Hibbat Ziyyon (later Hovevei Ziyyon [”Lovers of…

Hibbat Ziyyon (later Hovevei Ziyyon [”Lovers of Zion”]) has been crippled by lack of funds, but with the backing of Baron Edmond James de Rothschild it had eventually established a few colonies in Palestine and in 1890, founds the Society for the Support of Jewish Agriculturists and Handicraftsmen in Syria and Palestine.

Leon Pinsker, as one of the founders and a chairman of the Hovevei Zion movement, heads this charity organization, known as the Odessa Committee.

Disagreements between various Jewish religious and secular factions, an internal movement crisis and the ban by the Ottoman Empire on Jewish immigration in the 1890s will cause Pinsker to doubt whether Eretz Israel will ever become the solution.