"Protocol of the Negotiations, Proceedings, and Resolutions discussed and executed at the Assembly of Council Leaders of Hovevei Zion in the City of Katowice in the Days of the Conference from the 18th to the 23rd of Marheshvan." [Katowice?], the year "He saves those who are crushed in spirit" (In Hebrew, a numerological chronogram equivalent to Hebrew year 5645), [1884?]. First edition, for participants of the conference (bottom line of title page indicates: "Printed as a Manuscript"). Hebrew. Booklet documenting the proceedings of the Katowice Conference of "Hovevei Zion" and detailing the five meetings held by its Zionist leaders, November 6-11, 1884. The conference was attended by 36 delegates, among them some of the most prominent figures in the Zionist movement (including Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever, Yehuda Leib Pinsker, Ahad Ha'am, David Gordon, and others), whose goal was to adopt a course of action to reestablish organized Jewish settlement in Palestine. Since Zionist activity was ruled illegal in Russia, the true mission of the conference was kept secret, and it was billed as a conference celebrating Moses Montefiore's 100th birthday; thus, in the Hebrew-language newspaper "HaMelitz" – whose chief editor, Aleksander Zederbaum, was among the conference participants – the gathering was referred to as "an Assembly of Those Honoring Moses." The opening speech by conference chairman Yehuda Leib Pinsker – in which he stresses the necessity for Jews to return to cultivate their own soil – appears in full at the beginning of the booklet: let us today take up the plow and spade instead of the measuring tape and scales and let us become once more what we had been before we fell into the discredit of other nations […] Let us return to our old mother, our land, which we have awaited with great desire" (Julius H. Schoeps, Pioneers of Zionism: Hess, Pinsker, Berlin-Boston: de Gruyter, 2013, p. 44). This edition was presumably printed in a few dozen copies only and distributed to the participants of the conference (an additional German edition was published, in which the nationalistic and Zionist parts of Pinsker's speech were omitted). In 1920, a second edition of the booklet was published by the writer Leibl Toybsh (Vienna: Adria Press); there, in the preface, it was pointed out that " this protocol was printed at the time ‘as a Manuscript' in a limited number of copies, [specifically] a number matching the number of participants at the assembly and the [number of] members of the council elected then in Katowice. This protocol is therefore rare, and it cannot be obtained in the libraries, nor do the Zionist bibliographers know of it nor do they mention it ." In the present copy, an ownership stamp appears on the front flyleaf: "A. Б. РЕЙНЕСЪ, ЛИДА" ("A.B. Reines, Lida") – most probably the stamp of Avraham Ber Reines, son of Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines. Rabbi Reines, founder of the "HaMizrachi" religious Zionist movement, was personally invited to attend the conference, but was not permitted to cross the border to get to Katowice because he was not in possession of a passport. In all likelihood, the present booklet was delivered to him. [1] printed front cover, 40 pp., approx. 15.5 cm. Back cover missing. Good-fair condition. Stains. Tears, incuding open tears, to edges (not affecting text). Brittle paper. Front cover partly detached. Bound with card binding, with endpapers (old). Binding somewhat loose, with minor tears and blemishes. Two copies only in OCLC.