set out by its chair, Theodore Herzl, was to engage with Jewish communities in the diaspora and encourage them to adopt Political Zionism.
  The three day congress established the Jewish Colonial Fund whose aim was to fund the successful migration of Jews to Palestine, as well as the establishment of a Committee on Culture. Other notable events of the congress were the presentation of an early prototype of the modern day Israeli flag, and the arrival of the first delegates of Socialist Zionism to the Congress.
context_section_description: The number of members had doubled since the First Congress in 1897, with 400 delegates coming together from Austria, France, England, Russia, Prussia and Argentine Republic. The Second Congress saw the first appearance in the WZO of several figures who would become key players in the future establishment of the State, such as Chaim Weizmann, and Menachem Ussishkin. The notable delegates are outlined in the table below:
caption: Max Nordau, circa 1906.
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