Jüdische Rundschau

Ten years earlier, in 1894, central Europe was reeling in the shock waves of the trial of Captain Alfred Druyfuss who was accused of treason, falsely convicted and not exonerated until 1906 (original copies of a French bi-weekly periodical covering this event from 1898-1899 are available in the Kiev Collection). This incident was a rude awakening for assimilated Jews, particularly for the German-Jewish Herzl, who had covered the controversy as a journalist for the Vienna Neue Freie Presse in Paris from 1891-1895. He later authored Der Judenstaat [The Jewish State] (1896), which served as a catalyst for the development of modern Zionism.

Israelitsche Rundschau was one of many small periodicals that sprang up in Germany to promote the burgeoning Zionist movement. Although Zionists were a minority in Germany, they played a prominent role in the development of the World Zionist Congress before World War I. Both of Herzl's successors as president were German Jews and German was its official language. In 1896, Israelitsche Rundschau became the official organ of the Zionist Organization for Germany and it was renamed Judische Rundschau in 1900 under the editor Heinrich Loewe. From that point on, it was the leading Zionist newspaper in Germany. Until its last issue, 8 November 1938, the Jüdische Rundschau contributed to the Zionist movement by strengthening Jewish morale and profoundly influencing young German-speaking Zionists.

Along with the C.V.-Zeitung (Central Vereins-Zeitung), an umbrella periodical devoted to all Jewish political concerns, the Judische Rundschau ushered in a new era of German Jewish journalism, the political newspaper. The intensity of the intellectual battles fought between Jewish political philosophies in these periodicals was unparalleled in any other country.