Talk:Basel Program

Bad translation
I am replacing "Zionism seeks to secure for the Jewish people a publicly recognized, legally assured homeland in Palestine." by "Zionism seeks to establish a home in Palestine for the Jewish people, secured under public law."

This change is based on the Protocols of the Congress, starting at page 114. It is not correct that the word "öffentlich" was inserted into the original text. Rather, the word "rechtlish" was replaced by the word "öffentlich-rechtlich". This changed the sentence to "Der Zionismus erstrebt für das jüdische Volk die Schaffung einer öffentlich-rechtlich gesicherten Heimstätte in Palästina." (p119).

"Öffentlich-rechtlich" is a legal word that means "(under) public law". See public law and Öffentliches Recht. The background is that some delegates thought that the original "rechtich" (by law) was insufficient and proposed changing it to "völkerrechtlich" (by international law). The president suggested "öffentlich-rechtlich" instead. The committee considered these proposals and concluded that neither added anything to the original text ("thatsächlich nichts ausdrückt, was nicht schon im ursprünglichen Text enthalten wäre"). However, to satisfy the delegates they approved "öffentlich-rechtlich", which was put as a motion and passed by acclamation (p119). In summary, there is nothing about "publicly recognized" in the sentence and the congress did not consider any such thing.

Another thing I changed is to translate Heimstätte as "home", which is more accurate than "homeland". If "homeland" was intended, they would have used "Heimat" or "Heimatland". Zerotalk 04:25, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I suspect the translation here is derived from the Hebrew source that was previously given rather than the original German. As we know, two steps of translation can easily produce errors. Several more problems I am fixing: Volksbewusstseins is "national consciousness", Regierungszustimmun­g is "government approval" not "government grants". "Gliederung und Zusammenfassung" is "organization and bringing together"; "federation" seems to mean nothing. Veranstaltungen is "events" not "groups". In #1, zweckdienliche meaning "expedient" is missing, it implies these particular occupations are needed in Palestine asap. I'm not sure that Gewerbetreibenden=businessmen is intended, more likely tradesmen, but I didn't change it. Zerotalk 05:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll put the whole German text here to assist discussion. Der Zionismus erstrebt für das jüdische Volk die Schaffung einer öffentlich-rechtlich gesicherten Heimstätte in Palästina. Zur Erreichung dieses Zieles nimmt der Congress folgende Mittel in Aussicht: 1. Die zweckdienliche Förderung der Besiedlung Palästinas mit jüdischen Ackerbauern, Handwerkern und Gewerbetreibenden. 2. Die Gliederung und Zusammenfassung der gesammten Judenschaft durch geeignete örtliche und allgemeine Veranstaltungen nach den Landesgesetzen. 3. Die Stärkung des jüdischen Volksgefühles und Volksbewusstseins. 4. Vorbereitende Schritte zur Erlangung der Regierungszustimmun­g gen, die nöthig sind, um das Ziel des Zionismus zu erreichen. Zerotalk 05:16, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, in the copy of the protocols here the first four letters of "Volksgefühles" (national sentiment, etc) are crossed out and "Selbst" is written by hand, making "Selbstgefühles" (self-awareness, etc). I can't find anything about it in the protocols, so I've ignored it. Zerotalk 05:30, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Now I noticed that the old translation of the first sentence, but not of the rest, comes from this source (p76), which is not in Hebrew as I thought. I do not believe this is a reliable source; for one it uses "homeland" when the German says "home", but more seriously the author obviously doesn't know that public law is a thing and force-translates the single word "öffentlich-rechtlich" as "pubicly recognised and secured by law". Then he contradicts himself by quoting Nordau that adding "publicly" added nothing that was not there before. Anyway, since we care about sources, I'll note that "home" and "public law" are the translations that appear in a multitude of places. I'll mention a few I found already on my computer: Stein (The Making of Modern Israel, p4), Roberts (Arab-Israeli Conflict, p7), Krämer (A History of Palestine, p110), Patai (The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, p720), Hadi (Documents on Palestine, p9), Frankl (Theodor Herzl, p159), Geddes (A Documentary History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, p22), Encyclopaedia Judaica (2ns edn, Vol 21, p562), and several others. Even the propagandistic JVL (which maliciously replaced "Palestine" by "Eretz Israel") has "under public law". Barbour (Nisi Dominus, p46ff) has a discussion. Zerotalk 08:45, 10 July 2023 (UTC)