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Modern Zionism  Modern Zionism, which made its first appearance
as an organized political movement at the Zionist Congress at
Basel a century ago, was the most significant and successful
response to the sustained and repeated collapse of any
reasonable expectation that Jews would ever be welcome and feel
at home in Europe. Despite the claims of liberal democratic
theory and the utopian promises of Socialists and Communists,
the nationalisms of the nineteenth century, both West and East,
infiltrated all competing political movements and exacerbated
and radicalized European anti-Semitism. Zionism gave to many
Jews a way of thinking that enabled them to confront the anti-
Semite on the street with renewed pride. In their everyday
existence, Jews could engage the hostile world harboring the
hope that they were citizens of a modern