Circular Issued by the Zionist Actions Committee – For the 70th Birthday of Dr. Isaac Rülf – Vienna, 1901 – ...

Circular Issued by the Zionist Actions Committee – For the 70th Birthday of Dr. Isaac Rülf – Vienna, 1901 – Hand-Signed by Theodor Herzl
A circular by the Zionist Actions Committee, hand-signed by Theodor (Binyamin Ze'ev) Herzl and Dr. Oser Kokesch. Vienna, January 6, 1901. German.
Mimeographed typescript circular sent to members of the Zionist Actions Committee, hand-signed by Theodor Herzl as chairman and Dr. Oser Kokesch as secretary.
The circular urges members to mark the 70th birthday of Dr. Isaac Rülf on February 10, 1901, and organize meetings of Zionist circles dedicated to Dr. Rülf's activity ("The discussion may revolve around Rülf's essay, Aruchas Bas-Ammi, published by Kaufmann in Frankfurt").
Dr. Isaac Rülf (1831-1902) was a Jewish-German rabbi, journalist and philosopher and a prominent Zionist activist. In 1857, he was ordained as a rabbi by the rabbis' committee in Marburg and in 1865 earned his doctorate from the University of Rostock. That same year, he was appointed rabbi of Memel in Eastern Prussia (today, Klaipėda, Lithuania). In Memel, he met David Wolfson and became his teacher. His relief activities and lobbying for the Jews of Russia and the extensive assistance he lent Jewish immigrants on their way to America and Germany earned him the nickname "Dr. Hülf" ("Dr. Help"). Rülf was a pioneer of the Hibbat Zion movement and about a year after the publication of Yehuda Leib Pinsker's "Auto-Emancipation!", he published his major Zionist essay "Aruchas Bas-Ammi" (Frankfurt am Mein, 1883), advocating for a Hebrew-speaking Jewish homeland in Palestine. Rülf opposed the "protest rabbis" (Protestrabbiner) who tried to prevent the gathering of the first Zionist congress and a year later, in 1898, introduced Herzl at the second Zionist Congress.
[1] leaf, 28 cm. Good-fair condition. Fold lines. Scuffs, closed and open tears, mostly to edges and fold lines, slightly affecting text. Strips of tape for reinforcement on verso.